There’s also a weird level of former Trotskyists who became conservatives with age […] The whole “Trot to neocon pipeline” thing.
That was also very common among Marxist-Leninists of the 1960s and 1970s, especially those upholding China. Lots of them became the foundational stones of Green Parties, or even worse, climbed upward liberal politics and became staunch supporters of neoliberalism.
The current Chancellor of Germany, for example. Or the infamous Gerhard Schröder. Or many hawkish Green Party politicians like Joschka Fischer (Former Foreign Minister 1998-2005) who used to throw rocks at cops in the 70s.
The issue lies therein that many of the people who were leftists in the 60s and 70s would probably be libertarians today. They had a strong focus on social issues and personal liberty even before getting high paying jobs/bureaucrat postings that let them just be libs again.
I guess that might be a more European phenomenon where there was more of a Marxist-Leninist presence, versus the US/Canada where Trotskyites have historically been more organized. ML parties in North America weirdly would spring out of splits from Trotskyite parties, rather than the other way around. Even now the PSL, one of the bigger ones, traces its lineage back through Sam Marcy’s split from the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party.
It really is wild to me to think about how so many higher level European politicians were throwing Molotov cocktails 40 years ago and have ended up becoming the very thing they were fighting against in their youth. Time is weird.
That was also very common among Marxist-Leninists of the 1960s and 1970s, especially those upholding China. Lots of them became the foundational stones of Green Parties, or even worse, climbed upward liberal politics and became staunch supporters of neoliberalism.
The current Chancellor of Germany, for example. Or the infamous Gerhard Schröder. Or many hawkish Green Party politicians like Joschka Fischer (Former Foreign Minister 1998-2005) who used to throw rocks at cops in the 70s.
The issue lies therein that many of the people who were leftists in the 60s and 70s would probably be libertarians today. They had a strong focus on social issues and personal liberty even before getting high paying jobs/bureaucrat postings that let them just be libs again.
I guess that might be a more European phenomenon where there was more of a Marxist-Leninist presence, versus the US/Canada where Trotskyites have historically been more organized. ML parties in North America weirdly would spring out of splits from Trotskyite parties, rather than the other way around. Even now the PSL, one of the bigger ones, traces its lineage back through Sam Marcy’s split from the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party.
It really is wild to me to think about how so many higher level European politicians were throwing Molotov cocktails 40 years ago and have ended up becoming the very thing they were fighting against in their youth. Time is weird.