@b870d4c8 You don't have to go back all that far in time to find very widespread homophobia in the UK left (depressingly, you don't have to go back at all to find transphobia).

The presumption that broadly-left economic and social views necessarily go together was an assumption of the 90s and 00s based on a few western countries.

Of course, I wish we could rely on all economic progressives to care about human rights too. But no point pretending that's reality. I see a lot of leftie bigots. 

 @c72d655d the presumption has older roots than that, because socialists of varying kinds have often been at the forefront of feminist, LGBTQ and antiracism. The idea that these kinds of politics are mainstream and centrist does date from around that period you mention, absolutely. So now we're in a period of backlash against that. 

 @b870d4c8 Sorry, I explained myself badly. Of course there have always been people on the left fighting for human rights across the board - I'm sorry, I really didn't want to deny that!

I was (in my brain) meaning to talk about mainstream left wing political parties, who have not always been anything like as progressive as many socialists on the ground.

Also, though I wish this wasn't the case, at least in the UK there was historically a *lot* of bigotry in trade unions. 

 @c72d655d no need to apologise, it's a complex topic and I don't think either of us are giving a full picture in our short posts :)

I agree that misogyny and homophobia and racism have deep roots in the left, especially in the big parties and the big labour organisations and I agree that the turn of the millennium did create a kind of memory watershed which means lots of people don't know or remember that fact. 

 @b870d4c8 so to what extent did people vote for financially social policies and for racist policies ? In "welfare" policy, should we include territorially inclusive policies ? Do people in the east and valley feel or claim they all resources and opportunities are for Bratislava and to a lesser extent larger cities, whereas "before" (really long time ago now) is would have been more equal ? 

 @f6cebb91 I'm sorry, I don't know enough about Slovakian politics to answer that particular question. 

 @b870d4c8 Kinda getting some strasserism vibes here 😬 

 @288794a9 yes, I think the knee-jerk response that 'the Nazis were not socialist' in response to right-wing claims obscures the uncomfortable fact that this kind of red-brown politics does unfortunately have a long tradition within the left. 

 @b870d4c8 Also worth noting is the type of left we're talking of.

I mean, I wouldn't put your average marxist, anarchist or socdem in the same bracket as maoists, stalinists, trotskyists and other authcoms.

But still, sometimes it seems like authoritarians are seemingly eager to work towards common goals, even if their underlying ideologies are supposedly antithetical to one another. 

 @288794a9 yes, I think you're right that authoritarianism is the common factor here.