Well, it's not just an obscure left-wing subculture. Online leftists as a whole loudly and eagerly embrace the "punch Nazis" position.
For me, there's a major difference between violence everyone agrees is bad and violence loudly endorsed by the groups propagating it. I zero in on leftist advocacy for violence because I think it's a serio…
Well, it's not just an obscure left-wing subculture. Online leftists as a whole loudly and eagerly embrace the "punch Nazis" position.
For me, there's a major difference between violence everyone agrees is bad and violence loudly endorsed by the groups propagating it. I zero in on leftist advocacy for violence because I think it's a serious and underdiscussed problem to have an increasingly influential political tribe openly and passionately advocating for political violence against people they dislike, justifying it with claims that those people's very existence is violence.
There are comparable analogues in other groups! I think Islamist advocacy for violence, for example, is a similarly big deal, and I recently pitched a story on Quran burnings that would have gone into some of that. There are segments of the right that are becoming radicalized in the same way and I'm pretty consistent in speaking out against that stuff inasmuch as I notice it. When an example pops up of a conservative, say, assaulting a socialist and receiving widespread acclaim from other conservatives for doing so, if I don't notice it organically I'd encourage you to draw my attention towards it.
Advocacy towards, and glorification of, low-scale violence directed towards political opponents is an enormous threat to the liberal peace treaty, and I think it should be unambiguously and emphatically pushed against in all its manifestations. I'll admit that I get more preoccupied with leftist advocacy--I think it enjoys a certain social sanction or tolerance among the mainstream that comparable conservative/Islamist advocacy do not, and there are fewer voices available to push against it. But it's something I feel strongly about from all directions.
So you would.... what, just rather that the far left be much more disingenuous about its tactics and targets? Like, we know that the far right does not actually condemn political violence, on account of they keep doing it (and doing it, as I said, at rates literally multiple orders of magnitude higher than the far left), so their exclamations of sorrow when someone really does rid them of this meddlesome priest are, shall we say, Henry II-esque.
The reason current-day leftist verbiage results in eyeball-rolls and not FBI investigations is because it is generally and correctly understood to be cheap talk; in the periods of time when left-wing violence has actually been serious (and some when it has not), the result has been Ludlow Massacres and Palmer Raids and other ideological crackdowns-with-extreme-prejudice.
(Also, glorification-- indeed, canonization-- of killers of abortion doctors has been a Thing among the Christian Right for decades. Remember the "hit list" that displayed names and addresses and made a point of crossing out the ones who had been assassinated?)
Maybe I'm way out on a limb here, but the fact that the far right are willing to lie about what they are doing should be seen as a bad thing, actually.
Well, no. I would rather those on the far left who advocate and participate in political violence be shamed and disowned by their colleagues, face the same pressure to disown that violence as those on the right face, to be treated as the problem they are rather than patronizingly or pragmatically tolerated. Neither left nor right is a monolith. Some condone political violence from each group, some condemn it. Inasmuch as each has the capacity to police their own and are not doing so, they deserve condemnation. I don't want people to be disingenuous. I want them not to be violent. Do you?
Your claim that the right is orders of magnitude more violent only arguably applies so long as you exclude riots from the category of violence, which I do not. Are you comfortable unambiguously condemning and speaking out against "punch a Nazi" as a slogan in situations like this, against riots, against left-coded political violence of all stripes, or is your frustration with my focus on this issue a matter of tacitly condoning violence so long as it comes from your side, or at least wishing people would talk about something else?
Be as sarcastic as you want: my position is consistent. I have no qualms about shedding a light on and unambiguously condemning advocacy for violence whether it comes from leftists or the far right, and I think you should as well.
"Your claim that the right is orders of magnitude more violent only arguably applies so long as you exclude riots from the category of violence, which I do not." Glad you brought that up because the riots were in my mind as I read this thread. There has been plenty of leftist violence (not ignoring violence from the right, but that gets penalized and talked about in the media... and I don't think it's getting adequately punished/reported in the opposite direction).
