Non-Yank with a question for Yankie comrades.
I've recently been going back over Lenin's writings, in particular What is to Be Done?:
We have said that there could not have been Social Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e. the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation etc
What do USAmerican Marxists think the current correct organisational strategies are, given the particular conditions of the US? What are the limits of activity within trade-unions, compared to other countries?
I believe, under present conditions, there is no organizational in-road to national-level politics. A nationally successful project would have to form bonds between people across a wide and varied geography with radically different political and economic situations, all while holding up in the face of current bonds forged by national media and the shared mythology of America's founding. That's too much to coordinate across. Organizing has to start local, tailoring itself to the immediate political and economic conditions of its region. State governments are imminently more accessible than anything at the national level, while having similar structures and chambers. The goal there wouldn't be revolution, but instead demonstrating to people that something different is possible. You dismantle the narratives of mass media with concrete examples you can point to -- because counter-narratives without a material grounding just become more culture war fodder.