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POLITICS
The apparent irrelevance of the fractured “left”
There doesn’t seem to be any “here” here
I talked to my biological parents on the phone tonight, and they’re a good barometer of what a particular segment of normal, mainstream people are thinking. They’re Democratic voters who get their news exclusively from corporate media, and never go near anything alternative. Their idea of what’s going on in Ukraine is so different from my own that we might as well be living on different planets. I knew to expect a contrast, but was taken aback by just how sharp it was. I didn’t say much myself — I mostly just wanted to hear what they’re absorbing. The story they’re getting is deceptively oversimplified and entirely lacking in context, and they just believe it without question because that’s what the news says. They had no idea about all the media censorship that’s been happening, and there’s really no way of explaining to them why it matters. Foreign and independent media isn’t “real” news to them, from their point of view.
The conversation was a reminder of how insignificant “the left” is in the US. My parents’ views of the invasion are sourced from legacy media like PBS and CBS. As such, they have far more in common with the views espoused on Fox News than they do with any leftist perspectives. Something like Counterpunch is…