Progressive Politics

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The phrase "purity test" was popularized by establishment Democrats only recently, as a thought-terminating cliché to shut down criticism of the party's drift towards the Right. (lemmy.ca)

submitted 2 weeks ago by skisnow@lemmy.ca to c/progressivepolitics@lemmy.world

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9

As the party fielded more and more candidates who championed economic-right policies in order to attract corporate donations, the idea of "purity testing" was turned into a stock phrase to attack critics using labels, instead of justifying it on its own terms.

Phrases like "moral purity" now serve two functions: firstly, to dismiss criticisms from the Left wholesale without having to discuss them directly, and secondly, to blame them for the rise of fascism.

In theory it was also supposed to serve a third function of bullying the Left into voting Democrat, but that didn't work.

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[–] barkingspiders@infosec.pub -4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's a term I've used. All 320 million of us Americans have to get along on some terms. We're a big country with a lot of subcultures and variance in needs, experience and standards of living. Defeating fascism will take a majority of those 320 million people agreeing on a complex set of values that aren't fascistic.

We need to be focusing more on finding allies that share anti-fascist beliefs than subdividing into smaller and less powerful factions. The crime of American politics is that we can't more closely align our beliefs with our representation. We are vastly under-represented for our size and technological prowess.

Look for allies, not enemies. It's always easy to find enemies, it's what the Republican messaging system excels at. Find the people who agree that fascism is wrong and grow a big enough tent to defeat it.

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