EDIT: i now see the glaring problem with this thread- it assumes proletarians (white ones especially) are mostly reactionary and won't advocate for their own class interests. further, he only addresses two types of americans, the radlib and the white reactionary. this thread is almost entirely unhelpful to people on this site who are in neither category and consistently fight back against libs and reactionaries alike.
also the term "synthetic left" was coined by calep maupin, a patsoc and genuinely revolting person
a better tweet than this would have been "radlibs appropriate the struggles of marginalized people to distract from the struggle of the working class, but the material conditions of the working class are affected by structures like racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, etc. 1/2" "Therefore a mass communist movement must focus on improving the material conditions of the lower classes, but especially to those most oppressed under capitalism"
this was quite the struggle session
Thank you to everyone who shared their input, you guys are the best :soviet-heart: communism will win, love you all
PS read some Mao
I think there's a point to be had here, but he does that weird thing that many others do where he equates Trump supporters with the working class. The working class isn't defined by who they voted for president in 2016/2020, its defined by their relation to the means of production. There are plenty of working-class Trump supporters, but also plenty who voted Hillary/Biden, and plenty who just straight up didn't/don't vote.
Notice how the synthetic left seems to think the average Trump supporter is a greater threat to progress than those actually in power.
Are there no Trump supporters in power? And who is the average Trump supporter? There is a point here, but its also bordering on Haz-type brainworms where he wants to tail an American conservatism that, while many working class Americans might adhere to it, doesn't have any roots in the working-class and is just another tool of those in power, same as what this guy calls the "synthetic left."
He isn't equating trump supporters to the working class. It is a fact that most people who voted for trump are working class, because most americans are working class. Sure, trump was popular among the bourgeois, but you don't win elections (even fake, bourgeois elections) without votes from proles. He is talking about proles who are tricked into voting against their material interests.
Right, but we shouldn't be reaching out to working-class Trump supporters as Trump supporters, we should be reaching out to them as workers. I do think he has a point, but this train of thought can also easily lead to class reductionism and Haz-style tailism.
Notice how the synthetic left seems to think the average Trump supporter is a greater threat to progress than those actually in power.
Ok, I can see how one can read this line as "the synthetic left believes working-class conservatives are a greater threat than the actual bourgeoisie," which I think is how you're reading it. But yes, to the extent that a working class chud has the tendency to be racist, homophobic, transphobic, they should be opposed since that represents a threat to a unified working class movement. I agree that Trump supporters should be courted by the left, but this guy seems to want to do that to the detriment of "culture" issues. However, queer, trans, Black and brown workers, or any others more likely to be liberal, are just as working-class as a conservative worker. To ignore "culture" issues doesn't mean they don't exist, and as long as they do exist the bourgeois will have us fighting amongst ourselves so that we don't see the boot on our necks.
I think we agree more than we disagree, because as I say I do think this guy has a point, and we do need to talk to people where they're at. But this doesn't mean throwing our queer and trans comrades under the bus and ignoring what many, including this guy, write off as "culture" issues
i agree, we should never abandon our marginalized comrades. the problem isn't the cultural issues themselves, but the reluctance of western leftists to reach out to working class conservatives because of their views on cultural issues. yes there are plenty of liberals and marginalized workers who are probably more easily converted, but treating working class conservatives as the primary enemy instead of potential allies who just need education is harmful.
the difference between this line of thinking and patsoc, red-brown alliance grifters like Haz is that they coopt racism, homophobia, and transphobia to appeal to white, cishet workers, while xiangyu is simply pointing out a lot of "leftists" are labeling these confused proles as the enemy. the lumpenproletariat has a lot of problems and we shouldnt cater to their reactionary views, but we shouldn't alienate them from the movement by being actively hostile to them. there is a middle ground of dialoguing with reactionary workers on political economy while not ceding to their views that fracture the working class.
educate, agitate, and organize is the goal. part of this education can be on cultural struggles, but the primary struggle is class. thats not class reductionist, its just reality
From my perspective its not that class is the primary struggle separate from "culture" issues, but that class is intertwined with these other issues. Where class reductionists get it wrong is that we can ignore these issues and still build a unified working class movement, but there are also those who aren't necessarily class reductionists, but still separate race and gender from class, treating race and gender as important, but not the focus.
