122
rainbow drones
(quokk.au)
Gatekeeping. Being „leftist“ can be many things.
Gatekeeping. The only truly consistent definition of "Leftist" 😀
Yes "leftist" is relative to the overton window in your current time and space, but at the same time this argument has been used to co-opt and dilute movements.
So yeah the democrats for example can call themselves leftists, but no real leftist will take them seriously.
Additionally you can always use more precise terms to avoid this. Like anarcho-syndicalist, Marxism-Leninist, etc.
Bullshit divisions like this in the political left are why the right keeps winning.
Ah typical right wingers, always trying to dilute the left until it's a meaningless word used by those who support capitalism.
The right keep winning, because capitalism owns the systems of power. If you stopped pandering to their whims and started to actually be anti-capitalist, anti-authority, anti-hierarchy, anti-patriarchy you could push for real change instead of begging for scraps of reformist electoral garbage.
Gatekeeping and purity tests certainly won't help
Oh there’s no gatekeeping or purity tests, we acknowledge all leftists are leftists. It’s why I even acknowledge authleft are leftists despite disagreeing with them.
Your issue here is you seem to think right wing liberal types are leftists.
Your original meme doesn’t inherently portray a right wing liberal. Plenty of leftists went to the no kings rally and will go to the next one.
Then why push away people like this? Why not show them the light and introduce them to the things that actually make the changes? You can invent someone who “will automatically go back to the right” in your head but that isn’t always the case in reality.
Sure you could push for it, like people have pushed for it for generations. Pushing for something alone doesn't accomplish it.
"Um actually"-ing away potential comrades
Let their contempt of trumpian bullshit be a gateway to liberation
As soon as Trump is gone they’ll go back to turning on leftists. The middle right won’t change, they want the status quo back.
That would be a massive fumble. Assuming any of us survive, what is forming is an opportunity for a seismic shift in ideology.
Absolutely crazy to me the original post is essentially gatekeeping “being a leftist” and one of the comments is trying to gatekeep even harder. And we wonder why people laugh at us.
So uhh, leftists dont even mention that they oppose patriarchy? Sounds about right tbh, atleast from my experience
It’s an issue of the meme format, it can’t include everything. But generally leftists are against all exploitation and oppression.
Its also in issue in the real world. So many leftists I met were super knowledgeable about anticapitalism and antiimperialism, also put that to practice, but were still misogynistic asshats and cared little for antiracism.
Patriarchal society is an expression of capitalist imperialism thus opposition of capitalism and imperialism inherently opposes patriarchy. It's implied. It doesn't need to be said.
It’s much older than that, religion is generally extremely patriarchal and predates capitalism.
Yes, religion is another political entity that manifests in patriarchal society. Patriarchal society being an expression of capitalism and imperialism doesn't mean that patriarchal expression cannot come from other sources, only that capitalism and imperialism themselves are inherently patriarchal and thus opposition to them is inherently oppositional to patriarchal society.
It gets deeper into theory that if one isn't in opposition to patriarchy while saying that they oppose capitalism/imperialism is someone who isn't in actuality opposed to those systems as they still support the mechanisms of social interaction (gender norms and all that) that reinforce those systems but that's, like I said, getting into much deeper political theory that I don't have the books on hand to quote from.
It's intersectional. These things all play on each other and it gets complicated.
I would argue patriarchy was one of the reasons capitalism was actually able to exist and spread. Plus it also exists in non capitalist societies / contexts.
It’s implied. It doesn’t need to be said.
It definitely has to be said. Manarchists, brocialists and in general chauvinist on the left make it necessary. Because it isnt implied.
Check my reply to the other comment, I don't feel like typing it out twice as it applies to both comments.
I'd generalize it a bit more and say that patriarchy is a result of having rulers.
Nothing hurts the left quite like purity tests.
Edit: didn't realize this was an Australian instance.
It’s international.
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
122 points (97.7% liked)
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