tl;dr I believe we are failing to "bridge the gap" between disaffected libs and baby leftists. I want to help fix this.
I want to focus my efforts next year on creating effective propaganda, learning how to make better propaganda, and sharing this with comrades as much as possible.
The Comfortable Class
I live what American politicians would call a "middle class" lifestyle. I live in a suburban area surrounded by other people who seem to have the same broad level of comfort to me. While in Marxist terms we would all be Proletarians or "working class", I'd prefer to add a sub-class to this that I'm calling the "comfortable class". We're not owners of Capital nor small business owners so Bourgeois or Petit-Bourgeois doesn't apply here. However, we're also not a paycheck away from homelessness, nor are we reliant on food stamps or other direct aid to live. We're probably working one main full-time job with a steady schedule. Maybe we have a "side hustle" but it's not necessary to keep it going to pay bills. I think you get the point.
Life may be somewhat comfortable, but it is not good. It's not good for anyone. Maybe I'm just projecting here, but I don't see anyone around me that's actually happy. Everyone seems pissed off, more aggressive, and on shorter tempers than I've seen ever before.
How I joined the Left
Without doxxing myself too much... Based on my identity and class position I should be a Republican. Or at least a centrist Democrat. But I'm not. I am part of the LGBT community, have a diagnosis for Autism, and never quite fit in with "normal" people.
I started my political life phonebanking for Obama, then did some Democratic Party politics for a while, fell in love with Bernie Sanders and resonated with everything he was saying, fell out of love with Democrats, and slowly drifted farther left until I became who I am today.
I believe I got here because of my non-typical identity plus a lot of patient reading, listening, and debating politics. Politics is one of my "hyper focus" subjects, which means I tend to consume way too much of it as I get fixated on learning as much as I can. I can't expect others like me to follow this path.
I feel like a lot of us have similar backgrounds or similar back stories. A lot of us are neurodiverse, disabled, or some form of queer. I'm glad we're able to come together and help each other under this banner of Marxism.
We can't wait for material conditions to get worse
It's something I see a lot as I try to reason with what to do as a Leftist. I've been told several times that we have to wait until the material conditions deteriorate enough for people to see our side of things. I don't want to wait... A lot of people are suffering NOW! And I'm not just talking about the peripheral nations; life sucks in the U.S. too! It's just easier to ignore than in a place like the Philippines.
Reaching the frustrated "normies"
We can't build a revolution with the numbers we have. We must grow!
There has to be a way to reach people who are beginning to see the cracks in the current system, but are struggling to find real solutions. People who are disenfranchised by our current electoral system, that don't vote because they see no point, that are checked out of following which person is President because nothing ever changes. People that aren't going to naturally drift towards the left because of their life circumstances. "Normies"
Read this post from a non-voter in NC. There are a lot more potential revolutionaries from this group than from the place I came from!
How do people become leftists today?
There's a common Marketing concept known as a "engagement funnel" or "sales funnel". What this funnel model shows is the path a potential buyer of a product or service falls through to get from zero ("I don't even know you exist") to a sale ("I bought your thing and am becoming an evangelist for your brand").
What does the Left "funnel" look like?
You start with the general public. Take out everyone who is a committed Fascist, Conservative, and die-hard Democrat. That's one part of the funnel.
The people who get to the next stage are potential Leftists, but now they need to know that Marxism exists. That takes another huge chunk of people out of the equation. With the sorry state of education in the U.S. this is a huge gap we have to overcome. How can someone become a Socialist if they've never even heard of that word?
Next we have people who have at least heard the S-word, but now they are turned away for some reason. Maybe it's propaganda claiming we killed 100 million people with a giant spoon, or Uyghurs, iPhone vuvuzela, or one of a hundred other talking points that keeps people from looking at what we have to offer. Lots of people fall out of the funnel here. I believe there's enough material out there to debunk all of these tired attacks at this point. Maybe they're not in the most accessible format but the content is definitely out there for people to find.
