David Masciotra is the author of "I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters" and "Mellencamp: American Troubadour." He has written for many publications on politics, music and literature, including Salon, No Depression, the Progressive, CounterPunch and the Los Angeles Review of Books. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

(CNN) One of the most obvious realities of American politics is that the Republican Party, members of which have pushed increasingly hateful rhetoric, is blocking President Joe Biden's reform efforts to improve people's lives. What is much less recognized is that a significant faction of the left also damages any hope for improvement in a country wrestling with unprecedented assaults on democracy , escalating hate crimes and gun violence , global warming and extreme income inequality .

Commentators offer different theories to explain Biden's low approval ratings , but many miss the importance of partisan loyalty. Gallup polls show that Biden's support among Democrats declined from 95% at the start of his presidency to 85% by early 2022. Trump, on the other hand, had lost only 1% of Republicans over a similar time period during his presidency, going from 87% to 86% in approval. What could likely account for Biden's comparatively worse losses among members of his own party is the insidious influence of what I call the "fan fiction left."

Increasingly dominant on the internet — particularly social media and the podcast sphere — the fan fiction left imagines an alternative universe where the Republican Party, with its embrace of Trump and his authoritarian tendencies , is not the main problem of American politics. Instead, in this view, the only hindrance to the enactment of just and beneficial public policy is lack of will within the Democratic Party.

Far worse than teenagers writing an extension of their favorite anime series or video game, the fan fiction left encourages its audience, which depending on the writer or podcast often rivals those of mainstream publications and programs, to act in accordance with its weird delusions. Hallucination is central to their magical world of make-believe. Enter that world, and you will learn the following:

It's likely these ideas play a role in the divergence in party loyalty that lowers Biden's approval rating to Trump levels, but more importantly, it illustrates the venomous effect that the left has on potential Democratic voters.

social Considering that its fabulists so consistently and aggressively ridicule Democrats, they are operationally right wing. The impact of the fan fiction left, irrespective of intention, is to dampen voter enthusiasm for the Democratic Party. As a consequence, it helps Republicans capture and hold power. Judging by popular media accounts, millions of young progressives believe that, if he only wanted, Biden could cast a spell, and by wizard's fiat, transform the United States into Finland.

Obama also appointed Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, both of whom are committed to protecting a woman's right to choose. He also nominated Merrick Garland, now the Attorney General, to the Supreme Court and was met with a dishonest blockade from GOP senators . Based on Garland's opposition to an anti-abortion law in Texas, it is likely he would have voted in favor of Roe.

Of course, the women's rights crisis wouldn't exist if Hillary Clinton won the presidential election of 2016 and appointed three Supreme Court justices instead of Trump. But many prominent left wing leaders gleefully called for people not to vote for Clinton

The fan fiction left is not without precedent. George Orwell, a socialist , came to believe that the left of his era had no real desire in holding power and for them political thought was nothing more than a " masturbation fantasy in which the world of facts hardly matters." Ernst Thälmann , the leader of the Communist Party of Germany from 1925 to 1933, believed that the center left presented a greater danger than Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Needless to say, that analysis didn't turn out so well.

The Democrats certainly have flaws. They are rhetorically passive, disorganized and seem to base their strategy on how not to lose rather than how to win, which usually guarantees failure. The party is also worthy of harsh criticism for taking a bashful approach to punishing Trump and his allies for insurrection. Despite sizable weaknesses, they do have the advantage of not being racists, sexists, homophobes or hostile to the foundation of democracy. Residents of the real world should vote accordingly.

Source: CNN

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