Talk:Realist left

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This page is alt-right propaganda

"Realist" here is a reference to "race-realist", which is alt-right code for racists. "[w]hat it perceives as an excessive and reputationally-harmful focus on identity politics issues as opposed to economic progress for the working class and middle class" is an obvious dog-whistle for ignoring racial and gender issues. That kind of language is more than a coincidence. Sure enough, I do a little digging, and the Realist Left Manifest rails on about "Cultural Liberalism" Smermels (talk) 04:59, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

This is not correct at all. I know the people involved in the Realist Left, including the people who created it. They are absolutely not racist in any way, shape or form. However, they do call themselves the anti-PC Left and the anti-SJW Left.

Lindsay's original manifesto held that race realism was one of the pillars of the Alt Left, and if you visit altleft.com, a very early Alt Leftist (really the 2nd after Lindsay), he is indeed a left-wing White nationalist. However, he is fairly mild on race as far as those folks go. He doesn't want to harm any minorities in the US. He just wants his White state in Patagonia or Antarctica or the Moon. I don't think you understand how liberal or Left people can't even be very good racists because their Left politics keeps coming up behind them and making them feel guilty. Leftwing people have a hard phobia against racism so that even when they are racists, they are quite mild.

The founders of the Realist Left explicitly disavowed Lindsay's race realism and most f the wings (there are already ~12 wings) want nothing to do with racism. One wing is called the Left Wing of the Alt Right, and yes, those are White nationalists are also socialists, liberals or Leftists on economics. However, all of the other wings have disavowed the Left Wing of the Alt Right. Even Lindsay has. So yes, the Alt Left started out as a leftwing race realist movement, but at the moment, almost all of the movement has rejected that. Lindsay doesn't have a copyright on the movement. Lindsay has denounced almost all existing wings has his own sort-of wing called the Original Alternative Left.

It is a fact that the Alt Left originated as an Alt Right split, sort of the left wing of the Alt Right. Lindsay and Adamson were both on the fringes of the Alt Right, but they disliked it a lot for all sorts of reasons, mostly because other than on race, both of them are straight up liberal/Leftists down the line. Adamson disliked the conservatism of it because he's basically a liberal (a racist liberal, but a liberal nonetheless). Lindsay disliked a lot of things. He was never a White Nationalist and he says he didn't realize that the Alt Right was a White Supremacist movement. He thought it was just race realist, which he supports. Lindsay wants nothing to do with the hardcore racists on the Alt Right. He also wants nothing to do with White Nationalism or White Supremacism. Lindsay's argument is that the Alt Right is too racist for his tastes.

Even if you want to call Lindsay a racist (and some have called him that before) his racism seems quite mild compared to the virulent stuff on the Alt Right. It's more like "White guy next door" casual racism if it's racist at all.

I doubt if Lindsay wants to push people into the Alt Right because he dislikes them so much, mostly because they all support Trump. Adamson might, but he dislikes them also so much that he has officially split from the Alt Right, denounces them and wants nothing to do with them.

Indeed both Lindsay and Adamson are very much against modern feminism, anti-racism, gay rights and transsexual rights, etc. Adamson is more relaxed on everything but race. They both despise Black Lives Matter. Lindsay wants to turn the clock back and says his vision is the Democratic Party 1995. He says he has been on the Cultural Left his whole life but "the train left him at the station" long ago. He sympathizes with the earlier versions of anti-racism, feminism, gay rights, trans rights, etc. but he thinks they have all gone way to far him. He says they're now insane and he wants nothing to do with them. But he does call himself an Equity Feminist and he supports gay politics and even works on gay political campaigns.

It's not that these people are against the Left or even the Cultural Left. They just think both have gone way too far, that's all.

