Who is conceding to right-wing framing, the immigration nuanced left or the Cultural Marxist left?

feedback is in for my milquetoast immigration post

It is a valid criticism to say that the clickbait title (I am a Left-wing Immigrant- Here are 10 Anti-Immigration points I agree with) of my previous post sounds like I am conceding to a right-wing narrative of immigration. I did not mention in my piece that many left-wing people agree with me, as I am not saying anything particularly new. I am also not explicitly stating that viewpoints like ‘open borders’ are extremely niche, and nowhere near most prominent left movements. I had included this disclaimer in an early draft of the post, but then it got too long, so I removed it. I find disclaimers emasculate an author’s voice, and I am a high-T woman who expects her comrades to man up and take it on the chin when it sounds like their own side is being criticised.

The main point of my piece was to dismantle the straw man left the right often talks about because I am exhausted of talking to right wingers who accuse me of not wanting to acknowledge, for example, the problem with misogyny and racism in some immigrant communities.

Someone on Xitter asked “Don't you think the main outcome of writing like this is going to be to assure the right that EVERYONE ELSE on the left DOES want open borders? That everyone else on the left thinks the whole world can just come to the UK & use the NHS etc? Is this helping?”.

This is one of the most challenging dilemmas for political thinkers and activists.

When you have identified a weakness within your own movement, do you call it out or keep it private lest it confirms your opponent’s rhetoric and paint everyone on your side with the same brush?

It comes up over and over again, especially if you are part of a political party. There are people you organise with who have said stupid things, the collective decides on a line you disagree with, someone important is found to have done something bad, but they have already been dealt with, so what are you to do?

The purpose of my writing about immigration points I agree with right-wingers is to show exactly that. The left is not one homogenous blob where nuance is slapped down for the sake of ethnic harmony. It is a place of intellectual curiosity where different opinions are tolerated and discussed. It is a place that has space for people who are not ideologically tethered to the left or the right, because they, too, are concerned with the pillars of what makes left-wing politics worthy of popular consideration: values of equality and justice and a concern for people’s welfare.

People take issue with paying attention to stories like the one of the Indian cashier being racially abused by Afghan refugees that was reported by the Times. The right needs no help putting unwarranted attention on refugee scare stories, goes the logic. I understand the defensiveness of that point and acknowledge its good intentions, but I hardly think the general public is politically manipulated solely by Substack posts and tweets.

People vote based on their material reality, and we know that as the cost of living spirals, far-right parties gain ground. That’s been the case throughout history.

We don’t lose people when they read an ‘I didn’t leave the left, the left left me’ op-ed by media grifters selling their souls to the devil for a chance to get a mortgage.

We lose people when we fail to move and inspire them. Open, intellectually curious and generous conversations that recognise real humans' messiness are extremely important. Waggling your finger like the thought/fun police does not attract anyone.

Someone mentioned white anxiety about boutique hotels being closed down to house refugees in tiny English villages (an admittedly extremely rare occurrence). Despite this being a limited practice and the government planning on stopping it, the people who live in these places are entitled to have feelings about their local economy and social fabric being changed overnight. Believe me, their not speaking out lest they sound racist doesn’t change who they are going to vote for come the next elections if their very human reactions are not addressed with compassion and understanding. And yes, some of the people speaking against this will be racist, but maybe if practical support and thoughtfulness are put in place, we can help refugees settle in the UK without stretching people’s goodwill.

If you want to bundle together the people from that village with the thugs rioting outside the refugee hotels during the race riots in the summer, then you are pushing moderate people to identify with a far-right movement. If you paint all of people’s concerns as racist, you are not addressing racism at all. You are just opening the space for populists to clean the slate.

Cultural Marxism was a conspiracy theory that anti-semites started to stoke moral panic about Jews plotting to destroy Western Christian values. Marxists indeed see influencing culture as important for developing a class consciousness, which is essential for making people understand their own circumstances and collective power. But it is not true that there is a blueprint for what that culture must look like, let alone that the left everywhere shares an image of the good life. Sure, at the fringes, this could be polyamorous atheist communes with subsidised blue hair dye for all. I’d argue if we galloped the global left it would mostly look like free healthcare, affordable housing and a robust social welfare safety net. As I have written here before, my socialist values come from my Christian values, so it is silly to say that I am in any way motivated to destroy Christian values.

But when lefties react to a left-wing person writing against a culture war issue, they are confirming the Cultural Marxism conspiracy. By saying ‘you disagree with this left-coded cultural point, therefore, you are not a leftie’, they are agreeing with the right that the left is about cultural issues. Otherwise, surely the test for whether you are on the left should be about your political position on income inequality and public services.

In the first paragraph of my previous post, I said that framing immigrants as the root of our poverty is the right’s way of taking our attention away from the real culprits. That is as much dog whistling as I should need to do for my post-woke comrades.