Is the "Omnicause" real?

Yes. The omnicause isn't 'all left wing people'.
If you're not 'trans women are women' by definition, you're not an omnicause person.
The omnicause combines TWAW, Free Palestine and others that have been mentioned.
It describes the phenomenon where people follow "the latest cause" without too much critical thinking themselves.

I would understand a climate denier getting short shrift in an official Green Party WhatsApp group but other policies should be up for debate. After all, what would be the point of political parties having conferences and debating policies if policies were set in stone and could never be changed?

There are some issues where opinion has been divided among Green Party members for years but over which most members have been able to debate and disagree respectfully eg HS2, nuclear power and membership of NATO.

Transwomen are Women, Transmen are Men and Non-binary identities are Valid is the only policy where debate is shut down and people risk being suspended and expelled for disagreeing.

OP, it’s an idea.

You’re allowed to believe or not believe in the idea. If the other people believing in the idea worries or upsets you then it is worth examining your reaction. But you can’t kill the idea.

Surely that's just politics?

Do you think a trans person would be welcome in a Reform WhatsApp group?

Join the Green Party and then join one of the official local/regional WhatsApp groups and you'll meet plenty of people who subscribe to all of the criteria.

I am openly GC on my social media and in most areas of real life (with friends, family, colleagues and when talking to members of the public if I'm doing a bit of street terfing). Green Party WhatsApp groups are the only place where I self-censure (especially regarding the Trans Women Are Women mantra) to avoid expulsion from the Party.

Of course!

I would say that stating Transwomen Are Women and that Zionism is Racism are the fundamental cliches for those who subscribe to the omnicause.

I know many GC Left wing women who hold a number of traditional Lefty positions on various issues; who recognise that many issues aren't black and white and that often (eg re Israel and Palestine) there have been atrocities committed by both sides and that there have been innocent victims on both sides. A number of these women have lost friends because they refuse to say that men can become women and they recognise the importance of single sex spaces for women's privacy, safety and dignity. Their former friends subscribe to the notion that there's a bundle of beliefs which you must endorse if you are truly progressive and on the Right Side of History and that if you reject any of those beliefs (particularly TWAW), then you're a right wing bigot.

I know plenty!

That I agree with. It's very frustrating that any space one tries to carve out to think carefully about complicated issues gets filled with simplistic positions and tribalism.

Some years ago, in an online hobby group that was starting to tear itself apart over one of the omnicause issues, I suggested that since people obviously had strong feelings, would anyone be interested in a breakout group to discuss big questions in an atmosphere of mutual respect knowing everyone there was there to find understanding and common ground, and I said if there was interest I'd be happy to run it.

The first reply was basically "Great idea! But are you going to make it clear that [long list of proscribed opinions] will not be tolerated? Because I have no interest in talking to that type of arsehole" (I forget the exact phrase but was the gist)

I gave up the idea after that.

FWIW I prefer onmicause to "woke". Woke originally meant something important and it got turned into a lazy dismissal. Onmicause at least was coined for the purpose and says what it means.

You’ve articulated this really well, and I imagine we probably don’t actuallu disagree in principle. But there’s something about the term I just really hate. Maybe it’s that I have yet to see the expression “the omnicause” used in a discussion in a way that doesn’t feel sneering and dismissive and stifling of good faith debate.

Actually I think the mocking is probably because these issues are so sensitive. It's not mocking the issues, it's mocking the people reducing them to goodies and baddies and a preset set of opinions.

Someone demonstrated it very well on this thread - the issues are simplified down to "you are either with the oppressed or you're not."

That both sides might have reason to consider themselves oppressed, both might have some grievances and both sides might have done some reprehensible things, and even if there actually are obvious goodies and baddies people on the "bad" side will have suffered at the hands of the "good" side, and really there isn't a nice clean line where someone threw the first punch and started it , isn't allowed for.

The thread where the OP said they still love her and think she did great work but expressed mild disappointment that DP hadn't agreed with her on that issue?

It's less "on the other hand" and more "on the tip of the other pinky nail".

Turn on them, what by asking questions about why they think men can magically turn into women?

Monsters.

I do completely take your point.

I guess there’s just something about a gently mocking term being used in relation to topics so sensitive, knotty and painful to the people close to them (I’m thinking particularly of Israel -Palestine) that feels deeply uncomfortable to me.

I really don’t like fascist or Nazi being bandied about to shut down debate either.

OTOH, some GC people will turn on someone who has expressed trans-inclusive views (not the most dramatic example, but the thread about disappointment at Dolly Parton, the other day).

A lot of groups/individuals engage in gatekeeping of this sort.

But surely an example of the omnicause collapsing as a concept is the feminist/trans debate.
I'd say the opposite. It's a pretty good example of the omnicause in action. Its just that the cause adopted one side as correct and rejected the other as wrong.

Well yes, "onmicause" was coined for a specific bundle of left wing beliefs, but the phenomenon exists on both sides.