The man who created the Realist Left has little to say about gay rights, trans rights, anti-racism or feminism. His beef seems to be mostly against postmodernism. He thinks Lindsay is an extremist on feminism, race, gay rights, etc.108.204.62.185 (talk) 00:26, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

I think it's pretty obvious that "realist left" is yet another plausibly deniable alt-right gateway, and this completely uncritical article should be rewritten as such. I've added a criticism section, but really this whole thing should be torched. Smermels (talk) 04:59, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

There are presently 18,000 members of Alt Left groups on Facebook, so it makes no sense to torch the page. They're not going away!

This is pretty bad. Lindsay hates Nazis and fascists period and supported the Soviet Union in World War 2. He likes Nazis about as much as your average Russian does, and by the way, your average Russian is also very conservative on social issues. I guess socially conservative Russians are Nazis!? Lindsay caused a furor on the Alt Left when he supported antifa violence. He was shunned by most of the movement over that position. He also supported antifa punching Richard Spencer in the face, and he got a lot of blowback about that too.

Adamson is much more Alt Right in that sense, and even says his movement is some sort of leftwing fascism. Adamson says if you gave him a list of 100 issues, he would check liberal on all of them except for race. He explicitly states that he is not a conservative and identifies as a liberal. Lindsay also identifies as a liberal or even a Leftist or Marxist. It makes little sense to put Adamson or Lindsay on the Right when the are liberal-Left on 95% of the issues.

Lindsay says he searched all around for a conservative movement to hook onto but he ended up hating all of them. He says conservatives have a particular way of thinking that he dislikes and has always opposed. Lindsay explicitly states that he hates Nazis, fascists, and even conservatives (except for social conservatives). If that is so, it makes no sense to put him on the Right. He describes himself and his movement as Socially Conservative Leftists. I don't understand why this can't exist. Does it defy the laws of physics or something?

I think we need to realize that it's perfectly possible for a liberal, Leftist or even Marxist to be racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. You can read Marx and see that he qualifies on the first two. Castro was homophobic and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation probably dislikes transsexuals.

And Lindsay rejects the whole idea of Cultural Marxism, if you mean the conspiracy theory about the Frankfurt School and whatnot. He says that the Cultural Left or Cultural liberalism is simply the positions that liberals and Leftists take on social issues. I fail to understand how that is the same thing as some weird conspiracy theory about the Frankfurt School. Anyway, Lindsay has called himself a Marxist, so I doubt he would use the term Cultural Marxism. On the contrary, Lindsay would say he was against intersectionalism. He thinks it has ruined the Left.108.204.62.185 (talk) 01:01, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

I concur with Smermels. It may have the word "real" in it but "realist left" isn't a "real" thing. Kirbydenver (talk) 23:04, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

A Few Things...

Here are my thoughts on this "realist left" movement.

1. Robert Lindsay describes this new “alt-left” movement as being “right-wing on social issues, left-wing economically.” I fail to see how this is any different from the alt-right, who are EXTREMELY right-wing on social issues and don’t seem to have any unified views on the economy. In theory, a hypothetical white supremacist who supports the Occupy movement could be termed “alt-left.” NotYourAverageBoN (talk) 01:41, 11 May 2018 (UTC

The Alt Right is 100% reactionary neoliberal or Libertarian on social issues. Alt Rightists who are liberal or Leftist on economics are frankly nonexistent. That's part of why the Alt Left got formed.

If you read Lindsay's early manifesto, he doesn't say rightwing on cultural issues. He says centrist on social issues. He hates the Cultural Left, but he also hates the social conservatism of the Republican Party as he says they go too far. So the Alt Left would be to the Right of the Cultural Left and to the left of US Republican social conservatives.

You are right though. This movement originated as an Alt Right split with more liberal Alt Rightists splitting off to form their own movement. In fact, Lindsay says the Nazi site The Right Stuff came up with the term Alternative Left when they were describing his work, and he liked it so much that he adopted it. So even the name originated on the Alt Right among out and out Nazis.