What's left? We are now looking at people who know Socialism exists and are curious enough to learn more about it beyond the mainstream smears. Great! This is our potential base of recruits! What do we have for these people? Maybe some of them are watching Second Thought or streaming Hasan, or maybe they're listening to Chapo (that's how I started)? If they're lucky, they know about these things and eventually want to learn more about this whole Socialism thing.
This is where the easiest-to-patch gap in our funnel is.
If people somehow get enough knowledge or inspiration to get past "I like the occasional LeftTok video" what do they have to welcome them? Read theory. Read Settlers. Read Marx. Read Lenin. Read Blackshirts and Reds. etc.
A lot of reading, and not easy reading either.
I believe everyone on this forum is at this point. We're all through the funnel. I have these books and more on my reading list, I'm doing study groups, etc. But most people, even those who would be comrades, aren't going to get to this step. They're going to fall out of the funnel because learning about Socialism is too hard! It's Hasan and then BAM here's a mountain of books to read!
Summary
In the marketing "funnel" that is converting people to leftism, we are falling short in two places:
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There's a major gap in the funnel where people would find out Socialism exists at all.
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Getting people from casual left "content consumer" to a true "revolutionary"
We need agit prop to cover both these gaps. What do you think?
"comfortable class"
I think the already established term is "labor aristocracy"
Life may be somewhat comfortable, but it is not good. It's not good for anyone. Maybe I'm just projecting here, but I don't see anyone around me that's actually happy.
Comforts allotted through super exploitation are enough of an incentive to passively or actively keep capitalism going, even without happiness. these people certainly won't be any happier without their comforts, and in order to overthrow capitalism we would also end imperialism, and thus those comforts. This contradiction is pretty glaring, and leaves everyone who would fall under the labor aristocracy or who would hope to enter that sub-class as necessarily enabling capitalism. Even if there is a part of them that would want the type of better world that is only achievable by socialism, these types of people will not do the work required to actually understand and internalize that reality, instead resigning to the mantra that "we can't change anything" and thus ensuring that at least their comforts remain. These are the "settlers" mentioned so often in our circles, not only because they are settlers in the sense of Sakai, but also because they have totally settled on doing nothing for anyone but themselves!
I agree with you that it is random circumstance that creates a leftist in the imperial core. It is some combination of factors out of someone's control that brings them that way: being queer, being abused, being from certain national backgrounds or disabled or in some other marginalized group; some combination of these things forces the people who experience them to recognize that the indoctrination that works on most people isn't enough for them to explain their lived experience. Unfortunately this is not an easily replicable experience, and the only thing we can do as already "funneled" communists is keep being visible and extending the reach of our practice and perspectives through public work, education, and relationship building. Even still, people have been doing this for a long time here, and it has proven that it is not enough to truly awaken the class consciousness of people in the imperial core.
I think your analysis is lacking the primary contradiction in the American context, that of settler colonialism. The people most primed to be radicalized are not the labor aristocracy - even if some from that group will be radicalized because of their aforementioned randomly generated circumstances. The people who need to be prioritized in outreach are colonized people, people with national interest that are inherently at odds with the colonial project, New Afrikans, Indigenous peoples, diaspora communities, trans people, sex workers, prisoners; the groups of people who have not and will not ever have real access to the levers of power; the human sacrifices at the altar of capital.
The reality is that the only way to be a socialist is to organize in the world you live in. It takes work and sacrifice. It is not easy. It was not easy for anyone we look to for guidance on how to actually do it, and it is not easy now. The people who are willing to do that are the ones who "have nothing to lose but their chains," and in the US that isn't as many people as most here seem to think. People have a lot of comfort to lose, a lot of treats, and a lot of self-identity. Spending whatever free time people have on doing anything beyond the level of a hobbyist is unlikely until being a hobbyist of any kind is unaffordable. There is a reason no one in the imperial core has ever managed to be successful at organizing revolution despite dozens of groups outside the core being able to do so, and it is not because the propaganda wasn't good enough, or the marketing funnel wasn't lubed enough.
