North Alabama DSA Co-Chair here, not a rich kid. Dad's a machinist, mom just has a HS diploma, and I had to work 2 jobs to make it through college even with a "full ride" from grades and my ACT score - got a Chemical Engineering degree ultimately and with a GPA that I am not proud of - 3.23 because of those jobs. That's been the bulk of my experience with most of my comrades here too, similar stories all. The news stories are definitely bad faith, but they are also total fucking horseshit.
Also: Owning a $1.5m house in Brooklyn doesn't make you rich. Pretty much every building in Brooklyn costs at least that much. And you could have bought nearly any brownstone in Bed-Stuy 30 years ago for less than $100k.
At the bottom of the accusation is the belief that ordinary people don't deserve to own things.
I think the disdain for the "rich leftist" also stems from the idea that such leftists are out of touch with what the poor actually want and therefore can't authentically advocate on their behalf (because, you see, the poor yearn to be exploited, and if you were poor you'd understand that), especially with their wackadoo social beliefs like trans rights and women being able to have jobs; and from the idea that, well, if you think being rich is bad, why are you still rich? The latter ties into the deeply ingrained idea of poverty and wealth being moral choices, rather than material conditions--it's the flip side of the belief that people are only poor because of bad decision making, or a refusal to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
The propaganda technique H. Nolan points out is something we really, really need to master as progressives. We routinely get our asses handed to us on this front, and Exhibit A is two-time president Donald J. Trump. MAGAs picked up the tactic from far-right disinformationists who had been perfecting their media manipulation game for decades. The MAGAs added a secret ingredient of their own: unapologetic, in-broad-daylight shamelessness. They will happily tell their audience they're lying and proud of it, because admitting to it is a snaky, clever way to own the libs. They earn MAGA street-cred and loyalty points that way.
It reminds me of the migrant pet-eating nonsense from 2024. When called out on it, JD Vance – a smug sack of pigshit – basically admitted that it was obviously not true: ~“Oh well, the point is to get the story out there, and I’m totally cool with it being bullshit.” (His exact words: "If I have to create stories [...] then that's what I'm going to do.")
These people are horrendous, and we need to stop being polite and call out every endorser of this nightmare, every rotten MAGA out there, for what they are: deplorable. They have lost their seat at the table of polite society, and we should be loud about it. Make the social cost obvious to every fence-sitter who imagines their choice of political tribe is consequence-free. Don’t share a table with them at Thanksgiving, don’t hold the door for them, don’t do business with them, don’t give them the time of day. Go ahead and use potty mouth in their general direction from time to time. Rude, unapologetic messaging is what progressives need to get comfortable with. I'm fucking sick of this timeline, and it's time to play hardball with these repugnant pricks.
It's truly something to behold watching the Murdoch organizations create the "people are talking about/outraged" circumstances for themselves. Fox News segments about "people are outraged about X" that point directly to Fox News articles that point directly to New York Post articles, and by then it's in THREE sources, so it must be true!
All of this is true. Yet I wish he hadn't walked away from that union electrical apprentice job. That's a bad look when DSA is simultaneously trying to (rightly) encourage people to go to work for Amazon, or salt an industry that needs organizing, or even get a job in a "strategic workplace" where the union is bad and try to reform it.
I'm assuming good faith, that this was a problem of not enough hours in the day, but am unsure that 30-year-olds should think themselves so indispensable to the movement that - having gotten a ticket to join (actually the well-paid part of) the working-class - they tear up that ticket. That's the path of ego, which we could use less of.
Hear, hear (!) Excellent post with a meaningful message. Thank you for using your authenticity and highly-principled approach to educate, inform and always share universal truth. Needed now more than ever. 🙏🔥🕊️
With all respect, the issue here is not about any individual’s hypocrisy, or anyone being a class traitor. It’s about representation and legitimacy. Working class institutions deserve working class leaders.
The only thing that makes this whole sordid saga tolerable is ironically DSA’s history (at least in California, where it has been demonstrated more than once) of weaponizing white supremacy on behalf of the Democratic Party establishment to insulate it from challenges from actual socialists of color. That history makes nothing any better, but it does at least render DSA’s legitimacy problems painfully consistent.
North Alabama DSA Co-Chair here, not a rich kid. Dad's a machinist, mom just has a HS diploma, and I had to work 2 jobs to make it through college even with a "full ride" from grades and my ACT score - got a Chemical Engineering degree ultimately and with a GPA that I am not proud of - 3.23 because of those jobs. That's been the bulk of my experience with most of my comrades here too, similar stories all. The news stories are definitely bad faith, but they are also total fucking horseshit.
