About 95% of politics is tribalism. People aren’t really ideological, they just gravitate towards one political tribe or the other and repeat the talking points they’re told by the tribe to repeat.
Most people vote the way their parents voted. Some people rebel and those people just vote the way their peer group votes.
In political tribalism, tribal identity is important. Given the association of the word socialism with failed economic systems of the past, logically it would make sense for socialists to call themselves something else. But they won’t because a large part of political tribalism is “owning” the other tribes by being controversial. Calling themselves anything else would mean losing that, and trolling people is a big part of why people chose that tribe. Leftism is mostly an aesthetic, there’s really not much there ideologically. Leftists will just say “read Marx LOL” without ever having read Marx themselves. It’s mostly just trolling.
Putting the “other side” on the defensive accomplishes nothing. People aren’t going to leave their tribe because of some rhetorical cleverness from the other tribe. That would mean leaving their friends and family. Not something you can accomplish with just rhetoric.
In the end politics is just about appealing to that 5% that isn’t part of a political tribe and doesn’t care about which side won the most points in petty internet arguments. That and hoping the peer groups of the young “rebels” aren’t completely stupid. But with polarization that 5% is shrinking and with massive social media consumption, young people are more gullible than ever.
About 95% of politics is tribalism. People aren’t really ideological, they just gravitate towards one political tribe or the other and repeat the talking points they’re told by the tribe to repeat.
Most people vote the way their parents voted. Some people rebel and those people just vote the way their peer group votes.
In political tribalism, tribal identity is important. Given the association of the word socialism with failed economic systems of the past, logically it would make sense for socialists to call themselves something else. But they won’t because a large part of political tribalism is “owning” the other tribes by being controversial. Calling themselves anything else would mean losing that, and trolling people is a big part of why people chose that tribe. Leftism is mostly an aesthetic, there’s really not much there ideologically. Leftists will just say “read Marx LOL” without ever having read Marx themselves. It’s mostly just trolling.
Putting the “other side” on the defensive accomplishes nothing. People aren’t going to leave their tribe because of some rhetorical cleverness from the other tribe. That would mean leaving their friends and family. Not something you can accomplish with just rhetoric.
In the end politics is just about appealing to that 5% that isn’t part of a political tribe and doesn’t care about which side won the most points in petty internet arguments. That and hoping the peer groups of the young “rebels” aren’t completely stupid. But with polarization that 5% is shrinking and with massive social media consumption, young people are more gullible than ever.