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?
Thing is, everyone has their own limits as to where the line is between an imperfect ally and not being an ally at all, and even when that line shifts into an indirect enemy.
I'm relatively liberal in who I'll consider an ally. As long as the goal is similar enough, I'll work with people that differ on the details. As an example, I don't necessarily believe that anarchist details will hold up long term, but would have zero issue working with anarchists to achieve a goal. The goal being a significant change in socioeconomic structure. I accept the fact that compromises will be necessary to achieve that goal, and that they will also be necessary after (if) that goal were achieved. I'm pragmatic in that regard.
That's true for me on prettymuch every front because there's not enough people in any of the movements I could support to make anything useful happen by themselves. It's like how LGB turned into LGBT, then the Q+ got added. You know, apes together amd whatnot. Since I genuinely believe that the struggle for human rights is fully intersectional with those specific groups' rights needing to be recognized as human rights, anyone that's on board even tangentially is an ally.
It's a fuck ton easier to talk a partial ally into compromising and meeting your goals at least short term than it is to conquer enemies.
Part of that pragmatism is recognizing that any ism has zealots. Tankies, terfs, nazis, ultra-radical feminists, whatever; there's always going to be people that will never, ever compromise because it's about their faith, the belief becomes their religion, and they simply can't work with anyone else at all. There's fucking radical moderates and centrists that genuinely believe that middle ground is the only acceptable and allowable form of structure, and will not work with anyone else, period.
But I'd still work with them as imperfect as zealots inherently are, because you use the tools you have.
But that doesn't mean you can't critique. It's just that you have to choose your battles. You have to decide when and where to apply critique as a form of communication. And there's no single answer for that