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> Identifying leftism as a harmful ideology is certainly a critical step, however it's very difficult to gain traction with that because the term "leftism" is very, very close to "left wing politics" They aren't “very close”, they are exact synonyms. > Unfortunately whilst there is an abundance of words to describe the new left wing politics (woke, wokeism, leftism, identity politics, critical theory, neo-Marxism, "anti-racism", third wave feminism etc) there aren't many terms which clearly describe the old left wing politics Yes, there are. You even used one of them with a “neo-” in front of it to describe new left-wing politics. Also, many of your “new left wing" labels are inaccurate; “identity politics”, particularly, isn't specifically left-wing; there are progressive identity politics, center-right neoliberal identity politics (the dominant ones in the Democratic Party, which serve as a capitalist distraction from left-wing economic justice issues), and right-wing identity politics (in the US, various strands of White and/or Christian supremacism/nationalism are prominent here.) |
Marxism is not the right label to describe the post-1950s left wing politics in most countries. Yes, there were fringe wings that were openly Marxist but most left wing politics was committed to incremental change through the ballot box, not total revolution.
They aren't “very close”, they are exact synonyms.
At least I perceive shades of difference in how they're normally used.
"Leftism" is used to refer to a rather extreme, virulent ideology, typified by the conviction that conservatism of any kind of a sort of evil that needs to be wiped out or suppressed. There are no mainstream parties in the west formally espousing leftism, although in the USA the Democrats are now becoming dangerously close to that with their explicitly racial/gender based appointment of Kamala Harris, and some of their recent demands to take Fox News off air.
Left wing politics is a far more mainstream movement found throughout the democratic world. Its focus is typically on economic issues that affect the working classes, they advocate for nationalisation and/or the general pulling of power to the centre, they recognise the legitimacy of their conservative oppositions and in many European countries often enter into coalitions or power sharing arrangements with them. Left wing politics is, at most, the politics of Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn. And in its more common instantiation, it's more like the politics of Tony Blair. Left wing politicians have up until very recently not been overtly promoting "leftism" in the hard-core sense seen today, but that's now changing.
To me the key difference is whether someone recognises disagreement as legitimate. Even when in very strong political positions, throughout most of the 20st century left wing parties have not tried to suppress their opposition. The exceptions are of course the communist countries, but those parties are hardly referred to as left wing, even though technically they were very much so.