Libs thinking we’re on their side, until the point we reject electoralism and US imperialist propaganda. Then label as as “tankies”.
Campists thinking we’re on their side until the point we reject “AES” and “left unity”. Then label as a “liberals”.
Anarchists are clearly the rare species of “liberal tankie” 😆
If nothing else, anarchists need to rebrand and come up with a new name for the same philosophy. “Anarchism” as a term has long been thoroughly poisoned. People who aren’t deep into political theory at best dismiss it as an edge lord philosophy.
There’s no term that will not be poisoned. We saw it happen with innocent things like DEI, BLM, Woke and so much more. changing names is not achieving anything, but if you want you can use libertarian socialism.
Why should we change when they misunderstand what the word means?
Because at some point, the philosophical has to give way to the practical, unless you intend for your movement to be nothing more than an academic thought exercise. The unfortunate reality is branding matters. At a population level, no amount of explaining or reading suggestions is going to break through the preconceived notions people have about anarchism.
I mean, it’s kind of like the difference between “feminist” and “egalitarian”. All egalitarians are inherently feminists. But not all feminists are egalitarians. Part of the issue is that you can’t stop others from claiming the title, even if you disagree with them. Anyone can claim to be an anarchist, the same way anyone can claim to be a feminist. Even if their views on specific policies differ from your own, or from what most would consider anarchist.
And opponents have 100% used this to poison movements, by inserting living strawmen into groups, then pointing at them to portray the entire group as crazy.