I can’t be the only one who is seeing this fucking pattern on damn loop every few years. First, leftists managed to clobber together a movement. Lets say Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter. Or we can go more recent and talk about 50501 or TeslaTakedown.
Look, I get it. Its a lot of work and coordination to build up these movements. But time-and-time again, the movement rises up. Then the right attacks it.
Then mysteriously a few very violent actors show up (maybe its far-left. Or maybe its right-wing false flaggers). I dunno, but the violence ALWAYS shows up. BLM had groups trying to take over parts of town. I know Trump agitated the protesters with unwarranted acts of force (see the Laffeyette clearout).
But it doesn’t matter “how” the violence begins. The point is some level of damage starts to occur. Its inevitable and we need to not only accept it, but plan for it.
Now what? The violence gets amplified by right-wing media and then… the movement is defeated. I shit you not. Its the death of every leftist movement for the past 15 years. The movements become a symbol of violence in the mainstream’s eyes and loses all power.
We’re entering the same period right now with 50501 and TeslaTakedown. The violence has begun: lots of Tesla vehicles have been smashed and arsons have started to spread.
What we need is a spokesman, who can navigate and sell the situation to the public. Martin Luther King Jr. was the spokesman of the Civil Rights era, and his “branding” was the most important element of all. If you want a violent movement, that’s fine. But create a spokesman. Malcom X, to counter-act and differentiate between philosophies.
Without spokesmen (like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X), we conflate the violence and the messages. And ultimately, that destroys our movements.
Please, for the love of whatever diety you worship. Get a fucking spokesman. Now. Sooner is better. Maybe its too late for TeslaTakedown and 50501, but we need movements that truly are rallied behind a singular face who can serve as the ideological leader to the general public.
I feel like everyone else has covered the twin angles of what happened to MKL and Malcolm X, and the whole worry about having a defined leader. So let me talk about another few angles of this.
Let’s face it. The Left is not unified. There are a metric fuckton worth of little factions that have their own goals and their own ideas, and they can’t agree on anything except the Right is bad. If you’re wanting to go back to the Obama or Clinton years, and not recreate a socialist ideal in the USA, you’re panned as a liberal and not sufficiently radicalised by the socialists. If you would rather have a functioning government with government-subsidised healthcare and education, the liberals scream at you for being too radical, while the anarchists scream at you that any organised government is evil and shit. And everyone has their very specific, very defined vision, at least about this one thing they care about, and zero willingness to compromise or trade horses to any of the other factions with their limited view.
This makes leadership at best complicated, if not outright impossible. How can we find someone who will equally represent all factions in our coalition, when the only thing we really agree on is Trump Bad ™?
And how can leadership stop the failure path you have identified above? People think that we’re not being listened to (they’re right, also!). They think the only answer they have is to break shit until people listen to us. We’ve got plenty of people, from the main movers and shakers down to the rank and file, saying ‘hey, we break shit, that just makes Trump and his goons hit us harder, and now with apparent justification.’ Those people scream back at us that peaceful protests and electoralism don’t work, and that the only way we’ll be taken seriously is by breaking shit and making people feel the pain. Do you think a defined leader will make that failure chain go away? I don’t. I think that Trump is banking on that failure chain because the real goal is an American gestapo that goes around beating the shit out of people who don’t toe the line and what better way to form that gestapo than in response to Leftist ‘violence’. And I am not above this. I think that it’s far more effective to just tell people that driving a Tesla means supporting a fascist oligarch, but any time I try to make this point to the kinds of people who want to burn Teslas, we get back into the arguments I allude to in my first paragraph. AND this is before we get into agent provocateurs and COINTELPRO and other stuff.
Finally, any real societal change that is going to stick from the egalitarian side of the fence will come from a grass-roots movement. We don’t want a charismatic leader who can stand up in front of the crowd and shake their fist. We want crowds of people who show up for the silly notion that human beings need respect and that this is not America. Leave the authoritarian charismatic leader for the Right. Egalitarianism is about society, not any one charismatic jerk with a bone to pick.
JMNSHO.
You underestimate the ease at which the right can disrupt leaderless leftist mobs.
We are beginning to see the deployment and coordination of far right individuals to attend things like Tesla Takedown. And unlike you, these far right assholes have a leader and a plan, and know each other.
How will you differentiate between false flag ops done during these protests vs official acts of resistance?
I wish the best for the protesters. But it’s all very dumb. Maybe we manage to defeat Trump in the long term but some very obvious acts of disruption are going to fuck over these protesters.
It’s obvious you didn’t read what I wrote.
And you fail to address my point.
These loose collections of movements are too easily disparaged and negated on the political stage. I wish you the best, but I know what’s going to happen
The violence will escalate and there will be no spokesman to strategize a message.
