Some on the radical left want Trump to win?!?

[Treehugger]

I was reading through the comments on the opinion piece in the NYTimes today about removing the Jefferson memorial. Quite a few of the commenters said that we should stick with tearing statues of confederates until after the election, then we can talk about Jefferson, Washington and any other problematic founding fathers. If we go for them now, we risk alienating centrist independents who might otherwise vote Democrat this time around. To which I say: "Amen!"

However, someone else said that they actually think it would be a good thing if we tore down the Jefferson Memorial, pissed off the centrists and got Trump re-elected. The reasoning?  Only if we re-elect Trump will we see how rotten this country really is. And if we don't see how rotten it is, how we will ever have the revolution we need? They implied that if we elect Biden, it will keeping the US from hitting bottom which we supposedly need to do for the supposed revolution.

Good God!

Is there anyone here who agrees with this? I hope not, but I am curious.

[mamselle]

Marx might have.

I don't.

M.

[dismalist]

I was reading through the comments on the opinion piece in the NYTimes today about removing the Jefferson memorial. Quite a few of the commenters said that we should stick with tearing statues of confederates until after the election, then we can talk about Jefferson, Washington and any other problematic founding fathers. If we go for them now, we risk alienating centrist independents who might otherwise vote Democrat this time around. To which I say: "Amen!"

However, someone else said that they actually think it would be a good thing if we tore down the Jefferson Memorial, pissed off the centrists and got Trump re-elected. The reasoning?  Only if we re-elect Trump will we see how rotten this country really is. And if we don't see how rotten it is, how we will ever have the revolution we need? They implied that if we elect Biden, it will keeping the US from hitting bottom which we supposedly need to do for the supposed revolution.

Good God!

Is there anyone here who agrees with this? I hope not, but I am curious.

This was the explicit policy of the German Communist Party until early 1933: The worse things get, the better!

Problem for contemporary lefties, and for this these are fools, is that things ain't bad! Well, except for us academics. :-)

[pepsi_alum]

I do see a few left-leaning people in my Facebook feed who absolutely refuse to vote for Biden, but they aren't large in number and I don't think their perspective is widely shared.  Judging by Biden's polls in swing states, they aren't hurting his elctoral chances very much.

[writingprof]

As a conservative with little love for the president, I've been cheering for Biden since the primaries began.  A price will have to be paid for Trump, and Biden is the lowest possible price. 

Indeed, if you think about elections in those terms, conservatives are getting the better deal by far.  Progressives had to pay a price for eight years of The Smug Fool Who Sometimes Gave Good(-Sounding) Speeches, and that price was Donald Trump: the worst possible Republican candidate.  Biden, meanwhile, is more palatable for me than anyone else who was seeking the nomination.

[Parasaurolophus]

I don't think you should take the comments section--especially on the editorial page of a paper--as indicative of some chunk or other of the political spectrum. (I also wonder how far left counts as 'radical' in your eyes, but that's another matter entirely.)

As for the point: there's a perfectly reasonable and legitimate point to be made about how the cracks in the system get papered over once your person is in charge, but activism and the will to change things surge when the other party is in charge. Just look at how docile everyone was about torture, climate change, etc. under Obama, especially compared to just before and after him. But, again, you shouldn't look to the comments section for nuanced political treatises.

[downer]

The marxist "philosopher" Slavov Zizek supported Trump over Clinton in 2016.
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/upfront/2016/11/zizek-electing-trump-shake-system-161116062713933.html

Zizek wanted chaos from Trump in order to achieve later radical political transformation.

It was a moronic view then, and it continues to be.

[Treehugger]

Marx might have.

I don't.

M.

Yeah, I was definitely hearing echoes of Marx there. That's what made me worry that it wasn't just one strange commenter's opinion. I do wonder about those wanting to tear down statues of the founding fathers. Maybe they secretly do want Trump re-elected, but won't admit it out loud or in print.

[Treehugger]

The marxist "philosopher" Slavov Zizek supported Trump over Clinton in 2016.
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/upfront/2016/11/zizek-electing-trump-shake-system-161116062713933.html

Zizek wanted chaos from Trump in order to achieve later radical political transformation.

It was a moronic view then, and it continues to be.

Yep, that's exactly it. "Moronic" is too kind ...

[mahagonny]

As a conservative with little love for the president, I've been cheering for Biden since the primaries began.  A price will have to be paid for Trump, and Biden is the lowest possible price. 

Indeed, if you think about elections in those terms, conservatives are getting the better deal by far.  Progressives had to pay a price for eight years of The Smug Fool Who Sometimes Gave Good(-Sounding) Speeches, and that price was Donald Trump: the worst possible Republican candidate.  Biden, meanwhile, is more palatable for me than anyone else who was seeking the nomination.

I recall Thomas Sowell saying something like, the two parties basically take turns becoming unpopular, because everyone votes for government with a 'solution' and there are very few solutions available, but many tradeoffs to pick from.

[polly_mer]

I can believe the idea of 'have it hit bottom' based on people I know.  However, if that's the plan, then there's a lot of work for those people to do because people like me are doing fine under Trump.  The riots are far away and irrelevant to our whole state, our county has a single digit number of Covid cases, and most of us are working well enough from home.  Our kids can be fully online for the next year and probably be fine. 

I'm still confused about how Biden ended up the Democrat candidate if the goal was to have a Democrat win in November.  The Democrats had several good candidates in the running in March who unexpectedly dropped out.

[Anselm]

Marx might have.

I don't.

M.

This was the attitude of many anti-apartheid activists in the 1980's.  They opposed charities which helped South African black people to gain skills and start businesses since that was keeping the status quo and delaying the revolution.

[financeguy]

This is not surprising at all. Those on the left are predisposed to see decision making as a series of yes/no decisions rather than a series of trade offs. There ARE solutions and our side has them! Not "There are no solutions, only trade offs, some of which are better deals than others." If you really believe you just say "yes" to the good things and "no" to the bad things, there can be no tolerance for bad things. You should burn this bitch down to go after the last fraction of a percent of any negative.

These are what Thomas Sowell calls the "vision of the anointed" and the "tragic vision." Those on the left with the vision of the anointed point to Jefferson, see 5% they don't like and want to  tear down the legacy wholesale. Those with the tragic vision when asked about Jefferson (or anything else) say, "compared to what?" Then after looking at the alternatives say, "Hmmm...this guy isn't so bad." In not unrelated news, some of the systems in part designed by Jefferson are specifically intended to institutionally restrict the more negative aspect of those pesky human beings, including Jefferson himself. Contrast this with the French whose revolution shortly followed with something leaning more toward a desire to get the "right people" in power rather than accept the flawed nature of humanity and plan for its presence.

[mamselle]

...which led, not long afterwards, to Napoleon....

M.

[traductio]

While it's certainly true that some on the left want things to get worse so they can get better, they're in a very small minority. It's worth noting, for instance, that MoveOn.org members voted to endorse Biden. I realize that MoveOn is not radical in the sense being discussed here, but it's still influential, and it's much farther to the left than Biden.