A big trend, at least in PNW leftist activism, is looking at the entire system while focusing in on flaws. No improvement is acceptable unless it is total and complete, and partial steps are even worse than doing nothing.

Myanmar coup? Time to protest global capitalism. Bad conditions in a jail in Wyoming? Time to protest global capitalism. Trial outcome isn’t exactly what you wanted? Time to protest global capitalism. Frustrated that people aren’t paying attention on the 170th night of increasingly incoherent, demand-free protests about issues over which locals have zero control? Time to protest global capitalism.

Then on Twitter, after every protest, you have to complain when global capitalism wasn’t dismantled. If action was taken in response to protest, you have to tweet that it isn’t enough, because it didn’t abolish all borders, dismantle global capitalism, give all land back, and eliminate all government and corporations.

If people had an internal locus of control, they might think about how they can accomplish things, and that might involve identifying solutions to fix parts of the system, rather than demand the whole thing comes crashing down (with no actual thought on a replacement).

edit to clarify: none of the protest triggers leading to ‘time to protest global capitalism’ is meaningfully connected to or specifically about global capitalism; that’s the point. The folks I’m talking about don’t actually have a solid conception of the world and how they specifically want to change it, they’re just angry and don’t really think they can, so they act out against the entire system (I think in decades past it would have been ‘The Man’). Right now its trendy to hate on global capitalism, and assert that it fundamentally is linked to colonialism and white supremacy, among all other social ills. I’m not defending this thinking, just describing it, since it was so foreign to me and apparently to others.