3 out of 4 of those are monarchies AOC
AOC, are you seeking to become an actual queen
Better to be Yassss Kweeen than Slay kweeen like Kamala Harris
Queen AOC passes law that all Republicans must grovel at her feet in her presence, and may not speak until they submitted to her rubbing the sole of her foot in their face.
AOC's approval rating then skyrockets among Republicans.
This is the kind of demsoc I can support. One who understands the concept of solidarity. Something American “leftists” have not yet begun to grasp.
How can you shout at us about unity while simultaneously throwing socialists under the bus by denouncing and distancing yourself from the USSR or Cuba?
In regards to your edit, I think our best strategy is a professional party that hastens national suicide so the hegemonic empire will collapse. Only once this happens will the American masses be susceptible to radicalization. Before this there is too much material benefit from empire and any reformist movement will always turn social-chauvinist and imperialist.
this is it. The empire has to be taken down so that the rest of the world can breath.
Well it’s dialectical. The colonized world will need to have their own revolutions to throw off American hegemony, which will hasten American collapse. American communists need to fight imperialism (the primary contradiction) to assist those nations struggling for freedom. The two will feed off each other, and we will need to be linked to their movements materially and through solidarity.
A synthetic reformist chauvinist American left will not do. They will kill the communists at a moment of crisis and implement fascism before they let the empire collapse.
yes when I read this by AOC, I see her throwing Rosa's body into a canal. Always remember what our German comrades learned the hard way:
Wer hat uns verraten? (Who betrayed us?)
Sozialdemokraten!
The materialist in me realizes the implications of a massive labor aristocracy subsidized by imperial loot.
As Marx put it about the labor aristocracy of England in the 19th century: The proletariat here are a more bourgeois proletariat without revolutionary potential. Only a few very bad years will fix this.
If the battle is “is actual socialism good or not” that’s pretty much a necessary rhetorical battle that they can’t shirk on
Cuba is one thing but how is it relevant to current solidarity to stake out a position on whether or not a political system that has not even nominally existed for nearly three decades was or was not true socialism? The decisions of the various actors over the course of Soviet history were products of the material conditions of a time and place that no longer exists, conditions that in most respects are entirely unlike those of the present-day United States. I don't understand why people feel the need to have endless struggle sessions about people and events and decisions that bear such little resemblance to the situations they actually face.
Whether you like it or not, the USSR is the face of socialism. You can deal with this by trying to detach the USSR from socialism, or by defending the USSR from the propaganda and smears that have shaped western perceptions of it. You don’t have the luxury of ignoring it, although every ultra and radlib wishes they could.
I wouldn't take a tribute made right after his death before kruschev's speech came out for much. Allende was extremely critical of non democratic action, supporting the Hungarian uprising and Czechoslovakian one.
Plus Allende got his start in a socialist party that was a popular coalition of trotskyists and anarchists, and some social democrats, against the Stalinist supporting Chilean communist party.
I think Rashida is basically AOC, but with better foreign policy. Still not good foreign policy, but at least pro-Palestine and more staunchly anti-war.
Ilhan is also good, but I feel like she's had some yikes takes, though I can't think of what exactly off the top of my head.
All of them are still fairly pro democratic party in a way Sanders clearly wasn't. They all tend to exist in a space somewhere between Sanders and Warren rather than to his left. This said, Cori Bush is absolutely to left of squad 1.0, Nina Turner who had some worse politics than most of these folks previously is also far less afraid of attacking the Democrats head on than AOC/Ilhan/Rashida.
The Squad was clearly more closely mentored by Jayapal than by Sanders, although I do also imagine a big part of this comes from the fact that they are members of the house and not the Senate and it's much easier to have independence as a Senator due to their procedural rules.
I'm with you on this one. I don't know why some folks expect her to start stanning ML states when neither she (nor Bernie!) have ever painted themselves as anything other than social democrats, for all practical purposes.
Like literally, what would make you think either AOC or Bernie are socialists other than the label they occasionally use for themselves? 99.9% of their words and 100% of their actions point to social democracy, and they don't pretend otherwise. And you know what, I think that's ok. Personally I think social democracy represents the outer left limit of what can be accomplished via electoralism in the US.
(btw I will always try and include Bernie whenever AOC is mentioned because even though their politics are exactly identical AOC seems to get a lot more hate for some reason...
You get that none of those states are Socialist and she calls herself a Socialist, right? What is this bullshit excuse making all over the place?
Fuck anyone defending this. Idc how deeply propagandized the American people are, 100s of thousands of people are dying, millions are losing their livelihoods and our social fabric is crumbling while China, Vietnam, Venezuala, Cuba, etc. got a handle on the pandemic within months and are having fucking pool parties. If you're not using this moment to make the case that what the American people think they know about how foreign countries work is bullshit, you are completely fucking useless.
Some real clown hours when you see leftists talking about the 4chan shit of "hiding your power level"
"hiding your power level" can only work when you are already perfectly fine operating within the capitalist-imperialist paradigm which most fascists are A-OK with.
