-_-

Link so y'all don't call me a lib again.

They also like V*ush. Think "eat the rich" is a metaphor for taxation. And say Tankies turned them from Anarcho-Communist to a Neoliberal. Think the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact meant the Soviet Union was fascist. Like, okay, how fucking twisted do your priorities have to be that you dunk on a state that hasn't existed for 30 fucking years instead of, you know, your own state that is currently involved in who know how many fascist conspiracies. And that's it. I'm not going any deeper into their timeline. I'm too tired.

  • MarxMadness [comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I don't see this. A ton of people who started moving left with one of the Bernie campaigns are now farther left than those campaigns. Doesn't that suggest that those campaigns were effective at eventually leading people to a better understanding?

      • TheOldRazzleDazzle [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        What's a ton, 1000 lbs? So maybe 5-7 grown adults?

        If we count people in terms of biomass, yeah, I'm going to say potentially 10s of thousands of tons of people or more are further left now than where his campaign was in 2016-2020, which largely amounted to taxing rich people more to pay for free college and being friends with Joe Biden but having "very different plans."

          • MarxMadness [comrade/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Leftists did vote as a bloc in 2020, they just didn't vote the way you wanted in the general.

              • MarxMadness [comrade/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                You said leftists did not exert any voice as a voting bloc in 2020. They did -- both during the primary and the general -- they just didn't vote the way you personally would have had them vote in the latter. That's not the absence of a leftist voting bloc; that's you disagreeing with the voting strategy of that bloc.

                As for Bernie serving as a sheepdog, "sheepdog" implies there was somewhere else to go. But in a two-party system there isn't anywhere else to go. There was no viable third-party candidate as-is, Bernie wouldn't have been viable had he ran as an independent, and it's reasonable to think (note that this does not mean that you have to agree with it) that him running as an independent would have been worse for the left than him endorsing Biden. He got dealt a shit hand in the primary, and when you get dealt a shit hand the results aren't going to look great even if you play it the best you can.

                  • MarxMadness [comrade/them]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    yeah it does dumbass

                    This is reddit-tier asshole stuff, and you're not responding to anything I said, anyway. If I say "this is reasonable even if you ultimately disagree with it" and you reply "no it isn't, I disagree with that," we're not really having a conversation.

                      • TheOldRazzleDazzle [he/him]
                        ·
                        3 years ago

                        This is not good detournement.

                        Also what is your definition of "achieving anything"? According to you has the American left in 50 years "achieved anything?"

                          • TheOldRazzleDazzle [he/him]
                            ·
                            3 years ago

                            not sure if that’s a shitpost or if you don’t quite know what that concept is

                            It's neither. Just referencing your name buddy.

                            It's fine to be pessimistic on a macro scale and say nothing has been done on the left since neoliberalism flattened all morality into the accrual of capital. I do mean that, it's absolutely fair. But then why even comment on or debate about any particular political act or "movement" when it all amounts to the same thing for you?

      • MarxMadness [comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yes, a ton. Obviously we don't have a mass movement yet, but there are almost 100,000 DSA members now (and the DSA itself gives Bernie a lot of credit for that) and probably two or three times that many people who are to the left of Bernie but unaffiliated (or affiliated with a different org). And they're not just members as a bit -- the DSA has actually put people in federal, state, and local offices. There's something we can work with there, and it's growing.

          • MarxMadness [comrade/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            my local one has 3000 or so members, but their active membership is only around 2-3% of that (60-100 people attend general meetings and/or working groups)

            This is good to be mindful of, but it sounds pretty typical of political organizations (it might even be more engagement than most political organizations see). Consider how many Democrats are in your city/county compared to how many show up to any sort of Democratic Party meeting.

      • MarxMadness [comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I should think these things through a bit more before posting lol.

        Let's not get carried away here! Posting from the hip is the only way to fly.

        And you're right, the Bernie campaign itself didn't lead people to the left of it. What it did was provide people with an easy first step down the path to leftism, and put them in contact with people who could take them another step, and then another. Getting people even to that position is extremely difficult, so for me the Bernie campaign was an enormous net positive.