Beware, beware the liberals crying about “litmus tests”

Rant alert

Photo: Bailey Rae Weaver on Flickr

Good Lord, I have heard just about enough until the end of goddamned time from people who have never seen an honest day’s work organizing, out here telling us our politics are too leftist or radical to win elections. That our identities and love for them are mucking up the works. That if we’d just all calm our non-binary, immigrant-welcoming, abortion-loving panties down, we’d be able to get something done in this country.

Every time Democrats lose a major election for veering to the right or showing up as wishy-washy centrists, a cry from the pundit class on the teevee and on the YouTubes goes up that activists on the left have “purity tests” or “litmus tests.” That we are so woke that we are unwilling to compromise and win elections. I was on a call this month where someone said that it was a shame that a Democrat who is anti-abortion lost a statewide race, because the candidate had done really good work on expanding Medicare. The statement implied he lost because he’s anti-abortion and Democrats in that area weren’t having it. This is the Myth of Pie, where policy is only so big, and we have to fight each other for pieces.

IT’S NOT PIE. I have written about why things like rights and policy are not pie before.

Whining about supposed “litmus tests” is a total failure of imagination and wit, thrown around by people who cannot fathom the idea of pragmatically and intentionally invoking our diversity as a strength. They salivate watching the right-wing organize in lockstep, and they wish they had the same influence and control on the left. They accuse us, though, of a kind of a nonexistent style of authoritarianism or even fascism, with all of the rigidity and brittleness that implies, because we’re not willing to throw each other under the bus.

“how do I convince them that the only way to defeat fascism is to lose their identities and get in lockstep behind me?”

Those of us who have experienced the marginalization, harassment and the actual violence of a system that doesn’t tolerate difference—the difference of not being a straight, cis, white dude, hopefully a rich one—know otherwise. We have been trained our whole lives to accommodate and maneuver through difference. We know when we have to compromise, and it’s getting rarer now that we’re willing to do so for something as fundamental as our actual lives and identities.

On top of that, we have spent the last *mumble mumble* decades “waiting” our turn and compromising with our votes. Do these centrist crybabies think that we have no experience with this? And that we’re not gonna get fed up eventually? Democrats nationally have shown over and over that they are willing to throw whoever they need to under the bus in service of their billionaire, corporate donors—who are much more interested in the status quo than an equitable future. Over and over, we’re expected to swallow that and vote for them anyways, waiting for our turn under that big ol’ bus. In 2024, 3 million fewer people voted than in 2020. Voter turnout rates hover in the 60-65% range for presidential elections, much worse for off years. Yet the Dems refuse to speak to those people who stay home, refuse to show up for them, and say it’s leftists’ fault when people stay home—that our love for each other and our solidarity are the turnoff here. Are they serious!? Have they thought about the crazy idea that folks who stay home know their vote doesn’t matter because they see the brokenness of a system that is designed to fail them and their everyday lives? And that Democrats are very much part of that system?

Listen, I’d vote for a dude who was anti-abortion but great on Medicare if he came out with his metaphorical guns blazing, saying things like, “I’m not in favor of abortion but I’d never ever sell out pregnant people by voting to ban it.” I don’t know if the candidate I heard about on that call earlier this month did that, but something tells me no, because, so rare is it for a Democrat to take a stand like this, we’d definitely have heard about it. And sure, there are plenty of leftists who wouldn't vote for any anti-abortion candidate, I know. My point is: if our Democratic candidates actually showed up in our towns and in our lives, saying and showing that they had our backs no matter what, we’d hear a lot less bullshit from mealy-mouthed pundits who clutch their pearls and yell “litmus test!” when we refuse to be ground down further in their consultant-class machines.

To quote my boss and homie,

Jim Hightower

: “There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.”

The only way forward is through, and the only way through is together. Solidarity isn’t a call for soulless unity, it’s a call for locking arms together and not letting any of us get ripped away and shoved into oncoming bus traffic.