Yep, pretty much.

A very similar angle is that such Western Trots, as Western ultras, can construct idealized forms of socialism amongst themselves that do not suffer from decades of mainstream criticism and propaganda, at least not directly. This is because those forms of socialism do not exist and have not existed. They are very close to the "real socialism has never been tried" line of thinking that provides a cop-out avoidance of criticisms towards AES. They explicitly dissociate themselves from all AES and therefore do not have to rationalize its problems as something of their own tendency, nor do they have to defend them against liberals. On the contrary, they pile on, thereby often serving a pro-capitalist function in the imperial core. Sometimes there's an exception (some Trots like Cuba, for example), but they're definitely exceptions.

I would argue that most of their staying power stems from not being much of a threat to capital, which makes it easier to bring in liberals, makes them lesser targets for disruption by the feds (though the feds did/do still mess with them). Also their tendency for splitting and coming across as cultish to others limits their ability to influence.

That said, SA is doing pretty well, mostly due to focusing on local races and funneling a ton of organizing power into a handful of candidates. Also Sawant in particular somewhat stays away from criticizing AES and folks around here claim she's a self-professed ML, though I've seen nothing in her actions that suggest that.