Horseshoe Theory - Tumblr Posts

everyone who says “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds” turns out to be an antisemite unaware of their fascist tendencies. many such cases when you want to draw blood above all else

Reminder that "punch a nazi uwu" leftists utilize Nazi rhetoric to justify punching Jews.

It was never about punching Nazis; it was about getting social permission to punch.

i will say this over and over and over again, calling Israel an "ethnostate" LITERALLY comes from the KKK and neo-nazi propaganda. every single one of you "as a Jew"s, it's fine if your anti or non Zionist but PLEASE LEARN WHAT WORDS MEAN and stop spreading antisemitic dog whistles about your own people!!!

100%

I think people really need to understand that internalized antisemitism exists.

I stand for all jews being valid and real jews, regardless of their opinion on Zionism.

However that doesn't mean that misinformation and internalized antisemitism just isn't going to be called out.

'Reminder that "punch a nazi uwu" leftists utilize Nazi rhetoric to justify punching Jews.

It was never about punching Nazis; it was about getting social permission to punch.'

It was this very mentality that drove me away from considering myself a liberal anymore (I AM VERY MUCH LEFT LEANING, I DIDN'T DECIDE TO BECOME CONSERVATIVE JUST TO BE CLEAR. I just don't feel like those spaces have any intrinsic safety any longer). It feels like so much of western leftism has become about "punching up". I don't think it's about compassion or concern anymore, it's about finding the "right" targets. And so often that was just used as a way to excuse bigotry. I'm a goy but I noticed this on a personal level plenty with people identifying as feminists, they'd be perfectly okay saying something unquestionably sexist, as long as "white women" was attached onto the front. It's very much the same with shaming people over physical features that others may have, as long as the individual person is "bad enough" it doesn't matter if wide foreheads or big noses or acne are features many people have and would feel hurt by seeing them used as an insult, because they're only "really" directing it at "one of the bad ones"

So, I'm going to link to this piece again because it's been embarrassingly useful, and explains why I say things like "pretending to believe" despite their clunkiness. For new material, I hope you don't mind that you have accidentally triggered a massive unskippable cutscene, but you tapped into a few things I have been pondering and I'd like to take advantage of your observances to add my own.

Part of what you're discussing here, which I agree with, is that toxic slacktivists pretend to believe that they are Good People Doing Good Work. They are Bad People and their work is Bad Work, but if they all get in a group and pretend together that it's Good, then that's almost the same as being Good, right?

Another worthwhile aspect of what you're discussing is something I became aware of in the aftermath of the collapse of Occupy Wall Street. One commenter on a liberal blog I still follow lamented that mass protest never seems to accomplish anything, and how the millions of people who turned out for OWS protests should have affected more political change. Considering most of them could also vote, write to representatives, etc., something other than littering and arrests could've been done.

Another commenter pointed out that he had personally been at most of the anti-Iraq War protests, including the largest worldwide protest on 15 February 2003 (6-10 million estimated participants). But most of those protesters did not agree with each other. There were at least four major coalitions of antiwar protesters showing up then and thereafter. The ones he listed were:

"Just war" advocates who believed the Iraq War was unjust.

Total pacifists who believed all armed conflicts are unjust, and therefore the Iraq War is as well.

Right-wing bigots who believed a war might potentially benefit those they thought of as religiously or ethnically inferior and subhuman.

Xenophobes, both left- and right-wing, who believed "the US can't be the police of the world" and that any action taken outside USian borders was immoral.

Imagine four people with these beliefs in a room talking about the Iraq War... then bring up the war in Ukraine to them and see how fast the coalition falls apart.

"Well, the war for Ukrainian liberation is a just war," says the just-war advocate. The pacifist starts to scream "HOW COULD YOU DEFEND ANY ACTION THAT MIGHT LEAD TO CHILDREN DYING, YOU MONSTER!". The right-wing bigot says they support the war, too--on the side of the ethnically and religiously superior Russians. And then a left-wing xenophobe says we're wasting money that should be supporting American workers and uplifting Americans out of poverty instead of buying new bombs for Ukraine.

And your "antiwar" coalition collapses, with the pacifist wandering off to agree with the xenophobe while the just-war liberal and the right-wing bigot scream at each other pointlessly and without resolution.

This is one of the wisest breakdowns of human behavior I have ever discovered:

Any coalition of people is made up of many sub-coalitions who only temporarily agree on a single aspect of a single issue. Making sure the group does not collapse prematurely is the true, unsung labor of movement maintenance.

