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A spicy political take 

My boldest take is that America doesn't actually have a "left" in any cohesive politically organized sense and it's weird to complain about "the left" or "leftists" as a single group

What most people call "the left" in media and analysis is either progressive Democrats (who are a minority within their own party) or People on Social Media Who Disagree With Them (hold leftist values/have leftist praxis but don't actually constitute a mass political party or organizing force)

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A spicy political take 

@ingrid the sad difference is that the GOP has embraced their fringe groups

A spicy political take 

@ingrid Yeah that's not even spicy that's just correct. And a lot of that weirdo outsider left HATES the progressive wing most of the dems.

A spicy political take 

@dymaxion fair! it is spicy for those who still believe that "the left" is a national scale actor somehow, I guess?

A spicy political take 

@ingrid @dymaxion Heh, yeah. The people who are politically active but somehow have not like, heard of McCarthy.

A spicy political take 

@ingrid @dymaxion just a bogeyman to scare Fox News viewers and a scapegoat to blame Dem losses on, tbh

A spicy political take 

@ingrid@everything.happens.horse fully accurate, a product of several factors in play since the 1950s

A spicy political take 

@greycat @ingrid@everything.happens.horse also doesn't help that there's like half a dozen communist parties so isn't a proper entity to rally behind

A spicy political take 

@greycat @ingrid@everything.happens.horse and maybe that's just what they want you to think 😳

A spicy political take 

@ingrid@everything.happens.horse @breadcat maybe, but i'm already way too paranoid to organize anything more subversive than a d&d game

A spicy political take 

@ingrid Most Dems are now social left (lgbt) but economic right (Clinton did nafta, Obama tried TPP). Trump adopted some econ left issues thats why the working class likes him. The econ left wing inside the Democratic party, progressives, are indeed a small group now.

The attacks on "the left" are designed to hide this fact. Reps have a pro-labor anti-war faction now but when they attack "the left" (on social issues) everyone is happy, don't feel lost in the wilderness.

A spicy political take 

@ingrid I think the democrats are terrified of an actual cohesive left movement because it would expose them as a center right party, economically. individual progressive/left policies are very popular outside of a left/right political context. so democrats co-opt popular left progressive leaders when they can and sabotage the ones that they can't.

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