Increasingly dominant on the internet — particularly social media and the podcast sphere — the fan fiction left imagines an alternative universe where the Republican Party, with its embrace of Trump and his authoritarian tendencies, is not the main problem of American politics. Instead, in this view, the only hindrance to the enactment of just and beneficial public policy is lack of will within the Democratic Party.

Far worse than teenagers writing an extension of their favorite anime series or video game, the fan fiction left encourages its audience, which depending on the writer or podcast often rivals those of mainstream publications and programs, to act in accordance with its weird delusions. Hallucination is central to their magical world of make-believe. Enter that world, and you will learn the following

  • Bernie Sanders would have won the 2016 and 2020 DNC primaries if not for intraparty rigging. He also would have easily won both presidential elections. The fact that in both races he earned millions of fewer votes than his respective opponents is insignificant to the fan fiction left, who have cultivated their own big lie.
  • Even though powerful Republicans believe in the neo-Nazi "great replacement theory," voter suppression and racist gerrymandering are prevalent, and many states are passing legislative assaults on women's rights and LGBTQ rights, concerns about racism, sexism, and homophobia are only bourgeois "identity politics."
  • Trump supporters, regardless of how hateful, irrational and violent they become, are merely misled members of the proletariat class...

(There's a bunch more boring stuff I don't care enough to copy all of it)

Observable reality is irrelevant to this faction of the left. The only thing that matters is that President Barack Obama and the Democrats did not codify Roe v. Wade as federal law when they controlled Congress from 2009 to 2011. But this argument ignores that Obama and Democrat lawmakers spent those two years pushing through a massive stimulus package in the middle of financial collapse and then passing the most consequential expansion of the welfare state since the 1960s, the Affordable Care Act, which enabled more than 20 million Americans to receive health care for the first time.

^This is not as impressive as the author thinks it is lol

Last month, the US Senate attempted to codify Roe. All but one Democrat -- West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin -- voted in favor. Every Republican voted against.

Of course, the women's rights crisis wouldn't exist if Hillary Clinton won the presidential election of 2016 and appointed three Supreme Court justices instead of Trump. But many prominent left wing leaders gleefully called for people not to vote for Clinton.

:hillary:

The fan fiction left is not without precedent. George Orwell, a socialist, (lmao) came to believe that the left of his era had no real desire in holding power and for them political thought was nothing more than a "masturbation fantasy in which the world of facts hardly matters." Ernst Thälmann, the leader of the Communist Party of Germany from 1925 to 1933, believed that the center left presented a greater danger than Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Needless to say, that analysis didn't turn out so well.

:1984:

The Democrats certainly have flaws. They are rhetorically passive, disorganized and seem to base their strategy on how not to lose rather than how to win, which usually guarantees failure. The party is also worthy of harsh criticism for taking a bashful approach to punishing Trump and his allies for insurrection. Despite sizable weaknesses, they do have the advantage of not being racists, sexists, homophobes or hostile to the foundation of democracy. Residents of the real world should vote accordingly

:vote:

  • Jadzia_Dax [she/her]
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    2 years ago

    I can’t imagine cnn publishing the phrase “proletariat” and “bourgeoisie” even in a negative context four years ago. Interesting.

    • MerryChristmas [any]
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      2 years ago

      This was my takeaway, too.

      Edit: Actually, I'll expand on this. Prior to the time millenials came of age, there was a unified national narrative and anyone who made noise was just some internet crackpot. Then millenials grew up and it turned out the internet wasn't just some fad, and suddenly all of these crackpots had platforms - some of them with millions of listeners. To me, the fact that they are attempting to slander us with our own crackpot language signals that they've realized they are losing control of the narrative. That's why I think it's interesting.

      • Nakoichi [they/them]
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        2 years ago

        Porky is scared, they know they are losing control of the masses and they are panicking because whichever anti-liberal faction gains traction - be they communists or fascists - it will upset their precious status quo and thus disrupt the profits of their billionaire overlords. They will of course always treat the right more favorably than the left but they aren't ready to hand them the wheel for real yet.

        The fact they are having to play catchup with the national discourse is actually probably in our favor.

        • Awoo [she/her]
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          2 years ago

          If they use our language they force their audiences to learn our definitions.

          Far from being slander, it benefits us. Communists do not need to convince people, we need to educate people. If people gain the ability to understand these terms and what they refer to then their own analysis of society changes because it becomes informed by the socialist breakdown of class.

          Once you become aware of the socialist breakdown of class you inevitably MUST learn how the classes interact and this leads to consciousness of the exploitation by one class of another.

          Once this has happened you ask yourself your own class and find where you fit in. Then you wrestle with the moral dilemmas if you're not a member of the proletariat or you wrestle with what a revolution truly is and what "marxists" want for society if you are.

          Their use of our language can genuinely only benefit us by creating opportunities for education.

          I also think part of the reason they've never used our language is because most of them never knew it themselves until recently.

          • Nakoichi [they/them]
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            2 years ago

            I also think part of the reason they’ve never used our language is because most of them never knew it themselves until recently.

            This probably isn't wrong lol. I only learned the lingo from the old sub and then later from communist twitter and here.

            • Awoo [she/her]
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              2 years ago

              In learning marxism to counter socialists the liberals will either become socialists themselves or come to the realisation that they are immoral shitbags who only care about their class interests. This education in marxism will accelerate their behaviour towards greater exploitation in the case of those who have it in their class interests or have some element of benefits from pandering to the interests of the bourgeoisie (bourgeoise media are sort of a sub-class unto themselves).

              The proletarian liberals will accidentally become marxists because they will gain an education in what is in their class interests.

              Liberals won't realise this until it's too late because they are idealists. They think it's about convincing people rather than class interests so they see no problem with providing some education but with a negative spin. Every little part of that education will hurt them considerably.

    • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
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      2 years ago

      twitter isn't real life, but it is the life of media demons, so whether they like it or not, the online left comes to live in their head "rent free" as the kids say.