I do think it’s important that the rise in death & rape threats is included in any discussion. In the US you obviously have the question of whether it constitutes a ‘true threat’ but in general terms most people accept that these kind of threats both aren’t reasonable in terms of speech but also indicate an attitude towards violence. There’s clearly been a significant shift in the last decade on the left regarding this.
A while ago JK Rowling posted examples of the threats she’d received. A fairly prominent British writer sneered at it and asked for women to post examples of all the threats they’d received, implying what was happening to Rowling was nothing special.
The fact that those abusing random women were likely to be misogynists & bigots, where those abusing Rowling would have claimed to be trying to advance social justice just seemed to escape her.
The whole equivalence thing is just weird to me, if you’re actively claiming to be one of the good guys wouldn’t you hold yourself to a higher standard regarding violence and online behaviour?
Okay, fair enough; your ideological project is to boffsidez political violence. At least you're not hiding the ball here. I'll keep that duly in mind when evaluating whether to believe future claims of left-coded violence emanating from this podcast.
I do, however, have to react to the claim that "RiOtZ" are "political violence" with a hearty "lmao, get the fuck out of here," however.
Glad to come to an understanding, then. Believe what you want; I'm rigorous in my approach to factual accuracy and work hard to ensure every claim I put forward in podcast notes is checked and cited appropriately.
Your flippancy towards riots is reprehensible, but it's a common affliction among leftists so I won't dwell on it too much. Take care.
To be fair, the riots were mostly peaceful! Like, you know, 51/49! Clear majority. As for the businesses that were destroyed, well bro, that's what insurance is for! Or something.
I would be less "flippant" toward RiOtZ if it wasn't the hack right-wing whataboutism of choice when confronted with literally any issue even tangentially related to civil rights. It's so utterly uncoupled from the subject of this pod that it can only be understood as a kind of knee-jerk response or defense mechanism.
In no conceivable world, other than the Fox News Expanded Comic Universe I guess, are RiOtZ comparable to the far right's practice of targeted and stochastic political killings.
The right would not be able to keep bringing up riots/political violence in response to serious discussions about civil rights issues if we stopped defending them. I really believe this.
We can say “yes, just as you condemn xyz violence coming from your side, we condemn abc violence coming from ours. That does not change the argument that (whatever) policy benefits (whatever) and is necessary because (these things).”
We can make a tactical choice to stop making excuses for political violence (including threats) when they come from our side — and rob our opponents of the talking point. (Of course, we could also condemn political violence coming from our side because we really DO condemn it/think it’s wrong.)
I genuinely have no idea how you could possibly believe this. Have you somehow missed the 4566629 different accusations that Democrats want to defund police in the last few years, despite the fact that to my knowledge literally no Democratic elected officials support that idea and dozens of them have explicitly condemned it?
If you are apologizing in politics, you are immediately losing. Republicans do not condemn their own, and they are correct in that tactical assessment.
Agree to disagree. I think we look like assholes (to normies) when we *don’t* say “We’re the party of debate, free speech, persuasion, and democracy. We condemn political violence and encourage open inquiry. Bad behavior is bad behavior regardless of whether or not I agree with the aims of the person behaving badly.”
We don’t just look like assholes when we minimize or apologize for political violence, threats, even mobs shutting down events — we also look like we either don’t think our ideas will withstand questioning or think other people will be too stupid to understand the things we understand.
There’s not one right answer, obviously, and it can be risky to publicly condemn your own team. But it’s also risky not to.
I have (very civil) conversations with right wing people all the time. I make no secret of my politics. Of course they come out swinging with whatever latest idiot thing they saw on fox news. It is *entirely disarming* for me to just immediately agree with them about at least some aspect of that thing being bullshit. And it’s easy for me to do that, genuinely. And why wouldn’t I? It seems unnatural for me to defend something I really do think is stupid or wrong.
And we have a laugh about it, we start with agreement, and when we do get into the substance of the issue they have no reason to be defensive, and the actual ideas can be separated from their worst proponents.
