This, ladies and gentlemen, is what grievance politics leads to. Cenk*, Anna, Fetterman, Dore, etc, when you think of criticism as competition to get to the top, or you think of one person’s success as a lack of your own, the only path is towards right wing grift.
Sorry, Cenk, not Jenk. The point isn’t that all of these people have become right wingers only that once grievance politics begins, that’s where it ends if there is no reconciliation. Anna and Cenk both double down and treat other members of the left as competition rather than allies. This will drive them from the movement sooner or later.
When your calculus about why people are critiquing something you say is that they want to lower your status so that they can replace you, you’ve got a very different reaction, and one that will not involve actual engagement with the criticism. If you look at it from that point of view, their takes start to make more sense.
Oh I get you. I don’t really watch TYT before, but the last time I saw them they are quite militant. It put me off from further watching the show.
I know where you’re coming from overall. Not everyone of course, but a lot on the left are similarly militant. Frankly, a lot of their ideas, arguments and their messaging approach is very low bar. They consume information sources that are “fast food”, shall we say. Both the left and liberals are rightly criticised for being smug, which turns off people or even shies many away from the broader movement. The militant left and liberals are kind of in their bubble and I realised that after interacting with “vote blue no matter who” Democrats and after Trump won. They refuse to acknowledge the root cause of rise of Trumpism as being economic. Instead, they quickly malign Latino, Muslim, black and white working class folks who voted for Trump as dumb, racist, etc. They forget that white working class used to vote Democrats…
Who is this “militant left” and how are they acting anything like liberals? It’s the liberals who are vote blue no matter who, oh we lost an election let’s go even further right to court voters who will never vote for us while pissing off our base so we can once again lose an election.
Not all, but plenty on both left and liberals basically abandoned the working class by caricaturising them as redneck, racist and misogynist hillbillies, rather than acknowledging the economic grievances which the right exploited to their advantage. Even after the recent 2024 US presidential election, the left and liberals started to blame Latino and black voters for electing Trump. But ultimately, it is down to economic issues. Alexandra Ocasio Cortez herself mentioned that many Latino families are living in under one household with other families. Many liberals and leftists-- many of whom are middle class and tend to be quite affluent and sheltered-- started to say that Latinos elected Trump because of machismo. Liberals and leftist also said black voters are “dumb”. But really, it’s down to economic anxiety. Trump promised tax cuts amid the growing inflation. He promised tariffs on imports because the working class thinks this will encourage many companies to re-shore and boost buying American, even though it may not be the case. There are many other factors that compounds but it will take too long to list them all.
Of course sure, many Republican voters and are racists and dumb, but many were turned because they were manipulated. It is the same with the Germans during the Great Depression. Voting for a populist extremist is may be dumb, but people are desperate to cling to any lifeline. A lot of those on the left and liberal side have safety net (and they have a blindspot not to realise this), however, the working class had it pulled underneath from them when outsourcing happened en masse but no alternatives were put in place. Many areas left with no jobs are manipulated to hate on immigrants. Many left/liberals don’t realise this and start to look down on the working class. I mean, the working class used to vote left/liberal after all. The Rust belt loved Obama. There is a massive reason why they now vote Republican, and it is not always because of ignorance and bigotry that’s for sure.
Someone mentioned about immigration as well. It might controversial to say this, but some areas are genuinely overwhelmed by having too many people coming in but there is not enough infrastructure to accommodate the swell in population. It is not the people or the local’s fault if they blame immigrants, but the underinvestment and under-resourcing of communities brought by neoliberal policies. Many refugees and immigrants can’t afford the more expensive places, so they go to poorer areas where there limited jobs and hospital capacities. This creates an artificial division among people: pitting the working class and immigrants. But some of the liberals and left who are more affluent and living in better areas, unaware of their own privileges because of cognitive blindspots, do not see it that way and malign the poorer folks as inherently intolerant.
You keep using left and liberal like they’re interchangeable when they absolutely aren’t.
In 2016 the left went for Bernie sanders, who had an economic populist platform that spoke to the grievances that came from 2008. The democrats - liberals - kneecapped him and shunned his supporters.
It’s the liberals who took minorities for granted and are now turning on them now that they’re no longer useful. It’s the liberals who thought they could just run on demographics and identity politics alone and not bother with a real platform other than “we’re not trump”. I find it pretty offensive that you lump the mythical “left” in this country with liberals. There’s very few actual leftists and whole lot of liberals who think they’re left because they want to reform capitalism with social democracy instead of overthrow it like it deserves to be.
