Is it really an aftermath or just a lull in the storm?
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I don’t know. But if it turns out to be another surge. I’m down to help defeat that one too. And any after that.
We’ll just keep making them lose until they learn to live smarter and come over to the reasonable side where we all can win.
If they never learn, we’ll just keep defeating them instead. Like we’ve been defeating conservative outlooks in the long-term throughout our nation’s history.
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No surprise to me that Ms. McCain is the toxic element she complained about. As with all “conservatives”, every accusation is a confession.
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There are enough tankies and left wing TERs (sometimes but not always the same people) in the UK to make me question that part. Then there are groups like the National Bolsheviks in Russia, who believe in social welfare and control of the means of production for them, but not anyone else.
I saw how the alt-right rose, and I am not about to let the worst of the left-wing do the same and dictate what is correct to the rest of us on the left. The first part of that is to recognise that the threat is real, that it does exist. Not doing that in the past almost always ended badly for the anti-authoritarian left.
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I pledge allegiance to Myself, and to the Republic which stands for Me …
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There are enough tankies and left wing TERs (sometimes but not always the same people) in the UK to make me question that part. Then there are groups like the National Bolsheviks in Russia
For sure and agree, not all the authoritarians are on the right. But from looking at the demographics in the US, saying most are right-wing still seems very accurate. From looking at population numbers, right wing authoritarians massively outnumber leftwing authoritarians and have for decades. Altermeyer’s experience among studying authoritarian followers found a complementary association from the other direction - most surveyed authoritarian followers tended to have right-wing “conservative” political views and ideologies.
This is also borne out by the face that there was no left-wing authoritarian who was anywhere near as well supported as Nixon, or Reagan, or either Bush, or Trump. The most you might get are populists like Huey Long or arugably George Wallace, who still at their most popular still had much, much smaller loyal voting bases. And also were by no means dedicated to left wing policies.
I’m also not a UK expert by any means, but I can’t think of any reliably left-wing UK politician who is as solidly supported as Boris Johnson, who appears to be appreciated by the authoritarians of the right.
I saw how the alt-right rose, and I am not about to let the worst of the left-wing do the same and dictate what is correct to the rest of us on the left.
For sure, absolutely agree. I just think it’s useful to call the numbers what they are, to make sure we’re not slipping into false equivalence. From all the numbers I can see, right-wing authoritarian followers are currently much more numerous and much more dangerous, in the US and arguably most of the developed world.
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Right. 
But what are her popularity numbers as compared to Boris Johnson?
Also I’d suggest being anti-trans would locate her outside the left wing, at least on that issue. More towards the center, similar with J. K. Rowling. Although trans rights might have a different context in the U.K. than it does in the U.S., I can’t say. But it certainly does seem to fit more as a left-wing cause than the right or the center.
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Built in and intentional IMO. As happened to just about every other show featuring opinions. Fighting → ratings.
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Rosie Duffie is Labour, which is center-left, not leftist.
But isn’t this example really just showing an (alleged by their opposition) “left-wing” politician being embraced by the right for expressing more commonly held right-wing views? Which just feeds back into the original assertion that authoritarian adherents tend towards being right-wing?
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Unknown, no-one does polls on random MPs. However, a dog turd probably has better popularity numbers than Boris Johnson. It’s why some of us are in disbelief at how useless Labour is right now.
Would you both like to go to look at my comments on https://bbs.boingboing.net/t/today-in-transphobia/ about what is happening in the UK and within the Labour party right now, and can you please not gaslight me about real problems that are happening right now.
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“I can’t believe how toxic this environment is that I spilled 50-gallon barrels of toxic sludge on! You people are disgusting for letting me do that! How can you live with yourselves? Unbelievable!”
/s
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That seems similar to the US chagrin about Trump’s continued support. It’s a minority of voters who support him - but that minority is very hard to shake. They will march right over a cliff for him.
So, again the UK is not a political context I’m familiar with - but I wonder if Labour might be dealing with the difficulty of being reasonable and having different opinions. An united majority can still face great difficulty dealing with an unreasonable but unified minority.
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can you please not gaslight me about real problems that are happening right now.
I’m always happy to learn, so I’m happy to read information as it’s presented to me.
I’ll also note I’ve been clear the whole time that I’m not familiar with UK politics except from a distance.
So I would consider it polite on your part to not accuse me of things I’m not intending. I also don’t have an expectation of reading every other thing someone I’m chatting with might have written before chatting with them. I’d be surprised if you do either.
Just wanted to note that. Happy to move past it now.
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I’m sorry, who is that comment aimed at?
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@the_borderer , having looked at those other comments you mention, I’m not seeing anywhere you’re stating that being anti-trans in the UK is also being authoritarian left. From your comments I’m seeing it being associated with right-wing beliefs and systems such as fascism.
So going back to our discussion thread here, it seems like the person you’re suggesting as a counterpart to Boris Johnson isn’t authoritarian left. For me, until some polling shows otherwise it seems reasonable to assume Rosie Duffie is even less popular than Boris Johnson. So either way, that would seem to back up that right-wing authoritarians are currently much less numerous than left-wing authoritarians.
I don’t need to follow this all the way into some deep nitpicking. : ) That all just seems reasonable to me.
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Meghan McCain
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Okay. Thanks for clarifying.
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