Meaning "hiding your power level" is a perfectly good strategy as your goal is to get some sliver of power and do stuff like cut bus lines to black communities to impoverish them (by stopping them able to travel for work into white communities) or sign crime bills designed to incarcerate blacks
The last 150 years of the labour movement has proved that if you pretend to be an opportunist and social chauvinist..... You end up an opportunist and social chauvinist
Communists openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”
-Karl Marx
Entryism seems to be changing the people who enter more than the institutions they enter. Who could've thought...
Also lol at anyone that sill believes the "hiding your power level" stuff
I think you’re underestimating how fucking propagandized the American people are. At best she could get away with saying some mildly positive shit about Vietnam cuz they’re our allies, a single good word about Cuba, China or the DPRK and she’d lose her next election for sure and the FBI would probably leave a bag of coke and some child porn in her apartment.
This isn’t a defense of AOC, she can fuck herself, but honestly I don’t think her suddenly “revealing her power level” (assuming she actually is more left than she lets on (she’s not)) would achieve Jack. Everyone would hate her, she’d become ruined and irrelevant in a year and maybe even in jail. It’d achieve nothing for her besides scoring some points with us, and achieve nothing for anyone else.
Just take the 3rd Worldist Pill and hope Xi invades us like I do.
No offense intended, but I feel like this is basically doomer talk with slightly more nuance. Not that the revolution can't or won't start in the global south - in fact, that's pretty much the only way I see it happening - but the idea that we can do nothing but sit and wait until then just seems too cynical to me. We should put in the work to build socialism at home, even if we know we're going to fail, because that's how we set the groundwork for the next generation.
Look how hard they went in on Bernie because he said that Castro's literacy programs worked. He was still talking about how much of an evil dictator Castro was, but they jumped down his throat either way. Literacy became bad overnight.
AOC is not, never has been, and likely never will be a communist. But she is the far left of US politics, and should be half-embraced and pulled left by half supporters who can point out how dumb these takes are. That's basically the definition of critical support.
They went hard on Bernie because he was seeking to disrupt the political establishment, not because he made a positive comment about Cuba. There's no sense in biting your tongue to appease a media that is against your political agenda.
Can't believe AOC is a lib? She doesn't want to resurrect Lenin?
She might be actually ideologically committed to the "nordic model" honestly
Imagine being ideologically committed to the social-imperialist petrostate model lool
Of course she fucking is, Jesus Christ! The level of DemSucc delusion here is astounding.
I think she might be a bit more to the left, and that it's a strategic goalpost, but it hurts to see American leftists praising your Nordic country
No matter what chuds are going to say she’s a Stalinist so why not lean into it?
If libs start calling her one too that’s when she starts having problems
The strategy is clearly to soften people's hardcore opposition to even the mere mention of socialism. This is the subtext of the exchange:
Q: By socialism, do you mean scary, evil stuff that has been the target of an unparalleled anticommunist propaganda machine for decades? Please say yes; doing so is one of the few things that could end your political career.
A: Haha fuck off with the bait, I'm talking about stuff people generally view positively, especially when it comes to socialized healthcare, because, you know, healthcare is currently the biggest entrypoint into leftism.
I don't know what power level she's hiding, but it doesn't really matter. The intent is good, and the answer does more to advance us towards socialism than a discussion of how to classify the Soviet or Cuban government.
I never really understand this strategy because we're going to get called socialists anyway so long as we're not ardent, steel eyed Republican voters with American flag tattoos on our foreheads. The strategy has confusing results too because now libs I know are referring to Kamala Harris, with praise, as a socialist.
If that's the case, what would be more important is advancing and focusing on class politics regardless of the terms involved. The subtext I get out of what she said is a "no, don't worry. We're not scary. I'm a good liberal." It's being backed into a corner. She could have easily said that what she regards as socialism is what promotes the interests of the working class above other concerns or what other countries are doing or have done.
libs I know are referring to Kamala Harris, with praise, as a socialist.
What fucking libs do you know?
I live in the south. There's a topsy-turvey kind of contrarian streak I'm seeing (anecdotally) where southern libs are taking the chud claims of Biden being a Marxist at face value and concluding that if Biden is a socialist, therefore they are also socialists.
The idea is that people will be more willing to seriously consider socialism if they don't turn their brains off as soon as the word is mentioned.
She could have easily said that what she regards as socialism is what promotes the interests of the working class above other concerns or what other countries are doing or have done.
This would have been a good answer, too, but the answer she gave (1) responds to the part of the question about which countries she wants to emulate, and (2) is in a broader context of pointing to stuff like Britain's NHS as a superior healthcare model.
I know that's the goal of the idea. I'm skeptical about its efficacy or that it will lead to anything. I'm only seeing socialist becoming another term for liberal.
If "socialist" becomes as mainstream and inoffensive as "liberal," that makes it far easier to talk to people about socialism. You can talk about socialism as socialism, you can point them to openly-socialist resources, it's easier to get them to reconsider what they know about actually socialist countries.
