[postpawl]

I think you're conflating the Democratic Party with "left-wing philosophy." Actual left-wing ideology (Marx, Lenin, the socialist tradition) focuses on material conditions for workers: who owns the means of production, labor power, class relations.

From that perspective, the problem isn't that Democrats have the wrong messaging about masculinity. It's that neither major US party offers politics centered on workers' material interests. Both parties abandoned class-based politics in favor of cultural appeals.

If you're a young man struggling economically, being told you have "privilege" feels disconnected from your reality of declining wages and diminished prospects. But the socialist response isn't "better messaging about masculinity," it's organizing workers to gain power over their economic conditions.

[tremon]

To have even more fun with this, republicans were the original "left wing" while the right wing was composed of monarchists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_wing#History

> Throughout the 19th century, the main line dividing Left and Right was between supporters of the French republic and those of the monarchy's privileges.

It's fun to consider those same dividing lines in the current US climate: once again, it's the right wing that tries very hard to establish an absolute ruler, while the left aims to maintain the current republic (or to salvage what's left of it).

[qcnguy]

Left wing philosophy did not start and end with Marx. Leftists who pretend 1900s era leftism is somehow the True Left are annoying. He was just one in a series of extremely far left thinkers.

Most people with a good historical education would point to the original leftists being the Jacobins. That's where we get the terms left and right from. But you could also argue that even Jesus Christ was a leftist by the standards of his day, and we just struggle to see it because politics as we know it now didn't exist back then. He wasn't a fan of capitalism! The Bible says he preached peace and then went in with some followers and beat up market traders for no better reason than he thought trade shouldn't be allowed around temples (or we can infer he didn't like markets and traders in general, but having cast himself as a religious figure he had no excuse to rail against it in non-religious places).

> Both parties abandoned class-based politics in favor of cultural appeals.

Yes they did because Marxist thought is wrong and destructive. It should have never been adopted at all but after lots of evidence in the 20th century most people did give it up. The notion of "class" is a poor description of reality. Marxism always had trouble classifying small business owners. They do manual physical labor, so should be working class, but they are also capitalists. He would have been baffled by the ramen eating startup grinders of today. Marxism has no way to properly incorporate this basic and common fact into its thinking. Or, he probably wouldn't be baffled really, because if you read a biography of him it's clear he hardly ever left his study and was uninterested in exploring the real world outside of books and newspapers. His friend Engels invited him to visit a factory Engles owned, and Marx refused, despite supposedly fighting for the factory workers.

[jonway]

> The notion of "class" is a poor description of reality. Marxism always had trouble classifying small business owners. They do manual physical labor, so should be working class, but they are also capitalists.

Not even in the least. There’s a lot to critique in Marx and Engels but there is much written about Marx’s theory of alienation. He would say “The best form of work is unalienated labor.”

A person working, developing and feeling connected to the fruits of their labor, fulfilling the needs of his society is exactly what he prescribed.