So, that’s why I possibly believe that. I know these people. They’re just people. Yes, they’re all about guns and god and whatnot, but they are also kind and decent. I think they are wrong about a lot, but I don’t think they are hateful. And I’m not going to pretend I think something is okay just because someone on ‘my team’ did it. Fuck that.
And those people then change their minds and vote for Democrats? Because if not, you're doing politics wrong, or at the very least unsuccessfully. The point is not to have chummy conversations, it's to build and win power. If all you are doing is convincing them that "even liberals admit deep down that we're right," your tactics are negative effective.
"And those people then change their minds and vote for Democrats? Because if not, you're doing politics wrong, or at the very least unsuccessfully. The point is not to have chummy conversations, it's to build and win power."
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how politics (specifically electoral politics) works. Trying to win votes is one aspect of the process, the other is influencing the opposition. One will never win all the voters or forever be in power, there will always be a need for compromise. Demonizing one's opposition is for fools and zealots. It makes it very difficult to have constructive dialog with a group of people one will never get rid of and will always be forced to interact. This applies both intra and inter-nationally, to all forms of politics but especially within a nation that must compromise within an electorate that is as politically diverse as our own.
Its a common mistake but only the right seems to be called on it, in fact the left seems to be abetted by the media. Its not "whataboutism" to hold everyone to the same standard and when we fail to do so that hypocrisy erodes trust in our institutions by the electorate, as we're seeing now. Frankly, it erodes trust in interpersonal relationships as well, like say, a comment thread...
You are not "winning" converts with your positions, Zagarma. It's people like you who have driven me to the center and made me despise much of the Democratic Party. Is that your goal? smh
I doubt it, no. At least, not in the short term. However, I do think it helps counter the media narrative about the crazy left that they are constantly being fed. And certain conversations have definitely brought new perspective and caused reconsideration of specific policy issues/positions.
I think we (you and I) probably disagree about polarization. To me, it’s a bad thing to think so starkly in terms of teams, us/them, etc. I do believe that there is more that unites us, yadda yadda. These friendships and connections across party lines used to be more common, and I think they’re a good thing just for their own sake — to understand each other better without having a focus on changing minds. So I guess it’s okay with me if my politically-opposite friends think “hurdy-hur the libtard agrees that burning down small businesses is bad” (I’m assuming that’s how you imagine them).
Despite the fact it’s been like this for years now, I still find the whole shift in attitudes to political violence on the left as both bizarre and incredibly depressing.
Once upon a time the idea that dehumanising anyone (and let’s be honest that is exactly what’s going on here) to the point where you can justify physical violence against them, even people who you believed to hold truly repugnant views would have alien to all but the tiniest most extreme branches of the left. It’s now quite mainstream.
Highlighting it isn’t ‘bothsidesism’ it’s challenging people whose entire world view purports to be being about trying to create a more just society and you would hope that such a world doesn’t involve being assaulted for wrongthink.
It is one of the symptoms of so much of left abandoning a humanist/universalist & materialist outlook. I think IdPol inevitably leads to a more manichean outlook which in turn makes violence easier to justify.
I too would love to see the left actually challenge the idea that assaulting anyone is wrong no matter what their views and the fact that the Right may be worse, more hypocritical or even less likely to call it out is simply irrelevant to the values left wing movements stand by.
I think the idiotic idea that holding certain view makes you a legitimate target for violence or that you can play some bs language to claim that words are ‘violence’ and actual violence mere self defence isn’t unsustainable long term, but I think we’ll be waiting a while before some kind of sanity prevails.
I feel like there's some joke here about how being dehumanized is literally what furries want, but let's set that to one side.
I think your analysis of left history is quite badly wrong here. For most of human history, the use of violence to achieve political objectives has been the norm, and the use of persuasion has been an aberrant (if welcome) exception. Gandhi's development of really effective nonviolent pressure tactics was not out of nothing, but it was a significant development in left ideology that helped it seize the moral high ground. But nonviolence has never been the sole or even, I think, the majority viewpoint among leftists (or anyone, for that matter).
