How do you do it?
I stopped participating in a group chat with some long-time friends about a year ago, mostly due in part to the exhausting conversations over politics. Ironically, after Trump was shot, the group decided to silo the conversations into two groups, one for non-politics, and one for politics, and pinged me. We’re that kind of group where we go long periods of time not seeing each other in person due to life and kids, but it was nice to have them reach out.
But oh, that politics channel has not changed. Meanwhile, my worldview has shifted dramatically to the left of theirs (and beyond, really). The spectrum is:
- Center Leaning Republican (a Rogan, Pool, Peterson enjoyer),
- A Center leaning Dem
- A Vote Blue Democrat (they are also the only queer person in our group)
- A 3rd Party guy (basically a libertarian but refuses to adopt a label, and doesn’t vote, but also a Peterson enjoyer, rabid anticommunist, they always know a guy, or have a family member, you know what I mean).
- All white, all male
Something interesting happened when I returned, though. The topic that started this isn’t relevant, but it prompted the Center Dem friend to ask me where I get my views from. I sat on that question for an evening and then just wrote out a summary of the Marxist-Leninists view on capitalism and imperialism, without ever using “capitalism” or “imperialism”, without referencing Marx or Lenin.
It was long, but, his response was, basically, “Ok, that makes a lot of sense, actually.” I then told him that Marx and Lenin would be happy to know you agree because that’s their analysis in my own words, as I understand it.
Usually after bringing up someone like Marx, I’ll get dunked on with a barrage of anticommunist brainrot, but that didn’t happen this time.
So it got me thinking about the title of this post. How do you talk to your lib friends about their distorted world view?
One thing I’m trying to figure out is, how do I talk about “libs” without using the word “lib”? In this setting, it is the pejorative “lib” in the classical American Political Conservative sense, and sometimes “Liberal” in the American Political Progressive sense. Using Neoliberal, I feel would fly over their heads.
I use terms like “average American voter”, “mainstream views” or something similar. Like you mention I have found pretty much anyone can agree with the concepts of anticapitalism and communist ideals, so long as you avoid any terms that have been completely distorted. Instead of bourgeoisie you can say the rich elite, billionaires, political class or whatever. I think there is a lot more agreement between sections of the proletariat than it would appear at first, they just have their knee-jerk responses to buzzwords.
True, definitely overthinking it on this one.
I use Neolib and it works great I think. If you google it the results talk about Reagan and Thatcher a lot which drives home that it isn’t what a usian republican means when they say “liberal”.
You know, I think you’re right. My friends might have faulty ideologies, but they’re not dumb. They should be able to parse what a neoliberal is after a quick google search.