Welcome back to Trad Lib News. Today, I'm going to talk about an uncomfortable topic: the radical Neo-Marxist takeover of progressive social movements. I need to talk about this now, because the Neo-Marxist attempt to co-opt the current wave of the Black Lives Matter movement is gaining steam, to the extent that they are actively trying to push liberals out. I am also worried that their actions are potentially turning the general public against the movement.
By Neo-Marxist, I mean activists in the contemporary West who are openly anti-capitalist to the extent that they want to end capitalism, and they aim to do so by combining pseudo-Marxist critical theory, and postmodernist and anarchist theories. The common thing among these theories is that they emphasize division and struggle over understanding and consensus. In recent days, many Neo-Marxists have decried liberals like Nancy Pelosi and Justin Trudeau for co-opting their movement, saying it belongs to the people in the streets, as if they think the people in the streets are all far-left too. However, the fact is, the current movement against police brutality has support across the political spectrum, with liberals, moderates, conservatives and socialists all represented, and this is what makes it strong. But no, the Neo-Marxists want the movement all to themselves. Even if it means making it ineffective as a result.
Meanwhile, the radical far-left have also inserted clearly irrelevant and potentially harmful distractions, like tearing down statues of Christopher Columbus, who clearly has no relationship with police brutality, the topic we are talking about here, let alone the wider topic of racism against black people in contemporary America and the West.
One major problem with all this is that it is very good for President Trump, and other people who want to avoid the conversation about police brutality in general. They can just point to the involvement of those with a radical Neo-Marxist agenda, and paint the whole movement with a broad brush. In fact, I can see Trump moving in that direction already, and if the Neo-Marxists keep it up and the liberals don't at least try to stop them one way or another, Trump may just be able to, which could of course make reform more difficult in the short to medium term. In fact, the tactics of the radical far-left have often caused pain for people in need of justice in recent decades, including slowing down the acceptance of LGBT rights, as well as indirectly causing the gutting of the New Deal welfare state back in the 1970s and 80s. But then, from the neo-Marxist point of view, who needs these things when they have a life after the revolution to look forward to?
The fact is, liberals who care about social justice have every reason to fear Neo-Marxist activists being the biggest spoilers. Moreover, if liberals won't take a stance against the more extreme actions of Neo-Marxists, the Right is going to paint all of us as sympathizers, and not without ground either. Therefore, I believe it's time for liberals with a social justice conscience to start taking the threat from the far-left seriously.