The problem, at this point, is that the right wing has developed effective antidotes against some of the most popular Gandhiesque tactics-- union-busting and propaganda control of media are extremely effective at diminishing the utility of direct-action tactics. So I think a lot of leftists are looking around for new strategies in light of the failures of the old toolbox, and some of them have settled--wrongly, I think, but not unreasonably-- on the notion that eye-for-an-eye retaliation is the only way to deter further increase in the ever-escalating levels of right-wing repression that they're facing.
Given Gandhi was 80+ years ago, that’s basically everyone’s living memory.
Also, the reasons you sight clearly are the reasons for the shift, it’s due to a shift in outlook & the rise of an identinarian outlook which in terms of being wide spread is only the last 30years.
Given that it’s as likely to directed at people who by any meaningful criteria actually hold left wing politics as it is against the ‘right’ I think it really is ‘unreasonable’.
This theory suffers from the fairly basic problem that the 1960s left was MUCH more violent-- the Panthers, the Nation of Islam, the Weathermen, etc.-- than the less successful 1990s left, or today's for that matter. As I said, your history is wrong and it's leading you to misdiagnose the current problem.
Your attempts to claim that literal murderers and people who meet any meaningful definition of terrorist were anything but on the extremes and would have been utterly denounced by the vast majority of people on the left is shall we be kind and say...tenuous.
You might want to have a think about how an argument the suggests people willing to engage in such forms of extreme violence as part of the normal left leaves you?
Any definition of mainstream that defines Malcolm X as "not mainstream" is not fit for purpose. His arguments, and other essentially revolutionary arguments, were absolutely part of mainstream left discussion in the 1960s.
Given he was A. Dead and B. His views evolved, we have no way of knowing whether he’d have supported the type of violence seen in the 70s and I think there’s little chance he’d support the self indulgent nonsense of the online ‘punch a Nazi’ brigade.
He was a serious thinker, these people simply aren’t.
The options are merely political violence is ok or pacifism.
Well, it's not just an obscure left-wing subculture. Online leftists as a whole loudly and eagerly embrace the "punch Nazis" position.
For me, there's a major difference between violence everyone agrees is bad and violence loudly endorsed by the groups propagating it. I zero in on leftist advocacy for violence because I think it's a serious and underdiscussed problem to have an increasingly influential political tribe openly and passionately advocating for political violence against people they dislike, justifying it with claims that those people's very existence is violence.
There are comparable analogues in other groups! I think Islamist advocacy for violence, for example, is a similarly big deal, and I recently pitched a story on Quran burnings that would have gone into some of that. There are segments of the right that are becoming radicalized in the same way and I'm pretty consistent in speaking out against that stuff inasmuch as I notice it. When an example pops up of a conservative, say, assaulting a socialist and receiving widespread acclaim from other conservatives for doing so, if I don't notice it organically I'd encourage you to draw my attention towards it.
Advocacy towards, and glorification of, low-scale violence directed towards political opponents is an enormous threat to the liberal peace treaty, and I think it should be unambiguously and emphatically pushed against in all its manifestations. I'll admit that I get more preoccupied with leftist advocacy--I think it enjoys a certain social sanction or tolerance among the mainstream that comparable conservative/Islamist advocacy do not, and there are fewer voices available to push against it. But it's something I feel strongly about from all directions.
So you would.... what, just rather that the far left be much more disingenuous about its tactics and targets? Like, we know that the far right does not actually condemn political violence, on account of they keep doing it (and doing it, as I said, at rates literally multiple orders of magnitude higher than the far left), so their exclamations of sorrow when someone really does rid them of this meddlesome priest are, shall we say, Henry II-esque.
The reason current-day leftist verbiage results in eyeball-rolls and not FBI investigations is because it is generally and correctly understood to be cheap talk; in the periods of time when left-wing violence has actually been serious (and some when it has not), the result has been Ludlow Massacres and Palmer Raids and other ideological crackdowns-with-extreme-prejudice.