The goal is to build a unified working class movement, and we're not going to do that by allowing divisions to persist by accommodating the reactionary elements of the working class. To ignore these reactionary elements is to introduce and allow divisions in the movement that threaten to tear it apart. While we are focused on class, to focus on class means also to focus on these other "culture" issues.
And I think part of the reason working class conservatives can be viewed as the enemy is because, when we're talking about violence against our comrades, a lot of it is carried out by them. Sure, with the right amount of education and discussion they can be won over, but while they're not won over they are potentially very dangerous to us and our comrades. Libs are fucking insufferable, but I don't expect a run of the mill liberal to shoot me for being a communist, they'd probably just send me a bunch of china bad nyt articles. Chuds have the potential of becoming violent.
The goal is to build a unified working class movement, and we’re not going to do that by allowing divisions to persist by accommodating the reactionary elements of the working class. To ignore these reactionary elements is to introduce and allow divisions in the movement that threaten to tear it apart. While we are focused on class, to focus on class means also to focus on these other “culture” issues
Fucking fire.
:Care-Comrade: thanks comrade I was really proud of that one
He is talking about proles who are tricked into voting against their material interests.
Right. Like marginalized people who voted for Biden.
Wait the author of the thread lives in China? That explains why he has no fucking clue about the material conditions in the US then
He's an ABC who spends time in Taiwan and is planning on moving back to Taiwan after finishing school, but he still lives in the US.
American Born Chinese. It's a term used among the English-speaking Chinese diaspora.
Synthetic Leftism
I'm gonna be real with you, every single person that I have ever seen use this phrase has not had an opinion worth my time to read
I don't have the energy to debunk this whole thing as Ive been up almost 24 hrs( resetting my sleep schedule) but people's the term "synthetic left" literally comes from the Larouche movement which I'm amazed more people haven't read about. One of the strongest and most dangerous fascist movements in American history at the hieght of it's power in the 80's. Seriously read about the history of National Socialism and Fascism and you should be able to see clearly that this is literally fascist agitprop. Come on people. ( I disagree with many things this guy wrote like his views on Syria but all of you should read this 5 part essay seriously . Don't get caught up in this kinda shit.
https://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2017/07/31/this-is-what-american-fascism-looks-like-the-lyndon-larouche-story-part-one/
Wow I've heard the name but didn't know the specifics. Definitely Big Yikes, that for sharing
Read the whole thing ( again don't agree with some of the first couple paragraphs of this series and other stuff he wrote) but as shit like this is popping up more everyone should be reading this. And your welcome (: !
Infrared, Maupin and other patriotic socialist:frothingfash:
'culture wars should not come before class struggle' 'turning class oppression into just another type of oppression alongside racial, gender, national, etc. oppression, you get a "left" that is useless to the broad masses of the working people'
:yikes: this is just class reductionism. broad masses of working people dont have genders, races, nationalities? communism has always been about standing up to this shit and downplaying that to court """"working class"""" (which apparently he takes to mean Trump voters :picard: ) is cowardice and betrayal. if from a distance it looks like the western left spends a lot of time fighting for this maybe that's related to rising fascism targetting these groups? in the 1920s did the communists throw minorities to the fascist dogs or rally round them?
and 12 & 13 are complete nonsense. 9 too lmao.
imagine recasting these arguments in historical context: 'all this communist opposition to antisemitism is alienating the german working people' 'communist support of civil rights is losing the southern working class' 'these communists practicing 'free love' and destroying family structures are alienating...'
