This guy’s dad is the former VP of a multibillion dollar Turkish conglomerate, as well as the secretary of a government department. Mom and Dad were able to fly to their other home in NJ to give birth so he’d get US citizenship. His uncle is the founder and owner of TYT Media and gave him his media career. He went to Rutgers. He lives in a multimillion dollar mansion in the Hollywood Hills. This is by definition not the kind of person who can be a voice of the People. Saying “I recognize my privilege” over and over, while living his lifestyle, doesn’t negate his privilege and complete lack of real-life experience outside of the curated garden of the wealthy. He gets paid obscene amounts of cash to sit in his bedroom and word-vomit for 9 hours a day. Why are his unending opinions taken so seriously? He gives me strong controlled opposition vibes.

Edit: Thank you all for this discussion. I learned a lot.

  • communism@lemmy.ml
    30·
    2 days ago

    I think you have an extremely online view of “leftist political spaces” because I have never even heard this guy’s name mentioned in any real life context, and I’ve been a very politically active communist since I was a teenager.

    • AnneVolin@lemmy.mlEnglish
      112·
      1 day ago

      Yeah the problem with living in capitalist hellworld at the heart of the empire is that you have two separated insular communities of leftists that are knife fighting rings. One in meetings and one on message boards, and they frequently know nothing about each other.

      While the meetings communists sometimes eke out wins like Kshama Sawant, they often struggle to connect to the message board communists who really should be their base. Meanwhile both struggle to connect to society at large.

      What’s really funny is that most meetings communists I know locally essentially think of him in essentially the same way message board communists think of AOC. Most meetings communists cannot stand his level of yadda yadda when pressed on any specifics he often just goes more general and says things like ‘I just want everyone to have healthcare bro’.

      • TheWolfOfSouthEnd@lemmygrad.ml
        1·
        13 hours ago

        The thing is, also, from the lefts perspective, the right seems united, meanwhile the left is constantly arguing about the right type of left or not being left enough or whatever. Someone had a go at me once cause I said I learned something off AOC.

        • AnneVolin@lemmy.mlEnglish
          3·
          12 hours ago

          As a political force in the United States there is no left. The left is structurally shut out of power.

          If you don’t think the right has message board arguments about what flavor of right wing is better, calling eachother RINO, saying that SS style Nazi guys should be Deus Vult style Nazi guys, or how frens and groypers are cringe or how parroting Mitch McConnell makes someone dumb you just haven’t talked to or seen right wingers talk to each other.

          Comparing apples and oranges is the most common thing that happens when this kind of shit pops off because it helps diffuse the actual conversations we could have. You see it all in this thread about how for some people Hasan is a large portion of “the left” simply because he’s popular and that’s all they know. These people don’t have real world experience, they get their ideas from online. They’re no different than Kamala Redditors who thought that everyone was going to vote for Kamala because they were too online and instead there was a red wave.

          The reality of these types of conversations is that most online leftists don’t have the theoretical backing to grapple with these types of questions and when the accusations are levied against a popular leftist that makes money off of their popularity it’s in their self interest to shut that shit down in any way possible and that’s what you end up seeing.