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
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.
What is even the lumpenprole? Are they not the slum dwellers? The people doing informal work or plain illegal? From what we know about America, the people that are most oppressed by the police to be black and brown. Over policed for their color. Immigrants from Latin America working Farm Labor, transgender sex workers.
I kind of find this swapping out of white conservatives as the lumpenprole most curious...and that's not to say that we should exclude white people from the lumpenprole, but even then, race is tantamount if we are talking about the white lumpen. Everything I hear about prison, clearly states that a white person going into prison must join the white prison gangs, the White Supremacists.
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.
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.