Political Discussion and Commentary

Not an answer, but some observations:

• Most right-wing influencers appear to be grifters who have a strong financial incentive to attract and keep an audience (to sell supplements, overpriced gold, crypto, pillows, etc). They obviously think right-wingers are easy marks (I remember watching a Trump speech on OANN or NewsMax or something, and the ads were insane).
• I believe many right-wing influencers are funded by wealthy ideologues and state actors (as has been confirmed for at least Tim Pool and Dave Ruben)
• Platform algorithms intentionally or unintentionally boost right-wing content.
• Jordan Peterson is an "intellectual" who's appeal first came from his self-help books and talks that are targeted toward disillusioned boys and young men (i.e. he does focus on ID politics; just on the identities with the larger numbers, wealth, and power). I actually don't think he's a full-on grifter; but he still has the strong financial incentive as grifters (to sell books and "educational" courses).
• Like Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate heavily relies on ID politics; but I believe he is a grifter.
• Actual "intellectual" discussion is boring to the majority and none of the very popular influencers on the left or the right do much of it; and when they do, their view numbers are much less.
• Right-wing "explanations" and "solutions" are often easy sells. These aren't complex systematic issues, migrants and DEI are holding us back. A strong man will take care of everything; you don't have to do anything.

I'm not sure I agree with your statements on "extremism" and social issues.

What do you mean by "extremism?" I rarely see anything I'd consider "extreme" on the left (except on Lemmy, lol). However, extremism seems pretty popular. The Republican party is now pretty much mask-off fascist; can't get much more extreme than that.

I may agree with you on not focusing on social issues too much. However, they are strongly intertwined with economic issues. The disadvantaged and demonized are more easily exploitable, which drives down wages and conditions for everybody. If rights can be taken away from one group, they can, and will be taken away from another (often rights are taken away from the whole using a group that's been demonized as the false pretext).

I'm pretty young man from France. I like leftist ideas and ideals, but it seems that leftists are searching how to do the right thing instead of doing something.

I think leftists ideas have been vastly successful in France with public transport, welfare state. However I'm at loss as to how to keep it sustainable while retaining the same reach as today.

I have two examples of annoying stuff the French leftist say:

• They want to tax the rich but fail to see that we need to reform our welfare state, streamline it to make it less complex for citizen to use and the government to maintain (financially and on the administrative side). We can tax the rich but have to use this money right...

• They are against nuclear energy while it drives down cost for everyone and is in retrospective quite carbon-neutral... If we innovate in this direction like we used it might just be part of the solution to solve the energy crisis

• Moreover, they insist on respecting Europe's policy that index the price of electricity on gas which drives price higher for everyone and doesn't help France. [[Citation needed tbh]]

They have ideals, but don't think to much about how the means. If I'm being honest it's the same with the right in France, they have their own agenda but conveniently avoid saying how they will solve the "immigration crisis", "loss of culture" & "barbarization of society"...

I mean, both party are saying lots of bullshit but I guess I resonate more with the leftist ideas because I don't like old rich white dudes ruling the world with old ideas.

I can understand why people are voting for the right tho seeing the decade of terrorist attacks on the country Islamist extremists: while I was in high school, a terrorist attack killed a philosophy teacher in my city (was scary) & the year before a history teacher's head was cut off near Paris. Recently was the commemoration of Charlie Hebdo 2015 attacks...

I can understand the anxiety and the rage because I felt it after those events, but I can distinguish between islamist terrorists and normal people...

I also can understand that consent for fascist is easy to manufacture given what my country has gone through in recent years.

Pretty difficult times :(

Now fucking progressives aren't left wing? What the hell is the point of calling it a "wing" if Liberals and Progresives aren't a part of it, ffs?

I agree with another commenter who said that left influencers and intellectuals are systematically silenced. The right wing, no matter how extreme, has popular venues to reach people and don't get cancelled for every slip of the tongue like the left wing gets cancelled. I think it's all a concerted effort by liberals/capitalists to weaken the left.