I recommend to you We Are Our Own Liberators by Jalil Muntaqim, which contains the "FROLINAN Handbook," a guide for revolutionary nationalist cadre organizations. I know, more reading. Comrade Muntaqim offers a great distillation of the US specific revolutionary theoretical tradition, and how we can apply what has been learned through the last century of practice, today. This is the work that we must undertake now instead of doing what liberals do and resigning the work for the future. It is both true that most people in the US will not do shit until the material conditions get worse and communists must get organized now before that happens to be ready to integrate those people into our formations when that time comes. Again, it will most likely not be middle class people, suburbanites, or whoever watches Hasan that are first in line, it will be undocumented monolingual Spanish speaking Indigenous peoples, colonized and diaspora groups who are not "upwardly mobile," queer and disabled people who live in poverty, etc. These are the communities we must build relationships with now and support now so that when things get worse, they will know that we are already trustworthy, well organized, and sincere.
There are tons of short pamphlets and accessible materials for newer leftists that span the gap between Hasan and Grundrisse, hundreds surely. You could compile all these and make new ones and spread them around but it is not a lack of propaganda which keeps people who benefit from imperialism from developing politically.
Great post. I'll need some time to process. Def have more to learn!
you are doing well and your energy and spirit is in the right place, keep it up!
Even if there is a part of them that would want the type of better world that is only achievable by socialism, these types of people will not do the work required to actually understand and internalize that reality, instead resigning to the mantra that "we can't change anything" and thus ensuring that at least their comforts remain. These are the "settlers" mentioned so often in our circles, not only because they are settlers in the sense of Sakai, but also because they have totally settled on doing nothing for anyone but themselves!
The people who are willing to do that are the ones who "have nothing to lose but their chains," and in the US that isn't as many people as most here seem to think. People have a lot of comfort to lose, a lot of treats, and a lot of self-identity. Spending whatever free time people have on doing anything beyond the level of a hobbyist is unlikely until being a hobbyist of any kind is unaffordable. There is a reason no one in the imperial core has ever managed to be successful at organizing revolution despite dozens of groups outside the core being able to do so, and it is not because the propaganda wasn't good enough, or the marketing funnel wasn't lubed enough.
Would there be any literature about this phenomenon other than this dissertation level text itself which you have written and J. Sakai's "Settlers"?
The Wretched of the Earth is a classic starting point for good reason, that’s where I started. Highly recommend!
As far as directly speaking to the phenomena of the labor aristocracy and comprador classes I would say Lenin's Imperialism, and Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, but in general applying dialectical materialist reasoning to our material conditions will simply result in these conclusions. If you have earnestly studied the work of our revolutionary predecessors and tried to organize in the US yourself, this perspective becomes self-evident.
If you have earnestly studied the work of our revolutionary predecessors and tried to organize
Ah no wonder lmao
I would say Lenin's Imperialism, and Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, but in general applying dialectical materialist reasoning to our material conditions will simply result in these conclusions
Thanks for the recommendations, all the best to you and your comrades irl may you cause the enemy damage and pave the way towards a better future 07
Well the blackpill that was working it’s way out over the past few days just got jammed back down my throat.
Why...?
It's not trying to discourage you, it's an honest criticism and a lot to be gleamed from if you didn't already consider the points.
Comforts allotted through super exploitation are enough of an incentive to passively or actively keep capitalism going, even without happiness. these people certainly won't be any happier without their comforts, and in order to overthrow capitalism we would also end imperialism, and thus those comforts.
We talk about comforts and treats a lot but lately I’ve been wondering about that. What are we talking about when we talk about treats? Is it just exotic fruits, chocolate, coffee, video games and televisions? Or are we including in that other material benefits that a first worlder enjoys that the global south might be cut off from like cheap insulin, access to dialysis machines and chemotherapy? If that’s the case, why shouldn’t a person with a chronically ill loved one not resist tooth and nail an economic change that would result in their death, and what could we possibly say to them to get them on our side? “Stop being such a treat-brained baby loser and make your sister die in pain?”