I’d be considered a somewhat anti immigration leftist, because I work in an industry that undercuts local labor and imports cheaper J1s and H1Bs. During covid, instead of a merit raise of 10-50 cents we got a three dollar + raise because they couldn’t import foreign labor for cheap. Tight immigration used to be a somewhat left wing stance, economic protectionism. Loose immigration just benefits business owners and fucks over labor. Obviously we’re a nation of immigrants and we need immigration but we also need to clamp down hard on businesses who take advantage of cheap labor to fuck over American labor like myself. I hate that the immigration conversation focuses on “illegals” and not on businesses fucking over American labor by hiring cheaper legal and illegal labor instead.
And I think race is overplayed of an issue when it comes to immigration. A large quantity of immigrants coming in are not English speakers, most are Spanish speakers. I’m from NY originally and I’ve been gone for almost a decade living in the whitest state ever and I had to go home to take care of my mom - I heard almost entirely Spanish being spoken many places instead of English. When I grew up it was English 90% of the time and now it’s Spanish probably 40-50% of the time. That’s culturally shocking and it’s fair for English speakers to be irritated by it and feel like they’re being replaced. I have a ton of respect for people who speak more than one language but due to a brain injury I’m not capable of it despite trying. It’s crazy to see how much my hometown changed in the decade I’ve been gone. It’s unrecognizable.
Also it shouldn’t be controversial to say certain places are getting completely overwhelmed by immigrants. Of course the liberals will paint you as a rAcIsT for saying so but look at how hard they lost this election to see how tired people are of their bullshit.
We have a racist history that bleeds into the present day no doubt but not everything is because of race.
I don’t watch TYT, so I can’t go into too many specifics. But from what I do know, Cenk and Ana have both been buying into the crime scare bullshit, and agree with Republicans on immigration. Ana has also been saying stuff that is anti-trans. Cenk and Ana are no longer at all leftists. Maybe funding dried up and they are trying to pander to a different audience?
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what grievance politics leads to. Cenk*, Anna, Fetterman, Dore, etc, when you think of criticism as competition to get to the top, or you think of one person’s success as a lack of your own, the only path is towards right wing grift.
Jenk, as in Cenk Uygur from The Young Turks turned to the right?
Sorry, Cenk, not Jenk. The point isn’t that all of these people have become right wingers only that once grievance politics begins, that’s where it ends if there is no reconciliation. Anna and Cenk both double down and treat other members of the left as competition rather than allies. This will drive them from the movement sooner or later.
When your calculus about why people are critiquing something you say is that they want to lower your status so that they can replace you, you’ve got a very different reaction, and one that will not involve actual engagement with the criticism. If you look at it from that point of view, their takes start to make more sense.
Oh I get you. I don’t really watch TYT before, but the last time I saw them they are quite militant. It put me off from further watching the show.
I know where you’re coming from overall. Not everyone of course, but a lot on the left are similarly militant. Frankly, a lot of their ideas, arguments and their messaging approach is very low bar. They consume information sources that are “fast food”, shall we say. Both the left and liberals are rightly criticised for being smug, which turns off people or even shies many away from the broader movement. The militant left and liberals are kind of in their bubble and I realised that after interacting with “vote blue no matter who” Democrats and after Trump won. They refuse to acknowledge the root cause of rise of Trumpism as being economic. Instead, they quickly malign Latino, Muslim, black and white working class folks who voted for Trump as dumb, racist, etc. They forget that white working class used to vote Democrats…
Who is this “militant left” and how are they acting anything like liberals? It’s the liberals who are vote blue no matter who, oh we lost an election let’s go even further right to court voters who will never vote for us while pissing off our base so we can once again lose an election.
Not all, but plenty on both left and liberals basically abandoned the working class by caricaturising them as redneck, racist and misogynist hillbillies, rather than acknowledging the economic grievances which the right exploited to their advantage. Even after the recent 2024 US presidential election, the left and liberals started to blame Latino and black voters for electing Trump. But ultimately, it is down to economic issues. Alexandra Ocasio Cortez herself mentioned that many Latino families are living in under one household with other families. Many liberals and leftists-- many of whom are middle class and tend to be quite affluent and sheltered-- started to say that Latinos elected Trump because of machismo. Liberals and leftist also said black voters are “dumb”. But really, it’s down to economic anxiety. Trump promised tax cuts amid the growing inflation. He promised tariffs on imports because the working class thinks this will encourage many companies to re-shore and boost buying American, even though it may not be the case. There are many other factors that compounds but it will take too long to list them all.