im sorry you feel this way but i didnt get that at all from this thread. he isnt saying we shouldnt be fighting cultural struggles, just that we shouldnt allow the class struggle to be moved to the backburner.
we shouldnt cater to the lumpenproles' reactionary views, but we also shouldnt ignore and exclude the lumpenproles. there is a middle ground in educating these working class conservatives to the point that they fight for their class interests instead of fighting these culture wars. once these people are on the right side of the class struggle, it will be easier to educate them further out of their reactionary views on race, gender, LGBT issues, etc.
wasn't conflating lumpenprole and white workers
black people can be homophobic, trans people can be racist, gay people can be transphobic. there are reactionary views that lumpenproles of all kinds can harbor, not just white ones
of course race is an issue of great importance. i feel like ive just been arguing in circles with people all day. im not trying to say these other struggles arent important, but that class struggle should be emphasized as it can unite the largest number of proletarians.
i dont think hexbears have this problem, most of yall are good comrades imo, but i think this is more of a point of combatting liberalism (i.e. people in power using the non-class struggles to obfuscate the class struggle). for example, BLM has grassroots aspects and legitimate revolutionary potential but Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is a lib organization that whitewashes the struggle
My god man . Yeah black people can be homophobic, trans people can be racist, and literally none of that disregards the primacy of White Supremacy as social discrimination in the US, along with recently anti trans bigotry.
"of course race is an issue of great importance. i feel like ive just been arguing in circles with people all day. im not trying to say these other struggles arent important, but that class struggle should be emphasized as it can unite the largest number of proletarians."
The fact that you keep on having to say "of course race is important but " should give you pause on the kind of political path your being led down by these people.. Yes Black Lives matter got coopted, that's because capitalism coop's social movements, but you've been led to a dangerous position that assumes capitalism is inherently socially liberal . It is not and never has been .
Stop listening to these people dude.
Also notice how none of what your talking about is material, your in the qausi realm of a convoluted reactionary position .And last lastly if you want an interesting, controversial, scholarly class based critique of race politics in the US , read Adolph Reed Jr. Here: https://nonsite.org/let-me-go-get-my-big-white-man/ Don't waist your time with these people.
we shouldnt cater to the lumpenproles’ reactionary views, but we also shouldnt ignore and exclude the lumpenproles
this is not the content of the thread. it calls for approaching reactionary workers by abandoning the 'culture war' issues.
and this dicotomy they use and you're replicating really shows their ass: "culture war" vs. "class war". Trans rights are not a belief system or opinion, they're material conditions for workers. Reproductive rights are material conditions for workers. Racism is material conditions for workers. Not focusing on these is ignoring the workers' struggle.
Point #5 is close, but it should mention how communism, because it's unpopular now, is treated as another counter-cultural affect that wallows in its obscurity rather than trying to be adapted by the masses in the west. So many edgy teenager types who just want an aesthetic to live through (or post about on the internet). It's close to elitism but not quite, it's more like they want to be different rather than superior per se.
Point #9 is really good. Allison from Red Menace said a similar thing about the material conditions just not being there to do these things these ultras wanna' do. You see it on this website too with a lot of cultural things: monogamy, parenthood, agriculture, school, etc. They think their anarcho-bullshit way of life is superior to how the majority of the working class lives their lives and wants to live their lives. Completely alienating to normal people.
Nah half this shit is just tailism. There's a difference between being an ultra and imagining a different mode of life or society, just like there's a difference between lib identity politics and recognizing how class oppression is entangled with racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.
by turning class oppression into just another type of oppression alongside racial, gender, national, etc. oppression
This is like an inch away from saying "Hide the gays so you don't scare the white working class!"
Culture wars should not come before class struggle
He is just saying that class struggle comes first as it is central to capitalism and is able to unite the largest number of people. This isn't to say other struggles aren't important, just that those other struggles can be co-opted by capital and used against the proletariat (e.g. the commercialization and neutering of BLM, rainbow capitalism/pinkwashing, framing imperialist wars as "fighting for womens rights" cough Afghanistan cough).
