This is the problem when people don't read leftist political theory. They claim left is a reflection of what they see in the mirror, independent of any underlying principle or framework.
It is possible to be completely isolationist and also a right-winger. One can be completely opposed to free trade and also a right winger. The Brazilian military dictatorship managed it.
Leftism is not simply a collection of positions on issues that you happen to agree with. It is a political ideology predicated on equality--economic, racial, gender, etc... It does not uphold the interests of one man above the many, and it does not advance a hierarchical nature of society in which a few are certain they and they alone have the answer to what is good for the benighted poor and people of color, or the subaltern more generally. That is the antithesis of what leftism means.
We live in a country where the educational system was ravaged by McCarthyism, where people who have never read Marx, Gramsci, or any leftist theory insist socialism is public highways. Absent an ideological fulcrum, leftism is defined in terms of ego and political opportunism.
The fact is we have no left in this country. It was jailed, purged, and deported. That anyone could claim that Trump could attack Clinton "from the left" shows a bizarre disconnect.
And this from people who have decided that "leftism" means championing the unfettered profits of gun companies over the rights of ordinary Americans not to be killed or to even petition courts, who insist corporate accountability should exempt not only gun corporations but MIC mega corporations like Lockheed-Martin.
= new reply since forum marked as read
