Like ok. When I was a lib, I had a lot of communist values already. I was already socdem leaning (though an Obama supporter because I foolishly believed he stood for those values). The vast majority of times I moved left involved some sort of confrontation with a person to my left on an issue. Sometimes there was resistance on my part, but that usually involved just like, a single argument, me realizing they were right, and moving left on the issue. Other times it was just… receiving information I didnt previously know. The closer to ML I got, the harder the struggles were, as some of the current geopolticial issues and also historical issues involved in that were the hardest to deprogram and the most hard coded. But I still got there.

Even simply openly calling myself as a communist was as simple as seeing someone else on Tumblr openly do so and realizing “oh wait thats an option?”

Oddly, “lesser evilism is not actually the correct way to approach electorally” was kind of my final gate? Despite being a poster here I sort of secretly still was a lesser evilist up until the recent stuff with Gaza. So it wasnt a straight line admittedly, but what it did do was give me a certain line of thinking about what the mindset of people who vote Democrat were.

In the midst of autistic myopia, I sort of for a long time believed that most libs were “communists in waiting” too. I sort of assumed you just had to spread the word, and they’d get there. Maybe they’d struggle on some of the same points I did, like not automatically believing a protest movement is good because its a protest movement, or that “America bad” isnt actually a bad way of thinking and critically supporting anti-American forces in the world is in fact the correct thing to do, and of course as I mentioned lesser evilism. But for the most part, you just had to give them permission to be communist. You just had to normalize it.

So seeing liberals like, be presented with the option to move left and slamming the door closed violently. Even on the most basic and obvious things. It was disheartening. I really thought it would be easier than that!

Theres this recent awful trend on TikTok (one Ive mostly only just heard of, because I’m not on that platform) of people “turning in their leftist card” over real leftists not flocking to support Harris and being principled about opposing genocide. One particular one, the only one I’ve seen with my own eyes, was a guy saying he “just found out he’s not a leftist, he’s a liberal, and [he’s] turning in [his] leftist card”. Like, whats happening there is a liberal is learning for the first time that he’s a liberal. But like, my experience with that realization was to go “oh, so THATS what leftism is? OK. let me travel there” (yaknow, like I said, on average lol, it wasnt always that easy). So seeing the door slam for me is kinda weird? Still to this day despite being somewhat used to it now?

  • autismdragon [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
    15·
    3 months ago

    I think the fact that my life experience makes me more empathetic to on the ground liberals and why they are the way they are is actually a useful trait that I shouldnt kill, because it gives me an angle people in your position dont have. What troubles me are people here who are themselves ex-liberals and have completely forgotten that in their rhetoric about liberals. Also, I didnt really go into this in my OP, but its not like my experience is that all liberals slam the door. Just certain types of particularly dug in very online liberals on social media. Irl experiences are usually very different, as well as experiances with people online with whom you have personal relationships.

    There are people on this forum from countries where “liberals” cozy up with fascist death squads. It isn’t a rhetorical game to them like it is to you.

    A lot of online liberal spaces have accepted “ACAB” wholeheartedly so idk if that applies to my experience really. And the fact that like, my acutal lived situation makes that not particularly relevant to my life would seem to matter to how I approach the issue of how to interact with liberals in my life? And remember, I’m not talking about liberal politicians, I’m talking about regular people who arent in positions of power.

    And my final point is. If regular liberal by default people are irredeemable, then we’ve already lost. There is no hope in that line of thinking. I fail to see how we can win if thats the case. That’s too big a percentage of the population. We don’t have to win over /r/NeoLiberal to win, but we do have to win over a lot of people who are liberals toughtlessly because thats just normal for them. We do have to win over a lot of people who were where I was once.