I didn’t leave the left. The left, left me.

[GenerativeAIBot]

Stop me if you have already heard this the last few days, I am trying to make sense of how I feel about Trump and other right leaning wins:

“Woke” issues being pushed to where they have been, has empowered the right by giving them something real and legitimate to campaign against. Something more than their usual transparently false bogeymen.

In general, Authoritarianism, compelled speech, no debate. Specifically men in women’s sports, in women’s changing rooms, unfettered immigration, being asked to ignore the evidence in front of our eyes.

This is happening across the world, Italy, France, Germany, USA, UK.

I remain entirely committed to progressive taxation, a social safety net, collective bargaining, workers rights, public schooling and health services as well as the rights of everyone to live contented, unmolested lives.

I reject identity politics in their entirety. For example, I consider terms like “Woman of colour” to be the epitome of divisive, racist, sexist thought patterns that seeks to infantilise people and move their locus of control from internal to external. Disempowering people and making them victims.

I didn’t leave the left. The left left me.

Reasonable?

This in spades. ^ I could have written this. Also YANBU @GenerativeAIBot

This is just buck-passing. It's a democracy, no one is MAKING you vote for any particular candidate.

Own your choice.

Can I ask how long it will take you to save the cost of installing your Solar system.
We enquired last year and it had a payback time of 14 years. The sell back to the grid price was low compared to the cost of buying electricity.

Sometimes, yes.
Often, No.

It's that very attitude that got Trump elected.

You are not alone OP. I've been politically homeless for 8 - 9 years. Some of the posts about Trumps win have been ridiculous. I think many people have pointed out that the lefts contempt for anyone who doesn't agree with them is not the way to win hearts and minds but I've reached the conclusion that self righteousness and a misplaced sense of moral superiority are like drugs that the left has been taking for so long they've become detached from reality and are incapable of hearing the feedback.

The obsession with identity politics is alienating when people want to be able to pay their bills and have functioning public services.

I think the left as it stands is a lost cause and we have to just wait out a swing to the right before some balance is restored. I've given up worrying about it and have decided to view the entire western political landscape as reality TV. I'm optimistic that sanity will prevail within the next decade.

It is interesting that many feel this way

The biggest issue on the left is only listening to issues many of the left deem as important. Many just do not seem to grasp that politics is not interesting to most people but what happens in their life day to day life and how their struggles can be eased is and they want to hear how politicians can make their life better and most importantly that politicians are listening to them

The demands to hear why people voted Trump are a prime example, listen to what the people were reporting why they voted Trump (mainly economy) they are not interested that Trump is a criminal etc he listened and responded to voters wanted to hear

I've aged, but I don;t believe my positions have changed at all. I believe the left as a whole has moved towards identity politics and victim culture.

I object to "women of colour" for so many reasons it hurts but...

It reduces us to gross appearance
it paints coloured people as victims
it presumes only coloured people receive racism
What colour?
What shade?
North African's (say Egyptians?)
South Africans?
Australians?

No. What it really means is "not north european" and it comes with an implied layer of guilt and shame for being so, and it completely omits every other "white" person who also receives a lot of racism, Eastern Europeans for one obvious example.

Identity politics is wrong. Always. We are more than our skin colour.

The left leaning into identity politics and victim culture is why I'll vote for Kemi if I get the chance.

It’s the authoritarianism that really gets me. The level of coercion to have the “right” set of beliefs or you are not just wrong, you are literally a nazi. Theres no debate, theres a lot of mocking and shaming. A lot has been lost by people not being able of willing to put together a coherent argument. When the right say “look you can’t actually change sex and sex based differences persist” they aren’t wrong. I think part of the problem is the left has adopted a set of positions that cannot be easily rationally argued for. So they fall back on screaming at people instead.

I’m brown (I don’t care if someone says woman of colour or whatever to describe themselves) I think having reasonable controls on immigration flows is sensible. Yet thats enough to be accused of pulling the ladder up behind me. It means the only position that is really acceptable is if I believe in open borders. Which to my mind is bloody stupid. What that really says to me is “you can never be british if you are an ethnic minority, not really, you must always define yourself by the colour of your skin, you must always accept a victim status.

I’m a centrist but I am well and truly sick of the racism directed at right wing ethnic minority women and Jewish people by people on the left (and yes we do notice the ripping down hostage posters and attacks on Jewish people and think….but they are british Jews, you aren’t attacking Israel, you are attacking them because they are jewish).

