In all honesty, though, stumbling across Chapo in the second half of 2019 really helped get me out of my libness, and I'm genuinely grateful for that.

I came in as a full-on liberal who had positive opinions of people like Adam Schiff and Maxine Waters lmao. When I saw users posting about Evo, Castro, Lenin, and Chavez, I was super confused. I didn't understand any of the inside jokes, but I was intrigued enough to hang around and lurk. I was a huge Bernie guy, but I didn't realize there were unironic communists out there. At the time, I was a progressive dork who legitimately thought democratic socialism was like what Scandinavia had, and that "communist-style socialism" was only done by evil authoritarian countries like Cuba and China. :cringe:

I really didn't understand or particularly put great importance into what the US has gotten up to in Latin America. I didn't know about the Tulsa bombings, the Battle of Blair Mountain, Cointelpro, Eugene Debs, Fred Hampton and other black revolutionaries, or a whole lot else about US imperialism and violent anticommunism. But over the next 6 months, I learned a lot through osmosis and eventually began participating in the sub. Shortly thereafter, the sub got shut down and I ended up here, because I didn't get this kind of exposure to leftist thought anywhere else in my life.

I've since learned about trans issues, a lot about breaking down my own toxic masculinity, recognizing fascism, seeing through the bullshit of US exceptionalism, and about the struggles of the Global South against Western aggression. I know we all like to joke about how posting isn't praxis, but if a liberal white schmuck like me can be redeemed by memes, I feel like it can help other people, too.