I want to draw attention to the elephant in the room.
Leading up to the election, and perhaps even more prominently now, we've been seeing droves of people on the internet displaying a series of traits in common.
- Claiming to be leftists
- Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left
- Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates
- Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party
- Attacking anyone who promotes defending leftist political power by claiming they are centrists and that the attacker is "to the left of them"
- Using US foreign policy as a moral cudgel to disempower any attempt at legitimate engagement with the US political system
- Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism
When you look at an aerial view of these behaviors in conjunction with one another, what they're accomplishing is pretty plain to see, in my opinion. It's a way of utilizing the moral scrupulousness of the left to cut our teeth out politically. We get so caught up in giving these arguments the benefit of the doubt and of making sure people who claim to be leftists have a platform that we're missing ideological parasites in our midst.
This is not a good-faith discourse. This is not friendly disagreement. This is, largely, not even internal disagreement. It is infiltration, and it's extremely effective.
Before attacking this argument as lacking proof, just do a little thought experiment with me. If there is a vector that allows authoritarians to dismantle all progress made by the left, to demotivate us and to detract from our ability to form coalitions and build solidarity, do you really think they wouldn't take advantage of it?
By refusing to ever question those who do nothing with their time in our spaces but try to drive a wedge between us, to take away our power and make us feel helpless and hopeless, we're giving them exactly that vector. I am telling you, they are using it.
We need to stop letting them. We need to see it for what it is, get the word out, and remember, as the political left, how to use the tools that we have to change society. It starts with us between one another. It starts with what we do in the spaces that we inhabit. They know this, and it's why they're targeting us here.
Stop being an easy target. Stop feeding the cuckoo.
Douglas spent the majority of Lincoln's presidency mercilessly and publicly attacking him - claiming he was 'working for him' is not only fairly disingenuous but an extremely odd way to characterize their relationship
Idk what your point is with LfB but that letter absolutely slaps.
He attacked Lincoln after helping him get elected. Almost as if a War breaking out changed things.
..... You have that backwards. Edit: it's possible that you're referring to Lincoln's campaign for reelection, but that was still 4 years after the start of the civil war.
If you're actively curious and not just using this selectively to support your own stances on current events, here's a pretty good resource that describes the bigger picture of their relationship
Douglass opposed Lincoln both when he was a candidate and through most of the beginning of his term as president. Lincoln was, at first, a supporter of the American Colonization plan - which was a belief of some white abolitionists that blacks and whites could not live peacefully with each other, so they sought to emigrate the freed slaves to colonies in Africa. Douglass was justified in detesting that plan and condemning Lincoln's support of it. Douglass went as far as to say of Lincoln's presidency that he "has resolved that no good shall come to the Negro from this war."
I think there's ample reason to think that Lincoln's shift in perspective by the end of the civil war was a direct result of Douglass's influence, but by no measure does anyone on 'the left' think of Douglass as a traitor to his morals. He was a patriot who fought tooth-and-nail for what was right, even in the face of compromise presented as 'progress'.
Your own link shows that Douglas campaigned for Lincoln.
Check my edit. He campaigned for him after his first term (through which he actively opposed him), and only really saw him as an ally after the first 3 years through the civil war (and after Lincoln's own perspective had shifted).
Edit: keep in mind that Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation January 1st of 63, before Douglass had any interest in campaigning for him. He had literally already abolished slavery before Douglass threw his hat in for him
Leading up to the 1860 election, Frederick Douglass was conflicted about who to support. David W. Blight argues in "Frederick Douglass" that the activist saw Republicans not as true opponents to slavery but rather as just opposed to the power that enslavers could wield politically. Still, he saw supporting the Republicans as his only real option because they at least "humbled the slave power" and fought against it as an institution. Douglass expressed a willingness to work with the Republicans even though he was disappointed by their overall platform. He wrote an article a few months before the election that was positive toward Lincoln.
In the months leading up to the election, Douglass continued to stump for Abraham Lincoln by giving many speeches, and he was involved in other campaigns, like trying to abolish the racist $250 property requirement for Black voters in New York (per Blight). He also worked as a recruiter, getting Black soldiers to join the war effort. A month after the election, Douglass wrote an article in his newspaper, "Douglass' Monthly," in which he stated the nomination of Lincoln "demonstrated the possibility of electing ... an anti-slavery reputation to the Presidency of the
https://www.grunge.com/853161/the-truth-behind-abraham-lincolns-relationship-with-frederick-douglass/