(Also, glorification-- indeed, canonization-- of killers of abortion doctors has been a Thing among the Christian Right for decades. Remember the "hit list" that displayed names and addresses and made a point of crossing out the ones who had been assassinated?)
Maybe I'm way out on a limb here, but the fact that the far right are willing to lie about what they are doing should be seen as a bad thing, actually.
Well, no. I would rather those on the far left who advocate and participate in political violence be shamed and disowned by their colleagues, face the same pressure to disown that violence as those on the right face, to be treated as the problem they are rather than patronizingly or pragmatically tolerated. Neither left nor right is a monolith. Some condone political violence from each group, some condemn it. Inasmuch as each has the capacity to police their own and are not doing so, they deserve condemnation. I don't want people to be disingenuous. I want them not to be violent. Do you?
Your claim that the right is orders of magnitude more violent only arguably applies so long as you exclude riots from the category of violence, which I do not. Are you comfortable unambiguously condemning and speaking out against "punch a Nazi" as a slogan in situations like this, against riots, against left-coded political violence of all stripes, or is your frustration with my focus on this issue a matter of tacitly condoning violence so long as it comes from your side, or at least wishing people would talk about something else?
Be as sarcastic as you want: my position is consistent. I have no qualms about shedding a light on and unambiguously condemning advocacy for violence whether it comes from leftists or the far right, and I think you should as well.
"Your claim that the right is orders of magnitude more violent only arguably applies so long as you exclude riots from the category of violence, which I do not." Glad you brought that up because the riots were in my mind as I read this thread. There has been plenty of leftist violence (not ignoring violence from the right, but that gets penalized and talked about in the media... and I don't think it's getting adequately punished/reported in the opposite direction).
I do think it’s important that the rise in death & rape threats is included in any discussion. In the US you obviously have the question of whether it constitutes a ‘true threat’ but in general terms most people accept that these kind of threats both aren’t reasonable in terms of speech but also indicate an attitude towards violence. There’s clearly been a significant shift in the last decade on the left regarding this.
A while ago JK Rowling posted examples of the threats she’d received. A fairly prominent British writer sneered at it and asked for women to post examples of all the threats they’d received, implying what was happening to Rowling was nothing special.
The fact that those abusing random women were likely to be misogynists & bigots, where those abusing Rowling would have claimed to be trying to advance social justice just seemed to escape her.
The whole equivalence thing is just weird to me, if you’re actively claiming to be one of the good guys wouldn’t you hold yourself to a higher standard regarding violence and online behaviour?
Okay, fair enough; your ideological project is to boffsidez political violence. At least you're not hiding the ball here. I'll keep that duly in mind when evaluating whether to believe future claims of left-coded violence emanating from this podcast.
I do, however, have to react to the claim that "RiOtZ" are "political violence" with a hearty "lmao, get the fuck out of here," however.
Glad to come to an understanding, then. Believe what you want; I'm rigorous in my approach to factual accuracy and work hard to ensure every claim I put forward in podcast notes is checked and cited appropriately.
Your flippancy towards riots is reprehensible, but it's a common affliction among leftists so I won't dwell on it too much. Take care.
To be fair, the riots were mostly peaceful! Like, you know, 51/49! Clear majority. As for the businesses that were destroyed, well bro, that's what insurance is for! Or something.
I would be less "flippant" toward RiOtZ if it wasn't the hack right-wing whataboutism of choice when confronted with literally any issue even tangentially related to civil rights. It's so utterly uncoupled from the subject of this pod that it can only be understood as a kind of knee-jerk response or defense mechanism.
In no conceivable world, other than the Fox News Expanded Comic Universe I guess, are RiOtZ comparable to the far right's practice of targeted and stochastic political killings.
The right would not be able to keep bringing up riots/political violence in response to serious discussions about civil rights issues if we stopped defending them. I really believe this.