I am trying to think of equivalent terms the the left use to label the same phenomenon on the right, but the only ones I can think of are "fascist" and "Nazi" which are mostly now used outside their original meanings to label a general bundle of assumed rw beliefs.

I think it's because as PPs have alluded to, within the onmicause these vews are seen as the only moral positions to hold, so while the right(ish) and the outside-the-omnicause left have given the onmicausers a gently mocking label, those who oppose any part of the onmicause are cast as morally bad people.

I am broadly centre left myself so it's not like I'm trying to avoid an obvious term, I just can't think of any.

"Hard right" is the closest non-attacking equivalent that springs to mind right now. Or in the US, MAGA.

Or not exactly right wing, but "Centrist Dad" would be a similar belief bundle label. Actually that makes sense, in that the Centrist Dad is left leaning enough to escape the moral censure so he gets a gently mocking label.

Although I do understand why it might sometimes be useful to ask, “but do you really think that, or are you assuming it’s the right opinion because it’s what the people who think like you on other issues think?”

It would be incredibly useful to ask, but realistically no one in the heat of a political disagreement is going to consider they may not be thinking their own thoughts. That's a question for a close friend or therapist to ask very carefully outside any active debate.

It’s driven by social media though. It’s all to easy to click, like, align without real effort or thought.

But surely an example of the omnicause collapsing as a concept is the feminist/trans debate.

I’ve generally worked on principle of an injury to one is an injury to all and vaguely aligned with supporting transwomen because I recognised they must get a double dollop of discrimination as women and as trans people.

Well that thought had been well and truly blown out of water and it seems you can’t support both women and transwomen anymore - only I do. It’s like somehow we’ve adopted some “you’re either with us or against us” mentality.

If I say I’m opposed to the sight of far right thugs being bullies at docks apparently I’m in favour of women being raped and murdered. Same if I say I don’t care if someone wants to identify as a different gender to the one they were born with

Maybe we don’t, as a society, seem to have any common kindness, decency and the ability to mind our own business anyo?

I remember a bit about vegetarianism and keffiyeh-wearing in the 80s, but it wasn't always for Palestine. At university I had a Jewish friend on my course who wore a kippah, and I remember the first time seeing him in a big black and white tasseled cloth, folded into a triangle around his neck and shoulders, and just though he looked quite cool. Up until then I'd considered him as an awkward, stuttering nerd (yes I was very shallow and wanted to be one of the cool kids). He wore it to a JSoc event and no one had an issue with it. I'm not Jewish, I went because my friend said there would be free falafels - end of term celebration? - anyway vegetarian - a lot of Jewish female students I knew were lacto vegetarians.

@OooPourUsACupLove I see your point, but the fact that it is labelled as the omnicause (definite article) suggests that the people using it do think it only applies to one side. When as you say you could just as easily apply it to any one of any political persuasion who automatically assumes the same opinions as the rest of “their side”.

Fundamentally, I think our political discourse is poorer for any terminology that shuts down genuine discussion. Although I do understand why it might sometimes be useful to ask, “but do you really think that, or are you assuming it’s the right opinion because it’s what the people who think like you on other issues think?”

I disagree. I think it describes the recognition that there is a group of people who aren't going to engage in the arguments and ideas being debated. They've picked their side and that's that.

No one can be deep in the nuances of all the causes being lumped into "the right side of history", so people who are certain and righteous about all of them are taking at least a few positions on board based on their tribe.

That's why the omni- bit is significant, it's describing people who've moved from considered support for specific cause(s) into tribalism.

And yes, it's exactly mirrored by the people who sign up to an omni-cause like bundle of views on the right.

Thank you. That's a really clear and helpful post.

I know exactly what "omnicause" describes. I've seen it play out in various hobby and volunteer communities I'm part of. It is a genuine dynamic.

It reminds me of the 80s actually, when it was all anti-Thatcher, vegetarianism, cnd and support the Sandinistas. Come to think of it, keffiyeh-wearing for Palestine was big then as well.

If one can define the left, or the right, as having an omni-cause (a single set of views everyone is supposed to support) then that can also define an anti-omni-cause (the set of views everyone is supposed to be against). My observation of its use, is that only the opposition has an omni-cause. Beams and motes.

Political parties have always tried to do this. Everything our party says is right; everything every other party says is wrong... here's the cookie-cutter robo-politico, script to learn to give a pat response to every point the opposition makes. But to be electorally successful in a first-past-the-post system they have had to be "board churches".

But I feel something has changed, perhaps it is the algorithms that are dividing us, and rewarding the extremes.

I, as someone who likes to think of myself as an evidence based free thinker feel uncomfortable with this division of people into two camps, us and them. With a disposition sensitive to control and abuse, I'm immediately suspicious of anyone claiming the other side has an omni-cause as trying to corral them. Corral me. I will not be herded.

But people with 'causes' have also always fallen out with each other. This is the whole history of feminism , is what Reform and Restore are doing with their own 'omincauses' (don't tell me they don't think they are adopting/ supporting/claiming 'women's rights') and is also covered in 'Pride' when iirc some of the lesbians leave.