Dear #WeAreTheLeft, You Are Not The Left

[This was previously on Medium, and deleted from there.
Retrieved from the Wayback Archive, but Medium does
some weird redirects and makes it impossible to read,
hence saving for posterity on a pasteboard].

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Jeff Kunzler
Political Writer for Hire — https://paypal.me/Jeevesmeister
Jul 13 / 6 min read
Dear #WeAreTheLeft, You Are Not The Left
The Rot of Liberal White Supremacy

From Dave Chappelle, nearly two decades ago in 1998:

> Anyone ever been down South? So you guys know what I’m talking about. The
> racism down there is just f — ing (bon appetit gesture) — it’s perfect. Stewed
> to a perfection. It’s conformable. It’s out in the open. There are no secrets
> in Mississippi. Everybody knows the deal. ‘Morning, n — er!’ ‘Morning, sir!’
> Not up here. Here in the big cities, it’s a secret.

The greatest trick the Republicans ever performed was dragging America’s political spectrum so far right of center that the Democrats caved and became center-right corporatist shills. Basically, if you’re not a slur spewing bigot who lives eternally paranoid of trans kids figuring out their identity, a black man demanding he be treated with dignity, and buying chicken sandwiches to protest gay marriage — you’re closer to a Democrat than a Republican. As it stands, the “big tent” has enabled a horrendous compromise between anti-war, anti-poverty, anti-racist idealists who believe in building a better America, and the well-to-do status quo defending blowhards who think buying a Beyonce album on iTunes is somehow proof you believe Black Lives Matter.

Essentially, those who understand our current politics are infested with a rot that spread misery and poverty, and “free market” neoliberals who cloak their faith in the current system with a sick and twisted perversion of “Identity Politics.” They seek nothing more than a more diverse oligarchy to rule over the poor and the disadvantaged, they think they can weaponize poverty to punish and silence white racism. They’ll call illegal drone strikes a “white issue,” they’ll defend an infinitely rich and powerful white woman’s vocal support of an illegal war that has murdered hundreds of thousands if not millions. They’ll support a “sit-in” to create policy around a Bush-era terrorist watchlist to strip rights from Muslims. All of this is so far detached from anything a “Left” would ever stand for.

This coalition of “We Are The Left” posted on Medium is made up of some of the worst of the worst of these voices. This past year Leftists have punched back and agitated these spineless parasites, a number of which are paid to spew opinions to the mainstream, completely detached from the everyday lives of most voters. “Get Rid of the White Emoji” for starters. We’ve agitated and spit back in their faces with one simple fact — that they’re wrong, and you are so far from the Left you’re a bougie self-parody.

What #WeAreTheLeft writes in their manifesto is little more than gibberish. They throw out all these examples, fail to find a coherent thread to tie them together, and fail to prove their point that cohesion is necessary. They demand that Leftists give up in a post-Sanders world and simply follow quietly behind your woke slay queen Hillary, instead of doing what their favorite political rap battle professes and find some sort of working compromise. This isn’t politics, this is peer pressure.

Many of the people who have signed this piece cried about “BernieBros,” a targeted campaign to pretend the strong support of Bernie Sanders was nothing more than disgruntled white men who can’t handle a woman president or their jobs going to women and PoC. Of course, the reality is that over 2/3rds of Sanders supporters were women and/or PoC. You’d prefer PoC singing and dancing on a Broadway stage about how great the status quo is, not starting riots and demanding their rights as human beings.

Let me make it clear to the undersigned of “We Are The Left” one simple fact: you got pig poop balls in your mentions and other clapbacks because you were an outspoken supporter of a Liberal White Supremacy that infests our current political class. One that pretends a black President is somehow a victory while the wealth gap between white and black families has only grown under his reign. One that believes Silicon Valley can somehow end racism through apps. One that pretends Edward Snowden is somehow a traitor, while a Secretary of State running a private email server to hide from public accountability and FOIA requests is somehow woke feminist labor. One that pretends Hillary only voted for the Iraq War because doing otherwise would be “political suicide.” One that pretends claiming poverty while having a luxurious AirBNB in a developing nation is not grossly inappropriate. One that thinks a vote for an infinitely rich and powerful white woman whose incompetence has had grave consequences for poor Muslim women overseas is somehow a meaningful victory for feminism.

