[nothis]

What I'm noticing the past 5 to 10 years is the right outsmarting the left in activism and public imagery. Not with arguments, with wording. It's hard to watch.

One way I'm trying to make sense of is the following: The left is used to being the underdog, the ones fighting for reform against powerful, conservative institutions. They are used to not really stand a chance, it's the spirit that counts. In that position, it makes sense to yell loud, provoking slogans. The people in power will laugh it off, the people you're trying to reach will hear you. But we're in a situation where there are pockets of real power occupied by left-leaning leadership. University campuses. Some parts of the media. Large cities. Certain internet communities. The people in power (who are still largely conservative) are no longer laughing, they're scared. They will use your words against you if they aren't worded well. But it seems left-wing organizers refuse to change their tactics, refuse to acknowledge they entered the mainstream arena.

I still don't get what "abolish the police" is supposed to accomplish. Everyone who bothers understands what it is really about but you don't even have to twist the words, you just have to take them literally and it's a call to pure anarchism. The "blue lives matter" bullshit could have been stopped by changing the slogan to "black lives matter, too". A comedian should not be cancelled for actual, clear-in-context jokes, at least not when genuinely apologizing. A confused college student quoting some Jordan Peterson logic (which he'll likely feel embarrassed for in 5 years without any outside help at all) should not be yelled at in public or you get that shit on Tik Tok as "lefties suppressing free speech". Don't call your work reform movement... "anti-work". Sigh.

Laugh at right-wing stupidity. Take left-wing politics (i.e. European conservative politics) seriously and consider how to implement it in the real world. Do what the right has been doing for centuries, learn from it. They're in the defense now. And the most powerful move on the offense is appearing calm and composed.

[nebula8804]

Are the right really in defense mode? They managed to instill a majority in the supreme court, they have veto power in the senate and after 2022 will likely hold the majority in the house. They are successfully chipping away at the gains of the FDR era.

At the same time the left is fractured into two major camps. One camp is the leadership that seems to end up controlling major movements like Black Lives Matter and subduing it into nothing. This group chooses to not fight. They are benefiting from the status quo.

The other is the "progressive" left that is aiming for European style systems and policies. All they have as a weapon is Twitter and they are not really achieving their goals. What power do "Twitter People" really have if their efforts only translate into gestures from the higher ups(eg. BLM painted on the street in front of the capitol)?

[zhdc1]

> One way I'm trying to make sense of is the following: The left is used to being the underdog, the ones fighting for reform against powerful, conservative institutions.

This isn't necessarily true. The Democrats in the US had a near stranglehold on Federal politics from the 1950s through the mid-1990s. The Republican ascendence in the 1990s came about in part because Democrat-oriented institutions; e.g., large blue-chip companies, labor unions, and the Federal government itself were viewed as inefficient and corrupt by a portion of the voting population.

> But we're in a situation where there are pockets of real power occupied by left-leaning leadership. University campuses. Some parts of the media. Large cities.

This also isn't necessarily true. Democratic sympathies != left-leaning. And the actual truth is that, going on voting records alone, people in the US mainly vote based on whether they live in more or less densely populated regions. The institutions you've mentioned are all Democrat-leaning because they are predominantly located in more urban areas. Which makes sense, since the policies that Democrats generally support are all more effective at higher population densities.

[slingnow]

I wonder what it's like to have such a naive black and white view of the world. You speak of left and right like it's a fantasy movie with some long narrative about good and evil. And you speak as though the concept of right and left has been an unchanging thing ("the right has been doing this for centuries"). Do you believe you are some stoic warrior engaged in a centuries long battle for some ideal?