"Read Settlers" is a meme, but it's also a true meme. You should read it, or read other things about this thesis regarding the white working class in the US (I've heard other Marxists have since improved on Sakai's thesis but I don't know who they are).
White Americans are doubling down on the racism. As white settler colonialism is starting to face just a little bit of opposition (like teaching kids that maybe the US isn't a perfect, God-blessed country), they are losing their minds over the idea of losing even a tiny bit of their privileges. This is still a perfectly material explanation. White folks have enjoyed an incredible level of privilege since the beginning of this country and they will fight viciously to keep all of it.
IMO the bulk of white Americans are a lost cause. Not to say white folks can't be revolutionary (I'm white), but I think we probably should be spending our very limited time and resources on folks outside the imperial core break from western imperialism, and focus on the oppressed within the core. Any white Americans who want to join in are welcome but any concession to white supremacy is unacceptable.
Edit: to clarify, I'm not saying the Dems lost because racism or whatever. I don't care if the Dems win or lose, it doesn't matter. My point is much more about using electoral results and the campaigns that precede them to see where winds are blowing. It seems that "CRT" and fear-mongering about crime (and thus the need to fund even more cops) was a very effective message in appealing to large segments of the population - particularly the white population.
I think I agree with your last point. The Google alphabet union fiasco kinda proves this as well. I'll always support that kind of organizing, but I'm not as hopeful as I was.
As someone who has contemplated PMC office drone organizing at my new PMC workplace, I really think my efforts are better put into supporting labor elsewhere. Local DSA chapter has done some good shit for various strikers in the past. It's kind of an unsatisfying answer but I think that's where it's at right now. Making striking a tiny bit easier.
Of course this is all theoretical, currently too depressed to do anything worthwhile other than donating to strike funds :)
Yeah I don’t really mean to say we shouldn’t talk to PMC types, and unionization I wholeheartedly support. But I do think other aspects of the socialist program run so counter to these peoples' material interests that I think socialism (real socialism and not Bernie Sanders socdem stuff) needs to become embedded in the oppressed classes before middle class libs and chuds start getting radicalized en masse
I'm a bit more 'demsoc' when it comes to America personally. Like I still kinda think the Bernie Sanders stuff is as far as we can hope for, including as much anti-imperialist 'harm reduction' as possible. At the same time I can't deny there is theoretically more radical potential in the TRULY oppressed classes. Would love for this to be proven correct.
In that sense I feel a bit more revolutionary hope in third-worldism. Love what the commies are doing in India for example. But honestly I have no idea I'm just along for the ride lmao