I gotta say the death cult shit on the left is so wildly fucking weird to me. it really is one of those just like entirely sociopathic things where people have just decoupled themselves from empathy so much through frustration and demoralisation they've ironically, which always ends up meaning earnestly but detached and with a thin veneer of dismissal, embraced this idea that horrific judgement day levels of shit is needed on certain countries and large groups (not talking about the bourgeoisie here, but the working masses), millions we all openly agree are shaped and brainwashed by systems outside of their control. do bad people and places cause unimaginable pain? for sure, but to then throw that blind injust dehumanised violence back at the masses that characterises imperialism and capitalism is full of this Christian evangelical smite and divine retribution of those who have sinned beyond salvation and must die to cleanse the world.
I already know all the explanations, 'it's just a meme', 'the imperial core did bad stuff so needs to suffer', 'the west will never embrace socialism unless enforcement via mass violence and destruction of all institutions and infrastructure'. but the thing is like, you read any text by international communists, black radical groups, anti imperialists, they literally all say 'we just want you to stop being assholes so we can be friends who work together', and so it seems to be this self hatred that fuels this than any outside demands, one which just seems really unnecessary and honestly childish especially from people who claim to have a deeper materialist analysis which breaks down why these opinions and actions are so common and systemically enforced.
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of people saying we should go after proletarians (except like dangerous nazis and labor aristocrats/petit boug who have the power to sick cops on people). Most of your run of the mill countryfolk and hillfolk have radical elements to them that they just ideologically don't have the knowledge to manage properly (so Democrat-level "hicks are stupid" takes just rub me the wrong way. They have way more in common with the urban poor than they know and it's really obvious when you see both groups in the same place). Suburbanites are a scourge, sure, but the average grillpiller would join whatever side looks like it's winning in the tail end of a revolution, all you need is clever propaganda, not violence.
This is why, in a similarish vein to you, I've been saying that working with "lumpenproles" and minorities is how you form core pockets of resistance.
Edit: I'd also like to point out that a not insignificant number of hexbears admit to being ex-alt-right so the hypocrisy is palpable.
I have lived in rural America and you can't be too rosy about it. It is a fascist landscape and you encounter a lot of people, a significant chunk, who are pretty openly fascist. Its not a majority, there are good people everywhere and generalizations are always unhelpful. But like... people like to talk about executing the homeless and purging the schools, a lot. The KKK lives, in the PNW at least, and under those hoods its just guys
I mean, yeah, I've also lived in the country. I'm mostly just getting tired of lib "hicks bad" rhetoric.