It confuses me why people associate leftism with both Islam AND communism.

The people who do this really aren't interested in the variations between us and them.

Commies and Muslims, along with anyone who's not an "us" is a "them", along with Jews, Democrats, intellectuals, etc.

Muslims are classically auth right on the ‘ole compass.

Same as evangelical Christians.

Leftism and communism were associated with Jewishness in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century by a large segment of society.

I do think Western leftists/progressives can be more defensive of Islam and Muslims because they are a minority in Western states (and oppressed in others, in the case of Palestinians and Rohingya) but ideologically Islam and leftism don't have much in common.

Of course I come across people who say things like "hey leftists, you love Islam so much, but you know that Muslims throw gay people off of roofs!" or "hey right-wingers, you hate Islam so much, but Muslims love traditional gender roles and theocracy!" That's always just a fairly uninteresting line of argument IMO. 🤷‍♂️

It's something which has really emerged in post 9/11 politics.

Supporters of wars in the ME needed a theory as to why leftist humanists opposed violent wars, which wasn't... opposing violent wars.

This was particularly true of the Liberal Interventionists like Chris Hitchens who used western secular values to justify these military actions. The ME never had a Liberal Enlightenment (or so the argument goes) so the west needs to take the lead in freeing women from their oppression and underdeveloped societies from the tyranny of dictatorships. In this framing, anyone defending Muslim people is against enlightenment values and is uncritical of Islam.

Whilst there is some truth in this criticism of ME countries, the solution (bombing and invasion) was never going to successfully impose Western style liberal democracies, as much as they even tried to.

This was a Liberal defense of imperialism and these people never managed to fully explain why Saudi Arabia remained an ally. Also, the left traditionally defends Palestinians against Israel.

So, for those think that their positions on these issues is in the side of Western values and liberal progress, people against that position must therefore be motivated by being apologists of Islam.

It makes sense within that frame. Though of course, the frame itself is a load of bollox.

It confuses me that people associate all leftism with socialism.

They have not the least idea what 'socialism' means. Or that 9 of the top 10 countries on the human development index (ie, best standard of life) are social democracies which are NOT socialism.

It's funny because Islam is right wing and traditional, change my mind 😏

Haha it's like saying "all my enemies must be friends, that's why they hate me"

You're arguing with personality disorders, if you combine all 10, totals about 16 million of the population with at least two victims per each person. They don't see grey areas.

If the person doesn't have one then there's other factors.

Overly anxious people also fall for those things because it plays on their anxiety. I should know, I was one.

Or when all else fails, they're just that ignorant. I won't say dumb because people always can learn and get better. But some people spend their lives in a box. They've never met a gay person for instance so they're anti gay due to news they see.

Many people are illiterate. Which again isn't bad but this is what you're dealing with.

Because, thanks to the efforts of groups like the John Birch Society, everything to the left of Barry Goldwater is "Communism", while various fundamentalist groups and figures have convinced them that everything other than Evangelical Christianity is the same devil-worshipping NWO wearing various disguises. Thus, they can't tell the difference between liberals calling for religious pluralism, often with a specific focus on fighting Islamophobia in the West and the Uyghur genocide in China, and communists advocating for the abolition of religion.

Not necessarily. In some places you have people who are both. For example Muslim communists. Also a communist is in charge of Najaf in Iraq right now and she is trusted by all not to play sides in religious bullshit.

It's just a case of "thing I don't like" associated with other "thing I don't like".

EG. "Hurdy hur yew dam lefty muslim commie fag"

It boils down to this: a growing number of people believe strongly that social beliefs and political preferences are a giant zero sum game.

Elected officials and their big money backers have promoted this notion so that establishing any form of compromise position is considered a loss.

Effectively, it’s this: you and I disagreed on this one topic and so therefore, you must be against me across the board.

It’s sad and ignorant.

Because Obama was an Islamist Marxist Communist Democrat.

They're fascists They're lumping together their "enemies". They're anti politics, and the public buys it!
Left is fascist! Lol! Communism is corporate! Lol. Nobody knows left from right! Lol. But you have nukes and a huge attitude! Lol.

The answer is extremely simple: they know sh*t of what they're talking about, and are just repeating like parrots whatever nonsense they've heard on the TV or online by those who generally rile them up.

Communists have historically tried to wipe out all religions, not just Islam.

It's because religion can't survive a communist dictatorship.

Yeah the funny part is that extremist Muslims are alt-right 🤣

Some people choose to remain ignorant.

Can you give an example of this?

Thanks for the BC

Islam, especially fundamentalist islam, is far closer to their own beliefs than they want to think about. So they try desperately to distance themselves from it by saying that folks on the left love it.

Maybe they have a crush on Nasser.

Only the Lenninist ones