Why People Leave The Left

[Xonas Pitfall]

Very interesting analysis. What do you guys think is the cause of this?

Edited June 3 by Xonas Pitfall

[Leo Gura]

My guess for top reasons:

• Vibes
• Bad experience with some cringe batshit leftist
• Someone of the left tries to personally cancel you for saying something politically incorrect
• Friends go right-ward and you follow your friend group
• Single issue disagreement like covid vaccines

Edited June 3 by Leo Gura

[Xonas Pitfall]

To summarize the video:

• The Right is focused on politics,
• The Left, especially the online/far-left, is focused on internal purity and social status games.

Politics is the pursuit of political power - winning elections, getting people to vote for your candidate, and using that power to implement policy. The Right in America practices this directly. Their main concern is gaining political power, and everything is oriented around that goal. Because of this, the Right doesn't focus on “purity testing”, except in the context of voting - i.e., "will you vote for our candidate or not?"

In contrast, the online Left doesn’t seem interested in electoral success. While it looks like politics and uses political language, it’s actually functioning more like a social group or identity club. The goal isn’t to win elections, but to reinforce belonging within a certain group by signaling the right beliefs and values. This is what some critics have referred to as social signaling, not politics in the traditional sense.

This explains a long-observed dynamic:

1. People can easily “switch” from Left to Right publicly ("Why I Left the Left") and be welcomed by the Right,
2. But the reverse (“Why I Left the Right”) rarely happens because the Left won’t accept them back. If you ever supported the wrong person or said something wrong years ago, you’re permanently impure in the eyes of some on the Left.

The Right is more forgiving because its main goal is gaining political power, not maintaining moral purity within the group. The Left (online or far-left) has a different goal, which is maintaining ideological consistency and in-group cohesion, often at the cost of political effectiveness.

Destiny does clarify he disagrees with how the Right uses power, as authoritarian and dangerous. However, it's also acknowledged that the Right wields social power more effectively, because it’s directed toward a clear political purpose (elections and legislation), rather than social virtue-signaling without electoral impact.

They also point out the strange tenacity of right-wing voters - for example, many believe the 2020 election was rigged, yet they still show up and vote, which is baffling but politically effective.

The Left needs to be more politically oriented and ruthless in cutting out those who aren’t interested in political outcomes. They advocate for a more pragmatic and electoral-focused Left, rather than one obsessed with internal purity and social status games.

@Leo Gura This conclusion struck me as particularly interesting, and it raises a question: what might be the underlying cause of this trend, assuming it’s true? There’s no obvious reason why one side would feel more compelled to advocate so passionately, but it still seems to happen.

[SwiftQuill]

It depends on what you mean by "The Left".

If you mean cultural Left, like the Star Wars director calling her own fan base "racists", of the billionaire Taylor Swift saying "men have it easy in life", or identity politics BS being shoved down my throat in videogames and Hollywood, yeah you only need 2 braincells to understand why people are against that shit.

But if we're talking politics, like why people vote for that party instead of another one, it's mostly about marketing in my opinion.

Believe it or not I am a leftist. Economically, socially, and I care about the environment and all that. But recently we had government elections in my country, and I voted for a right wing party. I can't trust left wing party who talks about teaching gender ideology in primary schools and female representation in the IT world, when basic shit doesn't work. Hospitals don't work. Roads don't work. Schools don't work (lack teachers).

At least right wing political parties promise economic growth, stability.

So it also depends on the state of your country. 

[SwiftQuill]

It also depends if by "The Left" you mean the superset of left wing (wokeness + progressivism + economic left + democratic party) or if you mean specifically US political Left.

And also if you want to know why people leave the left, I suggest listening to someone who has left the left, as opposed to some who made his career into persuading people to become leftists.

[Xonas Pitfall]

1 minute ago, SwiftQuill said:

It also depends if by "The Left" you mean the superset of left wing (wokeness + progressivism + economic left + democratic party) or if you mean specifically US political Left.

And also if you want to know why people leave the left, I suggest listening to someone who has left the left, as opposed to some who made his career into persuading people to become leftists.

Thank you! I’m still learning about politics and trying to understand different perspectives. I wanted to post this question to hear what others think and hopefully get a more objective viewpoint.

[AION]

Extreme left is like extreme right. They are pig headed. It is like talking to those people who try to sell their religion on the street. 

[Leo Gura]

26 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

The Left needs to be more politically oriented and ruthless

Of course the left is less ruthless. That's why the left is better than the right.

Making the left more ruthless just to win and grab power is exactly what makes the right so disgusting, corrupt, and evil.

It's like saying: Actualized.org is not popular enough. It needs to be more like Islam or Scientology to outcompete them.

The right is like herding sheep, the left is like herding cats.

Edited June 3 by Leo Gura

[Jacob Morres]

18 minutes ago, SwiftQuill said:

At least right wing political parties promise economic growth, stability.

 

when you gauge the success of their policies in your country over the next few years make sure to use very high quality external sources. if they are like trump, they will say they are "winning" regardless of how bad they are doing, so be careful of getting the data from the party themselves, it will be very biased. 

[Xonas Pitfall]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Of course the left is less ruthless. That's why the left is better than the right.

Do you think there are more pragmatic ways these challenges could be addressed or mitigated? Not necessarily by being more ruthless, but perhaps through a different kind of appeal or strategy?

[SwiftQuill]

@Jacob Morres don't use Trump as a reference for anything. Even for republican standards, even for right wing standards, he's an abomination, an anomaly. 

