Why Can't The Left Win?

[Farm Boy]

Who made this man a gunner?

 

[Socrates99]

Corruption. Plain and simple. "Left wing" parties have tacked to the center for the last 40 years mostly to keep big donors in their pockets. Even countries without the legalized bribery we have in the States have this problem because politicians can cash in after they leave office.

They abandon working class economic issues to appease the right people. Once that happens the right just needs to find social issues to suck in enough rubes to stay in power. If you meet a working class conservative you will know what this social issue is within the first 5 minutes of talking politics. Its usually prefaced by them saying "I believe in...."

Swearing off of big donors and fighting for issues that concern the working class, which is the vast majority of voters, would put the left in power for decades. Being subservient to big money is what makes the "left" suck.

 

[Gorbles]

The problem is, affecting real change without some form of backing by the system (that's invariably in need of reform) is incredibly difficult. Especially in the modern age of information, it basically just because "pour money into X", as evidenced by alt-right YouTubers and their related more nominally-academic ilk.

I think a better topic would be to investigate exactly why the alt-right and similar information-age-facing aspects of right-wing dogma are so effective. The answer usually boils down to "because they get a lot of money to fund their platform".

EDIT

As an aside, I have no answer to the funding problem except grassroots activism, unfortunately we're not doing well with the general public perception of that, either. How AOC has been running her staff in America gives me a slight amount of hope, mind. We need more like that, in and out of politics.

 

[warpus]

In Canada "The left" contains various types of people who often disagree on many political topics. It is not a coherent group that all has the same beliefs and motivations, it's made up of extreme left leaning "SJW" type people, there's your centrists, there's oldschool liberals, there's people who support unions, there are those who don't, there's people that just don't see any party to vote for since the conservatives have stupid ideas, so a left-leaning party is the only option... There's lots and lots of different types of people in "the left".

I myself am left-leaning, but I don't like any of our political parties. They all suck. But I will vote for one of the left-leaning parties, because the right-leaning parties have stupid platforms that won't work.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I think a lot of efforts by the Right in this country rely on misinformation

The right has always thrived when people are ignorant.

Straight-up misinformation has really come to the forefront in the last few years. It's long been a tactic of intelligence services to sow disinformation to throw politics within a target country into disarray but now it's been taken up with some glee by the right for use within their own countries, with help from their supporters in society and the media. You can't have a political discussion here about the various Trump scandals without immediately getting 10 comments containing made-up things about Clinton or Biden to muddy the waters. The same can be said writ large about conservative politicians in general as well; it's a trope that all politicians are liars but the current crop have elevated it to an art form.

I watched The Great Hack this weekend and while I wasn't a huge fan of the movie, there were some details it contained that scared the crap out of me. The parent company for Cambridge Analytica was paid by the US/UK intelligence and uniformed services to create and perfect propaganda and disinformation campaigns in conflict zones on behalf of those countries. They then tested these same tactics in civil settings abroad to further perfect them and make a profit. They were behind a fairly sophisticated disinformation campaign called 'Do So' in Trinidad & Tobago which aimed to suppress Afro-Caribbean voters by feeding a ton of discordant noise into the political conversation and providing a 'cool' alt-movement to resist that by...not voting. The theory they were operating on was that if they could make non-voting a cool social trend, young Afro-Caribbean voters would sit out the election. Young Indian-descended voters might participate in the conversations online but were ultimately thought to be much more likely to end up voting (and doing so along strict partly lines) due to familial pressure. The campaign worked and the Indian party swept that election. Obviously the sample size here is 1 and it's very difficult to prove this ethno-theory of voting patterns was correct for the reasons theorized.

Nonetheless, they next deployed these tactics in the UK to support Brexit and in the US to support Ted Cruz and then Donald Trump. In the US, they also had plenty of help from what has become effectively a propaganda outlet for the GOP, Fox News. Over and over again, this network and others like it spew forth a ton of garbage and nonsense. If that wasn't bad enough, we had foreign actors participating in the melee and were actively being sought out to do so by the right.

It's tragic but not at all unexpected that these dark arts that the US helped perfect abroad have come home to roost. But what is especially distressing is how far the right is willing to go to sow disinformation that may help their elections but is dramatically harmful to the body politic. We need to be stewards of free speech but tech & media companies must be held to some standards and politicians that participate in disinformation campaigns must be held to account.

