One thing I don't believe we reckon with enough on the Left is the union, white, working class shift to Republicans that accelerated under Obama. Because we've been so bad at building class consciousness to resist the ambient white supremacy of the United States 1/

(not entirely out fault given the amount of times the Left has been crushed), some people who lacked that consciousness didn't see another neoliberal, they saw a Black man in charge and it made them uncomfortable in ways I'm not even sure they realize. 2/

I believe this, because I watched it happen in my family of UAW members. Originally Detroiters moved down south, they'd always been 'problematic' on race but Obama marked a shift. They began shifting right. 3/

Without class consciousness and solidarity, I watched them retreat into older prejudices when the implicit racial status quo got challenged. I saw a lot more misogyny in the build up to Hillary. 4/

Now these are neolibs with bad policy, but we delude ourselves into thinking just because someone doesn't like them, they don't like them for our reason. We don't imagine other people complexly, that's a human thing. 5/

I saw a lot of people, normal if socially conservative white working people, turn into CHUDs because they didn't have a framework to challenge the hierarchal and interlocking set of oppressions they'd internalized. Lacking that, they chose race first. 6/

So what am I driving at? Uniting with the mythical 'White Working Class' is a fools errand. Doing so would mean deemphasizing or outright jettisoning the issues that are of concern to a broad number of workers and people in general. 7/

Now, are all 'white working class' indicted in this? No, I'm white. I'm working class. But I have an intersectional framework and commitment to solidarity. We need to bring people in, but that involves introducing and building these consciousness to resist existing prejudice. 8/

In order to build a Left with a coherent critique of capitalism and a plan to move beyond it, that's going to involve turning more people into Leftists rather than just forming slap-dash coalitions. Class consciousness can unite all or people will unite in collaborating with hate

At the end of the day, human liberation is going to require a commitment to destroy every hierarchy and every oppression. We can't remove a single chain and claim to be free. Classism, racism, sexism, heteronormativity, abelism, and every other oppression must be destroyed.

If someone wants me to help remove their chains, I want their help in removing mine. I don't want you to leave me behind when you're free. An ally is fine, a comrade is better.