Meaning they either earnestly believe Capital will just let you take the reins if you get voted in, or they are actual opportunists looking to siphon off treats without actually changing the system.
More importantly, they are left gatekeepers, an increasingly lucrative grift.
It's their job to establish credibility by posting uncontroversial left takes, so that when an actual critical moment comes, they can come out against it, and make it seem like it went "too far."
They'll go the way of Spiked, eventually ("uhh Marx was akshually capitalist sweaty.") But for now, they will be mostly readable and superior to most other Western press, so long as you keep this trajectory in the back of your head. Although they rarely provide anything besides takes.
Are they left gamekeepers or left gateways? I agree that social democrats and their media is popular right now, but it seems to me that it's an increase caused by a "left shift". Most of the people here saying "Jacobin is imperialist apologia!" would probably have read it rabidly at one point and later realized it was too conservative later on.
They may be gateways so long as people understand that you have to radicalize past them. That's entirely possible. Maybe most people get into them and do exactly that.
But in terms of what they are? I doubt it's their intent to radicalize people further.
I'm not hating on people for reading Jacobin. I don't think it has too many bad takes compared to, say, parts of breadtube, which legitimately are acting as left gatekeepers (despite them being a gateway for myself and presumably many others.)
It's good that it exists, but print media of that kind tends to follow one trajectory. We should encourage the left curious to read it without internalizing it as a left cornerstone.
They are Neo Kautskyites, like, unironically.
Meaning they either earnestly believe Capital will just let you take the reins if you get voted in, or they are actual opportunists looking to siphon off treats without actually changing the system.
More importantly, they are left gatekeepers, an increasingly lucrative grift.
It's their job to establish credibility by posting uncontroversial left takes, so that when an actual critical moment comes, they can come out against it, and make it seem like it went "too far."
They'll go the way of Spiked, eventually ("uhh Marx was akshually capitalist sweaty.") But for now, they will be mostly readable and superior to most other Western press, so long as you keep this trajectory in the back of your head. Although they rarely provide anything besides takes.
Are they left gamekeepers or left gateways? I agree that social democrats and their media is popular right now, but it seems to me that it's an increase caused by a "left shift". Most of the people here saying "Jacobin is imperialist apologia!" would probably have read it rabidly at one point and later realized it was too conservative later on.
They may be gateways so long as people understand that you have to radicalize past them. That's entirely possible. Maybe most people get into them and do exactly that.
But in terms of what they are? I doubt it's their intent to radicalize people further.
I'm not hating on people for reading Jacobin. I don't think it has too many bad takes compared to, say, parts of breadtube, which legitimately are acting as left gatekeepers (despite them being a gateway for myself and presumably many others.)
It's good that it exists, but print media of that kind tends to follow one trajectory. We should encourage the left curious to read it without internalizing it as a left cornerstone.