Why Some Far-Leftists Want Trump to be President Again
Woke MAGA is real, after all!
Recently, I discussed how the far-left might be the crucial ingredient that could help Trump win in November. Reading both the responses to that article, and also discussion on this topic elsewhere, made me realize that many people still wouldn't accept that some in the far-left would actually want Trump to win. In their reasoning, nobody in the left would actually want Trump to win, given that Trump is clearly on the right. Moreover, those on the far-left who refuse to support Biden say they are doing it for so and so moral reason, not because they support Trump. So perhaps these people are just moral purists, who don't care about the consequences of their actions.
Firstly, let me address the idea that refusing to support Biden is not the same as effectively supporting Trump. There are several problems with this argument. The first problem is that, what we have here is actually a binary choice: Biden and Trump are the only possible winners in this election, there is clearly no viable third choice. Thus, any disadvantage to Biden would definitely mean an advantage to Trump. Also, we are not talking about people who merely can't bring themselves to vote for Biden. We are talking about people who are very vocal about their refusal to support Biden 'despite being on the left', people who react very negatively towards Biden's every move, and in many cases, people who are actively persuading others on the left not to vote for Biden. If you think this doesn't count as helping Trump out, then you're not living in reality.
The other problem is that, true leftists actually can't be moral purist to the point of being totally consequence-agnostic, because their philosophy requires praxis in the real world. Unlike libertarians, for example, who are often more interested in consistently upholding their philosophical principles like the NAP, leftists have a fundamental need to cause change in the real world, and would certainly prioritize effective action over philosophical consistency. (This is one reason why so many on the left can't understand the point of libertarianism, after all.) Thus, while a libertarian can, in their own philosophy, justifiably refuse to vote for both major party candidates simply because they aren't libertarians, without any care or consideration of the consequences, this course of action would never be justifiable under left-wing philosophy. Therefore, we can't just accept the leftist's apparent ideological purity, like we accept the libertarian's. Instead, we need to understand that, for the leftist, whether to support the Democratic candidate is a matter of praxis, i.e. a calculated decision aimed at advancing their cause. This is also why, you don't see libertarians working hard to discourage other people from voting for the major parties, but you see far-leftists working hard to discourage people from voting for Biden.
Let's look at a practical example: many leftists chose 'Bernie or Bust' in 2016, on the calculation that Bernie could still run in 2020, thus allowing them to continue to build their movement, and this historical opportunity was worth enduring four years of Trump (remember that if Hillary had won instead, Bernie would not have been able to run in 2020). In November 2020, the calculation became more complicated, given there was not much prospect of Bernie running in 2024 no matter who won in 2020 (due to his resounding primary defeat and his age). The far-left was also not likely to have any new candidates ready by 2024. Thus, many leftists decided to support Biden, because they decided it wasn't worth enduring another four years of Trump in these circumstances. Still, there were plenty of leftists who again refused to support Biden. I think the split between those who chose Biden and those who didn't was ultimately what killed off the 2010s far-left wave, which ultimately led to the observation that things had gotten less 'woke' by 2022. (Thus, in a practical sense, Biden was the man who killed off the 'woke' wave. Who would have thought? Another thing is, this also had the positive effect of wrongfooting DeSantis's bid to hijack 'anti-wokeism' to run a populist culture war campaign, but that's a whole other story.)
The difference between those on the far-left who chose Biden and those who didn't in 2020 could be summed up in one word: accelerationism. Trump would lead to more young people, feminists and LGBT people feeling upset, which could make them ripe for far-left radicalization. This would 'accelerate' the pace of radical change. On the other hand, this could be seen as a risky gamble, because the far-left clearly did not have widespread support yet, as demonstrated by Biden's landslide victory in the 2020 primaries, and by Jeremy Corbyn's landslide defeat in the UK just months earlier. This, combined with Trump's increasingly aggressive attitude towards things like critical race theory during BLM, convinced the (relative) moderates to go with Biden, even though it would slow down their 'revolution'. The disagreement between the accelerationist wing and the 'moderate' wing of the far-left persist to this day, and I believe this disagreement is a major factor behind the heated arguments in far-left circles about whether to support Biden this year. Another thing to remember is that accelerationists don't usually identify themselves as such or openly argue for their vision in public, given its divisiveness even in the far-left itself. But sometimes people are indeed caught on record espousing accelerationist views, so nobody can really deny the existence of far-left accelerationism.
Finally, some people might ask why I am so hard on Trump-enabling left accelerationists on one hand, while calling for civil discussion with actual Trump supporters on the other hand. The difference here is one of good faith vs bad faith. While we might disagree with actual Trump supporters, we should still recognize and respect that they are operating in good faith. They support Trump because they truly believe that Trump is great. As long as people operate in good faith, we can have civil and rational debate, even if we vehemently disagree. On the other hand, left accelerationists are operating in bad faith. They actually know that Trump is harmful. But they decide to enable the harmful option, because it ultimately benefits their cause. This, I believe, is immoral.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).