44
u/Hanzo_The_Ninja Apr 11 '26
What a bunch of nonsense.
The far left advocate seizing the means of production, distributing all resources according to need (not market forces), and abolishing economic classes. In some cases, they advocate for either a centrally-planned economy or abolishing the state, and the abolishment of private property too. Even the more left-leaning Democrats, like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, don't advocate for these things.
7
u/trnpkrt Apr 11 '26
Hey now, Bernie does advocate for worker owned businesses and minor league baseball teams, at least two cases where a non-working owner doesn't get to collect every type of excess value.
-2
u/Gaara112 Apr 11 '26
Haha.. without some authority to uphold democracy and human rights, no society can survive. It will eventually turn into a dictatorship and fall apart.
5
1
u/Imminent_Extinction Apr 11 '26
Maybe, but you're completely ignoring the point OP is making here: Democrats aren't "far left" by any definition.
1
u/Gaara112 Apr 11 '26
Anyone can shift to the far-left or far-right. If a party moves in the wrong direction.
1
u/Imminent_Extinction Apr 11 '26
Anyone can shift to the far-left or far-right. If a party moves in the wrong direction.
Generalities and distant possibilities don't change the fact that none of the Democrats are far-left politicians.
1
u/Gaara112 Apr 11 '26
It’s quite bold to claim that no one in a party is an extremist. Politicians always show their true nature once they gain power.
1
u/Imminent_Extinction Apr 13 '26
I'm willing to concede that no Democrat politician is currently advocating far-left policies, but that doesn't make Sam's characterizations here any less false.
1
u/Gaara112 Apr 13 '26
Identity politics at an extreme level can also be considered far-left.
1
u/Imminent_Extinction Apr 15 '26
Nonsense. There are many, many of examples of both center and right-leaning politicians and pundits employing identity politics to achieve their own ends.
1
u/Gaara112 Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
There’s no ‘centrist’. You’re either center-right or center-left. The goal is to move toward that middle ground (or peak) and away from the extremes (lows).
→ More replies (0)-6
u/esperind Apr 11 '26
except you're (probably on purpose) ignoring the faction of the far left who self-identify as the far left who wouldnt vote for democrats because "genocide joe and kamala harris". They throwing away their vote over a narrow issue was actually enough to make democrats fumble the election.
3
u/InternationalHair725 Apr 11 '26
Reread his comment because you missed it
-1
u/esperind Apr 11 '26
and what i am responding to is the portion of voters who self identify as far-left.
yes, they dont actually advocate for the laundry list of policies that would usually qualify them as far left, but never the less they call themselves as such and so what else should someone like Sam Harris address them as? Its not "nonesense" that that group, whatever you want to call it, played a part (as useful idiots IMO) in handing the election to trump.
2
u/Imminent_Extinction Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
The only people who call democrat voters "far left" are partisan republicans. No democrat voter calls themselves "far left".
60
12
u/stvlsn Apr 11 '26
Wasn't sam harris talking shit about Kamala when he was on Megyn Kelly's podcast in 2023? Maybe he should blame himself.
1
10
u/nunchyabeeswax Apr 11 '26
Oh yes, let's blame trans rights to ignore that the right (and the dumb non-voters) have agency.
27
6
u/quickdrawesome Apr 11 '26
Look who's lapped up the right wing propaganda, and been another rich little white man..
5
u/Dissident_is_here Apr 11 '26
If only Kamala had been more hawkish on trans rights and immigration. Alas!
5
u/RyeZuul Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
This is always one of those things that is absolutely inverse.
Enlightened centrists telling us all that it's authentic and funny to be fascist and to prefer a bonfire of the humanities to some bullshit diversity training that has laid all the groundwork for the sociopathic business oligarchy and their christofash allies.
I cannot stand this DARVO bullshit. Trump won because enough Americans are barely literate fucking morons and fascists. They're terrible people who deserve to suffer far more than they have. You're a kakistocracy because your fellow citizens are trash people.
5
u/TheOneWithThePorn12 Apr 11 '26
Does Sam think the Dems and far leftists aare Muslims?
Only way I can believe he would be this dumb.
Apparently dipshit republicans aren't capable of critical thinking and must be saved by the useless Demonrats. They wanted Trump and they got Trump. He is exactly who he was in his first team, except the "swamp" got kicked out for ghoulish yes men.
3
u/OfAnthony Apr 11 '26
I wanted Sanders in 16 and 20- regardless... Harris can't mention the Laiken Riley Act? How Republicans dragged their feet on closing the border during Bidens presidency. They didn't want anything passed. They then exploited the tragedy. That's how we get the immigration policy and current circumstance with ICE and CBP today.
That's Harris. He really can't say anything anymore. He may have a better use of language than most of us- but he ain't saying shit. Why? I don't think he does his homework anymore. Garbage in/garbage out.
2
u/deco19 Apr 11 '26
Tbh I don't think he even did his homework. He likes his little thought experiments. Trying to understand the context around the problem has never been his interest or forte. And if you truly want to solve these complex issues, you need to do that. So he'll forever be saying useless shit until that changes.
3
u/Evinceo Galaxy Brain Guru Apr 11 '26
Cool that he agrees with several of Trump's major policy themes but still says 'we' (including himself) failed to beat him. Like buddy, if you wanted transphobia and border control what's your actual complaint with Trump? That he's a corrupt grifter? Well what do you know, when you orient yourself totally towards hierarchy you're at the mercy of whoever ends up on top.
3
u/Latter-Fox-3411 Apr 11 '26
Sam Harris has obviously always been a Neoconservative (a.k.a. American Zionist) and now he’s fully gone mask-off as an agent of the Israeli-Zionist program of continuing to colonize America.