I think it goes without saying that "New York Post and Fox News coverage of DSA" along with the NYT derivatives of that will be horseshit.
Oh of course, but I still feel the need to give an on the ground account, especially in one of their darling red states.
Also: Owning a $1.5m house in Brooklyn doesn't make you rich. Pretty much every building in Brooklyn costs at least that much. And you could have bought nearly any brownstone in Bed-Stuy 30 years ago for less than $100k.
At the bottom of the accusation is the belief that ordinary people don't deserve to own things.
This reminds me of FDR, who was denounced as a traitor to his class.
I think the disdain for the "rich leftist" also stems from the idea that such leftists are out of touch with what the poor actually want and therefore can't authentically advocate on their behalf (because, you see, the poor yearn to be exploited, and if you were poor you'd understand that), especially with their wackadoo social beliefs like trans rights and women being able to have jobs; and from the idea that, well, if you think being rich is bad, why are you still rich? The latter ties into the deeply ingrained idea of poverty and wealth being moral choices, rather than material conditions--it's the flip side of the belief that people are only poor because of bad decision making, or a refusal to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
The propaganda technique H. Nolan points out is something we really, really need to master as progressives. We routinely get our asses handed to us on this front, and Exhibit A is two-time president Donald J. Trump. MAGAs picked up the tactic from far-right disinformationists who had been perfecting their media manipulation game for decades. The MAGAs added a secret ingredient of their own: unapologetic, in-broad-daylight shamelessness. They will happily tell their audience they're lying and proud of it, because admitting to it is a snaky, clever way to own the libs. They earn MAGA street-cred and loyalty points that way.
It reminds me of the migrant pet-eating nonsense from 2024. When called out on it, JD Vance – a smug sack of pigshit – basically admitted that it was obviously not true: ~“Oh well, the point is to get the story out there, and I’m totally cool with it being bullshit.” (His exact words: "If I have to create stories [...] then that's what I'm going to do.")
These people are horrendous, and we need to stop being polite and call out every endorser of this nightmare, every rotten MAGA out there, for what they are: deplorable. They have lost their seat at the table of polite society, and we should be loud about it. Make the social cost obvious to every fence-sitter who imagines their choice of political tribe is consequence-free. Don’t share a table with them at Thanksgiving, don’t hold the door for them, don’t do business with them, don’t give them the time of day. Go ahead and use potty mouth in their general direction from time to time. Rude, unapologetic messaging is what progressives need to get comfortable with. I'm fucking sick of this timeline, and it's time to play hardball with these repugnant pricks.
It's truly something to behold watching the Murdoch organizations create the "people are talking about/outraged" circumstances for themselves. Fox News segments about "people are outraged about X" that point directly to Fox News articles that point directly to New York Post articles, and by then it's in THREE sources, so it must be true!
All of this is true. Yet I wish he hadn't walked away from that union electrical apprentice job. That's a bad look when DSA is simultaneously trying to (rightly) encourage people to go to work for Amazon, or salt an industry that needs organizing, or even get a job in a "strategic workplace" where the union is bad and try to reform it.
I'm assuming good faith, that this was a problem of not enough hours in the day, but am unsure that 30-year-olds should think themselves so indispensable to the movement that - having gotten a ticket to join (actually the well-paid part of) the working-class - they tear up that ticket. That's the path of ego, which we could use less of.
Hear, hear (!) Excellent post with a meaningful message. Thank you for using your authenticity and highly-principled approach to educate, inform and always share universal truth. Needed now more than ever. 🙏🔥🕊️
With all respect, the issue here is not about any individual’s hypocrisy, or anyone being a class traitor. It’s about representation and legitimacy. Working class institutions deserve working class leaders.
The only thing that makes this whole sordid saga tolerable is ironically DSA’s history (at least in California, where it has been demonstrated more than once) of weaponizing white supremacy on behalf of the Democratic Party establishment to insulate it from challenges from actual socialists of color. That history makes nothing any better, but it does at least render DSA’s legitimacy problems painfully consistent.
You think that's what the Post is concerned about?
Is this like saying only women can speak for women?
No, it’s just saying that socialism can’t be effectively represented by racist institutions. Don’t take my word for it. https://sfbayview.com/2021/08/white-supremacy-in-san-francisco/
Women can't be effectively represented by sexist institutions?
*Gordillo btw. Great post as always
Fixed, thanks.