To be real, it's much easier to let one's coalition collapse and scream about how The Menz, or The CIA, or Greedy Capitalists, or The Jews artificially forced your group's collapse than it is to admit that one might just suck a big one at coalition building. This is especially true among leftists, who are sometimes anti-hierarchy and frequently fall for populist, anti-expert nonsense. Having a leader means you're suggesting someone should have authority, and a lot of leftists are allergic to that suggestion.

Moreover, though, a lot of "leftists" are "leftists" but only agree with one or two aspects of leftism.

To use your feminism example: I have absolutely seen feminists who think they can be misogynists so long as they say "white" before they say "woman". I mean, who can even argue? I have also seen feminists who think they can be gender bioessentialists so long as they're doing it towards "men" (a category which includes a lot of people who neither look like men, nor live as men, nor benefit from male privilege). I have seen feminists who think they can call themselves "trans allies" while consistently ignoring, degrading, and dismissing the concerns of anyone who isn't a binary trans woman. Etc.

The thing is, they are all feminists. What makes someone a feminist, at bottom, is the acceptance of and opposition to patriarchy. That's it. It's similar to how what makes a person a Protestant Christian is the acceptance of Jesus as their Lord and Savior--you might need to do one or two things to be considered a part of a specific branch of Christianity, but all you need is that one specific belief about that one specific idea. There's a lot of bunk about how "you can't be a REAL Christian unless you do X" just like there's bunk about how "you can't be a REAL feminist unless you do Y", and it's all bunk.

There are people who might be really bad feminists or Christians, but that's not the same as not being feminists or Christians.

So, the coalition of leftism has several sub-coalitions who actually despise each other. Here is my proposal for the sub-coalitions. (Please keep in mind that I am not defining groups by how they define themselves, but by the far more useful metric of their actions.)

Liberals who agree with leftist economic thought, but strongly disagree with leftist conclusions regarding violent revolution. Liberals do not have time for online arguments and superficial action. They are generally participating in protests, running for office, writing postcards to advocate for candidates, informing voters, and working within the system for positive change that alleviates suffering. They are pro-expert but opposed to a vanguard party due to its inherent authoritarianism.

Tankies, whose primary interest in leftism is authoritarian. They oppose capitalism and support violent revolution because they imagine themselves as the vanguard party who gets to control everything when the revolution comes.

Anarchists, whose primary interest is opposing hierarchy. They want to burn down the system because it is a system, and frequently become angry and defensive if you try to ask them any questions about what would be built out of the ashes.

Progressives, whose primary interest is opposing liberals. They also oppose capitalism; they are, like tankies, positioning themselves as the vanguard party because they are already in political power. What makes them Not Tankies is that they care more about sticking it to "the Dems" than they do about actually being the vanguard, opposing capitalism, or achieving anything of worth or meaning politically.

"Red fash", who used to be called "beefsteak Nazis". They say all the right things regarding violent revolution and economics/capitalism, but they only believe what they believe for the sake of their specific ethnic group and nation (frequently, white and USian, but this is extremely popular in Europe too). IOW a red fash wants the vanguard party to only have whites of a specific ethnicity in control of the revolution; they only want universal health care for "their" people, that sort of thing. Some red fash are actual Nazis cosplaying as leftists, but some are just really, really, REALLY bigoted leftists.

Whether we like it or note, the acceptance of armed, violent revolution as a Good Thing means that leftism has always regarded punching up and violence as a necessary component of leftist thought. This is not a perversion of Real Leftism. This is leftism. If you think revolution is good and necessary instead of a terrifying possibility, then you also think punching up is okay; it's just a matter of who is Up and who gets to punch.

Of the five sub-coalitions I described, only one has rejected violent revolution--and it's the one all the other leftists accuse of being right-wing. And interestingly enough, only liberals are habitually accused of secretly colluding with the right... when red fash are natural allies to the right, and when all other forms of leftists openly ally with right-wingers so long as they say the right things about economics. (See under: "After Hitler, us" leftists, left-wing Trumpistas who think they'll rule the ashes after Trump burns down the current system.)

And if you believe in violent revolution, then (let me be facetious for a second) what's the problem with making fun of your political enemies for being ugly? If we believe Steve Bannon is a Nazi, aren't we obligated to stop him by any means necessary, and doesn't that include mocking him for his alcoholism? Isn't mocking someone for their appearance and intrinsic characteristics mild compared to, say, threatening them with exploding cars covered with hammers? Or retweeting pictures of pitchforks and guillotines?

If we believe Ben Shapiro is an opponent to the revolution we accept is necessary and vital to the movement, then what's a little antisemitism in the name of the people? Don't we have to be bigots to oppose bigots? And--

--oh. There's that horseshoe bending round to the right again.

