The strength of the Left can be found in its entrancing historical fiction, and the psychology of victimhood. The Left can grab from many demographics by the all-encompassing oppression narrative. However, this also causes several problems.
Since the Left contains diverse demographics all in a race to the bottom of their own respective victim narratives, there is now an environment of near-zero loyalty as the different factions all fight against each other for power. You can see this as #BlackLivesMatter derides white middle class feminists. It can be seen in how the T is trying to expel the G of the LGBT, because even white gay men have too much privilege. Blacks see whites as having white privilege, while women see men as having male privilege, and so Tyrone of BLM and Denise of feminism will eventually clash over which side gets the greater benefits.
For a long time, we have viewed the Left as this all-expanding force, moving the Overton Window ever further to the Left with each passing decade. I think we have all come to assume that accelerating leftism is inevitable. Their legions are too vast and their control of the cultural narrative is too tight.
I believe what we’re seeing now with the Left is analogous to a dying star. More groups enter the Left, it gains further power, until the day when it finally becomes unstable and collapses in on itself, though not through gravity, but from infighting.
As the Left’s radicalization advances with ever-increasing speed, you’re going to see more divisions and less stability in the Left. The stricter rules of the Left’s dogma mean that leftists begin to police themselves with greater ferocity. They call out the privilege of the other factions, and compete against each other for who has it worse. These fractures are currently taking place along fault lines of race, sex, sexual orientation, etc., because each group has holds their own unique crime of privilege. You can even see this now as the more radical and unreasonable Tumblrites consume themselves.
The collapse would have happened a long time ago if there weren’t social technology in play on the part of the Left to mend the divisions. If you were to enter the university now and take a class in any social studies one of the first topics of any 101 level class would be: intersectionality.
Intersectionality is the concept in social studies that all forms of oppression are connected. Aside from the dictionary definition, this concept means that you, the hypothetical student, must accept all of the Left’s diverse factions as one, without exception.
If you are an intersectional feminist, then black rights, gay rights, and trans rights also come with your feminism because, as Tumblr likes to say, “If you’re not doing it for trans women, or women of color, then who are you doing it for? Shame, shame, shame.” If you don’t accept POCs as a white female feminist, then you’re a racist and no longer belong in the club. If you’re a gay man who doesn’t accept transsexuals, then you’re transphobic bigot, so get out. If you’re a black male who doesn’t accept feminism, then, sorry, you’re still a misogynist. It is the threat and promise of this ostracism that directs each faction to get along.
Note that such a buffer would not be needed if solidarity were natural to the Left. It isn’t, but conflict certainly is. As things get worse and the privilege narrative becomes further extreme, not even intersectionality can keep the growing resentment from dividing the Left further. As hatred for their enemies grows, each faction will see pieces of that enemy within their allies. That lady is still white, after all, and that black man is still a man. No matter what whites do, they still have white privilege. No matter how hard you advocate for women’s rights, no male can be called a “feminist,” only an “ally,” and of course they still inevitably have the stain of male privilege, as well.
Expelling gay men from LGBT campus groups will not only be a question in later years, but common practice. This is the Left, after all. They won’t stop until they win. They won’t compromise with their perceived “oppressors”. It seems that even intersectionality has its limits.
However, even if intersectionality were to die, there is one last thing to keep the Left together, and that is their combined hatred of a common enemy.
It is in the nature of humans to change alliances based on the strength and scope of an opposing force. The U.S. allied with France to fight the English, then allied with the English to fight the Germans, then allied with the Germans to fight the Russians. If we were to ever go to war with aliens, then the Russians would be our ally. And if those aliens needed help to fight the emergence of the Elder Gods, then they’d be our ally, too. It is the nature of things.
Even after the rise and fall of the intersectionality concept, the psychology of the common enemy would still keep the Left together. So long as the trans can hate cis, and women can hate men, and blacks can hate whites, then there will always be a gravitating force.
But to keep a star together, gravity must be at equilibrium with the expanding force, and there is no guarantee that these two forces can scale together. The privilege and oppression narrative will only become more extreme; thus, the hatred for the common enemy will need to be proportionally extreme. This balance will have to be maintained, otherwise it will end in the fracturing of the Left and thus the death of the Left itself as we know it. My prediction: you’re going to see a much more blatant anti-white/male/straight propaganda as time goes on. This must take place, in order to keep the Left from collapsing.
In one sense, the Left is very powerful, but change your perspective and it is actually quite weak. If that delicate balance is maintained, then it is bad news for all of us, but how fragile is that balance? I certainly don’t know. The future of the Left hinges upon it. The good news is that, if well understood, we can tip that balance.
Right now, the focus is on white-cis-hetero-males, but those men are either small in number in leftist circles or completely submissive. When feminists talk about the patriarchy, or BLM talks about white supremacy, they’re referring to a powerful and nebulous far-away force akin to the Illuminati. If it’s not an unknown cabal, then it is “the system.” Both are conceptualized abstractions, and neither are things one can directly point to. This makes the enemy elusive, and it’s hard to keep a constant hate for an enemy that comes and goes from your attention.
But the feminist on your left is a real, flesh and blood person, as is the BLM advocate on your right. They can conjure the feeling of immediate threat in each other if their struggles were framed differently.
One way to stop the Left is to divert attention away from an ambiguous threat from abroad and instead shift the focus to the Left’s different faction of activists. The narrative to fragment the Left could work as such: the power that you want to fix your oppression is finite, and not only is it finite but all the other activists are vying for a bigger slice of that power. If you don’t take it, they will take it from you. If you want to end your oppression, then you need to secure it from the others, who, if they had it, wouldn’t even throw you a bone. They’re privileged after all. They can’t see your oppression.
If you were a leftist, would you still target a faraway enemy when you’re about to be double-crossed from behind? No. Reframing the struggle in this way puts leftist against leftist. Every blow they make to each other is a blow that we didn’t have to make.
All it needs is a little push for the Left’s narrative to gain momentum on its own. Ego takes it the rest of the way down. Feminists will think that race will prevail over women’s rights. Blacks will think that middle-class white women will prevail over them. Transgenders will think that both groups will entrench cis-hetero-normative society. And all will realize that if they want the power to end their group’s suffering, then they must act in direct competition with the others.
The primary result would be open conflict within the Left, and because the Left thrives on conflict, it will be like an ouroboros feasting upon itself. Solidarity will be broken, and the last chapter of the left will read: A House Divided Cannot Stand.