I feel like a lot of conversations about groups/factions on the internet are bogged down because everyone has a different idea of who's in what. I think of myself as a leftist but I think the DSA are a negative and unserious influence, for example.
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When Republicans talk about The Left, I assume they mean me, but when Stancil talks about The Left, I assume he means other people. But I don't actually know!
Anyway Stancil does a lot of angryposting because he's angry, but also because that's what generates traffic, and unfortunately it's true that it means he rarely posts anything positive about anyone. I don't know if he's got good experiences with leftists.
But my sense is that it's similar to his disagreements with mainline Dems: not exactly about policy (no idea how much he agrees or disagrees); the angryposts are about atavistic strategy and self-destructive tactical choices.
A lot of those choices are made for sadly personal, emotional reasons; for mainline Dems its basically personal cowardice. For the kind of 'leftist' whose main contribution to our politics is throwing molotovs at the police, that comes from deep-seated personal anger and a desire to cause harm.
Someone who deep down really wants to set something on fire will design a political ideology that gives them a permission structure to do that. It's part of my horseshoe theory: the people at the extremes are violent jerks who don't care if their ideology makes sense, they just want to hurt people.
I have too much to say about all of this that my brain is too overworked for at the moment. I agree and disagree and unironically appreciate the cordial back and forth.
One thing Stancil keeps talking about is how a lot of leftists don't seem to care if their facts are right or wrong as long as they justify burning down the system (while never doing anything productive) and I think that's an expression of this.
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