We should be bringing the lumpenproles into our folds, not alienating them. This isn't to say we should cater to any reactionary views they may hold, just that, as communists, we should be educating them. And working class trump supporters will be most susceptible to education on material reality. Once these former conservatives have a principled stance against the bourgeoisie, we can educate them further away from other reactionary viewpoints with tools like struggle sessions.
Xiangyu does not at all advocate for tailism, the goal of this thread was to point out that the western left isn't focused on what would make our goals a reality (building worker power and solidarity, educating the masses, converting more people into communists, and forging networks of aid and communication independent from approved bourgeois networks). Every working class person has revolutionary potential and this us vs. them mentality stands in the way of building a true mass movement.
And working class trump supporters will be most susceptible to education on material reality
Why do I need to interact with people who are already hostile to me as a default? There are working class people who aren’t willing to shoot you for wearing a hoodie, you know.
No you see, you're only working class if you're a 40 year old white dude working for a plumbers union
you, specifically, don't have to interact with people who are hostile to you. but someone should. there are white, cishet, male leftists who can and should reach out to working class people who are culturally reactionary.
culturally reactionary
wanting to murder me for being alive isn’t a culture war issue. It’s fash shit.
fascism has cultural aspects. im not saying cultural struggles arent important.
He is just saying that class struggle comes first as it is central to capitalism and is able to unite the largest number of people.
Base and Superstructure. Class struggle isn't separate from racial, gender or other struggles. They exist in a dialectical relationship.
the goal of this thread was to point out that the western left isn’t focused on what would make our goals a reality
What should we be focusing on? Hell, what is the "western left?" Is it geographically bound? Who comprises it? What conditions need to arise to make our goals, whatver those are, a reality and can you hold "leftists" responsible for the state of things if those conditions don't exist?
I don't know who you heard say that working class conservatives shouldn't be reached out to, or why you seem to be conflating the "working class" wih Trump's voter base. But the thread is absolutely advocating tailism, proceeding from the false notion that rote economics is the only vector along which working class people experience capitalist oppression.
Base and Superstructure. Class struggle isn’t separate from racial, gender or other struggles. They exist in a dialectical relationship.
good point. im not trying to say we should deemphasize racial, gender, etc. struggles, rather we should emphasize class struggle. every successful proletarian revolution has seen a deliberate change in the base (through changes in the workers' relationship to the means of production as well as increasing productive forces). this forced change of the base of society lead to changes in the superstructure.
What should we be focusing on?
building worker power and solidarity, educating the masses, converting more people into communists, and forging networks of aid and communication independent from approved bourgeois networks
Hell, what is the “western left?”
leftists in the imperial core. this mostly applies to more privileged leftists (PMC, white, cishet men)
What conditions need to arise to make our goals, whatver those are, a reality
mass class consciousness, which won't be achieved by insisting on maintaining the fractured state of the proletariat brought about by the bourgeoisie. the goal is proletarian revolution leading to a socialist workers' state
But the thread is absolutely advocating tailism
where in the thread does it say communists should follow reactionary tendencies just because they are popular?
where in the thread does it say communists should follow reactionary tendencies just because they are popular?
by turning class oppression into just another type of oppression alongside racial, gender, national, etc. oppression, you get a "left" that is useless to the broad masses of the working people
Implying class oppression is a sepatate issue and should be treated as such
Culture wars should not come before class struggle,
Inplying those are separate issues and should be treated as such
class oppression is central to capitalism and emphasizing it above other struggles is not meant to ignore other struggles. in fact, to truly support the struggles of BIPOC, LGBT, and women, one must accept that their struggle results from a bourgeois need to fracture the proletarian. the western communist movement can support things like landback, reparations, queer liberation, gender equality, etc. but we will never achieve these things absent of a true mass movement. and you don't get a mass movement by treating lumpenproles as the other and scapegoating them for the problems caused by the bourgeoisie.
again, this is NOT to say we should surrender to their reactionary views, rather we should focus on educating and building solidarity
in fact, to truly support the struggles of BIPOC, LGBT, and women, one must accept that their struggle results from a bourgeois need to fracture the proletarian.
