The Far-Left is Finally Openly Declaring War on Left-Liberals
And why it might be a very good thing after all
Today, I need to talk about my differences with the 'left', as a 'liberal'. Again, I need to stress that, by 'left', I mean self-identified leftists, who consider the establishment center-left like Democrats and Labour to be 'not true lefties', or even 'right wing'. So the far-left, basically. I am also mainly referring to leftists with a whole political-cultural worldview rooted in various combinations of leftist theories, rather than old-school class-first socialists like Bernie Sanders. This post was partly inspired by some 'Breadtube' aligned people wanting to kick ContraPoints out of Breadtube, because she's a 'liberal' who opposed boycotting Biden and Harris last year. This reflects a context where the far-left has become increasingly hostile towards people they consider 'liberals', starting in the Biden years, and accelerating further with the return of Trump. I think it's an important issue that we need to talk about more. (Also, for the record, my view is that someone who would otherwise vote Democratic boycotting Harris amounts to giving half a vote to Trump mathematically, so those who advocated boycotting Biden or Harris at any point for any reason aided in Trump's victory, period. I think there is adequate circumstantial evidence to say that the far-left actually wanted Trump to win, and they got what they want. Given my emphasis on honesty, I actually have way more respect for actual MAGA people, than those who played an active role in Trump's victory but refuse to acknowledge it. If anything, I think people like ContraPoints are too soft on that crowd. But that's another issue and it won't be the focus of this article.)
I consider myself to be one of the first liberals to have 'left the left', way back in 2013, before this expression was even a thing. Using the aforementioned definition, perhaps it wouldn't be accurate to say that I 'left the left', because I was never a self-identified leftist. Instead, before 2013, I used to be one of those people who saw liberals and leftists as part of the same camp, standing opposed to conservatives and 'the right' on the opposite side. Therefore, I used to see leftists as fellow travelers, even though they probably didn't see me as one. As such, it would probably be more accurate to say that I 'divorced the left'. Back when I decided to 'divorce the left', it was uncommon for liberals to consider those further left anything but friends and allies, and the far-left was generally happy to let liberals maintain this illusion, because it benefited them. For many years, I was pretty alone in the liberal camp for being critical of the far-left. Many establishment liberals wouldn't even acknowledge left-wing cancel culture, and its roots in faulty left-wing philosophical theories. This mistake, I believe, caused quite a few people to fall down a pipeline into the reactionary right. I actually think it might be a good thing that the far-left is openly hostile towards liberals and the center-left now, because this could allow us to stop appeasing the extremists, and return center-left liberalism to its previous, healthier state.
The fact is, the far-left only cares about their 'revolutionary' priorities, rooted in their various philosophical theories. Their temporary alliance with the left-most leaning liberals to form a 'progressive' bloc in the 2010s was just strategy. After the 2019 British election and the 2020 Democratic primary demonstrated that their strategy wasn't working, they quickly dropped it. The far-left simply isn't into making things better in the here and now for disadvantaged minorities and vulnerable populations like most liberals are. As 2024 demonstrated, the far-left could even prefer Trump to a mainstream Democrat like Biden or Harris, if they believed it would advance their interests. (I don't accept the far-left's argument that they boycotted Harris on principle, because I don't accept the ridiculous premise that someone can deliberately contribute to what they know to be a horrible outcome on purpose just to stand for some abstract 'principle', especially when the far-left are supposedly materialists who believe in the primacy of material reality over abstract ideas.) Some of the people defending ContraPoints in the aforementioned debate brought up the fact that she is trans, and might have more to fear from a Trump administration. The true believers of the far-left, of course, showed no sympathy towards that argument. It is clear that the far-left would be happy to sacrifice every one of us if they could advance their 'revolution'. This is something that I first saw around 2012-2013, and seeing it meant I couldn't ignore the elephant in the room anymore.
2024 was also not the first time the far-left attempted to derail liberal political priorities, either openly or by stealth. It wasn't even the first time they tried to help Trump win: we must never forget the treachery of 'Bernie or Bust' in 2016. There are also other examples in other Western countries of the far-left's anti-liberal treachery, including during the Brexit referendum in the UK in 2016, and during the gay marriage postal vote in 2017 and the Voice referendum in 2023 in Australia. In France, the left-most supporters of Jean-Luc Melenchon's La France Insoumise are also notorious for refusing to support the 'republican front' to stop the far-right, despite Melenchon himself telling them to do so. In short, it is clear that the far-left are no friends of liberals, including progressive liberals. The far-left will break the liberal's heart as long as they see a benefit in doing so. Often, the benefit is simply to demonstrate that 'the system does not work', and hence radicalize people to the far-left.
