Years ago, I was working in non-profit advocacy with a colleague and found myself discussing socialism. As someone who came from formerly MAGA roots, this colleague was now left of center, and seeking to learn more about leftist politics in general. In our advocacy work at the corporate non-profit level, the question of if and how to incorporate leftist ideals in our work came up regularly. As housing advocates, a majority of our colleagues were solidly left-leaning as well, because, well, if you believe housing is a human right for all, you can’t possibly also be a “right winger”.

They suggested, well-meaningly –but always skirting the center line– that perhaps we should always use the term “progressive” rather than socialist or socialism. Because, well, socialism is of course a dirty word. In general, as with most of these types of centrist concessions, it felt watered down, so much so that I can’t even remember how much if at all I pushed back, we were corporate work colleagues after all, so the depth of our supposedly revolutionary fervor would necessarily stop at any risk to our paychecks.

For years now a popular mantra “go woke, go broke” has resounded throughout pop media circles, and largely, with mass layoffs of important government departments like NOAA and the EPA, perhaps leftists like myself must admit the mantra, for now, is correct, even if the true explanations for why don’t justify a pulling back response. Capitalism after all is the “sacred assumption” to be the correct system, and leftism is, in essence, anti-capitalist. How and why would an anti-capitalist ever be permitted to access capital? Meanwhile, as we also know, under the extreme forms of libertarian capitalism we now live in, the public as a whole suffers, our economy struggles, food supplies become so tainted Upton Sinclair might do a somersault in his grave, and important warnings for increasingly large climate-collapse driven storms are now omitted or delayed.

While we have not seen this level of wealth inequality since the Gilded age (a time when thought leaders and politicians began considering the implementation of child labor laws– not because they necessarily cared to save the children, but because so many fatalities risked the stability of the country’s population) we are also seeing a general decline in what I would consider to be fairly important services, for example, the AI-ification of air traffic controllers, despite our knowledge that AI is still regularly incorrect, and yet, threats to life, as they always have been under capitalism and its hierarchical predecessors, are considered only as mere line items in budget reports, at most, or risks to dismiss and mitigate (usually through censorship, but not protection of life or directly addressing these mortal threats).

Socialism has often been misrepresented in media as a state where lazy people expect handouts. Often socialists struggle with this representation, because the mathematics behind why we support public goods just isn’t so, it is public labor value after all, for the public good. Libraries, fire departments, labor laws, food safety, birth control, and a myriad of other basic human rights we take for granted in our frail and budding proto-democracy would not exist were it not for historical activists of the left. But the mathematics describing how and why we come to these insights are often sourced and detailed in a 1000 page book by a man named Karl Marx who for his time was radical, and for ours would be outdated, and thick to read. I have personally never met a socialist or leftist who wasn’t a nerd, and there lies what I believe to be the real problem– explaining the concept of “surplus labor value” is a lot more pedantic and exhausting than a charming slogan like “Make America Great Again” — and even explaining that to the average American, that America was never great for most immigrants, descendant of trafficked immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, the disabled, or the indigenous, is a convoluted, and weary task.

Identity politics has often driven us to try and appeal to these aforementioned “identities” to appeal to the empathy of lived experience, but sadly, this is ineffective, as racist queer people still manage to exist, as do homophobic black and brown communities, and sexist or ablest natives, and any other combination of “dignity for me but not for thee” one could imagine. No, identity politics are a hotbed of mess especially to those who have never learned, forgotten, or grown nihilistic about the concept of intersectionality. Even now, I struggle to articulate this and a prior post with anti-capitalist overtones without linking to a dozen external articles to help educate a laymen. Will you click and read them? Or do you already know? Or will your brain shut down in liberal dismissal, or an us-vs-them right wing amygdala-activated outrage?

In the newly released book by Daniella M. Young, “The Culting of America” I struggle to get through the parts that call out my own camps: culty socialists, culty vegans, culty yojis, and culty new agers, but she does a good job especially of this in particular: popping our little bubbles around the groups we take for granted and the “sacred assumptions” that hold our niche loyalties together. In the end, Daniella, like myself, is critical of capitalism, which is understood by most scholars to be a solidly leftist ideological position, but she is still effectively non-partisan. Like several American satirical comedy shows I enjoy: South Park, Always Sunny, Spaceforce– her work takes jabs at everybody, as we should, if we want to gaze into the mirror of our own cultural and personal self awareness.

Americans are not what I think most people of the world outside make us out to be. Like most stereotypes, we are not exactly well fitted into all monoliths, though some are true and sometimes funny. Our public education system is questionable, as is our healthcare for a “developed” nation, we have good BBQ, and cowboy things, music and art innovation, and a streak of rebellion that I tend to find refreshing. As a “nation of immigrants” many of us come from diverse and culturally beautiful backgrounds that are somehow both global and united, our public and natural lands, what is left of them, are beautiful, and sadly, we have been heavily divided by our bi-partisan election system, which I believe is by design.

