PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
Yeah, this kind of pisses me off. I think there is a difference between "demanding ideological purity" and "being pissed at settling for Clinton" that the anti-Sanders left has largely ignored to paint the "far left" as being just like the far-right.The far-ish left and right find are find common ground in the populist scapegoating of "elites" (whatever those are), demands for ideological purity, suspecting the worst possible motivations of those who disagree with them, and the effective corralling of the economic anxieties of the working classes towards and against larger institutions that they now declare failed. And, in your case, the drive by snark.
I read the big Glen Greenwald article on Brexit from a few days ago, and it could have found a home in the National Review or whatever.
I understand your points here, and your frustration with some of Vlad's posts. But you also should understand how the tone has come off. You say we're scapegoating people who disagree by assigning them the worst possible motivations, but can you see how this sort of attitude comes off as "othering" the far left to make yourself feel better about where you fall on the progressivism scale? It's dismissive. I've always found the "hey, the far ends of both sides suck, we can agree on that" a huge cop out, a cheap way to gain legitimacy in a political discussion. Are there aspects of the far left I'm not thrilled about? I guess. I can't think of many, other than the occasional tone-deafness and over-reliance on this cycle on sloganeering rather than substance. But comparing the far left to the far right just rubs me wrong, and ignores so much context that informs the positions.
It's very true that politics moves slower than we would like it to, even when there is an obvious right-and-wrong (which there often is, way more than many would like to admit). But that does not mean that the candidates themselves need to be middle-ground centrists. There was a very long period of time there where the right stayed extreme while the left caved and caved and allowed the center to move even farther right. I don't yearn for those days.