The lottery. Falconry. Schools.

I don’t actually believe there’s a way for the Left to pitch trans issues

Then fuck the Left, I guess?

doesn’t alienate our progressive base

Then fuck “our” “progressive” base?

If the “Left” had spent a fraction of the resources to match the vile torrent of anti-trans propaganda, the situation would be different, with regard to both of your points about pitching trans issues to the progressive base.

Like, John Oliver and Jon Stewart showed exactly how a mainstream progressive media can combat anti-trans demagoguery by Republicans, not to mention Scientific American, the American Psychological Association, and other bodies. You probably weren’t listening because if you don’t think this is a way to “pitch” then you might have been listening to other sources that make the matter unpalatable, like “biological males in female sports” and what have you.

So I take it as a given that you were listening to the wrong sources about it, and you are at least partially anti-trans yourself. On the other hand, you might not be listening to all the analyses after the fact that point to other issues as to why Democrats lost the election. See for example this thread, this comic strip, and this thread also.

In a nutshell, Harris did already try to appeal to the transphobes and she failed. So this should be end of discussion. I am not discussing compromise of the human rights of any group in order to appease to either moderate or extreme bigots.

I already said no. We have a totally different mind model here. You think that there is a static majority with crystalized opinions, a conservative inertia that we have to adapt to. I believe that the revolutionary powers compete with fascist propaganda to win over the majority, who is bound to different material interests.

When this deceptively mild approach of appeasing the majority used, it legitimizes that the fascists are somehow in the right to a degree.

That is what I cannot stand about centrists. I am an anarchist, there is no middle ground between me and, well, a number of things that are utterly unacceptable. There is no middle ground to nazism, and corporatism, for example. By upholding these standards, I am dragging society towards absolute equality.

With your appeasement approach, you legitimize fascists, which is called the ratchet effect. Without revolutionary powers dragging people leftwards, centrist appeasement pushes the mainstream rightward.

Having said that, the proposed example is completely out of historical context, and is wrong on so many levels. I can’t go into all the details right now, but the very idea of “throwing homosexuals in the mix” is preposterous given the historical context.

Let me direct you to the fact that the British Empire paid reparations to slave owners, but even to this day if you try to mention Reparations to the Caribbean and African nations you will be met with vile harassment from hordes of nazi trolls. So I cannot educate you in Marxist political economy right now, but you comparing abolitionism to gay rights is comparing apples and oranges, and the equivalence is unwarranted.

Only under the concurrent prism of anti-wokeism these are deemed comparable, from the viewpoint of being “not cisgender heteronormative germanic/anglo/saxon Christian male”. So you would not be bringing this even remotely up if you were not ever so slightly affected by anti-woke propaganda yourself.

this keeps playing out across the world

Sorry, I won’t cater to the anti-woke majority. They are shaped by decades of well-funded fascist propaganda and complicit media and social media outlets.

This is how “woke” was even introduced in our vocabulary in the first place.

These efforts were never matched in breadth and throughput by those on the anti-anti-woke side. Saying that Democrats should cater more to the anti-woke lynching mob does not cut it. It is the quintessence of the ratchet effect. It only leads to greater success rate of said propaganda efforts.

So to translate your argument, the fascist propaganda apparatus indeed has shaped an anti-woke majority, but leftists should not yield to them under no conditions: it will only normalize bigotry. Plus they already did lower the tones on trans issues. It did not win them the elections. Biden did take on the bigots with pro-trans policies and he had won, on the other hand.

So what leg does your argument even stand on except sharing some of the bigotry? We should push the narrative more and more towards equality, not conceding that absolute equality is utopian. The more you annoy the bigots the better.

The Democrats never addressed the propaganda apparatus that brought us to this. And now we should focus more on organizing rather than retrospectively catering to transphobes and racists to win elections. That is why I think your argument is despicable and comes from a position of privilege. If it was your rights/survival on the line and not someone else’s you wouldn’t be suggesting political trade-offs.

Right enough, you are doing this right now: Because your life is at threat now, you say “shiiit we should have sacrificed the trans pawn to win the political chess after all”. Guess what, this is the dog-eat-dog mentality that fascism instills in people, having its way already.

The answer is solidarity and organizing, not trade-offs.

Wow, this should be downvoted more.

conceded on say trans issues or whatever

What if we conceded on your rights or whatever?

Plus the idea that trans rights lost Democrats the election is ridiculous. There were zero trans speakers in the DNC, and Harris did cater to transphobes by saying she will go with state laws.

So the question remains, who else are you willing to throw under the bus because you think that their rights are too edgy?

Go-slowism leads to do-nothingism - Malcolm X

Utilitarian is not what you think it is. Your comment just shows a complete lack of empathy for people living in the same social space as you.

I think people who think that the rights of any group’s rights is “too much” to appease and appeal to a society of oppressors are complicit to the oppression.

As for your original question: Musk helps oppressive states enforce censorship on his platform .

His passion for free speech is only for white supremacists and conspiracy theorists now running rampant on his platform (there is a John Oliver segment about it).

He opposed an anti-hate-speech law in Ireland, although the law makes clear that it is still allowed to express unfavorable opinions and offend others, but forbids incitement to violence.

This shows he is not interested in defending “unfavorable reasoning” against the “woke” inquisitors, rather than advancing hate-speech and white supremacist causes in particular. This is not only a hypothesis, but a reported outcome of his actions with X/Twitter, which is now a nazi bar.

Don’t forget Russel’s tolerance paradox: If you tolerate nazis in order to defend freedom (of speech, political association, and the like), they will overtake the state apparatus and verbot freedoms for everyone, not only speech, but freedom of life as well.

He is doing exactly that, not only permitting, but promoting white supremacy, and at the same time treating the term “cisgender” for example as a slur.

This shows he is not all in for defending free-speech for all sides, but he is out to “destroy to woke mind virus” because it “stole his son from him”.

Musk is a nazi apologist, a big cry baby, and a media gatekeeper who enforces censorship both as a platform owner and as a service to totalitarian states.

He is a national security risk, according to Wired.