The right’s diagonalist progressives pose as loyalists, not defectors, to remain useful

Evidence

That’s why having a few prominent self-identified progressives and/or liberals involved is so critical. Importantly, the role of these progressives is not to renounce the goals of social justice and embrace a hard-right worldview (the journey made by well-known ex-Trotskyists like Irving Kristol in the mid-twentieth century). On the contrary, they must continue to identify as proud members of the left, or devoted liberals, while claiming that it is the movements and tendencies of which they were once part that have betrayed their own ideals, leaving these uniquely courageous individuals politically homeless and in search of new alliances. These exiles from progressivism package themselves not as defectors, but as loyalists—it’s their former comrades and colleagues, they claim, who are the imposters, the fakes. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 325

Categorization

• XREF: This ‘loyalist-not-defector’ rhetorical casting echoes the ex-Trotskyist trajectory (Kristol) and anticipates the kind of asymmetry that matters for Klein’s later Israel/Palestine chapters.
• QUESTION: Is the ‘exiled loyalist’ frame actually distinct from older ex-Trotskyist trajectories, or just a new packaging of the same move? Klein flags the Kristol parallel but doesn’t develop the comparison.