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.

  • grisbajskulor [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    First of all, it's not usually necessary to bring up a label at all. If anything, I think going label-less has advantages in a conversation. Usually I omit any defense of China or Venezuela or USSR etc, because it's so much more touchy and difficult. Just focus on bread and butter issues, anti-democrat shit, militant unionism, universalist policy. I've swayed many chuds on these issues alone, and to be honest, that's really mostly all that matters IMO. Also, I noticed Americans are so individualism-brained that adhering to any kind of ideological dogma pushes people away. Just say what you believe, not the label!

    It's also critical to listen more than you talk. People love to talk. Listen until you find a point you both agree on, like maybe anti-liberal-idpol stuff. Expand on it until you can sprinkle in some subtle Marxism. After all, Marxism truly is common sense.

    Though if you do get to the step where someone explicitly asks about your political labels, that's great!! You have the opportunity to introduce them to your ideological basis without any perceived bible-thumping.

    So you go for 'social democrat' to not scare people - but who the fuck even knows what a social democrat is in this country? What does that even mean to people? Is it even much better than just saying "socialist"? If you're trying to imply that you're in favor of nordic style free healthcare, then "social democrat" is an incomplete term too. Because soc-dem policy wasn't accomplished by soc-dems alone - it came about from a struggle of the working class, soc-dems, commies, "apolitical people".

    All that said, your fear of the "S" word is still totally valid, and I've encountered many situations where it's best to just leave it out. So my favorite term is just "Lefty"