Something I see a lot in the Fediverse and left wing spheres is people rejecting, or making enemies of imperfect allies. The video I shared paints a great picture of what it's like.
Here is some examples I've seen, and what reactions they've been met with.
"I ditched Gmail for Proton" is met with "That's terrible the CEO is a Trump boot licker"
"Posts on r/BuyCanadian" is met with "Why are you still using Reddit, it's American?"
"I'm pro trans but, there are some things I'm not 100% onboard with" is met with "Harsh criticism & Ban"
"I sold my diesel SUV for an electric KIA" is met with "You shouldn't support China or drive a SUV, buy European instead"
"I switched to Brave instead of Chrome" is met with "Brave sucks its American and still part of chromium"
etc.
I so often see people harshly criticize and alienate people that are mostly on their side, and might in the near future be fully on their side.
Instead I'd like to see responses like
"Hey fantastic that you switched to Proton away from Gmail, consider moving to Migadu as they're an even better solution"
"Awesome that you're buying Canadian, while you're at it consider checking out Lemmy or PieFed"
"Great job switching to Electric, next time consider buying a smaller European car there are many great reasons why they are better"
"Great that you're pro-trance, what's stopping your from being onboard with XYZ? Maybe I can change your mind?"
"Nice Brave is already a lot better than Chrome, even better would be LibreWolf, also make sure to try out Kagi or Qwant instead of google"
You don't change someone's mind by criticizing them, you need to have a discussion and bring them over, tone matters. How do we stop these criticisms and alienating imperfect allies?
Also consider that you may be the imperfect ally.
Maybe you are on the wrong about something and the other person you think they are imperfect are on the right. One of the things about being open-minded is precisely having the mind open to different ideas (all within reason of course).
I too have been seeing a tendency of left wing fundamentalism where there less and less room to discuss anything each year. I don't think that's healthy. I get that's a defense mechanism to cope with far-right rise, but I think it is a mistake.
I think the thing that made left wing the intellectual's choice and the best choice it's that it's funded on reason and not in indiscutible and inamovible dogmas. In order to keep it this way there need to be giggle room, there need to be people who differ in some topics, there need to be variety, there need to be different opinions from different environments and different social backgrounds.
And it's not that because they are different they are wrong. They might as well be right and you are the one on the wrong. The purest dogma may be wrong. That's why diversity is needed. Without diversity a bad dogma will never get questioned, and thus never will change to something better.
Once again. All within reason, I'm not saying to tolerate the intolerant. I'm saying that not everyone who has a slightly different way of thinking is an intolerant fascist neo-hotler.
So I say. Accept the different but not only with the hope of "converting" them. Accept them because overall you have more in common and because you love people having different ways of seeing the world.
If you do it with the idea of "converting" them I think things are going to go badly. Just accept them, they may convert or you may convert or no one may convert and you both keep coexisting without having to agree 100% on everything. And that's fine.