No. That’s literally not how this shit works. Patriarchy is older than capitalism and it survives past capitalism into socialist societies when it is not aggressively combatted.
we should focus on educating and building solidarity
Marginalized people demand respect and liberation. We are not guaranteed foot soldiers for some kind of white boy socialist project. I cannot build solidarity with someone who doesn’t view me as human.
Patriarchy is older than capitalism
older than capitalism, yes. but older than class? no
Marginalized people demand respect and liberation. We are not guaranteed foot soldiers for some kind of white boy socialist project. I cannot build solidarity with someone who doesn’t view me as human
i see where you are coming from. im not saying reactionary views should be accepted in the movement, just that people with reactionary views need education
older than capitalism, yes. but older than class? no
Arguing semantics is boring. Read up on kyriarchy if you want to nerd out on how this works.
Every successfully revolution has focused on combatting other systems of oppression in addition to class / capitalism.
see where you are coming from. im not saying reactionary views should be accepted in the movement, just that people with reactionary views need education
We agree on this then, good. 👍
This got reported, but I'm leaving this up cause it seems like you came around.
Capitalism benefits from and encourages racism etc, but bigotry is a religion for a lot of people, sometimes literally, and meeting peoples' material needs will only make fighting it a a little easier.
thanks! yeah, not surprising that it was reported since i was being pretty obtuse and borderline defending reactionaries
but this thread really helped me examine my own counter-revolutionary biases. im almost finished reading settlers. learned a lot the past couple weeks thanks to the comrades in this thread
i guess ive just never seen it, but do that many people call for the destruction of the family? It seems like a fringe thing.
It is. This Xiangyu guy is jumping at shadows to make a thinly-veiled attack at racial and LGBTQ+ justice work.
it smells slightly like a "actually this stuff is leftists fault" which never sits right with me because what are you expecting from teenagers in the imperial core?
To me it just reads like stupidpol shit. Someone so desperate to escape the liberal co-opting of emancipatory movements that they end up tossing base/superstructure theory out the window and start thinking oppression based om race, gender, disability, etc. somehow exists separately from class.
There have been people who said that children should be separated from their parents and be raised by their ‘community’ exclusively :data-laughing:
How are single mothers trying to survive the same as advocating for the destruction of the family lol
Lol they’re not talking about the same thing and are about completely different countries
It looks reasonable on the surface, but the way he uses words is important. The "working class" aren't lumpenproles and I'm tired of patsoc adjacents who've never been in those social spaces say they are. It's really obvious they don't know what the fuck they're talking about and don't actually know the people they're describing.
Proles are your machine operators, bottom of the bottom tier office drones, workshop and cnc techs, welders, mechanics, farm ops, and travelling union technicians. Being reactionary doesn't make them "lumpenproles."
Lumpenproles are your temp workers who live precariously whether industriously pushing paper in offices or doing all the shittest most dangerous jobs in factory. They're store/restaurant "associates" who simultaneously get shit on by customers and managers. They're both the rural gas station attendant/bathroom cleaner with a blue lives matter decal on her truck and the corner store cashier who saw someone with his skin color get shot by cops last week. Lumpens are the immigrants who pick your vegetables and slaughter your meat. They are the grease in the gears and the fuel of the proletarian machine. No industry would exist without them, but they are often ignored or derided by proles and "PMC" whether lib or conservative.
Lumpenproles don't care about aesthetics nearly as much as working class proles and labor aristocrats. They're extremely realistic about their situations and care quite a lot about topics that are close to their material needs. They're not as uneducated in these things as people think they are, and they would not be difficult to radicalize. They do care about race politics, they care about lgbt issues, they care about abortion, they care about schools and violence. They care about these things because they immediately affect them, they do not care about party lines because they think all politicians are liars, including commies. You are not going to sway them by talking about the means of production. They literally do not care about the means of production because they can't afford to. They care about how political decisions will affect their lives in the near term.
