I have no doubt foreign agents help seed this stuff - there is boundless evidence of how Russia did this for 2016 for sure. But there are just enough idiots with lots and lots of time on their hands that pick this stuff up and then shrilly start denouncing others that point out that their endless sanctimony is not going to win hearts and minds of most Americans…
I think this seems to flange in with Bob Altemeyer’s work on Right Wing Authoritarians (RWAs) - he doesn’t spend much time talking about left wing ones because they are not much of a problem at this time and this place (U.S. and Canada). But you can see a glimmer of some of authoritarian tendencies in those that argue this way - they don’t CARE about winning hearts and minds, they’ll say, because their orthodoxy is correct and it just should BE. Without question. They don’t even think they should have to explain anything about their beliefs, either, most especially if they tick off some boxes on the Oppression Olympics.
Again, I think they are a tiny, tiny sliver of what makes up the left, but the noise they generate and the power they wield in some forums is hard not to notice. I think the only thing they achieve is some kind of point-scoring system that only matters in their heads, and helping to hand elections to Republicans. I’m sure they think they are winning some kind of progress on intersectionality or something, but what I think most others see are people that are very broken from a mental standpoint and who are ruining the brand of progressivism.
I have no doubt foreign agents help seed this stuff - there is boundless evidence of how Russia did this for 2016 for sure. But there are just enough idiots with lots and lots of time on their hands that pick this stuff up and then shrilly start denouncing others that point out that their endless sanctimony is not going to win hearts and minds of most Americans…
I think this seems to flange in with Bob Altemeyer’s work on Right Wing Authoritarians (RWAs) - he doesn’t spend much time talking about left wing ones because they are not much of a problem at this time and this place (U.S. and Canada). But you can see a glimmer of some of authoritarian tendencies in those that argue this way - they don’t CARE about winning hearts and minds, they’ll say, because their orthodoxy is correct and it just should BE. Without question. They don’t even think they should have to explain anything about their beliefs, either, most especially if they tick off some boxes on the Oppression Olympics.
Again, I think they are a tiny, tiny sliver of what makes up the left, but the noise they generate and the power they wield in some forums is hard not to notice. I think the only thing they achieve is some kind of point-scoring system that only matters in their heads, and helping to hand elections to Republicans. I’m sure they think they are winning some kind of progress on intersectionality or something, but what I think most others see are people that are very broken from a mental standpoint and who are ruining the brand of progressivism.