Also the supposed White racist Lindsay says he supports the Congressional Black Caucus and among his heroes are John Brown, (post-separatist) Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers. He just thinks Black politics has gone insane with Black Lives Matter, etc. whom he abhors. Actually he says the whole modern civil rights movement has gone far from MLK's goals.

108.204.62.185 (talk) 00:36, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

2. I also fail to see how this label applies to Bernie Sanders, who is just as liberal socially as he is economically. I personally find that he’s even more consistently liberal on social issues than Hillary Clinton (Sanders has been a long-time supporter of things like LGBTQ rights and abortion, while Clinton didn’t start supporting those things until very recently.)NotYourAverageBoN (talk) 01:41, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Except that contrary to this article, many Alt Leftists did support Sanders. And quite a few supported Trump too, and still do. That's right. They support Sanders and Trump. But this is common with a certain type of US voter. Also contrary to this article, support for Trump has been very controversial on the Alt Left. Lindsay complains that all Alt Leftists are either soft on Trump or outright supporting him. The Left Wing of the Alt Right faction did and does indeed support Trump, though many now are lying and saying they don't.

Furthermore, Lindsay has stated that Trump is "the number one enemy" and he has posted that all of the Left needs to ally against Trump and the Republicans. He has also stated that anyone who supports Trump or Republicans should be thrown out of the Alt Left. If you support Trump on Lindsay's site, he will ban you. Lindsay thinks the Cultural Left is a much lesser enemy and he compares them to "swarms of gnats," while Trump and the Republicans are "a grizzly bear in your living room." So much for the "all Alt Leftists love Trump" in this article. 108.204.62.185 (talk) 20:53, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

3. Smermels has already opined that the “realist left” movement is just a thinly-veiled gateway for the alt-right, and while that makes sense, I’d say it’s more a case of Very Serious People trying to pander to Trumpeters and Bernie Bros simultaneously. This is basically the logical conclusion to the subconscious efforts of the media telling liberals to always seek compromise when the conservatives stick to their guns (pun not intended), that genuine liberals should go into every debate already defeated and willing to acquiesce to the conservatives’ demands or else be labeled “radical” or “uncivil”. In short, this is designed to move the Democrats farther to the right until they are nearly indistinguishable from the GOP, all in the name of “being the bigger person” and “avoiding confrontation.” If that’s the idea, you can count me out.NotYourAverageBoN (talk) 01:41, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Although Alt Leftists could be seen as Centrist in a sense, they are very much to the Left of all of the Centrists linked to in that link of yours. For the record, Lindsay says he despises US Centrists and says he is not one. He describes them as "people who support the Republicans half the time." Where this theory is true, Alt Leftists like Ryan England (a very early Alt Leftist and important Alt Left thinker) feel that the Cultural Left is what needs to be attacked because they are driving people away from the Left to the Republicans. So that's why they are enemy #1. Whereas Lindsay dislikes the focus on attacking the Cultural Left, which he says just ends up creating conservatives and Republican voters. There is a big wild debate on this right now. 108.204.62.185 (talk) 07:10, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

4. By adopting this “alt-left” mindset, we’d essentially abandon any actually honest liberalism we might’ve once been able to claim. We’d be telling disenfranchised identity groups that they don’t matter to us as much as the white working class does. There are better ways to court the white working class vote. In this article on CNN, political analyst Julian Zelizer puts it into words better than I ever could:

So, Democrats should be extremely wary about jettisoning the core social principles – civil rights and gender equality – that have animated their own base since the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. Studies suggest that some of Trump’s voters will not change their minds in response to any kind of economic policies. The only way for Democrats to win these voters over would be to turn their backs on core constituencies, like college-educated, working women, African-Americans, and immigrants, who have been vital to the party for decades. So, rather than trying to appease the cultural anxieties of white male voters, Democrats should instead focus on offering them economic solutions to their challenges (…) while energizing, organizing, and mobilizing the millions of Americans who were part of the coalition that Barack Obama successfully wove together in 2008 and 2012.

