I’ve had those same thoughts. This might be kind of lame to admit, but my happiest interactions with people are with chapos on here. When I talk to my left-leaning friends or interact with left groups on Facebook, I feel ostracized that my beliefs are too radical, and it makes me feel like a fucking incel lol. Like...we got banned from reddit and organized our own space to vibe, and every time I step outside the chapo bubble, I get crap from people complaining about my beliefs and politics that I thought would best understand me. Thus leading to further isolation and less actually talking about my ideologies with people.

my leftest leftist friend told me a while ago that I’m easily the most radical person she knows. Which… doesn’t bode well?

that's very a very lib thought that radical = bad. every time the world changed for the better there were people with crazy, radical ideas pushing for that change and making it possible. our own contemporary world and life has been made possible by people like the american revolutionaries and the jacobins.

but I can’t help but feel like that’s what we’re (I’m) doing here sometimes.

I do get what you're saying and I feel the same way sometimes. And that's good that we question our beliefs and the people we hang around. I don't think incels and forum-crawling neonazis do the same.
My political beliefs aren't based upon hatred for my own life and groups of people, but rather that a better world, where people can live with dignity and without exploitation is possible. This the core distinction between left-wing ideologies and far-right ones.

I've thought about this a lot too, because it really feel similar to being gaslit. We're told we're being too radical or whatever and it seems like most people really do believe that. So it's hard pretty normal to have the reaction of "Wait, am i the one in the wrong?" and the answer is probably no.

Firstly, most of us what want idealogically, other civilizations have established at some point in their history - communalism and caring for the poor and sick. That's not radical or extreme, that's like, a lot of indigenous tribal culture and those values are expressed in even smaller communities as well such as smaller radical churches and so on. Plus like, the actual close-to-communist countries that exist and provide those things to their people with no problem. So it's not like the idea of communism is super extreme out there, it's just in our culture it seems extreme.

Secondly, ethics and applied moral philosophy exist and use logical, reasoned arguments to show that ethically, we should minimize or reduce harm to others and prevent the spread of harm. We also know that there is no way to have ethical consumption under capitalism. Therefore, logically we are in the right to pick the more ethical and least harmful option of government and stop capitalism.

Finally, this is perhaps the weakest logical argument but the nature of communalism is closest to human nature. Like think of how much indoctrination goes into making someone a soldier or how much propaganda is used to turn people chuds or libs that are selfish and cruel because they've been taught that's how they're supposed to be to their "lessers". 99/100 people are against communism because of some lie they believed. Which is exactly why people are afraid of bernie saying the scary S word but polling consistently shows that even most americans support increasing minimum wage, free healthcare, more say in their company, free housing etc.

So i mean, we don't have to fucking lie or indoctrinate people to get them to believe what we do - we just show them actual facts, point out where the propoganda has been tricking them, and introduce people to some theory and educate them. I've actually changed my mind on several issues since joining Chapo because of that, and can now back up all my stances with information supporting my points instead of just some vague "all guns bad" (as one example) thinking i had as a lib