And make sure to distinguish "right wing" from "MAGA lunatic right wing".

People have gained this hatred of anything that is right of center, because they think Trump. It's a fallacy of association.

The right wing candidate I voted for you'd consider him really soft. He just cares about controlling immigration and lowering taxes a bit. And he has a PhD in Political Science, unlike Trump who is laughably uneducated.

[Jacob Morres]

@SwiftQuill a lot of right wing parties around the world are gleaning from trumps playbook because it was shown to work here, that's why I mentioned trump

 

Edited June 3 by Jacob Morres

[Daniel Balan]

People leave the left because people are extremy corrupt! The left's main political objective is diminishing corruption, and because people are corrupt devils, they don't like when someone tells them they are corrupt devils, like how the left is telling then all the time! And they migrate to the right, where corruption is rewarded and the ones who oppose corruption are strawmaned! 

Edited June 3 by Daniel Balan

[PurpleTree]

Because the wokes like on this forum are so annoying.

With their buzz words like genocide and colonialism.

It‘s just so boring and herd mentality.

[PurpleTree]

56 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

Because the wokes like on this forum are so annoying.

With their buzz words like genocide and colonialism.

It‘s just so boring and herd mentality.

Same with the MAGAs etc.

 

 

If it wasn’t for the wokes. I might actually go to a Palestine protest. But i don’t want to hear those sheepish buzzwords and slogans etc.

[Daniel Balan]

59 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

Because the wokes like on this forum are so annoying.

With their buzz words like genocide and colonialism.

It‘s just so boring and herd mentality.

Conservatives are even more annoying! Imagine getting triggered by 2 words! You can't even write a word without them crying "WOKE"! 

[something_else]

There was a video created recently in the UK discussing the surge in Reform UK voters within the university. Reform is our far right party which has recently gained a ton of traction.

The gist of why all of the young men interviewed in the video were drawn to it was essentially because they were struggling to date.

The incel type dating content online is all very right leaning and so it ends up creating a pipeline from 'struggling to date' to joining the far right.

Ironically being far-right makes dating even harder for you, especially in a university lol.

[SwiftQuill]

@Daniel Balan maybe It's because I'm not American, so I don't deal with conservatives and they don't bother me so much.

Last time I was insulted by a conservative for disliking a movie? Never happened. But I'm a racist sexist for criticizing star wars and marvel.

Last time a conservative tried to censor or cancel a videogame I enjoy, my copium? Never happened. But the DEI and Sweet Baby Inc bullshit makes videogames ugly and woke on purpose. They get triggered if an anime girl in a videogame has boobies.

Last time I was banned from a subreddit or Facebook group or censored online by a conservative? Never happened. But it always happens when I interact with Wokies.

Last time a conservative in real life ever insulted me for no reason? Never happened. But I sure have been defamed and insulted by feminists and intersectionality people who love to demonize white people and men and put me as the blame for the world's issues.

Last time I was watching the news and journalists were incredibly biased toward conservativism? I need to go out of my way for that to ever happen. But about 80-90% of journalists here sure are loyal to the woke religion. They are so woke they are incapable of discussing many topics in good faith, like immigration, without resorting to name calling racism and all of that shit.

Am I triggered because I constantly get censored, because I want to enjoy good quality entertainment, and because journalists don't engage in politics in good faith?

Maybe I'm "triggered". Maybe I'm alt right, far right, bigot sexist racist.

But at least conservatives don't go out of their way to cancel me. And I don't have to walk on eggshells around conservatives afraid they will get offended by something trivial.

Maybe I'm lucky and in my country "conservatives" are different from the US.

But at this point I don't care.

That attitude of "but the right wing is worse!" is such a bullshit attempt to dismiss genuine criticism that your ideology receives.

I'm pro distribution of wealth. I'm pro immigration (but reasonably controlled). I'm pro freedom of speech. I'm pro gay marriage and gay people adopting. I'm pro choice. I'm pro green energies and to fight climate change. I'm for taxing the ultra rich. Politically, I would be a leftist or left of center. But society has shifted so much in recent years that most people I interact with both in person and online, they accuse me of being "far right".

Sure, people like JP and Ben Shapiro like to weaponize language when they use terms like "communist" and "Marxist".

But the Left is way worse. Because the Left is mainstream and it's range of weaponised words is much larger.

So no I don't buy the "you're right wing and triggered by mere words" when that's peak hypocrisy coming from the leff.

I have to walk on eggshells all the time, and people come to me saying I'm triggered by mere words? The same people who are deeply offended at a Final Fantasy npc who wears high heels? Beyond hypocritical.

[Keryo Koffa]

Exhaustion

[PurpleTree]

10 minutes ago, SwiftQuill said:

I'm pro distribution of wealth. I'm pro immigration (but reasonably controlled). I'm pro freedom of speech. I'm pro gay marriage and gay people adopting. I'm pro choice. I'm pro green energies and to fight climate change. I'm for taxing the ultra rich. Politically, I would be a leftist or left of center. But society has shifted so much in recent years that most people I interact with both in person and online, they accuse me of being "far right".

I agree with that and one thing which really annoys me about the wokes is that there is stuff that we really need to work on. Like how the middle class is being destroyed, tech companies getting ultra powerful, factories moving to China, people can’t pay rents, public transport, workers rights etc etc etcc.

Real life tangible stuff and wokes keep yapping stuff like some frogs at a pond like “patriarchy” “colonialism” “ribbid”they are just annoying everyone with their childish stuff and destroying a real path forward with solultions.