When political movements get hijacked.

[The_antithesis]

We've all seen it countless times: otherwise good political movements being taken over by certain people, and then being turned into something divisive and controversial. Whether it be: EA exploiting the PC movement to guilt trip people into buying a terrible game in the form of Battlefield V; right wing (and some left wing!) politicians using scapegoats for those who are fed up with high taxes and stagnant wages to blame, while they take all the tax cuts for themselves; trolls working 'on behalf' of political factions they disagree with to make them look bad; or people on all sides of debates requesting that freedom of speech be shut down: this issue occurs everywhere. Here in the UK, the only political party that isn't lead by someone exploiting their power for an agenda are the greens, who are incompetent anyway. So, I have two questions:

What should a political movement do if it gets hijacked like this?

When we interact with hijacked political movements, how do we address the real concerns without kowtowing to the more controversial aspects?

[Ertrick36]

If it's truly a good and honest movement, one should maintain their honesty and never stop speaking their mind.  Persistence always wins in the end.  Don't resort to "their" tactics.  Never shame people for their beliefs, never use underhanded tricks, never compromise in spite of your beliefs, and never ever tell someone else they have no right to speak about any particular issue.

And to add, stay educated and stay informed.  And support the education of others in your state and community, even if it might come at some cost to you.

[Time the Crestfallen]

8 hours ago, The_antithesis said:

We've all seen it countless times: otherwise good political movements being taken over by certain people, and then being turned into something divisive and controversial. Whether it be: EA exploiting the PC movement to guilt trip people into buying a terrible game in the form of Battlefield V

The fact that you chose this as your primary example is kinda showing your hand mate.

Anyway, the answer to your question is that nothing really can be done to get rid of 'hijackers' because political movements are not monolithic entities in which all participants belong to a hive mind, nor do they have individuals with executive power who can just kick people out. It's why we draw distinctions between different 'branches' within a movement i.e. TERFs being it's own label within feminism.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Time the Crestfallen

[Etrurian emperor]

I don't think there's really much you can do to stop a hijacking taking place. In the ends those with the biggest mouth always drive away the moderates and revolutions always eat their own children. In times of adversity people are far quicker to listen to an extreme standpoint than a moderate one. 

How to respond to a hijacked party can be a lot easier. Admit to their more logical arguments while refusing to budge an inch on the extreme points. Populism seems to have hijacked the anti globalization movement and there are legitimate concern when it comes to globalization. So say that you'll help out the ''losers'' of globalization and limit the harmful effect but no, we won't do any silly things like blowing up the EU or kicking out all the brown people. Take away their concerns while explaining while the more extreme actions will backfire horrible if they were to be implemented. 

[Rapier]

There are always nutjobs in any given [present, vocal] political movement, and their absurd comments make them seem as a majority due to the echoing effect given by social media. Usually, it's not the case that a political movement was "hijacked", but instead its more radical nutjobs manage to amplify their audience to levels where it seems they're the majority.

Discussing concrete cases is better than working with hypotheticals through rules of thumb, though. These cases you mentioned seem more anecdotal than a majoritarian attitude from the people belonging to these "political movements" Battlefield V isn't one

[Shoblongoo]

On 12/7/2018 at 8:23 PM, The_antithesis said:

What should a political movement do if it gets hijacked like this?

Reclaim it and kick the hijackers out, if possible. Otherwise divorce itself from it and reconstitute itself under a new banner.   

The old axiom in political science holds true--every movement carries the seeds of its own countermovement. 

As a political "hijacking" will organically grow out of any new movement, a new movement will grow out of any political hijacking. The key is to be proactive and forward-looking to what that new movement (or the new form of an old movement) is going to bring to the table. And to not fall into the trap of viewing the label or namesake of the hijacked movement as the thing to be salvaged, rather than its ideology.  

Edited December 11, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Tryhard]

Tough one. In positions that you may hold personal views for, I never saw a reason to leave because there existed people that you disagreed with, otherwise you would never hold a position on anything. The whole concept of being pushed "to the left" or "to the right" because of individuals never really made sense to me. I always spoke for myself and nobody else.

The whole EA thing I've mentioned what I thought about it elsewhere but I think sometimes is kind of forgotten - corporations like EA do not actually give a shit about social justice. You can only hope that others could see that, but unfortunately there seems to be no shortage of people that will fall for faux-progressive corporate speak.

However, for political parties, there is unfortunately not much you can do unless you band together via activism and show your displeasure.

Edited December 13, 2018 by Tryhard

[Duff Ostrich]

Here's a fun exercise. Type "Politics is the art of" into google and you get a ton of different answers. These two are my favorites:

"Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest."  - Thomas Sowell

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho Marx

Of course, the most famous answer to this question comes from a paraphrase of Otto von Bismark: "Politics is the art of the possible..." One of the ways of achieving a possible end result is to form a coalition. In this case, people with vaguely congruent objectives cooperate with one another. This isn't always a bad thing, but I suppose that depends upon your perspective and how the people within a coalition transform the objectives of a particular movement from one thing into another. The question is, for instance, in what ways do the objectives of the Women's March and Louis Farrakhan align? Clearly they have a common goal, regardless of what Teresa Shook may think. She says it's been hijacked from it's original, nobler purpose. I suppose that may be true, but I tend to think that she didn't know who her friends were in the first place.

The example of Battlefield V, or indeed any bit of media caught up in the throes of the culture war, should be evaluated on a case by case basis. Sometimes it boils down to corporate pandering. Sometimes it involves communities of unhappy people looking to either elevate or tear down a particular product in pursuit of some nebulous victory. Sometimes you have developers or community managers getting into unwise arguments on twitter. Often you have all three happening in concert with one another. I find that it's best not to become too invested in these spats regardless of the circumstances. I play games that I like, and don't worry about the rest.