"Don't Bully People Who Share Your Values" (Issue #96)

How purity testing became the enemy to coalition building.

Hi friends!

Since Trump took office, I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground, looking for the movement that will help lead us out of this mess. During his first term, I felt like I knew what to do – where to put my money, where to join protests and rallies, and how to invest in community care and action. And it’s not that I no longer know how to do those things, but this time, everything feels more fractured. The collective energy of resistance feels weaker than before, and I think it’s taking a little longer for us to find our footing.

The reasons for this are many. In the wake of Trump’s win last November, I wrote about my frustration with the Democratic party — how their constant refusal to meaningfully engage with the working class helped lead us here. A few months later, that anger hasn’t gone away. But I’ve also never seen electoral politics as the end-all-be-all. So the question remains: what else is going wrong? What are we missing?

Let’s take a recent example – February’s economic blackout. The plan was relatively simple – don’t spend any money for 24 hours as a protest against billionaires, corporations, and politicians who actively harm working-class people. I’ve seen efforts like this pop up before, usually online, but this time it felt different. It was organized. It was getting attention. It felt like it could become something powerful.

But, in the days leading up to the blackout, things got messy. What might have started with meaningful clarifications quickly devolved into in-fighting and moralizing –

You actually should spend money but only on small businesses and Black-owned businesses.

Actually, no, all businesses are capitalist and bad – no spending means no spending.

Is it ableist to expect people not to order through Amazon or Doordash?

At least in my feed, the plot was totally lost. Then, I saw this Threads post, which I shared to my stories:

It hit. My DMs were full of people agreeing—sharing how purity testing seems to be fracturing our ability to build real solidarity. A few months ago, I wrote about how the Left’s obsession with being “right” might be holding us back, and this felt like one more piece of evidence.

The left (especially online) is incredibly fractured. Rather than consolidating power along lines of shared values, it seems a lot of time is spent on working out what the objectively correct thing/belief/action might be. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot over the past year, so it was at the top of my mind when I went to see a screening of Pride hosted by

Chris Stedman

a few weeks ago.

Based on a true story, the film follows a group of LGBTQ activists who rallied to support the British miners’ strike of 1984, eventually creating the “Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners” campaign. When the miners began their strike, they faced immense backlash. Their work was bashed in the media, and police routinely harassed striking miners. One gay activist, Mark Ashton, saw this and realized the miners were now being attacked by the same people who usually harassed the gay community. And through that realization, solidarity was born.

But here’s the thing: it didn’t happen because the miners and queer activists were perfectly aligned. They weren’t. The miners came from rural, working-class communities that were often socially conservative. There were disagreements, moments of discomfort, and even outright homophobia. And yet—both groups stayed. They built relationships. They learned from each other. They showed up anyway.

At the end of the film, there’s this moment where hundreds of miners board buses and travel to the city to march in Pride. They stood side by side with the queer activists who had supported them. This is what coalition-building looks like. This is how we win.

Which brings me back to now. Our country is in crisis. Trump and his administration are directly harming everyone, from trans people and migrants to veterans and farmers. There is a lot we need to fight for, so why are we spending so much energy arguing over the minutiae of how to execute a boycott perfectly?? With so many “rules” about the “right” way to protest, it’s no wonder the left seems to be struggling to build a meaningful coalition of people eager to build solidarity with one another.

The movement becomes inaccessible. Unwelcoming. Sometimes even unappealing. This parody video says it better than I ever could.

There’s an irony here. Progressivism is a movement built around open-mindedness and kindness. But somewhere along the way, it’s become a space where people feel pressured to always say and do the exact right thing. There’s little room for questions, mistakes, or growth.

And I’ll admit—I’m not above it either. When I’m with my family, and someone makes (what I view as) a politically incorrect joke, I always push back. But as my parents like to remind me, when they were growing up in NYC in the '80s, this kind of humor was just part of the culture — especially in their diverse neighborhood where everyone teased everyone. The context was different.

Now I’m not saying we should start letting offensive jokes slide, but I do think there is nuance there. Sometimes on the left, it feels like one wrong move is grounds for you to be banished from the movement entirely. But how on earth can you build a coalition of perfection when everyone is innately imperfect?

In Pride, there’s a scene where a miner’s wife asks a lesbian activist if all lesbians are vegetarians. In another, they can’t stop laughing about a box of sex toys they find at a gay man’s apartment. Maybe these aren’t perfect moments, but they’re real. This is what it looks like to build a coalition across differences.

As we live through this wave of conservative backlash, I want us to be adaptable and strategic. We shouldn’t abandon our integrity, but I think we should be open to the possibility that integrity might look a little messier than the black-and-white standards we’ve come to expect.

A round-up of things to watch, read, and listen to as you head into the weekend.

• The Cut: What Should a 30-Something Look Like? by Claire Lampen

  • Millennials seem to be aging better than the generations on either side of them. Gen X had more smoking and less sun protection, while Gen Z’s foray into plastic surgery has created its own problems. This article is a great examination of how aging looks across generations.

• The Interview Podcast: Ed Yong Wants to Show You the Hidden Reality of the World (gift link)

  • Ed Young is a science writer who gained popularity for his pandemic coverage at the Atlantic. Soon after, he got burned out, and then he got really into birding. It’s an illuminating interview, and Young also shares some insight into how fearful we should be about the next pandemic.

• NPR: Baby's first market failure by Sarah Gonzalez, Jeff Guo, Keith Romer, and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler

  • Andrew was wondering why childcare costs so much when childcare workers are paid so little. So I turned to Google and came across an episode of the NPR podcast Planet Money which answers that exact question.

Things to try + share in the group chat.

I know how frustrating paywalls are! When possible, I’ll try to offer gift links through my subscriptions to support access to high-quality journalism.

• I *love* this party idea. To prepare, instruct all your invited guests to choose something they loved this year and bring two of these items to the party. Then, the whole group plays a game to mix up the items, and everyone leaves with two of someone else’s favorite things!!

• I have a Turkish cotton robe and wanted a second one to put in rotation since I wear it almost daily. I got this robe in botanical green for Christmas, and obsessed would be an understatement. :)

• This Curry Chicken Fried Rice (gift link) is a great weeknight meal to put in your rotation. I love adding a fried egg, and chicken breast will work just as well as chicken thighs!

Last week, I shared a few reflections on justice, unfinished stories, and the future of my podcast, Truer Crime. Check it out here:

Have a great weekend!

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