You haven’t said anything that addresses my core point. You just hope, without reason, that your methods will lead to meaningful change.
I don’t fail to address your point. I am saying your point is wrong and fails to account for how ‘the Left’ is put together and what kind of people comprise ‘the Left’. Your idea works perfectly for the Right because the Right is Authoritarian and driven by control structures. ‘The Left’ is a loose association of people with cross purposes and varying agendas. Your idea is a round peg for a very square hole. And I’m not the only one telling you this. Have a nice day. :)
Similar feelings, although for different reasons.
One of the struggles left-wing movements have been having lately is that they struggle to coordinate between different sub-groups, many of whom are often in general agreement but slightly misaligned. When you look back at a lot of historical left-wing movements, there was strong coordination between people who didn’t necessarily see eye-to-eye on everything, but agreed that there are some very important things which they ought to be addressing now.
Modern left-wing movements seem to really struggle with that. Not only do we not have the unifying drive of a single leader, but this ends up leaving the various sub-groups to promote their own leaders - who, because they are originating from representing that narrower sub-interest, also tend towards more exaggerated positions which put them out of alignment with the other movements. This effectively self-sabotages any effort to get a broader consensus going.
I am honestly rather jealous of right wing movements’ ability to get groups which aren’t totally aligned - sometimes even at odds on issues - to nonetheless coalesce around a broader vision.
The French solved this problem by creating a separate Congress to represent the people.
Ignore the like 40 years of violence and infighting. But I do believe that we need something more akin to this. If the Democratic party is dead then we build our own.
Democrats are invited of course, lol. And hell, might as well invite Republicans too. But in any and all cases, it needs a leader that can speak for everyone and is responsible for the actions of everyone.
The left is obsessed with radicalism and only accepting the most extreme version of demands. It’s a consequence of intersectionality and identity politics. Trying to moderate views from outside a subgroup is seen as oppression and discrimination. Building coalitions and compromise is not the focus and often outright refused.
You are all getting it all wrong. It’s not that the right wing has more charismatic leaders, or even better leaders. It’s that the right wing allows their politicians to lie with impunity. Their voters will turn a blind eye to the most egregious of falsehoods, as long as those voters are told what they want to hear.
Their opposition doesn’t have that luxury. Their charismatic leaders must also speak truth. MLK was not only charismatic but he was able to relate the truth about the situation of the time that resonated with people of all races.
Those charismatic people who can also stay true to reality are few and far between. It is very possible that in today’s political environment which is flush with cash, super-PACs, and self-dealing, all those people are simply not in politics. Leaving only the liars, and those are tolerated better on the Right.
It’s not that the right wing has more charismatic leaders, or even better leaders
Who was the leader of BLM? Who is the leader of TeslaTakedown?
You’ve already failed to understand the point. The left doesn’t even have a leader to begin with.
Those charismatic people who can also stay true to reality are few and far between.
I’m not even looking for a charismatic person. I’m just looking for “a person”.
You are all getting it all wrong. It’s not that the right wing has more charismatic leaders, or even better leaders. It’s that the right wing allows their politicians to lie with impunity.
The left (at least, what passes for “the left” in America) has leaders. Look at the crowd Bernie and AOC are packing into cities right now. The left actively suppresses anyone who is anti-corporate. When it comes to leading and winning elections or raking in five billion in donations, they’d rather have the five billion, which they can legally pocket by loaning cash to their campaigns and paying themselves back at 20% interest.
The Democrats had to subvert their own primary rules in order to stop Bernie Sanders, or we’d have just finished his second term as president and people would be begging for the Constitution to be amended so he could have a third.
Pop quiz: what happened to MLK jr and Malcolm X? And Fred Hampton and other leftist leaders, for that matter?
Answer that and you’ll understand not only why it’s hard to find and keep such leaders, but why movements like OWS deliberately tried to eschew them entirely.
Tap for spoiler
AoC and Bernie seem to be doing fine, last time I checked.
But they will not step up to ‘own’ 50501 or Tesla Takedown. That means y’all need to find another spokesperson if there’s any hope of actually existing longer than a year.
That just goes to show how moderate AoC and Bernie are, TBH.
The problem is that the right has a vested interest in demonizing any spokesman, and enough people live in an alternate reality that they’ll go along with it regardless of facts.
Then you’ll lose. Time-and-time again.
Without a spokesman, the right will demonise the group as a whole and you have no defense against it. It becomes too easy to false-flag some violence and blame it on the movement.
Remember: a record number of Republicans were voted into the House of Representatives following Occupy Wall Street. It was an epic failure in terms of political movements.
They’ll also do that with a spokesman. They did it to MLK too, and now the media ecosystem is even more siloed and more able to create alternate realities
More siloed than literally the separate but equal era??
