Yes, but I don’t think that they have any sort of majority sway over leftist groups operating today in opposition to the current administration.
I’m aware of the hard left out there, as I had friends who had family who literally spent time in jail for acts of terrorism as part of the ELF… But even if they had an outsized influence on leftist politics, it was still a fraction of the left in the US in general.
I’m sorry, but this has been a problem with mainstream Democratic operatives too. Just look at how the Clintons framed abortion in the 90s, “legal but rare”… it’s buying into the idea that “abortion is bad” in general. Yes, Tankies have this problem, too, but so do just… men, especially straight white men, who see themselves as the center of the universe and who laws should be shaped around. Women in American no longer have the same rights to bodily autonomy, because far too many men across the political spectrum saw it as a niche, culture war issue that wasn’t worth pursuing. Hence, we never got a law to ensure those rights. Literally right up to Dobbs, I heard plenty of dudes shrug their shoulders, not believing that they’d overturn it, but here we are. It was an incredibly amount of gaslighting, actually for years and years, aimed at women fighting for something so fundamental, so basic, that we are less free now than we were just a few years ago. We didn’t get to that place because of tankies. We got to that place because of men in general. Far too many men can NOT let go of their need to dominate and control us. They just won’t do the necessary work to see us as human being in our own right.
I get frustrated that so many fellow progressives (not you, @mindysan33 ) dismiss my concerns (and @Docosc & @PsiPhiGrrrl) here when we express them. We’re not making this shit up.
The “tankies” have never had power in the US so it’s moot to compare anyway. I dunno about the online names for things. Life doesn’t line up with the lore for me here either BUT what I do encounter is intensely authoritarian thinking in people who self-identify as leftists.
They want their guns for protection and they think a strong enough man will enforce harmony and god save you if you see the contradiction there.
I don’t think anyone in the actual US lines up as well with the left/right spectrum and 200 years of European political analysis though actually either. So idk. What I’m sure is that people find new lore and make whole religions out of it in like… actual weeks. On exposure to a toxic enough meme… we all suffer for this.
So are there some toxic fucks making life hard for people trying to do local support? Oh hell yeah and if anyone didn’t know it’s happening in traditionally conservative spaces too as Maga grows in power. I’m not sure this is really a “leftist position” thing and so, honestly, if people trying to be productive on the left need to shut the door on that part of the movement (especially when talking to people online) because they have better options still… I’m all for it.
People have to agree on and commit to their ideals and missions early on if they’re going to follow them.
LDF Declares Victory in Successfully Advocating for the County Commission in Fayette County, Tennessee to Draw a New, Fairer Electoral Map
On June 24, in response to LDF’s litigation, Fayette County lawmakers unanimously passed the new County Commission electoral map, which complies with Section 2 of the VRA and Constitution. The new map creates three new majority-Black single-member districts that provide Black voters with the opportunity to elect candidates of choice to the County Commission. The new map will be used in the 2026 election cycle, the first in years that Black communities in Fayette County will have an equal voice when participating in the democratic process.
Welp (via WABE the ATL public radio station)… I voted today, but apparently, not many others are… the sign on the door said 200 people at the early voting location in our very large suburban county…
Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani holds a 10 point lead over Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s general election for mayor, while incumbent Mayor Eric Adams trails in fourth place behind Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, according to a new poll.
Mamdani gets support from 35 percent of registered voters, followed by Cuomo with 25, Sliwa with 14, Adams at 11 and attorney Jim Walden at 1 percent. Thirteen percent of respondents said they weren’t sure, while 1 percent picked another candidate.
Scary, but true. This is the gameplan the right wing used back in the Tea Party days, taking over local politics and working up. Given a practically unlimited checkbook, if Elno actually remains focused on it, it could work. That, however, is the qualifier that (IMHO) will doom it, assuming it even gets off the ground. It will not hold his attention if there are not rapid, measurable results. And there probably will be defeats along the way, which will bruise his ever-so-fragile ego and send him back to his tech bro environs where he is safe.
“The middle has a voice now” – my eyes rolled so far back in my head they just popped out and I had to pick them up and shove them back in my skull holes. The Democrats have been the middle party for 50+ years now. It’s the left that doesn’t have its own party, not one of any substantial influence anyway.
I dunno. Maybe we could end up with three viable parties out of this. MAGA/GOP on the far right. Musk’s Stupid Party on the traditional right, comprised of never Trump Republicans and Reagan Democrats, and then a more true left party made up of everyone who stays in the Democratic Party. If we could get ranked choice voting everywhere along with this, it might work.
Of course, it won’t, because this is really just a grift. Just like most other efforts at forming a third party in the last few years. And it always seems to be billionaires pulling this shit. Maybe Musk and Andrew Yang can form a mutual admiration society and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.
