70% of Republicans Would Consider Joining New Party Formed by Donald Trump, Poll Find

[CJD]

(02-12-2021, 01:30 PM)Dill Wrote: Two quick notes:

A lot of Bernie supporters weren't/aren't really "leftists." Some 10-12% weren't Democrats in 2016, and displayed attitudes towards race and immigration much more typical of Trump voters.  
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds

Right wing populism is also about scapegoating. That seems an international constant and a structural difference between the two types.

It depends. Briahna Joy Gray would probably define herself as a leftist, but she is so toxic towards Democrats that you start to wonder what her actual intentions or beliefs are. Same with Jimmy Dore and Krystal Ball. 

Now, are these types of people grifters for the left? The "left version" of a Candace Owens? Or are they just so obsessed with hating Democrats that they've unintentionally turned themselves into the equivalent of a Trump supporter by opposing everything the Democrats do, even the things that are a step in the right direction? It's hard to say.

For example, Brianna Joy Grey has been campaigning to increase minimum wage for a long time and now that Biden is trying to raise it to 15 dollars an hour, she suddenly thinks that's not enough and it should be 25 dollars an hour.

As for the 10% of Bernie supporters who turned to Trump, I wouldn't be surprised if they did that as a form of accelerationism. If Trump tears down the system, then they can rebuild it in the form they imagine it can be (a leftist form, presumably).

I think it's dumb as **** and the only accelerationists I've ever met have been Stalinists or Marxist-Leninists (perjoratively called Tankies), which is....something else entirely. Auth-Left is a beast that I don't really know how to deal with at the moment. But they are definitely on the left regardless. They're just not lefties that are good for democracy, which I think all would agree are the kinds of lefties that Americans should endorse.