TLDR: The “realist left” is anything but. If you want a revolutionary new face for the Democratic Party, you’ll find the Justice Democrats are the answer you seek. NotYourAverageBoN (talk) 01:41, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

The problem with this argument is that the Alt Left strongly supports the Justice Democrats. In particular, Ryan England has written a lot of pieces supporting them.

I understand that people think that the Alt Left hates non-Whites, women, gays and transsexuals, but that's not really the case. Lindsay is an outlier as far as social conservatism, and most of the wings think he goes too far. The largest Alt Left groups on Facebook, including one with 11,000 members, are full of gay members, especially gay men. And there is a Gay Alt Left wing centered around someone named Prince of Queens.

Even Lindsay supports him. There is also a pro-transsexual wing of the Alt Left. These are basically trans anti-TERFers. Lindsay hates them and says they are just slightly less insane SJW's, but they are still around. The two mods on their Facebook page are both transwomen and besides that, the group is full of gay men. To the charge that the Alt Left is White Supremacist, there are Black Alt Leftists. In fact, one of the earliest Alt Left groups on Facebook was run by a Black man.

Lindsay absolutely hates modern feminism, but his views are seen as extreme by almost all wings. Ryan England explicitly states that he is a feminist and he sounds like a 3rd wave feminist. There is no Feminist Alt Left or even Women's wing, but there are many women in the movement, and most are not complaining.108.204.62.185 (talk) 21:03, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

On the other hand, Smermels seems to have an unusually expansive definition of "Nazism." This is the sort of thing Godwin's law is about. Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 14:01, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

This Article...

Is one of the worst examples of the Clinton/Sanders divide on this site. It seems to take one position (that the Realist Left is basically an excuse for the alt-right to look liberal, which I'm not sure I agree with), but then in the "Alt Facts" section it takes the exact opposite side (that the Realist Left is a reaction to a negative trend away from economic issues on the left, which I'm also not sure I agree with). What the flying fuck is the article trying to say? RoninMacbeth (talk) 05:49, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

can we please delete shit like this 32℉uzzy; 0℃atPotato (talk/stalk) 07:36, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

The article seemed fine before it was changed. The "Realist Left" is largely made up post keynesians and some Marxists who are critical of "Identity politics", and there are also a handful of people who call themselves "alt-left" but are just Third Positionists. The article at the moment is pretty hysterical, calling what are at most mildly "conservative" views on immigration/speech actual and obvious "Nazism". I'm actually a little surprised how well it plays into the hands of actual Nazis, it's kind of making the Boomer conservative argument that Nazism and Socialism/Leftism are compatible but from the other side of the aisle (to smear slightly different leftists/liberals). I suppose there are Strasserists and NazBols but there are what, 10 actual advocates in the world? I'd revert the article to how it was before. ClothCoat (talk) 06:42, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

@ClothCoat Do it, what you just described sounds much more accurate than this train-wreck of an article. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 11:05, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Race realism

Isn't Robert Lindsay a race realist? https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/category/raceethnicity/race-realism/ If so, wouldn't that make the "realist left" an alt-right movement? LuodiWang (talk) 23:30, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, that depends. Is he associated with the movement aside from naming it? RoninMacbeth (talk) 23:33, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

See for yourself: http://www.starktruthradio.com/?p=1515 LuodiWang (talk) 23:53, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

1. Lindsay isn't Realist Left. He's Alt Left or Alternative Left. They are similar but they are definitely not the same thing! The Alt Left is more radical or extreme than Realist Left. It's more Left economically and more right on social issues. The Realist Left has rejected race realism completely. The Alt Left and the Realist Left are best described as closely allied but definitely separate movements. The Realist Left's beef against Lindsay is that he is too far left on economics, too far right in social issues and in particular, they are very much against the race realism. Lindsay's beef against the Realist Left is that they are too far right on economics and they are too quick to support conservatives like Trump.