I have found this essay helpful in understanding some of this issue: Exiting the Vampire Castle

The left had influencers.

Their names were Joe Rogan and Bernie Sanders, and you all smeared them online and, in Bernie's case, cheated him out of a presidential nomination. The alt opinions available now on the left are people who, for whatever reason, aren't willing to walk on eggshells and follow SJW orthodoxy, so they too get treated badly.

In all honesty, it's that it feels like the truth will speak for itself.

It doesn't. Pointing it out is good.

Conservatives understand that they're trying to manufacture agreement with their lies, so given the nature of the task, they're really active. People on the left are just normal people, and they're making the world a better place with art, science, coffee, anything and everything.

Be the change you want to see, lead them.

I was looking at podcasts recently and it was the same. I assumed it was because the people with the money will support content that furthers their bottom line.

Systemically silenced.

Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives

A big issue with political influencers, is that they profit off of rage. Not only that, but the right needs to be told who to be mad at. They're kinda dumb, so right winged people's rage are often misdirected to something that won't hurt the government.

The left is on average (not all of them, mind you) more intellectual. They know who to be mad at, and why. They don't really need an influencer to tell them.

Moreso, the right wing is so condensed into one mind set, while the left wing, in America atleast, is more just anti right. The left is more diverse and spread out with many conflicting ideologies and motives. It's hard to be on the same page as a whole. Because of this, when you have someone who is angry and tries to tell you who to be angry at, it usually misfires because of that conflict. Think Hasan. He's always getting shit because he tries to direct that anger, but so many left wing people don't directly line up their ideology with his, so they direct their anger at him instead.

I do community organizing and host reading groups with others.

Most terminally online people don't talk to their neighbors so online communities give the illusion everyone is shut in and lonely.

The (modern) Left is a big tent that’s founded on diversity. It promotes a multitude of voices and viewpoints, with none able to rise to the top.

The (current) Right is the opposite. It aims towards an ideal. Individual voices suppress their own diversity and attempt to speak with one voice. This naturally leads to the elevation of charismatic figures.

I wish. Not gonna happen though

The serious thing handicapping the left from having a Joe Rogan is that the left as a homogenous group only accepts leaders that are absolutely flawless and perfect in every way.

The instant there is a flaw that is found in any potential leader, the left invades that flaw, makes it the overriding characteristic of that person and destroys them because they do not allow flawed leaders.

Of course, they also don't allow leaders to be perfect, so they will tear them down for being obsequious or condescending or obsessed with always being right all of the time.

As soon as you can find somebody who is both flawless and also not so flawless that they are kicked out of the group for being flawless, then you can have your leftist strongman.

I suspect that the right played up a lot of culture-war issues into major parts of the left's identity, and was carefully and conspicuously silent about a lot of the economic and regulational core that used to form the backbone of the left. And, the left bought it, and obediently tried to set a counterpoint to particular ignorant stuff the right was saying, and spent all their time talking about trans issues and the value of inclusion and safe language. Is that important? Absolutely, we need to fight for it. Does it win elections? Is it important enough to justify stepping away from working people's issues and environmental issues that used to be the core, and translated into concrete governmental action that would make a compelling argument for why this particular person is better suited to run the country in ways that 99% of the country can understand and agree with? Well...

And so the left "influencer" space is talking about things that, outside the people who want to make politics a particular and strong element of their identity, people generally don't give a shit about. Whereas, Jordan Petersen and Joe Rogan are talking about how to actualize yourself as a person, the tension between "free speech" and corporate overreach and government censorship, and other things that a lot of people care about. Even if their solutions and framings are bullshit, it's what people like to hear. It's not a lecture, addressed to someone who is being defined as "bad" if they don't agree with the message.

There's also a significant factor that malicious people invest tons of money into promoting the right-wing thought leaders, whereas any particular influencer on the left is more or less on their own to promote themselves, painstakingly building a small audience year by year, without huge boosters attached to anything and everything they want to do.