Honestly, the system is so elaborate and complex that I would hold that each person has their own niche combo of "treats" which allows them to have some elements go away and not be up in arms about it because the other elements remain and keep them yoked. There are many different forms of treats: material luxury treats that you mentioned, like coffee and video games and tv; there are social group things like sports, religion, bar culture, comedy, games, cars, etc which are things people identify as which also extends into brand culture in general, things that unite people around a company or as a marketing demographic but otherwise have no real solidarity with each other and often people enjoy these things alone despite identifying with the greater culture; ideological treats like racism, sexism, transmisogyny , etc which allow people to feel superior and harbor a twisted joy in the destruction of the people who's labor they benefit from; there is time itself as a treat and being able to have time to enjoy treats in the first place. I could go on, but the main point is that it is a multifaceted treat-ment which means that you could look something terrible that you hate in the eye such as your example of an ill loved one not getting healthcare access and still find ways to cope.
Importantly, there are also people who DO resist as much as they can as individuals and their loved one dies anyway and then their life goes on, often with way more debt and bills. When you are juggling debt and loved ones having severe medical issues, even if you are totally sober in your understanding of how flawed the system is, overthrowing it isn't really one of the options on the table with the few hours you have to do anything in a week. Fighting with insurance and lawyers and administrative bureaucracy and depression and debt collectors and your boss is multiple full time jobs.
Okay but I guess my central question is whether access to life-saving medication is a treat. Because outside of South Korea and thebUS that is a first-world benefit.
Again, I think for some people it is and for some it isn't, everyone has different things that turn them on. I am sure there are a lot of people in the US who 100% think their access to healthcare is worth keeping this system going, even when so many other people here don't have access.
Okay forget about American healthcare, just pretend the United States doesn’t exist for a second. Imagine there is a person whose sister needs special medicine to live. They live in the imperial core and they get their medicine from a imperial core hospital. Is that medicine a treat? What would make that medicine a treat? If it’s not a treat, what is it?
If access to a thing enables, in whole or in part, someone to be okay with maintaining the status quo, I would say it is operating as a treat for them, particularly if that thing is not necessary for immediate survival. Treats are inherently things we do just for the sake of themselves being enjoyable, and not because we need them to survive. Things that are survival needs can be turned into treats, like how we all need food to survive but we don't need to eat out at restaurants, we all need housing but we don't need mansions, some people need life saving medicine because of a tragic illness and others because their BBL didn't go as planned.
I think channels like Hakim and Halim Alrah are efforts to bridge the watch videos-> read theory gap. And I think they work but they get a lot less engagement than "breadtube" does.
Although I'm also learning that maybe I'm a weird outlier who should not be using my experiences to figure out effective steps, I was raised conservative and moved towards liberalism through the Obama years, but then abruptly moved to "Bernie is the compromise" and then into full blown communism in very rapid succession, mostly because Shaun videos did a better job addressing the things I was noticing and uncomfortable with than anybody else was.
And I'm just a kkkraker from a comfortable conservative background with a pretty high degree of education. My life has gotten more shitty since I radicalized, not the other way around. I'm getting the impression this must be very uncommon, although it's the story of the lefties in my life. Probably just because of the community I was in I guess.
anyone who's worked in marketing knows that all these buzzwords like AWARENESS ans THE FUNNEL are basically a huge pile of BS and very far removed from whatever passes for an exact science these days. I would not take seriously any arguments that are based on these bizarre concepts.
They can be useful for certain specific things but yes I wouldn't use these as an overarching framework for understanding a leftist pipeline. For instance I don't think there's an analogous funnel step to "Americans say the word SOCIALISM five or six times a week and don't even remotely have any idea what socialism even vaguely means, not even in the ball park"
Not to poo poo your good effortpost here, but I feel like I've read 1001 takes on how western leftist propaganda needs to improve, and every time I feel like I can find examples of people who already doing the exact things the take is calling for and still are barely a 1/3 as popular as some random CHUD streamer called like "kek lord" or something.
