2020 US Election - Page 248

I can only comment anecdotally, my father’s side are all pretty staunch lefties.

Not to the level of Communist radicalism but as a staunch godless secularist and proponent of religiously mixed education my grandfather was pretty out there in his day.

For context I’m only 31 now, but I went to one of the first primary schools that was officially ‘integrated’, which is our term for a school that both admits Protestants and Catholics (and mysterious ‘others’). How I met prominent politicians like Martin McGuinness and Hillary Clinton as our school was used a lot for media jaunts for that reason. Which will no doubt will sound crazy to you folks which is why I added the context. Not that long ago, also as a caveat mixing did ofc occur unofficially but not under symbolically equal terms (a Protestant could go to a Catholic school and do all the Catholic ceremonies and teachings of religion, or vice versa).

Anyway back to the point, my late grandfather, or my paternal aunty for that matter I don’t recall having a huge amount of issue in left spaces, when it comes to intersectionality and the likes. The latter being a lifelong outspoken feminist who was part of the anti-apartheid movement back in the day.

Intersectionality is just extending the analysis of what people already thought to more categories, so I think it’s pretty wholly compatible with old lefties as well. Provided it’s done ‘properly’.

A myopic focus on one specific area can shunt out others and be off-putting for the forming of broader coalitions. Or the exclusion outright of a particular area, especially the class analysis stuff.

‘Woke centrism’ for example isn’t at all appealing to people with left economic views, but provided the things I mentioned aren’t done there’s plenty of room for the old folk.

One advantage that’s not really oft-mentioned is old folk came from a time where more was in play. Their political and personal formative years occurred when mass protest was effective in enacting change, socialism was still duelling with capitalism and thus more radical change isn’t merely a pipe dream, it’s something they’ve seen happen.