Once again I will suggest people will read Mao's BE CONCERNED WITH THE WELL BEING OF THE MASSES. Fuck off with this synthetic left bullshit.
this is a great explanation of the term. i always took the luxembourg definition but you and @Ideology helped me elucidate a better concept of the term :meow-hug:
"class traitor" is prob good enough, but that might be more cop specific. we need a more technical term than "chud worker"
They are not low-rung wage workers with stable employment, as you seem to suggest.
I was not suggesting that though? Temp jobs are by definition precarious (from experience) and most store jobs are seasonal or will change your schedule without explanation (or just take you off the schedule if you become inconvenient for any reason). They're not very stable normally. Produce harvesting is also seasonal and slaughterhouses have extremely high turnover due to the way they physically and psychologically chew through people.
I've been in some similar situations and temp workers are usually immigrants who don't speak a lot of english (which adds to the precarity) and their schedules aren't regular. Their work site can go down or do layoffs at the drop of a hat and they have little recourse. In some cases they can be jerked around to different worksites for a few days at a time with days to weeks between assignments, and the pay is not exactly livable.
I also disagree with the Luxemburgian notion that lumpenproles aren't radicalizable. IMO they're more radicalizable than a lot of proles. I generally take issue with proles with more income and job security, but I think the labor aristocrat/pmc defintions suit them more.
This is all fair in a historical sense, but imo we need a word to describe these people as they exist now because there is a very real subculture surrounding this sort of pool of employee-churning low wage workers that draws ire from both neolibs and certain leftists.
I'm especially not a fan of the way patsocs and the people who borrow their terminology try to distance themselves from this group. "Working class" is a common and honestly kinda transparent term for middle class proles (and typically white ones at that) that they like to throw around now. The people who use the term seem to have Browderist intentions. I'm not afraid that patsocs will succeed but that they'll bring the rest of the movement down with them by snubbing people who suffer the most as unimportant obstacles.
I just remembered, I used the word "precarious" a lot in my post because I forgot the word "precariat" exists.
See my friend @ZoomeristLeninist this is a quintessential example of a good materialist analysis based on the real experiences and issues workers face rather then loaded ideology . Sorry if this all seems like a pile on, but it's just because we know your heart's in the right place. And not to be dramatic because - ya know life goes on for most of us westoids- , but just don't be led down the wrong path by these media people who claim to be leftist when they are nothing of the sort.
I'm just really tired of labor aristocrats pretending they know what people less privileged than they are are like. It doesn't matter what tendency they are, they always treat the poor like sheep in need of a shepherd and not overwhelmed balls of stress teetering on the edge of loosing everything.
They'll also bend over backwards doing anything to avoid having to talk to black people. They will literally platform white middle class Trump supporters first.
thank you for the explanation. i think i was missing a lot of the red flags in the original thread and expressing my prejudice that white lumpenproles are automatically reactionary. on second glance this is pretty elitist of me. i really dont like patsoc types and they seem really reactionary to me but this thread worked on me sadly.
this struggle session has been very helpful for me :soviet-heart:
No worries. Most of the time when I post I direct my internal monologue at lurkers rather than the OP. I'm glad you're not too overwhelmed by the backlash, lol. I just don't want people reading this to get the wrong idea about "the poors" because it's kinda obvious most people on hexbear don't interact much with extreme poverty.
Whatever word that was it's a slur and you called someone a slur in an argument with them bye bye
of course this discussion is all based on ideas and not historical conditions :very-smart: there is of course no material analysis to be had
OP, the great irony of this entire struggle session is that many young white people from conservative backgrounds are turning left. Not because we had to coddle them but because their material conditions are worsening, they can't live the lives their parents led, changing demographics means they have more friends of color, the internet means they can see the travesties committed against Black and brown and queer people almost in real time, and the success of feminist and LGBTQ movements means many are more willing to explore their sexuality and gender identities in ways that would have been taboo even just 20 years ago. Sure some are also breaking right, but unfortunately that's to be expected.
