Just to clarify, Im talking about my face to face interactions with people. I know social democracy is imperialist, unworkable, and doomed to fail. But I have trouble articulating why socialism is the only way forward. I can point out all the problems with capitalism, though.
There’s too much baggage associated with the S word; people immediately point to 100 billion dead vuvuzela. If I had to think of the biggest stumbling block to convincing people, it’s the controversial history associated with socialism. And I just don’t know enough about each individual “atrocity” and “failure” that happened in order to debunk it all. I feel like in order to convince anyone, you have to know basically the entire history of every socialist country by memory. And if I cared enough I could probably learn, but then I give into my pessimism and think “what’s the point? The people are too propagandized to convert.”
Probably the wrong comm to post in, but I give up trying to think of the right one to mark this as.
I don’t know why you would feel the need to name it
Usually when someone you don’t know brings up politics it’s to complain, and you will always have something to complain about. What I do is complain but from a leftist perspective, eg:
:grillman: joe Biden is shit gas prices blah blah
:meow-tankie: the whole government is shit, they don’t give a fuck about working people, we don’t have decent wages or healthcare in the richest country in the world, it’s ridiculous. All we do is spend our money on weapons.
Blah blah blah, ultimately leading to “it seems like no matter how we vote nothing ever changes, the elite get richer and the working people who actually run this country get fucked”
the gas prices one is so easy to lead into a discussion about how the Ukraine war is stupid and it would be best for everyone if Russia won quickly though
I gotta disagree hard on this one. Going against the mainstream narrative of Russia and Ukraine immediately puts people on the defensive and justifying American hegemony.
I was talking to a couple of chuds who agreed with me on that point, felt so weird.
yeah left-liberals who normally love rifting with me about Democrats shenanigans suddenly get tight lipped and "well actually" whenever I start starting going talking about Russia or China. The propaganda is real.
Ehhh the russia issue is pretty much impossible to talk to people about. I mean, my opinion on the issue is of course no war but class war, but even talking about how NATO continually provoked Russia and crossed established red lines constantly and refused to take a step back is met with indignation. I mean, I tried it once, and never tried it again because it shut down the entire conversation. People also literally hate Russian people here, it's insanity.
I frame it as the long war is causeing food and gas prices to rise. I know very few people who care more about NATO and foreign treaties than they do their own family eating
This is how everyone in the country thinks here in Brazil. But for 50% of the population the conclusion is that, since voting doesn't work, we need a military dictatorship
That’s what they’d come to as a conclusion in the states too unfortunately
Tons of Trumpers would agree with these sentiments.