The greatest lie of “We Are The Left” is that Leftists don’t care about identity politics. We do — and we care a hell of a lot more than you about the most disadvantaged on our planet, whom suffer the most because of our current oppressive hierarchy. You are not “thought leaders” just because you have a byline in a corporate owned clickbait publication or entertain the delusions of technocratic “angel investors” who think food stamps should be replaced with Soylent.

Vote for Hillary all you want. However, wrapping it up in a triumphant narrative of identity politics and social justice when the only success is more dead innocent Muslims overseas — for no fucking reason — I mean the drone assassination program Hillary Clinton oversaw as Secretary of State had a fucking 90% failure rate — is nothing short of absolute vulgarity.

You got vulgarity because you speak vulgarity. You’re out of touch with the poor, the disadvantaged, and lap up the milk of the establishment that profits from their exploitation. You have zero care about the fact that your champion oversaw arms deals including cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia (who behead women regularly) that are used to murder innocent kids in Yemen. Our ruling class is sick with a rot, while you act like everything is so great and wonderful, and will continue to be so under Hillary Clinton because you’ve insulated yourselves in your gentrified Brooklyn apartments from the reality that 85% of Americans are fighting each other over 15% of the wealth. Some of you probably cheered body cams for cops which did nothing but make a bunch of private contractors rich and put Chinese malware on police department computers, instead of understanding our politics need a radical change which will certainly include some degree of wealth redistribution.

Identity Politics and Intersectionality are radical theory about how race, gender, and class all come together to oppress and exploit millions of Americans. They are not about “Leaning In” or your love of celebrity trainwrecks or making the oppressive ruling class somehow more diverse. To wrap yourselves up in this rhetoric means you get to pretend you’re somehow heroic crusaders free from personal accountability or any sort of responsibility — and the reality is you’re closer to the villains than those fighting for a more free and just society.

Racism is more than some leftist agitator in your mentions. Racism is a billion dollar corporation selling “Stay Woke” shirts for 20 bucks and cheering a gay black activist getting assaulted and arrested by a militarized police — that Hillary Clinton was a huge contributor to arming, by the way — while allowing actual fascists to organize and broadcast on their platform in what we now call the “alt-Right.” But of course, they gave you a little blue checkmark and a premium experience to imprint the ideal that what happens on Twitter somehow matters. And my god, it fucking worked.

Over the past year or two of watching this fight play out between Liberalism and the Left, I’ve listened to and heard the anger of so many marginalized identities who are enraged to see your ideological failures speak for them. Trans women pissed one of their loudest spokeswomen is arguing the gender identity of corporate mascots while demanding cops get more respect. Queer Muslim women infuriated of white female Flatbush gentrifiers defending every one of Hillary Clinton’s fuckups, including the ones that have enabled ISIS to profit from the sex slave trade of young girls in places like Libya. Black men who see that Obama and Hamilton aren’t giving them any reprieve from a racist corporate culture and cops with the free reign to murder without consequence.

To paint this as disgruntled white men against a coalition of (mostly) white women and PoC is frankly nothing more than an outright lie — because you refuse to be uncomfortable at the ideal that perhaps a corporate pop star appropriating the image of an explicitly Marxist organization whilst also profiting millions from sweatshop labor for their vanity brand is a gross, oppressive vulgarity. What you speak is white supremacy, wrapped in a shiny wrapper of liberalism, not liberation.

You are not “The Left.” You are the lowest of the low and do nothing but fortify the rich white male elite that benefit from the exploitation of so many marginalized identities. We don’t need you — and we will burn your whole fucking Party to the ground if that’s what it takes.

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