Every person is inherently bad because they [are tainted by Original Sin / have privilege and benefit from colonization]. Some people are good, however, because [they became Christian / are oppressed minorities], and these people cannot do any wrong. The problem is the remaining people, who are [minorities and Jews / oppressors and capitalists and Jews], who cause all the problems in the world. But the [Democrats and Zionists / Democrats and Zionists and Republicans] have a vested interest keeping them in power. We should ally with [Russia / Russia and Hamas and Hezbollah and Houthis] to take down the true enemy, [immigrants and Arabs and Jews / America and Jews]. Once we kill all the bad people, the [Rapture / Glorious Revolution] will come, and everything will be better.

I want to take a whack at "Your ethnicity doesn't colorize your race", actually.

Colorism is a poisonous part of white supremacy. The whole point of colorism is that you can't hide from it: people look at you, make a determination of your social rank, and go on to treat you better/worse because of it. That is terrifying. It impacts most of the world at this point, and white European colonizers (from whom white Americans descend) were responsible for its memetic spread. It is something we'll all have to continue to unlearn, for healing and for justice.

Nothing I am about to write contradicts what I've just written.

Colorism is not the only determining factor of race, and possessing a paler skin tone does not determine if someone is white.

When I was a kiddo, there was a category of people we called WASPs--White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. It seemed a strange division, separating these white people from all the other white people. But it began to make sense once I realized that, originally, in the US, not long before I was born, they were the only people actually considered to be white.

The "Anglo-Saxon" part? That excludes everyone not of English descent. The "Protestant" part? That excludes all non-Protestants, including most new USian religious movements which appear to be Protestant (LDS, Seventh-Day Adventist, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.).

If that sounds to you like only a small category is left over of True Whites, congratulations, you have found The Point Of Whiteness.

Italians and the Irish were famously considered to be not white in the US, because a) they weren't English and b) they were Catholic. Leaving the non-English aspect aside, a lot of Scandinavian peoples were treated as not white, because Scandinavian nations converted to Christianity later than any other part of Europe. The Spanish were not white because they were Catholic, and because, for several hundred years, they were colonized by Arabic Muslims. And Jews, regardless of where they were from, were never white because they were Jews.

"But Fire," my imaginary audience says, "they weren't treated like Black people!"

True. Because "not white" wasn't the same as being Black.

One of the impacts of colorism relates to the concept of white-passing. (White-passing people, by the way, are not white, just like cis-passing trans people don't magically become cis--a fact which we really should acknowledge more when discussing "passing privileges".) White-passing grants you some nominal privileges in a white supremacist society, at the cost of surrendering the things that made you not white.

You're pale enough. Want to be white? All you have to do is give up everything. Stop speaking that non-English language your grandparents taught you in their home. Practice hard to flatten your accent, or else everyone will know you're not white when you speak. Better hide any religious icons, Protestants don't like those! In fact, throw them away. You're Methodist now. You don't need those anymore. Change your name if your family wasn't forced to already. Burn your prayer books. Stop talking about the Old Country. Give it up.

Give it all up. We have something better for you: privileges which we will revoke if you ever step out of line, if you ever complain on behalf of people you should have left behind by now, or if you're less than pluperfect at faking being Anglo-Saxon and Protestant.

Obviously, this experience is not the same as being Black. But "not the same" and "good" are two separate concepts for a reason.

The joke here, which isn't funny, is that if your entire perception of race, racism, and racist politics internationally and in the US begins and ends with skin tone cards, and you fancy yourself an anti-racist, you most often simply reverse who you despise. You think of "white" people as being a safe, acceptable category of human to shit on. And you flatten the category of "white" to include all white-passing people, and then, here's the kicker, you spend all your time online only harassing and sui-baiting people who are not white and do not reliably benefit from white privilege!

Do you see these anons trolling folks who are actual, open, out-and-proud white supremacists? Those people exist! They are on Tumblr! They can be trolled! But no, those people are largely left alone by anons like this. Almost as though actual Nazis and skinheads and white supremacists have some sort of privilege that sets them apart and makes them too special for such harassment.

Instead, we see them and cowardly anons like them, time and time again, going after folks who they assume are white-passing IRL because they disagree with those folks politically. Mocking ethnic foods as being weird and gross and disgusting, making fun of body types and presumed nose size and hair quality, mocking religious languages as being gibberish (or, in a fit of paranoia, framing it as a secret untranslatable code), all of this and more, these are not things these racists do towards people who they perceive as actually white. They are literally attacking and mocking and denigrating non-white people for not being white, all while acting as though they're battling white supremacy.

It is the definition of chutzpah, and it convinces me that this anon must be a WASP, because nobody else would have the fucking gall.

Ethnic whites when you tell them they're white:

girl what

How did a radical leftist and unapologetic fascist get over their differences and become friends? The story of their shared antisemitism will warm your heart…