2. Lindsay doesn't own the Alt Left. He just came up with the idea. Most of the Alt Left wings (there were at least 13 at last count) have rejected race realism.

There is however one wing, one of the original wings, that promotes race realism and even White nationalism. It is called the Left of the Alt Right. It used to be called the Left Wing of the Alt Right. This is centered around Brandon Adamson and the www.altleft.com website. However, Adamson recently changed the name to the Left of the Alt Right because he wants nothing to do with the Alt Right anymore because he hates them so much. Adamson is basically a liberal or Leftist on almost everything except race. Adamson is a very early Alt Leftist, the second major one after Lindsay.

And even Lindsay downplays race realism and says he doesn't want to talk about it much. He believes in it but he says all talking about it does is create rightwingers and empower existing ones, so why bring it up? Besides, he doesn't think there is much in the way of bettering the problems of biological race, so once again, if there's no fix for a problem, why bring it up?

3. Lindsay absolutely despises all of the US Right and much of the Overseas Right. He hates American conservatives, reactionaries, and fascists. He despises the Libertarian Party and the Republican Party, and he always votes Democrat or left 3rd Party. Given all of that, how can you possibly say he is on the Right? That doesn't make sense. If race realism is racism, then isn't it possible that there might be some liberal and Leftist racists. Why does racism throw you out of the Left? I really doubt if it does. Also, Lindsay has a co-blogger who is an actively anti-racist Black woman, so calling him racist gets problematic.

4. However, the poster is correct in a sense because the original Alt Left was definitely an Alt Right split with people like Adamson and Lindsay who had been hanging out on the fringes of the Alt Right for years but always felt uncomfortable there because, well, the Alt Right is rightwing, and they were Lefties! In fact, Lindsay says the name Alternative Left originated on the White Supremacist basically Nazi website The Right Stuff. Lindsay saw posters on that site asking, "Ok, we know what Alt Right is. So what's Alt Left?" The usual response was "The Alt Left would be Robert Lindsay." So the name Alternative Left or Alt Left actually originated on a White Supremacist Nazi website!

5. Lindsay is still somewhat active on the Alt Left and has formed his own wing called The Original Alternative Left (it has a Facebook page) after he renounced most of the existing wings for supporting Trump. However, the FB group is not very active, Lindsay doesn't write about the Alt Left much, and people like Ryan England and even Adamson are a lot more active. He did however get interviewed by Al Jazeera for an article about the Alt Left which unfortunately never ran.108.204.62.185 (talk) 17:06, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Let's Try This Again

Is the alt-left a controversial and misguided attempt to correct course for leftism, or simply a way to make alt-right ideology palatable to leftists? What is the article trying to say?!I really don't care which version wins out, because I can kind of see both sides' points. Let's come to a consensus on what the article should try to be saying or split the "Alt-left" and "Realist left" sections into their own separate articles, or I swear to Odin I'll nominate this for an AfD vote. RoninMacbeth (talk) 05:57, 21 June 2018 (UTC) Considering that I know the people who founded and were early adopters of both the Alt Left and the Realist Left, given the choice between "a controversial and misguided attempt to correct course for leftism" and "a way to make alt-right ideology palatable to leftists," it's the definitely former and absolutely not the latter. None of the leaders or followers seem to want to have anything to do with the Alt Right. However, the roots of the Alt Left are on the Alt Right. It started out as a Left split form the Alt Right, but later they all abandoned the racial part of the Alt Right altogether. Some are still active on other parts of the Alt Right such as the Manosphere, but the Manosphere is not racialist or racist at all. 108.204.62.185 (talk) 07:52, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

@RoninMacbeth As @ClothCoat and I agreed a good chunk of content was removed to make the article seem less bipolar. @LuodiWang kept reverting the article back into it's more chaotic form, so you may wish to take your complaints to them. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 13:37, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I created a separate article for the "alt facts" version. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Realist_left_and_alt-right LuodiWang (talk) 14:16, 21 June 2018 (UTC)