If they are in the business of changing minds Progressives need to go beyond “in group approval” and work with those who they might not ordinarily consider allies on every issue
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The reaction of blaming all backlash on (e.g.) the media is not constructive because campaigners have limited control of it, and it avoids any need for self reflection - campaigners would do better to reflect more on how they could be more effective *given* the current media ecosystem
We release this report not to tell progressives to water down their views or because we take a stance on progressive causes. But we want the evidence to be useful to campaigners across the spectrum in building bigger tents, avoiding us vs them dynamics, and persuading others to join their cause.
I read your tweets and won't bother reading the report.
Mind blowing that such platitudes, that have been proven wrong again and again everywhere, can still be so confidently proclaimed 🤦🏻♀️
You have to know it and work for the far-right / the government. The alternative would be too sad.
Thing is this is your constant message. "If you're a decent human you should only speak to racists, homophobes, misogynists, fascists etc as you'll find you have more in common with them than those useless lefties you hang around with." Never see a single word criticising racists. Not one.
Dude, they literally think I'm a degenerate tranny faggot who deserves to die and burn in hell for merely existing, how the absolute FUCK do I coexist with someone like that?!
Get louder, stand up taller, demand more, take up more space, remind the American people that billionaires are manipulating every drop of their reality to turn them against their fellow human being. Don't cower and act like you are the problem, this is such absolute give up level bullshit.
A society that has socially accepted Nazism and Fascism is, a society that has walked away from values they used to actively embrace because a certain segment of humans is above nothing in their actions and deeds, lies and manipulation. Stop brow beating your own people. So sick of this bullshit.
Then you need a lot of work around your own language and to actually make sure you are expressing that, as most of your language is actually centered in being apologists and embracing the wrong side of the tolerance paradox when the stakes are the highest. Progressive narratives aren't the problem.
This all puts the onus on progressives accommodating centrists and the far right. Working with Nazis towards a common goal of making the trains run on time; no thanks. There has to be more than SOME common ground. Where's the call on non-progressives to accommodate empathy/rationality/inclusivity?
The reason for this may be that centrists are — sometimes at least, and perhaps more often the vocal ones — members of the left who attempting to support the left by speaking directly to us rather than by wasting time with more close-minded folks on the right. From experience anyway
Centrist nonsense wrapped up in 'work with your abusers' rhetoric.
Theres no common ground to be had with people who ideologically oppose my existence. I dont even want to be around such people, let alone find common cause - because, and you may find this shocking....
what you are telling progressives to do is lie and deceive the way right-wingers do
people who talk about structural bigotry and the very real facts of history and how they impact the present are being honest, maybe brutally so, but they are telling the truth about the world we live in
meanwhile right-wingers make things up out of whole cloth, obscure their agenda behind dogwhistles and fake research, whip people up into a bigoted frenzy, and tell comforting lies to centrists to peel them off
human rights are not a debate topic, and tolerating that notion is how we got here
also, just speaking from personal experience, trying to find what i have in common with people i "politically disagree with" almost always means having to listen to them spout vile bigotry, which i am either expected to tolerate, or i gently try to nudge them away from it
Except that's exactly what you're doing. You literally said that we shouldn't shun people who don't want trans people to exist. That's telling us to not so much water down our views, but to eliminate them.
I honestly can't decide if you people are idiots, or just think we're all very gullible.
If it's the former, one of the particular problems you're hitting here is not getting that our approach, like the above, is *a fundamental part of our views*.
Telling us we should overlook people wanting to eliminate trans people, is like telling Christians they should drop "that whole God thing".
While I think you're also strategically wrong as I already went over below, it's also beside the point. Our views are defined by not just the ends we seek, but also *the means we use to seek them*.
You somehow did a whole report on progressives, but failed to understand one of the most core aspects of our beliefs as anything other than a bug we've overlooked.
Or, you understand it just fine, but just want to advocate for us to abandon our beliefs and become like you, principal-free.
