One thing that’s happening this election is #walkaway, this campaign that’s suppposed to be about democrats who are becoming disgusted with the actions of their party and joining the GOP. However, it looks like the major promoters of this theory are the qanon conspiracy theorists.
reguess1997: Maybe I just have my head buried deep in a Leftist echo chamber, but I’d like to think that if a Dem were dissatisfied enough to leave the party, they’d be going further left.
The premise is that the democrats are being disgusted by the violence of the party. Like I said though this is being promoted mainly by insane conspiracy theorists and obvious grifters like D’Souza and Diamond and Silk.
Will Sommer went to a march and reported on it here .
I find the #walkaway movement a fascinating combination of misunderstanding and wishful thinking.
Like it’s rightist founders DO see a lot of people they know rejecting “the left”, but those people mean the sort of puritanical culture war we associate with tumblr, various famous websites and popstars, and over-reported college administration policies.
But of course anyone left of center knows that “the cultural left” and the Democratic Party are not the same thing. Not just in a “technically different labels thing”, but that the Democratic Party is seen as a boring, corporate, milquetoast tactical necessity and nothing more by the vast majority of progressives. And even when defectors abandon social justice or whatever, it’s either to a) go further left, in which case they still see the Democratic Party the same way, or b) move culturally right but still think the Democrats are a tool for holding back the insanity of the Republicans.
There are a few people who identify the Democrats with the parts of progressive culture they are leaving, but not a lot. If you’re walking out over “I love white male tears” or “I was told my wife couldn’t be abusing me because I’m a man” then what exactly is so upsetting to you about Heidi Heitcamp?
But the Republican political operatives just can’t see this. Those who love Trump for Trump can’t imagine their party leader NOT being affiliated with the cultural totems of their side. So they think rejecting Lena Dunham *must* mean loving Mitch McConnell.
It’s all very, cute and endearing, in a three legged puppy sort of way.
In fairness, a lot of them are probably remembering the Obama phenomenon, which actually did involve some degree of cult-of-personality shit in certain sectors.
…and also the rising-with-electoral-tides heightened passions that periodically allow people to seem genuinely enthusiastic about candidates like Hillary Clinton. Which are almost precisely analogous to the rising-with-electoral-tides heightened passions that periodically allow people to seem genuinely enthusiastic about candidates like George W. Bush. It’s much more helpful to be working from a model of “people have cultural tribes in which they’re reasonably embedded, they’ll generally make their practical politics conform to this as appropriate regardless of the fiddly internal disagreements,” but this can be hard to see because there’s so much hoopla dedicated to disguising it.