I think your heart's in the right place. But there's no need to carry water for a group of people who have every means to educate themselves and turn left - of whom many are doing just that - when there are a lot more groups who need support and who have more innate radical potential due to their own more extreme experiences of oppression.
Point 9 is really good when expanded further than "muh left wants to kill the nuclear family". You see it a ton amongst intellectuals, rad libs, "woke" people desperate for the hottest "takes", that aren't really that woke in reality and end up going full circle and saying shit that's unironically more racist and bigoted than mainstream conservative talking points. And alienates most "normal" people that are oppressed. I'd rather be called a slur than read that straight up fake progressive dehumanizing bs certain "intellectuals" spout.
Point 3 though is just ignoring that in many countries with a colonial history, both internally and externally, race is so intertwined with class that it essentially becomes a much bigger divide than class division. South Africa for instance is unfortunately a good example, the percentage of white people that live in poverty is basically nonexistent when compared to the percentage of black people in poverty. There basically is no "white working class" here, aside from a few thousand people.
thank you for being constructive. yeah, this post has caused me a lot of anxiety today bc i think a lot of people took the thread to mean that things like race, gender, sexuality, etc. don't matter but that wasn't my point at all (or the point of xiangyu as far as i can tell). of course racism is a huge issue in the west. of course there is no room for racism in communist movements. but instead of viewing working class conservatives as evil badthinkers, we should recognize that their reactionary views are a direct result of propaganda and they can be propagandized in the other direction
Yeah I think in a South African context, point 3 is really good when applied to things like tribalism and xenophobia.
Unfortunately it is very easy for things to be misunderstood and I think a lot of Americans are burnt out because they've seen some "Marxists" in the USA say similar things and then turn reactionary. I'm not American though so I'm guessing though things I've seen on here.
“synthetic left”
PatSoc detected, standard anti-nazi measures initiated
:pit: :stalin-gun-1::stalin-gun-2:
Seemed sarcastic so I wrote his name on my listy list and just removed the comment
Kinda weird how people are accusing Xiangyu of being a tailist when he's most emphatically not one and a class reductionist even though he constantly rails against Sinophobia.
I think the problem for Xiangyu's general analysis, not just this thread but in general, is he overly focuses on radlib types and doesn't understand that mask-off reactionaries and faux-progressive radlibs are in a dialectical relationship with one another. In other words, his analysis tends to be one-sided and thus ultimately incomplete.
This is especially evident when some of those reactionaries adopt a faux-anti-imperialist stance like Tucker Carlson. So you have faux-progressive radlibs on one side and faux-anti-imperialists on the other side, two wings of the same bird shitting all over humanity from above. This is how you get people who are otherwise good allies towards LGBT putting up Ukrainian flags in their Twitter while people who are otherwise good anti-imperialists like the Grey Zone sucked into advocating for anti-vax reactionary bullshit.
All leftist should strive for progressive social politics and anti-imperialism. As a form of counterinsurgency, the two political parties each adopt one of the two aspect and a fake version of the aspect at that. The Democrats are faux-progressive imperialists while the Republicans are faux-anti-imperialist reactionaries. This split means a truly sincere leftist movement has to struggle against not being co-opted by both parties.
Yeah most of them have horrible :brainworms: but every proletarian can commiserate on economic woes. Talk about how gas prices could actually be brought down by price ceilings but democrats and republicans are both opposed to that. Also talk about the bipartisan opposition to rent control, universal health care, and higher wages. Even if they push back on those its easy to explain how those issues directly benefit them. And if they talk about how they don't want handouts just point to the capitalists who take all the handouts they can get.