For years we have seen both “far right” and “far left” activists alike point to the omnipotent enemy of the “elites”. For the right, this often leads to antisemitism as far as what type of rich person a woke, “non-sheep” individual should blame. For the left, it’s a mournful understanding of what should have been class solidarity. My personal understanding is that excessive wealth, regardless of religious affiliation, is the source of corruption. Importantly, both groups agree inequities and injustices exist, and all Americans –and all global citizens– desire (and to a leftist, at least, deserve) a better, easier, safer, and more dignified life.

This is where I’m sure that bipartisan leftism comes in. In 2016, during the first Trump election, a large swath of his voters were actually open to supporting Bernie Sanders, a leftist candidate and outlier for the more centrist liberal democrat camp (which many socialists have aptly noted function as controlled opposition to social progress towards public commons, equity and human rights). I think this group of “apolitical” voters is extremely important. Many people don’t care if you read Marx or listened to Alex Jones when he bravely covered the strange insular antics at Bohemian Groove, they simply want to live well, and to see corruption end.

There’s a crass but popular old phrase I’ve always giggled at that’s been around for awhile that applies to this sentiment: “politicians are like diapers, they should be changed regularly” that I think applied to the whole scope of our country’s leadership which spoke to the Bernie-Trump voter. They wanted a “non-politician” someone different, someone for them. Someone not entrenched in the status quo of backdoor deals and insider trading.

I’ll leave the obvious for now around the consequences of the oligarchic alliances in leadership we have now, or how much they resemble Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. As an advocate for change, and long-term strategic thinker, I ask you to consider how much you really know about politics outside of what you have been taught through tribalism and osmosis, and remember that human is human, and all humans seek and deserve a good life.

I think as a for-profit company owner I really struggle to articulate how important it is that leftist ideals be expressed plainly and myths dispelled. Many of us, like myself, work through mainstream, polite, non-violent channels to simply strive towards goals like affordable housing, restored forests, and air that is safe to breathe. I also think a re-evaluation of the “sacred assumptions” of profit is necessary, and frankly, trust that even a far right MAGA somewhere far away in a unincorporated town the the country side of a state I’ve never been to probably righteously agrees on that with me. As a country, we need to unite along these lines, and I don’t think the things the left truly fights for, and has won, are so very radical they need to be silenced. It is likely the opposite. My small gift to fight the impending McCarthyism 2.0 we are now seeing, is to strive to normalize that many leftists are good, genuine, well-researched and ethical people. We are not simply fighting in niche identity politics circles, seeking handouts, or hoping to insult the opposition parties in lieu of genuine social progress. We believe what we believe because of books we have read, data we have reviewed, and lived experiences we have had. And ultimately, we fight for what we believe in because we care for, and deeply love, all people and all life.

In other democratic nations, multi-party or “runoff” voting, where more than one party is allowed to exist is often the norm. For us, we simply have “blue vs. red” (and the other half of us who are Southparkian purple, don’t care, don’t vote, and are tired of all this politician nonsense). I am the first to argue to the latter that politics are everywhere, not just for the loud, emotionally disregulated and cantankerous. They impact your food, your gas prices, your media, and you and your family’s relative health and safety in a wide and rapidly shifting world. It shouldn’t be cringy, nerdy, or problematic to cultivate a deep awareness of how these lines of material power shape us as a collective, indeed, if you even roughly believe in the concept of a democracy, you must engage even slightly as an active and well informed citizen.

Leftism does not exist truly in either the democratic or republican parties. Well informed, well read, observant leftists are painfully aware of this, and if we want to be heard, demystified, and not vilified, we must take the opportunity to educate those on both sides of the isle, and support the platformism necessary to develop support on this. Of course, without saying, there is non-voting oriented, direct action, and direct democracy work to do as well, but that’s for a different blog post, and perhaps a different website. In this space, I urge all people who care about ecopsychology and the well-being of the earth, to at least engage more politically than you have in the past, and to consider the bigger picture when it comes to policy, perhaps over titles and labels.

A better world is possible, and regardless of our affiliations, assumptions, or place within a political compass, as engaged citizens in a place that calls itself democratic, we have a duty to meet this call with urgency, motivation and confidence.

And for those of us heavily engaged, passionate, and taking up the torch double time to make up for those who wish to avoid these topics, we have a duty to explain our position and rationales clearly, calmly, and with respect for our fellow man. I believe our survival as a species will eventually depend on it.