Recently Yves Engler appeared on a podcast hosted by noted fascist Jackson Hinkle. This was a collosally bad move for him and the reaction has been entirely predictable.
@rachelgilmore.bsky.social
NDP leadership hopeful Yves Engler went on JACKSON HINKLE's podcast 🤮
Hinkle is a huge spreader of disinformation, particularly pro-Russia disinformation, has called the LGBTQ movement “pedophile ridden,” and calls himself a “MAGA communist.”
This is...a choice.
https://bsky.app/profile/rachelgilmore.bsky.social/post/3ly24imxuz22r
@theserfstv.bsky.social
Working with an open anti-LGBTQ+ white nationalist like Jackson Hinkle should be instantly disqualifying. He's even praised Benjamin Netanyahu in the past because he believes in nothing and doesn't care about Palestinian liberation
https://bsky.app/profile/theserfstv.bsky.social/post/3ly257t2udc2j
I was really surprised by this because a friend had introduced me to Engler's work as an author prior to his bid to become leader of the NDP and, being familiar with his body of work, I was fairly certain that he's not a fascist. In fact, I had been under the impression that his political views were precisely the opposite. I had the undesireable task of listening to the podcast at 2x speed because I didn't want to waste any of my time it. I was surprised to find out that Hinkle barely spoke throughout the interview, and Engler didn't espouse any views that could remotely be considered right wing or anti-LGBTQ+. He spent the entire time speaking to the same things he has a consistent history of speaking to:
Engler has since clarified that he doesn't agree with fascism, as if it needed to be stated. I want to say that I'm genuinely confused about this reaction to the podcast, but I'm not. I've seen the reaction on various social media, discussion forums, discords, etc. and it seems to be common. I think this outlines a problem that I have seen again and again since I became politically aware roughly 24 years ago.
The left is illiterate.
We like to think that we are somehow smarter than the right simply because we are morally correct, but this isn't true. We exhibit the same behaviour. We aren't interested in any sort of substance. All we care about is the same optics that liberals (the ideology, not the party, most conservatives and members of the previous NDP fall into this category too) have used to become the dominant force politically. I'm not sure whether the posters I highlight above are secret right wingers or just credulous rubes reacting to shapes and colours, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it's the latter.
This highlights the major obstacle that Engler will have to overcome if he wants to be the leader of the NDP. He's an author, and he has a body of work that is very easy to misconstrue by those who don't care, or don't have the ability, to read and reflect on the work. If he's going to be successful he will need to find a way to quickly address his prior work and take care to not acknowledge the existence of anyone to whom he is opposed. Any ideas that cannot be expressed in a single sentence need to fall by the wayside. His pro-genocide opponents will handily weaponize the left's infatuation with tearing their own apart against him.