The alliance strategy of the 2010s allowed the far-left to mainstream many of their faulty ideas, and I believe it is now a good time to review the content of mainstream liberalism, and get rid of that pernicious influence once and for all. Postmodern critical theory's insistence on seeing society as made up of intersecting axes of oppression divides people into oppressor vs. oppressed groups, and leads to the counter-productive phenomenon of the oppression olympics. The postmodern idea that speech and discourse are manifestations of power, combined with the influence of Herbert Marcuse's idea that universal tolerance is oppressive and repressive, inevitably leads to cancel culture and loss of free speech. The theory left's view that almost everything is an oppressive social construct also leads to a refusal to work with what we actually have and improve it, and instead encourages a tendency to want to dismantle everything, which doesn't really help anyone, and also leads to needless confusion, reaction and polarization. Finally, the unrealistic and counter-productive goals of the far-left fuels the rise of the reactionary right, and leads to the emotional burnout of entire generations of idealistic young people. All this has to go, if we want our healthy reformist liberalism back. For true believers of liberalism, it might not be a bad idea to actually turn the clock back to, say, 2013 (as long as we can still keep gay marriage).
Let's talk about the far-left's influence on the trans discourse for a bit. As a trans woman, it pains me to see so many fellow members of the trans community think that the far-left are our friends, when they are not. The far-left's introduction of the unscientific idea that 'gender is a social construct', the very idea that underpins all of gender critical feminism, has led to rapid erosion in trans acceptance, and opened up new and effective pathways for the reactionary right to attack us. The far-left's social constructionist views on gender has also led to their refusal to properly understand gender dysphoria. In their ideologically-driven, totally unempirical view, gender dysphoria is entirely due to societal sexism and the effects of patriarchy, and they wouldn't even acknowledge physical dysphoria to be a real thing at all. Back in 2022, a post went viral on the platform then known as Twitter, linking this attitude to the anti-trans health care policies of the DeSantis administration in Florida. The far-left attempted to cancel anyone sharing and supporting that post, including a high profile trans actress. They were simply evading responsibility for the mess they have created, a mess they were able to walk away from, but trans people with gender dysphoria had to suffer the consequences. In the context of the recent political climate becoming both more hostile towards trans people and more dismissive of the medical profession's views, I even see some far-leftists who used to appear to be allies now fully advocating for 'gender abolition', using language very similar to that used by gender critical activists at times. The truth is, the far-left's views on gender are far more in line with the gender critical view than the medical science view, and the far-left are ultimately not going to treat us much better than gender criticalists because of this. What I want to say to my fellow trans people is that the far-left, with its ideological obsessions and anti-science approach to many things, is not our friend. They are merely using us as pawns in their political strategy. Those who follow Harry Benjamin are our friends, those who follow Michel Foucault are often not, to put it simply. I believe that mainstream liberals, with their long-standing commitment to 'live and let live' and civil rights, as well as their respect for medical and scientific expertise, are much more reliable allies, especially in the rough times that lie ahead.
Finally, we need to talk about the anti-Trump resistance. I'm absolutely confident that a broad classical liberal coalition, including left-liberals, centrists, moderate conservatives and libertarians alike, can defeat the authoritarian Trumpist New Right, simply by insisting on standing by our values at all times. I believe the regular wanton violations of free speech, academic and press freedom, constitutional restraints and the like can be reigned in with uncompromising adherence to classical liberal values, but only uncompromising adherence to classical liberal values. The presence of the far-left, which clearly doesn't abide by classical liberal values, in the anti-Trump coalition would hence be an own goal, one that we cannot afford now. This is another good reason for encouraging the finalization of the divorce between left-liberalism and the far-left as soon as possible.
In conclusion, the far-left has never been a friend to liberals (broadly speaking, including classical liberals and left-liberals alike), or our political goals. That the far-left was largely marginalized during the 1980s-2000s allowed them to run a strategic campaign to convince at least some liberals that their return in the 2010s was a good thing, when it clearly wasn't. Their pernicious ideas were allowed to infiltrate into mainstream liberalism, even as they harmed and betrayed important liberal goals during this period. Now that the far-left no longer has any use for their fake 'progressive' alliance with left-liberals, they have openly turned against liberalism as a whole, labeling us the enemy. This, I believe, might not be such a bad thing after all, as it could allow us to finally draw a line in the sand, and repair the damage the far-left has done to us over the past decade. This would also allow us to rebuild the classical liberal coalition on matters like free speech and universalism, where left-liberals, more centrist liberals and the various kinds of libertarians alike can find our common ground once again.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Progressive Conservative Manifesto, the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series. She is also the author of her autobiography The TaraElla Story.
Bernie is politics of nostalgia