I think the real problem is that it doesn't matter how good your propaganda is, if your audience isn't receptive to it they aren't receptive to it. And vice versa you can have dogshit propaganda, but if the audience is receptive to it they'll gobble up the slop. Look how shit Israel's propaganda is, but settlers be settlers so they eat it up.
I agree. I think the IWW would be a good example of an org that fulfills all of the steps the post talks about.
Read this post from a non-voter in NC. There are a lot more potential revolutionaries from this group than from the place I came from!
God the comments section is depressing. It's all white people saying "I understand life as black man is bad but why don't you just vote?"
Godamn it really is. Other depressing comments are, "What do you want exactly? Higher minimum wage? What are we supposed to do?" and "What's the alternative?"
The OP actually made a good point that if the Dems count on black votes as a given they have no reason to try to appeal to them beyond platitudes. Even within an electoral mindset, that is a valid strategy I haven't seen a lib be able to counter.
It got crosslinked in r/asablackman, where the libs have fully endorsed Biden's message of "If you don't vote for me, you ain't black"
the libs have fully endorsed [president/candidate]'s message of "If you don't vote for me, you ain't black"
There's an alternate reality where
was the one with that message
I want to focus my efforts next year on creating effective propaganda
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Leave that wall of text in a file on your desktop.
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"Guillotine Party". We should adopt the most visible tool of the French Revolution as a symbol of purpose and resolve.
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I read like half your post, but I think the key is finding ways to engage with people offline. It feels like algos have changed in recent years to bury leftist comments and posts.
IRL I've had success talking about torrenting, copyright abolition, and Monsanto's practice of distributing seed destroying cultivars.
I think intellectual property is the tip of the spear to getting people to understand that private property in general needs to be abolished
Getting people from casual left "content consumer" to a true "revolutionary"
If you are a disaffected liberal, it's easy to believe that the world is ending... a worldview/ideology which assumes a coming apocalypse asks nothing of you. By comparison, a political project that offers a positive vison for the future but requires direct action is a heavy lift. It takes more than agit prop to inspire and move someone from the former to the latter imo.
But the political project can be fun! Group actions and activities are fun! Whenever I see people talking about despair and anxiety, I tell them to get active-- it worked for me.
Got to the counties shown here and organize the local communites into the vanguard party infrastructure.
I'm with you on the general idea.
Creating a pipeline, so Americans actually know what the basic words for left ideologies mean, is important.
Seconded. Worst case scenario maybe some states can at least be succdem in our lifetimes.
IIRC, innuendo studios mentioned that more right-wingers have marketing and PR jobs, so while the left has a superior product the right is better at selling.
No, worse case scenario is we're nearly all murdered by Nazis and the few straggling survivors die in the climate apocalypse because apparently nobody else wants to do anything about that except masturbate.
But we are apparently pretty bad at selling shit recently, and a more modern pipeline might be an advantage. That first layer needs fucking work. 'Anarchism' is not disorder, 'communism' is not when state does things, and 'socialism' is not just a synonym for either 'communism' or 'bad'.
So, I think step one is just getting definitions out here, undoing a couple centuries of propaganda and shit. Literally just explaining what words mean. How to?
Step two, and we can be doing both at once, is to present ideas people find appealing, ways their identities are valued, and ways of being they can grab onto. Do the fucking imagination, and spark theirs.
I've been thinking about this issue a lot as well and I think what's required is something beyond simply "good propaganda". The success of the chuds is an emotional success, not a logical one: it gives disaffected people a sense of belonging. I don't think that people in the Imperial core can be inspired to revolution by theory or empathy alone. We have to offer them an in-group to be part of, a sense of individual validation and identity. And most of all - it needs to be fun and social. I don't consume much content myself so I'm not sure how successful Hasan etc. are at doing this. But western brainwashing has produced generations of people who are steeped in individualism and we can't fight that purely by admonishing them or pointing out the faults of capitalism. We need to offer and provoke internal change and the realisation that collectivism is joyful.
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