I don’t think so. MLK Jr. Had to do that shit with zero Black media supporting him. Because black media didn’t exist.
Separate but equal wasn’t about the media
What we need is a spokesman, who can navigate and sell the situation to the public.
you’re close, but the problem isn’t finding a spokesman, it’s finding a platform that can reach the people they need to reach. idk if you’ve noticed but the general public is not hanging out on lemmy, and the vast vast majority of the public’s attention is owned by corporations and therefore by the billionaire class.
You’ve got this entire process backwards my man.
Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t need a platform. Nor Malcom X. If the goal is to amplify just one voice, its going to be far easier than trying to amplify a crowd of screams.
We’d be able to pass out pamphlets of the spokesman, host radio talks and/or large scale rallies with the spokesman in major cities. Then aim to get onto the major channels with the Spokesman. Sure, Joe Rogan, or Medias Network, or whatever. Media will fuck us over but at least we’d be playing the game.
Without the spokesman, you can’t even “show up” to the fucking political game.
do you genuinely believe that the political landscape is even close to how it was during the civil rights era? the world has changed a little bit in half a century and the papers that reported on MLK and X are owned by the same folks who called for their murders.
Then aim to get onto the major channels with the Spokesman.
??? why would generational wealth give air time to the person calling for its redistribution? rogan came up through independent channels and they bought him (or rather, his audience). what’s stopping your “great spokesman” from being paid for just like joe?
you’ve proven my point here: plenty of these people exist, you just haven’t heard of them! outreach is expensive and any time a signal starts to get picked up, the noise machine works overtime to drown it out.
I’ve been bitching about this for a few months now. I think that someone will step up to the plate at some point but as of right now I don’t know who that is…
As for the other movements - I don’t think it’s just the right-leaning media that paints these left leaning protests in a bad light, the more “middle of the road” media does the same. I think that most of the agitators are plants by law enforcement, with the purpose of giving them a valid argument to use overwhelming force to shut the protest down.
The media eats up this violent protestors narrative for the ratings and for their ability to convince people to not engage or become a part of what is going on.
If there isn’t enough violence to report on the on the street journalists will interview the dumbest person they can find to show the viewers that it’s just a bunch of idiots out here that don’t really know how the “real world” works.
If neither one of those tactics work then the politicians will get involved and try to take over the movement so they can get more exposure and then start to water down the message of the protestors.
If that doesn’t work then the politicians will “negotiate” with the leaders but do it in a way that puts the protestors in a bad light. Like doing a full media blitz where the dirty looking, young protest leaders are walked into a large well appointed room with a bunch of well groomed politicians and using this lopsided power dynamic of the media and the environment start to pick apart the arguments of the protestors making them look weak and ineffective.
I’m sure there are many other tactics that are used to keep the plebeians at bay.
I write all of this to say that if there isn’t a well spoken, intelligent, charismatic, strong leader to this movement, it will get shut down.
The left doesn’t like authoritarianism which is why single spokesmen are relatively rare - additionally the Trump administration (see Khalil) (and the feds of the past see MLK, Malcom X) has a habit of beheading organizations.
Being headless means it’s more difficult to launch ad hominem attacks based on oppo research and also means the organization is more resilient to being driven off course.
Being headless means it’s more difficult to launch ad hominem attacks based on oppo research
Laughs in BLM.
You’re shitting me. Or are you serious? I’m having difficulty trying to figure out what’s funnier.
BLM is seen by the mainstream as an angry mob who takes over cities and causes riots. Oppo-research? They don’t even bother. Without a leader, movements like BLM cannot hold onto a brand at all.
Its impossible to ‘prove’ to the public that BLM is a peaceful group if they don’t even have a leader.
And give it… I dunno… 6 months? 12 months? And 50501 and Tesla Takedown will be similarly wiped out in the public eye. Your opponents know how to fuck a leaderless group. Just say shit in public, and there’s no one there who can possibly opposed Donald Trump’s bullshit because there’s no leader to BLM to say what the group stands for on TV.
Do you think the conservative media would give an actual leader any airtime? There are protests and marches going on - I’d forgive you not knowing about them since nobody (including “left leaning media”) covers them. You’ll only see coverage in non-domestic outlets.
No.
But the #1 podcast is now the anti-Trump MeidasTouch network. They’ll run your leaders.
There are protests and marches going on - I’d forgive you not knowing about them since nobody (including “left leaning media”) covers them. You’ll only see coverage in non-domestic outlets.
I’m talking about 50501, Tesla Takedown and Latino Freeze.
I’ll forgive you for not knowing about these protests because they don’t have spokespersons. Also, it’s probably irrelevant to learn about these leaderless groups because they’re inevitably doomed to fail without a leader.