We can say “yes, just as you condemn xyz violence coming from your side, we condemn abc violence coming from ours. That does not change the argument that (whatever) policy benefits (whatever) and is necessary because (these things).”
We can make a tactical choice to stop making excuses for political violence (including threats) when they come from our side — and rob our opponents of the talking point. (Of course, we could also condemn political violence coming from our side because we really DO condemn it/think it’s wrong.)
I genuinely have no idea how you could possibly believe this. Have you somehow missed the 4566629 different accusations that Democrats want to defund police in the last few years, despite the fact that to my knowledge literally no Democratic elected officials support that idea and dozens of them have explicitly condemned it?
If you are apologizing in politics, you are immediately losing. Republicans do not condemn their own, and they are correct in that tactical assessment.
Agree to disagree. I think we look like assholes (to normies) when we *don’t* say “We’re the party of debate, free speech, persuasion, and democracy. We condemn political violence and encourage open inquiry. Bad behavior is bad behavior regardless of whether or not I agree with the aims of the person behaving badly.”
We don’t just look like assholes when we minimize or apologize for political violence, threats, even mobs shutting down events — we also look like we either don’t think our ideas will withstand questioning or think other people will be too stupid to understand the things we understand.
There’s not one right answer, obviously, and it can be risky to publicly condemn your own team. But it’s also risky not to.
I have (very civil) conversations with right wing people all the time. I make no secret of my politics. Of course they come out swinging with whatever latest idiot thing they saw on fox news. It is *entirely disarming* for me to just immediately agree with them about at least some aspect of that thing being bullshit. And it’s easy for me to do that, genuinely. And why wouldn’t I? It seems unnatural for me to defend something I really do think is stupid or wrong.
And we have a laugh about it, we start with agreement, and when we do get into the substance of the issue they have no reason to be defensive, and the actual ideas can be separated from their worst proponents.
So, that’s why I possibly believe that. I know these people. They’re just people. Yes, they’re all about guns and god and whatnot, but they are also kind and decent. I think they are wrong about a lot, but I don’t think they are hateful. And I’m not going to pretend I think something is okay just because someone on ‘my team’ did it. Fuck that.
And those people then change their minds and vote for Democrats? Because if not, you're doing politics wrong, or at the very least unsuccessfully. The point is not to have chummy conversations, it's to build and win power. If all you are doing is convincing them that "even liberals admit deep down that we're right," your tactics are negative effective.
"And those people then change their minds and vote for Democrats? Because if not, you're doing politics wrong, or at the very least unsuccessfully. The point is not to have chummy conversations, it's to build and win power."
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how politics (specifically electoral politics) works. Trying to win votes is one aspect of the process, the other is influencing the opposition. One will never win all the voters or forever be in power, there will always be a need for compromise. Demonizing one's opposition is for fools and zealots. It makes it very difficult to have constructive dialog with a group of people one will never get rid of and will always be forced to interact. This applies both intra and inter-nationally, to all forms of politics but especially within a nation that must compromise within an electorate that is as politically diverse as our own.
Its a common mistake but only the right seems to be called on it, in fact the left seems to be abetted by the media. Its not "whataboutism" to hold everyone to the same standard and when we fail to do so that hypocrisy erodes trust in our institutions by the electorate, as we're seeing now. Frankly, it erodes trust in interpersonal relationships as well, like say, a comment thread...
You are not "winning" converts with your positions, Zagarma. It's people like you who have driven me to the center and made me despise much of the Democratic Party. Is that your goal? smh
I doubt it, no. At least, not in the short term. However, I do think it helps counter the media narrative about the crazy left that they are constantly being fed. And certain conversations have definitely brought new perspective and caused reconsideration of specific policy issues/positions.
I think we (you and I) probably disagree about polarization. To me, it’s a bad thing to think so starkly in terms of teams, us/them, etc. I do believe that there is more that unites us, yadda yadda. These friendships and connections across party lines used to be more common, and I think they’re a good thing just for their own sake — to understand each other better without having a focus on changing minds. So I guess it’s okay with me if my politically-opposite friends think “hurdy-hur the libtard agrees that burning down small businesses is bad” (I’m assuming that’s how you imagine them).
