> be me
> be patriotic socialist
> use sinophobia and american exceptionalism to fuel support for my “patriotic socialist” org
> write manifesto called “my struggle”
> org starts receiving a lot of money mysteriously
> membership skyrockets
> start going by “PatSocs”
> get cool uniforms and armbands
> start patrolling neighborhoods
> a lot of those neighborhoods are minority communities
> idpol is an op though so we don’t care
> gain support in the suburbs
> now backed by the country’s most powerful unions
> it’s the police union and prison guard union, but whatever, they’re workers too, right?
> now being called “Patzis” for short
> mfw the actual people’s revolution comes and we’re the baddies
> smdh as I’m lined up against the wall for being a fucking nazi
This is a great distinction, thanks for making it. My critique of nationalism is very much focused on when it manifests in the imperial core, which has a “national identity” entirely dependent on imperial conquest and exploitation.
:stalin-heart: Yeah I find it's very easy to go down the track of "all nationalism=bad" as a Western leftist, since it's very obvious that any nationalism in the Global North is very very bad and often leads to genocide. There have been and continue to be examples of countries outside of this core that have built up a "nation" and socialism together, wedded nationalism to socialism in an internationally oriented manner, and have succeeded. China is the perfect example that comes to mind, the only caveat being that the era of China supporting revolution outside of China seems to have come to an end after the normalization of relations with the United States since the 70's. They won't hurt any revolutionary movement, and are more than willing to work with you when you succeed, but don't want to rock the boat and risk being seen as a bad actor on the international stage. This is the bad part of nationalism, but as the Great Satan falls further into obscurity and collapse I have a feeling this is going to change :xi-shining: