what's the 'dirtbag left'?
Oh you sweet summer child, I envy you so much
The So callled “Dirtbag left” or “Regressive Left” is a term coined by Amber A’Lee Frost from the Chapo House podcast (because of course it was them), basically its a style of leftist socialism that
1) Focuses almost exclusively on class issues rather than race/gender/Queer/Religion etc. They tend to be really dismissive of Identity politics and rather class essentist. If you are feeling generous you could argue they are of the “Solve the class issues and the other issues will follow” type of leftists, while if you aren’t you call them modern Strasserism
2) Deliberately vulgar messaging, or as some members of the group told me, “Socialism but not Politically Correct” it is extremely combative, very confrontation, utterly disinterested in nuance, a cruel sense of humor and a very bullying presentation style. I saw one fan of the approach describe it as “fox news but for the far left” which I don’t think is true (That is more Young Turks) but it does feel like Socialist Brietbart (which is still better than Rightist Brietbart) or possibly socialist south park depending again on how generous you want to be towards them. Its the type of humor that when directed at a worthy target seems hilarious until you realize that is how they approach everybody.
3) Very much of the “anybody not Bernie Sanders should get the bullet too” type attitude, though I don’t think they have done any actual violence to anybody. Now I don’t see Sanders himself leaning into this attitude (again he has been very polite to Warren and visa versa), but they a very much “Us or nothing” approach, though as far as I can tell they are not Tankies
basically if you took the Hillary Clinton circa 2016 imagination of what all bernie sanders fans were, this would be them, which is a shame to all the non Dirtbag leftist populating the left.
Honestly I see them as one of the major toxic elements of the left I wish we’d deal with now before they become a problem later.