I thought your comment on the affidavit was good, but this is very unfair to Trace.
Despite the fact it’s been like this for years now, I still find the whole shift in attitudes to political violence on the left as both bizarre and incredibly depressing.
Once upon a time the idea that dehumanising anyone (and let’s be honest that is exactly what’s going on here) to the point where you can justify physical violence against them, even people who you believed to hold truly repugnant views would have alien to all but the tiniest most extreme branches of the left. It’s now quite mainstream.
Highlighting it isn’t ‘bothsidesism’ it’s challenging people whose entire world view purports to be being about trying to create a more just society and you would hope that such a world doesn’t involve being assaulted for wrongthink.
It is one of the symptoms of so much of left abandoning a humanist/universalist & materialist outlook. I think IdPol inevitably leads to a more manichean outlook which in turn makes violence easier to justify.
I too would love to see the left actually challenge the idea that assaulting anyone is wrong no matter what their views and the fact that the Right may be worse, more hypocritical or even less likely to call it out is simply irrelevant to the values left wing movements stand by.
I think the idiotic idea that holding certain view makes you a legitimate target for violence or that you can play some bs language to claim that words are ‘violence’ and actual violence mere self defence isn’t unsustainable long term, but I think we’ll be waiting a while before some kind of sanity prevails.
I feel like there's some joke here about how being dehumanized is literally what furries want, but let's set that to one side.
I think your analysis of left history is quite badly wrong here. For most of human history, the use of violence to achieve political objectives has been the norm, and the use of persuasion has been an aberrant (if welcome) exception. Gandhi's development of really effective nonviolent pressure tactics was not out of nothing, but it was a significant development in left ideology that helped it seize the moral high ground. But nonviolence has never been the sole or even, I think, the majority viewpoint among leftists (or anyone, for that matter).
The problem, at this point, is that the right wing has developed effective antidotes against some of the most popular Gandhiesque tactics-- union-busting and propaganda control of media are extremely effective at diminishing the utility of direct-action tactics. So I think a lot of leftists are looking around for new strategies in light of the failures of the old toolbox, and some of them have settled--wrongly, I think, but not unreasonably-- on the notion that eye-for-an-eye retaliation is the only way to deter further increase in the ever-escalating levels of right-wing repression that they're facing.
Given Gandhi was 80+ years ago, that’s basically everyone’s living memory.
Also, the reasons you sight clearly are the reasons for the shift, it’s due to a shift in outlook & the rise of an identinarian outlook which in terms of being wide spread is only the last 30years.
Given that it’s as likely to directed at people who by any meaningful criteria actually hold left wing politics as it is against the ‘right’ I think it really is ‘unreasonable’.
This theory suffers from the fairly basic problem that the 1960s left was MUCH more violent-- the Panthers, the Nation of Islam, the Weathermen, etc.-- than the less successful 1990s left, or today's for that matter. As I said, your history is wrong and it's leading you to misdiagnose the current problem.
Your attempts to claim that literal murderers and people who meet any meaningful definition of terrorist were anything but on the extremes and would have been utterly denounced by the vast majority of people on the left is shall we be kind and say...tenuous.
You might want to have a think about how an argument the suggests people willing to engage in such forms of extreme violence as part of the normal left leaves you?
Any definition of mainstream that defines Malcolm X as "not mainstream" is not fit for purpose. His arguments, and other essentially revolutionary arguments, were absolutely part of mainstream left discussion in the 1960s.
Given he was A. Dead and B. His views evolved, we have no way of knowing whether he’d have supported the type of violence seen in the 70s and I think there’s little chance he’d support the self indulgent nonsense of the online ‘punch a Nazi’ brigade.
He was a serious thinker, these people simply aren’t.
The options are merely political violence is ok or pacifism.