when corbyn and the left took over the labour party leadership every alt-centrist parliamentary labour member was constantly on every tv show knifing them in the back for 5 years straight, and they won. what's the left's response? "oh we'll be docile little puppies". fuck that

most important lesson to learn from past 5 years is alt-centrists prefer fascism to even the mildest form of social democracy and will use all resources and institutional power available to them to kill it off, and accommodation doesnt work. you need to fucking rip their face off

this bs myth of "coalition building through compromise and being nice" that's being peddled right now is premised on the absurd notion that alt-centrists aren't purely driven by their material self-interest to protect the status quo by any means necessary. it's self-preservation

it also intentionally erases the fact that that's exactly what the left has been doing for the past 5 years and it was an abysmal failure. "ah, but maybe we just had to be even nicer and even more accommodating to them!" just admit you're a coward and stop wasting people's time

for those asking what this alternative non-accommodationist approach looks like: it's literally what alt-centrists do to the left and each other when they seek power, and then pearl-clutch about when someone dares do it to them. here are some examples: https://twitter.com/zei_squirrel/status/1235110949926744064

left populist rhetoric and practice is a powerful weapon, as alt-centrists themselves realize. any successes of the past 5 years were bc of the left wielding it unabashedly and forcefully, and any failures were when it abandoned it in favor of accommodation and playing nice

let me just give you one concrete example of this from the UK context to clarify the more general point: after corbyn decisively won reelection as labour party leader defeating an alt-centrist coup, he had full power and a mandate to do as he liked. how did he wield this power?

instead of using it to structurally transform labour to ensure the left would be hegemonic within it by simply democratizing it and making parliamentary labour selections subject to primaries ("reselection"), alt-centrists waged a media war against him on that and he capitulated

he had supported labour party democratization for decades. he ran on it twice and was given a huge mandate both times to put it through. it would have helped put a stop to the full-on alt-centrist war against him by making them fear losing their positions. but he abandoned it

how was he repaid for that? that's how I began the thread: alt-centrists continued the full-on war and they eventually won. and to be fair to them, they deserved to win, because they played to win, while the left was pathetically cowering to them every step of the way

if corbyn had enacted the democratization of the party before the 2017 election as he had the power and mandate to do, that is, if he had not abandoned the populist rhetoric and practice he had wielded to win in the first place, he would have broken the alt-centrist's back

alt-centrists don't play around like that. when they had the chance to take over the democratic and labour parties and structurally transform it by curtailing democracy and accountability so as to safeguard their power, they did it without flinching

and again, look at what obama did to hillary in the 08 primary compared to how bernie ran against her in 2016. he went full scorched earth on her while bernie went "enough of your damn emails!" alt-centrists know accommodationism and playing nice doesn't work. when will the left?

victory is never guaranteed. we might still lose as we're structurally disadvantaged compared to alt-centrists and the alt-right, who have all the money and resources. but its better to burn out than fade away. and at least this way you can leave behind lasting structural changes