It's preferable over the more inclusive "y'all".

From my vantage point, most of the people who say they buy into it, could careless about social justice, and it becomes obvious the more you talk to them. Same thing when folks talk about "privilege". I don't discuss those things as much as others because they always devolve into semantics, which comes across as obfuscation to me. They almost always boils down to "you don't understand what progressiveness/intersectionality is, let me explain it", and the criticism is never dealt with.



The point is not that it's based around it, it's that it's a fairly strong indicator on whether someone is a progressive.

WTF does "proponent of intersectionality" even mean?

I ****ing hate semantics.

Precision is important in the military, surely.

Dan K. McNeil used to tell us that an 80% solution is better than 100% (in context, analysis was synonymous with solution). You keep making those digs at me..you must be insecure, for what ever reason.

My view is that a lot of communication involves trying to understand what people mean when they say X, and getting them to understand what you mean when you say Y. It seems to me that some of what you hate about "semantics" is just an inevitable part of that process.

Although it's also true that arguments purely about definitions (i.e. what definition is correct) can be less than useful. But only because of the idea that one definition must be the correct one. Trying to understand what people actually think beyond the shallow application of labels is pretty useful. Particularly in politics, since the labels are so contested.

Come on, you know, and I know what people mean when they say SJW, "the woke", etc, non-pejoratively.

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning, but fair enough, we just hear different things in this phrase I guess.

Not sure where you are getting the bolded. Clinton and Sanders had very real policy disagreements - the differences between them are not just a matter of framing. Two people committed to reining in Wall Street or combating racism won't necessarily agree on policy.

I do think that Clinton and Sanders (or more exactly, their potential administrations) were both committed to identity politics and to their economic policies. The fact that voters preferred Bernie on big banks doesn't mean that Hillary wasn't committed to her own policies on Wall Street, just as the fact that voters concerned about racism favored Hillary doesn't mean Sanders wasn't committed to his own policies on race either.

Also policy towards Wall Street isn't the same thing as economic policy more generally.

I've probably been unclear, but to reiterate, I definitely agree that Hillary (and other politicians, both moderate and leftist) sought to reduce and sometimes delegitimize the political influence of their political opponents. I've never denied this, but rather claimed that doing this is just ordinary electioneering, that insofar as you support democratic elections you should accept this as a feature of democratic politics. I've also argued against the implication that arguing for the relative importance of racism vs big banks means that Hillary was duping minority voters into supporting her.

No wonder you guys haven't won a war in living memory.

Go ask the people in Kosovo about that.

Oh wait, you probably don't even know where Kosovo is.

Well, yeah, I think I do. To back up a bit, I went down this path because you used me as an example of a "true believers of the ideological bloc, [who] think[s] most other are SJW's leveraging progressiveness for popularity/financial/personal reasons."

I don't think that describes me very well, and I would neither describe myself that way nor agree that others are acting for the reasons you gave. So maybe we're not arguing about what progressivism is or what it means to be an SJW; maybe we're just disagreeing about whether or not I'm a "true believer" in progressivism or some SJW worldview. I also don't think those two categories are perfectly overlapping, but leaving that aside :P

I also suspect the reason why we would disagree is because you are assigning me to the category based almost entirely on the fact that I've written posts talking about intersectionality as a concept. I think that criterion doesn't really work, because the way I tend to talk about the concept is pretty different from the people who I think you are actually trying to describe. Hence my first response: I wasn't really trying to argue about definitions so much as explain why it is that your criteria might be flawed.

(sorry, I'm sure this is TL;DR no one cares territory. Shorter: I just think your characterization of me is wrong, and I was surprised by it...)

Two points, first, I disagree about how our system is supposed to work. Two party constitutional systems with a high number of veto points like the US operate better with less ideological parties, as deal-making and consensus are more important to passing legislation and less ideological parties are typically better at this kind of politicking.

Second, I don't buy this argument about a hunger for a more leftwing candidate or party that will turn out non-voters. Bernie made the same argument in favor of his campaigns twice now, and neither time has this huge turnout appeared. It seems more to me that leftists are hungry for such a party, and are wishcasting this desire onto the populace as a whole. I see little evidence for this desire among actual elections, either at the national or the state level. Surveys of non-voters show at best a slight Democratic lean, not an untapped leftwing wave.

