More lame AI art, help me I’m an addict. :-)
In the abstract world of political theory ideologies have clear and distinct boundaries, leftism and rightism do not mix because that would bring out ideological contradictions that are clear when looking at things abstractly. But in the real world of political organizing things are not so tidy.
“Woke” progressive cultural leftists were one of the first groups to realize that it didn’t matter if their coalition had internal contradictions as long as they have a common enemy, which was traditional Christian western culture for the woke. It literally doesn’t matter for their coalition for example that traditional Islam and “queer theory” are wholly at odds, as long as some traditional Islamists were willing to “ally” with radical gay and “trans” people to undermine traditional western Christian culture.
The loose political boundaries of the woke coalition left it easy prey for another group of political shape shifters, the neo-cons. Neo-cons have no core values other than promoting war for the supposed interest of the people of Israel. If it is to their advantage they will pretend to be “family values” social conservatives as they did in the Bush era. And if conservatives turn against them and eject them as happened to some degree under Trump in 2016, they will pretend to be cultural progressives who are deeply concerned about racism, transphobia and whatever else is hip and trendy among progressives.
But they do not care about those culture war issues at all, their only goal is to infiltrate a group with wealth and power and then internally subvert its agenda. This is probably a tactic they picked up in their time as Trotskyite Communists decades ago.
Currently you are seeing this play out in the modern Democratic Party after the migration of never Trump neo-cons into the Democratic Party. The reason they migrated is because Republicans stopped supporting the endless war agenda at least at the grass roots level. Do not believe the Democrat’s lies they are oh so concerned about “racism,” or “muh democracy.”
This is why Democrats are all in on the genocide in Gaza even though it goes against the beliefs of all the other members of their “intersectional coalition.” This infiltration actually works among the woke progressive’s leadership because as I noted above they really don’t care about internal consistency, this infiltration of neo-cons into a supposedly “progressive” Democratic Party is what I mean by woke neo-con fusionism.
You see this playing out on the supposedly “conservative” side too with astroturf groups like “The Lincoln Project,” publications here on Substack like Bulwark, and articles by neo-cons like David French that have titles like “The Conservative Argument For Gay Rights.” My metaphor for this is, Liz Cheney and Hilary Clinton are the same person. For the money power of globalist transnational corpratists combining the wealth and power of neo-cons with the popular support for supposedly progressive values at least in urban areas with yet more wealth and power is a win. The losers are actual traditional conservatives, and actual leftists with a material class analysis and anti-imperialist and ecology based activist politics.
Unfortunately the sincere principled old school leftists protesting against the genocide in Gaza do not matter to the leadership of the progressives who are now the Democratic party, as power is all that matters to the Democrats in the end. They almost certainly see the intersectional left activists who are against western Christian culture and “racism,” “sexism,” etc, as simps in the same way the neo-cons do.
Since woke neo-con fusionism is incredibly fragile from the standpoint of intellectual consistency it has to be sold to the general public using empty highly emotional rhetoric like “the politics of joy.” This is where the media comes in. The media is actually not liberal, it is neo-conservative. This currently codes as liberal because the parasitic neo-con wasp is currently using progressive “liberals” as its host. But if liberals were to turn against neo-con wars and the conservatives started supporting them again then the media would start pushing a socially conservative agenda as it did in the Bush era.
Looked at through this lens I hope it is clear that sincere conservatives and leftists have common cause in fighting this blob? I actually think the tactics we use are less important than the idea that we need to start talking and strategizing how to break the woke neo-con fusionist’s strangle hold on politics and culture.
For people focused on practical short term politics this may mean holding our noses and voting for Trump despite the fact he is a vulgar, self centered, lying, vain man easily manipulated by his sycophants. This might buy us some time to work on deeper cultural changes to root out neo-con woke fusionism from our politics and culture, though I would be lying if I didn’t say there is a good chance Trump will stab us in the back.
Longer term we need safe ground venues where sincere conservatives and leftists can meet and strategize how to rebuild an America where both sincere leftists and conservatives have a place at the table. One place this may take place is literal kitchen tables over the issue of how degraded our agribusiness based food system has become. The fact Bobby Kennedy is weighing in on this may give this issue broad appeal and “organic” and local food is a winning issue for both co-opy lefties and right wingers trying to build a counter economy alike. This ties pretty directly into opposition to an over medicated society in the grips of big pharma.
Another winning issue is stopping the wars. Sincere conservatives are sick of sending their sons and daughters off to die for wars that only benefit an urban neo-con elite. Leftists have a long tradition of anti-imperialism, and hopefully the U.S. funded and armed genocide in Gaza is troubling to us all? If we can look beyond word barriers like “America First” instead of “anti-imperialism,” I hope it’s obvious we are due for common cause on this issue?
Another common cause of the sincere right and left is off the grid housing. It really doesn’t matter in the end if you call it “survivalism,” or ecological design and “intentional community,” the nuts and bolts issues of practical on the ground living this way are the same. And the end of the day we have the same enemy of an ever growing transnational corporate globalist juggernaut.
Some other possible unifying issues are opposing government censorship of social media as exposed in The Twitter Files, and even opposing gun control as actual communists want to have access to guns every bit as much as right wingers do.
These are just issues that will unite us off the top of my head. Please contribute more in the discussion below.
If you would like to support an antiestablishmentarian fighting the woke neo-con fusion blob you can support me with a direct subscription here, or 3 other ways.
On Ko-Fi which is nice because they currently aren’t charging any fees
At Buy Me A Coffee with an individual donation, or a 2 dollar a month membership.
I also accept Paypal raven200@gmail.com
Or consider buying one of my paper cuts, 40 dollars via Pay, or shipped free if you commit to a year subscription to my Substack of at least 55 dollars.
great 👍👍👍
People in general need to unite based on class-based and socioeconomic issues. It's frustrating that so many have been strategically divided by the whole political system and mainstream media using fake labels and culture war issues.
Thanks for subscribing to my newsletter, Mr Raven.
'...actual communists want to have access to guns every bit as much as right wingers do.'
Can you explain more on this?