There is no real consistent moral universal compass, it’s just a constant assessment of hierarchies of oppression.

Completely right. The left have been appalling on women's rights & free speech. I don't trust Trump at all but I shall watch the ripples from his win spread out across the world and hopefully in five years time we'll never see a headline like this again.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/11/06/girl-with-autism-banned-transgender-opponent-man/

I consider it to be women's rights in that instance, not trans rights. I have yet to see a right they don't have that everyone else does...

On the whole, the left is far more authoritarian than the right.

Shame I cannot do another poll to see if those are left values or not, last time I looked, they were to me and have been for my entire 46 years.

Ok, you think what you want.

I only hope that Labour carries on thinking like you do and the Democrats did so that they lose the next election.

There should be no comma in your title and you need to get HQ to fix that immediately. I can’t focus on your problem until it’s gone.

Pro all immigration? Unfettered and unrestricted?

And - "Women of colour" is the phrase used to make you think and feel a certain way and behave a certain way about a particular type of person, thats the authoritarian part.

We don't need that segmentation of people

Agree 100%.

Many people don't like the term 'coloured people' OP. I'm surprised you don't know this.

I'm confused what else does person of colour mean?

No offence meant, I can;t personally see how one is fine and the other is not, but I'll happily change it if needed?

Coming from my background I should be left and indeed I am big fan of unions but the left have never appealed and have got less appealing lately:

• Cancel culture, the inability to accept that someone has a different view to you and democracy means they should be able to voice it
• Wokism....our local comp had a assembly and video of a US drone pilot was shown saying how much he disliked killing people. Ok but a. he joined the forced b. It's armistice time look at the sacrifices made
• Inability to question things like gender drugs for children with out being accused of transphobia
• Inability to question immigration. Your racist despite most immigration in the last 25 years being white people!
• Immediately accuse people who vote reform of being stupid and racist, but reform have no polices/ststements/speeches that are racist. Happy to corrected on this as I have been looking

And an overall feeling that most of the left come from privileged background and are guilty for what they have, but at the same time are jealous of those who have more!

And yet Hanah on Big Brother UK said that very thing on one of the episodes the other night. Funny that eh?

Thanks for that post @FOJN it's so easy to get depressed and think things are never going to get better especially with another nearly 4 years of the authoritarian, economy destroying Starmer. Perhaps that is what people need to make them face the reality that we are just a mediocre and getting poorer country on the edge if Europe, and noone is going to follow our lead to impoverishment on net zero or anything else.

Person of colour is not offensive @GenerativeAIBot

Feel exactly the same. Voted Lib Dem (it’s a Tory / Lib Dem race here) but very reluctantly and with big internal compromise. For the first time I genuinely considered voting Tory didn’t but considered it.

We buy at 6.4p Eon Drive and sell to Scottish gas at 11p. We've added more battery storage to the system since it was initially installed and the initial calculation didn't include the savings from taking advantage of an economy 7 tariff, so the pay back period isn't a simple sum but because we chew through so much power it is quite short. I'm guessing about 8/9 years - ish- iirc. We've had it almost four years now but no plans to move any time soon.

Yes this 100%
On MN the nastier comment now tend to come mainly from the Left. They are intolerant and sneery, following the example of Reeves, Raynor et al. They think they are morally superior to everyone else and brook no argument. Won't accept any source of information other than The Guardian (which is am irony in itself) and act like they are the moral guardians.
They are a million miles away from the left wingers I was brought up with.

There was an article in The Times property section about the Americans ' fleeing Trump' to the UK. It was all millionnaires buying £5m+ homes in Notting Hill. When they are added to all the UK Lefties who already live there and in the surrounding areas, you have to wonder who's side you're on. I think most people on the Left are centre Left and probably tip centre Right on some issues. But the loudest and most trenchant are steeped in identity politics, spend their time alienating large groups of people who they believe are guilty of 'wrongthink' and have a disproportionate representation in places like student and public sector unions, which then leads to policies that are disproportionately of the identitarian and self styled ' progressive' Left. When you look at who they are, they are usually pretty wealthy privileged people who have no idea what it is like to even live an ordinary life without the bank of mum and dad to bail you out if you end up with a criminal record because you've spraypainted a bank.