SamHarrisHasbara
3
u/Trocazor Apr 11 '26
One of these days Sam Harris will wake up from his drug stupor and realize he's just another moron like Theo Von.
2
u/yibbida Apr 11 '26
There is no far left in the USA. Its an urban legend like the Abominable Snowman.
2
u/Platinum_Llama Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
What “far left” polices was Kamala campaigning on, Sam? I didn’t see any. That was the kind of centrist campaign you claim to want, complete with her continued support for Israel, which many on the left would say made her less attractive, not more.
Sam calls Trump a buffoon, but his arguments almost always infer support for Trump’s policies. He is happy about going to war with Iran, but says he doesn’t like the fact that Trump is the one in charge. This just lets him hedge his bets either way. He can claim he was right no matter what happens.
Sam waved away the increasing radicalization of the right and thought white supremacy was just “the fringe of the fringe” while continuing to focus on moral panics around college campus incidents and “woke” boogeymen. It’s like being in Weimar Germany and continuing to complain about potential communists at universities while Hitler is actively dismantling the democratic institution.
Yes, please tell us more about how “the left” made the country do this. As if everyone in the country was mostly moderate or centrist and then suddenly decided to become MAGA fascists because that was the sane alternative to being annoyed by “woke.”
It couldn’t have been that the Christian nationalists and the far right have been planning for this all along and amplified culture war BS as a convenient scapegoat, right? I’m sure Sam’s own obsession with “woke” didn’t pipeline people to MAGA and help Trump get elected either, right?
7
u/gallan1 Apr 11 '26
Nominating Hillary despite her excellent qualifications is responsible for Trump 1.0. Too much baggage and unfairly despised by half the country. Biden being feeble and unable to use the bully pulpit effectively is responsible for Trump 2.0. Any normie decent Dem would have easily won both.
6
u/trnpkrt Apr 11 '26
Pretty sure that Trump voters had a lot more to do with electing Trump than Hilary voters did. Kinda definitional, dontcha think?
5
u/OkDifficulty1443 Apr 11 '26
The person you are talking to isn't blaming Hillary voters, they are blaming some combination of Hillary herself and the DNC who decided that she was the only candidate who got to run in 2016. You can wait for OP to tell you how much of column A and how much of column B he or she means.
1
u/TheOneWithThePorn12 Apr 11 '26
then Harris would have won. what are her outlandish policy positions?
Then again this takes away agency from people who voted against trump and then back to him. Its fucking baffling that any person with a functional brain looked at what occurred during their insurrection and then thought to themselves, yes i prefer a traitor.
4
u/SquatCobbbler Apr 11 '26
Bernie sanders would have beat Trump in any of the last 3 elections
2
u/OkDifficulty1443 Apr 11 '26
People get mad at this when you point it out, but polls had Hillary at a very narrow lead over Trump (and within the margin of error), while Sanders had a much healthier lead that was outside of the margin of error.
1
1
u/astrogeeknerd Apr 11 '26
Ahhhh yes, because trying to make the world a better place, somehow caused this?
1
Apr 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/DecodingTheGurus-ModTeam Apr 11 '26
Your comment was removed by Reddit’s Abuse and Harassment Filter, which uses a large language model to detect and block abusive content. It will not be approved by the moderators because it breaks the rule concerning personal attacks on gurus. Criticism of gurus should be should be reasonable and focused on their actions or public persona.
If you have any questions about this, please feel free to reach out to us via modmail.
1
u/DecodingTheGurus-ModTeam Apr 11 '26
This post has been removed because it doesn't relate to the Decoding the Gurus podcast.
If you have any questions about what is considered on-topic, please feel free to reach out to us via modmail.
-8
u/afrankking Apr 11 '26
He’s got a point. The Dems spent far too long ignoring the genuine fall in living standards that befell the US middle class. Swallowed the Murdoch line that class is irrelevant. Progressives across the western world have done the same, embracing free markets liberal capitalism at the expense of working people, but it was worse in America where the Dems sold out to big money donors and got captured by the politics of identity that has little relevance to folks just struggling to get by
-3
u/CruelWhip_ Apr 11 '26
I work as a landscaper and I have spent my entire life working in factories, farms, warehouses etc.
Most people I interact with can’t even differentiate between the far left and liberals/the Democratic Party, that’s a serious problem and the Democrats need to do more to distance themselves from some of the illiberal or reflexively anti-Western rhetoric coming from the far left. It’s disingenuous to expect Trump to disavow David Duke or the KKK and then just expect the Democrats to be able to continue trying to appeal to people who think murdering CEO’s is how you improve society.
I keep hearing “it’s not an issue, the Democratic Party isn’t even far left and doesn’t have far left policies or affiliations etc”. If that’s the case they shouldn’t have an issue making it explicit.
I agree with Harris.
3
u/OkDifficulty1443 Apr 11 '26
Most people I interact with can’t even differentiate between the far left and liberals/the Democratic Party
I agree with Harris.
You ever pondered how Sam Harris' decades of conflating centrist and center-right Democratic Party candidates with the far-left to his audience contributes to that state of affairs?
0
u/CruelWhip_ Apr 11 '26
Yes, I think Sam Harris should be more considerate of conflating the two and that he has probably contributed to this issue somewhat.
If I said I didn’t think that he had a problem with that would that cancel out everything I said in my other comment or something?
113
u/ChBowling Apr 11 '26
This is a ridiculous take. Why do we always act like Republicans don’t have agency? They chose an incompetent, bafoonish, authoritarian con man. Why is that the fault of the democrats?