Of course sure, many Republican voters and are racists and dumb, but many were turned because they were manipulated. It is the same with the Germans during the Great Depression. Voting for a populist extremist is may be dumb, but people are desperate to cling to any lifeline. A lot of those on the left and liberal side have safety net (and they have a blindspot not to realise this), however, the working class had it pulled underneath from them when outsourcing happened en masse but no alternatives were put in place. Many areas left with no jobs are manipulated to hate on immigrants. Many left/liberals don’t realise this and start to look down on the working class. I mean, the working class used to vote left/liberal after all. The Rust belt loved Obama. There is a massive reason why they now vote Republican, and it is not always because of ignorance and bigotry that’s for sure.
Someone mentioned about immigration as well. It might controversial to say this, but some areas are genuinely overwhelmed by having too many people coming in but there is not enough infrastructure to accommodate the swell in population. It is not the people or the local’s fault if they blame immigrants, but the underinvestment and under-resourcing of communities brought by neoliberal policies. Many refugees and immigrants can’t afford the more expensive places, so they go to poorer areas where there limited jobs and hospital capacities. This creates an artificial division among people: pitting the working class and immigrants. But some of the liberals and left who are more affluent and living in better areas, unaware of their own privileges because of cognitive blindspots, do not see it that way and malign the poorer folks as inherently intolerant.
You keep using left and liberal like they’re interchangeable when they absolutely aren’t.
In 2016 the left went for Bernie sanders, who had an economic populist platform that spoke to the grievances that came from 2008. The democrats - liberals - kneecapped him and shunned his supporters.
It’s the liberals who took minorities for granted and are now turning on them now that they’re no longer useful. It’s the liberals who thought they could just run on demographics and identity politics alone and not bother with a real platform other than “we’re not trump”. I find it pretty offensive that you lump the mythical “left” in this country with liberals. There’s very few actual leftists and whole lot of liberals who think they’re left because they want to reform capitalism with social democracy instead of overthrow it like it deserves to be.
I’d be considered a somewhat anti immigration leftist, because I work in an industry that undercuts local labor and imports cheaper J1s and H1Bs. During covid, instead of a merit raise of 10-50 cents we got a three dollar + raise because they couldn’t import foreign labor for cheap. Tight immigration used to be a somewhat left wing stance, economic protectionism. Loose immigration just benefits business owners and fucks over labor. Obviously we’re a nation of immigrants and we need immigration but we also need to clamp down hard on businesses who take advantage of cheap labor to fuck over American labor like myself. I hate that the immigration conversation focuses on “illegals” and not on businesses fucking over American labor by hiring cheaper legal and illegal labor instead.
And I think race is overplayed of an issue when it comes to immigration. A large quantity of immigrants coming in are not English speakers, most are Spanish speakers. I’m from NY originally and I’ve been gone for almost a decade living in the whitest state ever and I had to go home to take care of my mom - I heard almost entirely Spanish being spoken many places instead of English. When I grew up it was English 90% of the time and now it’s Spanish probably 40-50% of the time. That’s culturally shocking and it’s fair for English speakers to be irritated by it and feel like they’re being replaced. I have a ton of respect for people who speak more than one language but due to a brain injury I’m not capable of it despite trying. It’s crazy to see how much my hometown changed in the decade I’ve been gone. It’s unrecognizable.
Also it shouldn’t be controversial to say certain places are getting completely overwhelmed by immigrants. Of course the liberals will paint you as a rAcIsT for saying so but look at how hard they lost this election to see how tired people are of their bullshit.
We have a racist history that bleeds into the present day no doubt but not everything is because of race.
Yes
What did he do?
He named his media organization after a bunch of genocidaires for one.
I don’t watch TYT, so I can’t go into too many specifics. But from what I do know, Cenk and Ana have both been buying into the crime scare bullshit, and agree with Republicans on immigration. Ana has also been saying stuff that is anti-trans. Cenk and Ana are no longer at all leftists. Maybe funding dried up and they are trying to pander to a different audience?