 

[Commodore]

I love how so far everyone in this thread is considering every possibility except the most likely one: the left doesn't win because the problem is with your message, not with the way it's being delivered or some vast right-wing conspiracy to cheat you.

EDIT: And maybe, just maybe, you guys don't have as much popular support for your ideas as the media has led you to believe.

 

[MaryKB]

I think that's because I'm pretty sure no decent person considers, even for a moment, messages of "equality for everyone, and help for those who need it" to be a problem.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yes, the left clearly has such a losing message that they got 33% less seats in 2016 relative to the GOP in 2010 despite pulling in several million additional votes. The agenda of the left has broader support but that's negated by gerrymandering and strict federalism.

 

[rah]

I don't think it's fair to claim all the votes for democrats = votes for the left.
Democrats aren't all left and Republicans aren't all right (even though it seems to going in that direction)

 

[AmazonQueen]

I don't think it's fair to claim all the votes for democrats = votes for the left.
Democrats aren't all left and Republicans aren't all right (even though it seems to going in that direction)

That's what you get when you have a 2-party FPTP system. Its incapable of reflecting the nuances of peoples opinions.

 

[Lexicus]

Consider that the premise of this thread is false and suffers from a complete lack of historical perspective.

The world isn't mostly governed by monarchies anymore- the left won. Slavery is not legal anywhere- the left won. Overt legal racial discrimination is mostly gone- the left won. Women can vote, and can pursue careers and generally are considered legal individuals rather than legal appendages of a man - the left won. On and on. The left has a winning track record.

 

[Lexicus]

Republicans aren't all right

Um sorry name one Republican who isn't on the right. Like literally one single one.

 

[rah]

I think claiming all those victories for the left does disservice to all the moderates that supported all of them.

 

[rah]

Um sorry name one Republican who isn't on the right. Like literally one single one.

I was a republican before Trump and I am not the right.

 

[Lexicus]

I think claiming all those victories for the left does disservice to all the moderates that supported all of them.

I mean this response is just hilarious on so many levels, mostly because of how utterly wrong it is factually but also because of how silly it is even taken at face value. Three cheers for moderates, unwilling to do any of the work but willing to abstractly "support" the goals!

I'll simply quote Martin Luther King Jr because he's a better talker than me:
"First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

That of course applies immediately to the civil rights struggles but in principle the complaint could apply at almost any point in the history I mentioned.

I was a republican before Trump and I am not the right.

Note how you used the past tense and I used the present tense.

 

[rah]

I mean this response is just hilarious on so many levels, mostly because of how utterly wrong it is factually but for other reasons too.

The left needed the support of the middle to for all those things that you mentioned. That's how you get a majority.

I still have lots of friends that are still RINOs and are moderates. While I will vote Dem regardless next election, many of them will not if a Warren or a Sanders is the candidate because they will think it's too far left.

The thinking that they are one large homogeneous group always makes me laugh. (when talking of either party) They're both just too large.

 

[MaryKB]

Which of Trump's policies are "left enough" for your "moderates" to consider him an acceptable option?

 

[Gorbles]

I love how so far everyone in this thread is considering every possibility except the most likely one: the left doesn't win because the problem is with your message, not with the way it's being delivered or some vast right-wing conspiracy to cheat you.

It's hardly a conspiracy at this stage, considering the very real and public reporting done on Cambridge Analytica and associated political actors

Top tip: when suggesting "the most likely" possibility, do at least consider the notion that the possibilities put forward are at least real, and not founded in conspiracy.

 

[Lexicus]

The left needed the support of the middle to for all those things that you mentioned. That's how you get a majority.

Well, there are certainly areas where this is true. Nonetheless, moderates were the last people on board the train, and generally speaking only in response to gratuitous violence on the part of the right at each step of the way. The idea that moderates deserve special praise, or even any mention at all, for exhibiting the barest human decency (in most cases this was only the result of decades of work by radicals pushing the envelope) is, again, risible.

You want to know what moderates were doing on the slavery question the year before the Civil War broke out? Enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act and voting for Stephen Douglas. Great work, *******s.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think that's because I'm pretty sure no decent person considers, even for a moment, messages of "equality for everyone, and help for those who need it" to be a problem.

That's not the message either party in the US sends.