But you make your points with a whole series of strawmen and cherrypicked/slanted stats. I don't think you want progressives to become centrists, I think you want to marginalise them and decrease their impact. And I apologise to no-one for stating the view that your take on transphobia is disgusting
It just sounds like you want people to accept right wing positions which are fundamentally opposed to their values and believe that will somehow move progressive values forward, rather than move the overton window to the right.
In other words, you want liberals to be a little more "cool" with genocide. Got it. Let the bigots in, if the bigots decide someone else isn't human, obey the bigots, because we've got to have that "bigger tent."
Not acknowledging of how even the supposedly liberal media like the Grauniad is out of step with and more rightwing than its readers on myriads of issues (trans rights!) makes your analysis worthless.
The thing is, you’re framing it as if the role of the media is irrelevant.
The decline in support for trans rights can have little to do with progressive activism because most people don’t experience progressive activism on a day to day basis.
For example, how many people will read the Daily Mail and this astonishing attack on a trans woman whose harasser *has admitted harassment in court*, and how many are on Xitter or here or threads encountering “progressive activism”?
I don't think Ed cares for more than his data & his comfy world view he can build with it. We've been warning the world for over a decade now that these people do not want us to exist & are not hiding that fact. We're losing our rights, jobs, assaults, murders & suicides are at an all time high.
There’s this middle-class protective effect that transphobia benefits from. There are UK lawyers who I honestly think aren’t anti-trans who were shocked by fellow UK lawyer Naomi Cunningham being labelled “intolerant”.
She’s currently the utterly foul lawyer for that bigoted nurse in Fife.
Theres no working with nazis. Tolerance for intolerance is a paradox. You wouldn’t suggest to let the nazis just kill just a few Jews to see their side of things right? If you have 10 people breaking bread with a Nazi, you have 11 Nazis. You either support the people who want me dead, or you don’t.
Helping to deradicalize extremists and change the minds of reactionaries is a great thing. Affirming their views by inviting them into the fold is not.
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Mind blowing that such platitudes, that have been proven wrong again and again everywhere, can still be so confidently proclaimed 🤦🏻♀️
You have to know it and work for the far-right / the government. The alternative would be too sad.
It is stoking division and encouraging right wing efforts to silence criticism and dissent.
I just want to smoke weed and play videogames. :(
Weird that centrists see that only one side has to abandon principles and it isn't the side that wants anyone different dead
Thanks for this
Theres no common ground to be had with people who ideologically oppose my existence. I dont even want to be around such people, let alone find common cause - because, and you may find this shocking....
Theyre abusive.
people who talk about structural bigotry and the very real facts of history and how they impact the present are being honest, maybe brutally so, but they are telling the truth about the world we live in
human rights are not a debate topic, and tolerating that notion is how we got here
it doesn't work
I honestly can't decide if you people are idiots, or just think we're all very gullible.
Telling us we should overlook people wanting to eliminate trans people, is like telling Christians they should drop "that whole God thing".
You somehow did a whole report on progressives, but failed to understand one of the most core aspects of our beliefs as anything other than a bug we've overlooked.
Or, you understand it just fine, but just want to advocate for us to abandon our beliefs and become like you, principal-free.
It's been tried, it doesn't work.
why won’t you ppl ever answer that question?
Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?
'we cant do anything about the media so wewill just pretend it doesnt exist'
The decline in support for trans rights can have little to do with progressive activism because most people don’t experience progressive activism on a day to day basis.
On the other hand, they do experience the media.
https://bsky.app/profile/hleehurley.substack.com/post/3li4wg4tgzo2h
Because that’s what major figures in the anti-trans movement say about trans people. Without any media pushback.
Did you not know?
https://bsky.app/profile/edhodgsoned.bsky.social/post/3lioiuc5b732r
She’s currently the utterly foul lawyer for that bigoted nurse in Fife.