Where The Left Is Taking Wrong Turns

 It seems that there are some from the Left whose actions are counterproductive to their stated interests. That is sad. Where their actions are counterproductive are in the areas of their attacks on the Democrats and in their ambivalent stand on violence during protests.

Based on internet discussions and readings, there are self-proclaimed Leftists who strongly attack the Democrats in general and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris  in particular. Now it isn't that I am against criticizing any of the Democrats. Even the best of them, like Barack Obama, did little if anything to advance the Leftist interests. Rather, they seemed to be strong supporters of the global side of neoliberalism. In addition, Obama's administration did not pursue the prosecution of the Wall Street execs who played major roles in the 2008 economic collapse. Compare that with the Obama Administration's record of prosecuting more government whistle blowers than all previous administrations combined. In addition, Obama wanted to fast-track acceptance of the TPP. 

So we can see that the Obama-Biden record cannot be supported by Leftists without being under duress. The supplier of the duress is the Republican Party and their nominee for President.

But compared to Trump, Biden can be tolerated because the Democrats' goal of  corporate control of the government is traveling at a slower speed than the Trump train. In other words, we have much more time to change things under Obama than we do under Trump. The Obama-Biden ticket did not attack the USPS nor has it endangered safety net programs like Social Security and Medicare. In addition, the Obama-Biden team took efforts to protect the environment as well as the rights of the LGBT community. In addition, its justice department looked into racism in different police departments.

As some "Leftists" have said to me on the internet, Trump is preferable to Biden because Biden is a neoliberal. Well, Trump is too. Only Trump emphasizes the domestic end of neoliberalism while the Biden and the Democrats emphasize the global side of neoliberalism. In addition, Trump's personality traits and actions in office show that he is a wannabe dictator. He is taking actions to destroy the USPS in order to suppress voting. He is taking actions to destroy the financial base of Social Security and Medicare. And he has been constantly cutting the social responsibility ties of the corporate world by lowering their taxes and cutting environmental regulations.

Yes, Biden is horrible; but Trump is worse. So the "Leftist" effort to attack Biden and, in the words of some, because they prefer Trump is in no way helpful to Leftist interests.

There are 3 possibilities as for why self-proclaimed leftists would prefer Trump to beat Biden. The first possibility is that some of these leftists so hate the Democratic Party that they want it destroyed at all costs. And in doing so, they seem to be in denial of the costs the rest of the nation and our democracy will pay for their efforts.

The second possibility is that some of these leftists are really Russian trolls. Both the State Department and the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee are on record about how Russia used multiple attempts to affect the outcome of the 2016 election. And that they are making similar attempts during this election.

The third possibility is that some of these leftists are really Republican provocateurs.

The second wrong turn that the Left is taking is to not take an adamant stand against violence during the protests. The Left's failure here touches on both practical concerns and moral concerns. The moral concerns is that violence and destruction of property is clearly  wrong. Having said that, we have to understand that for some of the protesters, the violence and destruction of property is understandable considering the legitimate rage that hundreds of years of marginalization has created. This is particular true for many Blacks and for the LGBT community--though the latter is not involved in violent protests. This strongly opposing violence and destruction while stating that some of it is understandable is the approach Martin Luther King Jr. took when race riots broke out across the U.S. On the one hand, he condemned the violence and destruction that was part of the riots. On the other hand, he said: 'a riot is the language of the unheard.'

On the practical side, those marginalized people who participate in riots must understand that violence and destruction of property make many privileged people even more resistant to changing the status quo than they are by nature. This is especially for those who are comfortable because change is the most demanding venture a person can take on. And considering that we have an authoritarian society, change for those who are privileged is even more difficult to accomplish when they feel unjustly threatened.

I like Black Lives Matter (BLM). I understand their agenda and thing it is find for society, though not for the Church. But I know from friends that once violence and destruction can be associated with them, the people that need to listen the most will paint BLM with a single color from a broad brush unless BLM strongly condemns the violence and destruction that have been associated with many protests.

If the Left wants to be more influential, we have a couple of u-turns to make. And the quicker we are at making those u-turns, the more time we have to influence people despite the fact that we have no true Leftists in our federal government.