No, the point was, you were distinctly different from those folks.


I'm describing two different groups with in a subtype of progressive-ism. Your type, and the SJW type, you are the albino of the group, not the standard issue.

This should of said this:

My apologies for the typo. I think the "I" got deleted when I was editing something.

Oh, OK. Well, I still disagree, but for other reasons :P I think that's probably too uncharitable. *Shrug*, carry on.

I was actually curious to your objection, but this provides a lot of clarity

I use "y'all" all the time! Pretty much my whole family were Virginians.

Can you use the word "intersectionality" in a sentence?

So you prefer a more authoritarian system. That seems consistent with your posts. I get that.

Well, your perfect candidate Hillary lost last time. This time you're betting on a man with visible signs of cognitive decline. You could be right and the general voting populace may prefer that to a center left candidate like Bernie.

I guess we'll find out soon enough.

You forgot to give me your thoughts on voting for policies that are proven to expand the middle class though. I assume you have no interest in that either.

Grab her by the pussy, because of intersectionality.

Sure. I've studied a fair amount of history, and I still don't find it easy for me. Some broad scale things seem pretty solid - eg getting rid of slavery has been a huge success - but for a lot of stuff I'm much less confident. This isn't to say that I don't have views on policy, just that I'm not surprised at all to find people who disagree on what seems to me reasonable grounds, even if I support a policy for moral reasons.

As for goals, we are pretty close it sounds like. I also support a strong middle class and want the benefits of modern society to be shared with all, including the worst off. The main difference is that I'm not really bothered by people who earn or have a lot of money (eg billionaires). While I have views on how to structure taxation optimally, I don't really care much about the level of taxation in the US (as long as federal government finances are in good shape). We are below median for taxes for OECD countries, so it seems reasonable to me to raise taxes if needed for government policy.

I agree. While I think electability was a major reason why most voters voted for Biden, imo people should generally just vote for whoever they think will do the best job as president.

My own prior is that state and city-level politicians tend to be more corrupt than national politicians, so I'll have to challenge the premise here. And yeah, I find it difficult to believe that Pelosi would conspire with McConnell to throw the election. She would instantly lose her job and reputation if that ever became public. She is already very wealthy and could make much more money by taking a private sector job. There is no evidence of her "raking in millions" anyway, you're just speculating here.

This seems like an unhelpful example. Bill Clinton's voters stayed loyal to party leadership in part because they thought Bill Clinton did a good job as president, just as they do for Obama. GOP voters didn't stay loyal - they rejected their party leadership and chose Trump, in part because they thought George W Bush did not do a very good job as president. You might believe Clinton directly caused the 2008 recession, but I'm doubtful most Democrats believe that (I don't).

Cheers, no worries.

Huh? Please explain. How does "our system works better with less ideological parties" lead you to infer "supports more authoritarianism"?

Is the self-care argument from the left going to be that Bernie lost because he wasn't socialist enough? No more center-left politicians, we need a real socialist up in here?

Why would you assume this?

Hahahah, oh wow. I'm not a yank, my grasp on global geography extends beyond where the nearest general lee monument is.

I ask again, I thought stolen valor was frowned upon in yankland?

The fewest number of ideologies is one.
One ideology is efficient and authoritarian regimes are about as efficient as they can be. They just don't work for the good of the majority of the citizens, they work for whatever good the leaders chose.


I'd didn't say Bernie wasn't left enough. I said he was center left which is what most Americans actually want. The framing seems to confuse them though. You guys whining about socialism really aren't helping anyone except Trump. But I guess that is what it is.

They're all corrupt. That's why we have elections and need to sit on them.
And the farther they go the dirtier they are. But the local Democratic parties are much more apt to take care of the groups that support them. The national level seems much more like part of the same club as the GOP. They're all living large and most don't want to rock the boat.
They even muzzled AOC and it didn't take long. It's a machine.

Most Democrats may not believe that NAFTA and repealing banking regulations caused the 2008 crash which is why most Democrats may vote for Biden and then get mad at Bush or Trump when their Social Security checks stop coming. But that doesn't mean I should work towards that goal.