Maybe I've simply had poor experiences with this, but it's only become more difficult talking with them. Now they won't accept that they might have a wrong idea of what socialism means or what we should be advancing. I already have associates who treat socialism (the term) as inoffensive, but they still basically promote mainstream liberal centrism. They refer to American cops as socialist. They call Biden a socialist and act all proud.
The only thing that's changed is they'll refer to what they previously called socialist (Cuba, USSR, Marxism, class politics, etc) as "authoritarian" or "divisive" or whatever word they come up with on the spot. All they've done is take the spooky s-word and replace it with others.
Unless your associates are completely post-fact -- and that's increasingly common, although those people aren't persuadable anyway -- they're going to get tied to the real definition of socialism at some point. It's like debating people about what is or isn't capitalism (another term that's popularly nebulous). At some point, if the person is at least someone connected to reality, you can go to authoritative sources on the matter to establish what it really means. I won't deny that this is a whole process, but at least you're talking about socialism at that point, and they're not just shutting down the conversation out of hand.
I just think by avoiding america’s enemies, it avoids the question of how illegitimate the government is.
Consider how radical "the U.S. government is illegitimate" is. That's not an idea that's going to click with very many people who watch CNN; they're going to reject it as it's too far outside their current beliefs. You can't throw people in the deep end right away, you have to bring them along a little bit and at least get them comfortable treading in leftist waters. It's a pipeline to leftism, not an instant conversion.
Then there's the idea that most people don't care about foreign policy much anyways, and so you're not going to score points with anyone for having great foreign policy takes most of the time. There's no much to gain, but you can easily get roasted -- look at how Bernie got a crucial week's worth of bad coverage over extremely innocuous comments about Cuba's healthcare and education.
I have also never really had much push back on claiming the government is illegitimate.
Are you talking to the average CNN viewer, though? And might people be willing to entertain more radical ideas in person, from a regular guy, than they would from an elected official?
Belief in the illegitimacy of the government makes more sense in a heavily red area. I think at that point it comes down to who's just culturally conservative (and the hostility to government that comes with that) and who's an ideologically-committed right-winger. The latter isn't reachable, but the former might be.
Its true that it softens peoples opinion of the word Socialism, but it does so by changing its meaning.
So what does that leave us with? More people becoming open to learning about Marxism, or a surplus of liberals and social chauvinists calling themselves Socialists?
Yeah I've been thinking about it and I 100% agree. I'm sure most of us all started the same way. It just takes patience and education.
Months back a small, unscientific poll here suggested that somewhere around 75% of us used to be libs (I know it's 100%, and I know it's not "used to," of course). IIRC the next biggest group was libertarians, at about 10%.
I don't think it changes its meaning so much as it erases preconceived opposition rooted in decades of anticommunist propaganda. That makes it easier to educate people on what socialism actually is, because starting from a roughly blank slate is better than starting with dug-in opposition.
Say you want to convince Jimmy that basketball is fun and good. He knows nothing about basketball, but his entire life he's been subjected to a media environment telling him basketball is dangerous, unfun, and no one gets laid if they play it. You try to talk to him about what basketball actually is, but his response is "nah, fuck basketball, I don't even want to hear it."
But a few years pass and the media environment changes to where people call damn near anything basketball. Jimmy, not actually knowing what basketball is, now hears about it all the time -- often positively, if inaccurately -- and his hardline opposition to even the concept of basketball changes to "hell, they'll call anything basketball these days." Now if you try to talk to him, you aren't going to get that immediate, visceral opposition, and he might listen a bit if he likes you and thinks you might have some clarifying information.
Everyone defending AOC needs to get one thing through their fucking skulls: you will never bring Socialism by disavowing Socialism. No amount of "I'm a Socialist but Stalin is bad" will ever be enough, as evidenced by half the country thinking AOC is a "Stalinist."
"Socialism was bad everywhere it's been tried but I'll be good if we do it" is a dogshit argument that convinces no one, and pointing to nations that are not even fucking close to Socialist as Socialist doesn't make people open to Socialism, it halts their progress into Socialism, like the fucking Vaushites who think you can do entryism in the Democratic Party.
I'm sorry that this politician you like isn't a Socialist. She's not hiding her power level, she's a fucking Liberal.
No amount of “I’m a Socialist but Stalin is bad” will ever be enough, as evidenced by half the country thinking AOC is a “Stalinist.”
Trying to relitigate the 1930s for the thousandth time is about as far away from a Mass Line as you can get.
It's just a waste of fucking time. You're not going to break a primary education's worth of Cold War propaganda with a sound bite, and people need to stop pretending like "pro-Stalin" is some kind of line in the sand for a Brooklyn leader of the DSA.
Just stick to talking about what matters and stop pretending AOC's job is to make cool Stalin memes.
This is definitely the lamest attempted AOC dunk thread I've seen yet. Why do you even care? What is this meant to prove?
I don't care if you criticize AOC and I'm not a sucdem, I think threads like this are lame and pointless.
I get the joke, and it’s a good one - but add healthcare costs to the tax burden on most American workers and you might be paying more for less
Or you could enforce lower healthcare costs and decrease spending on things like the military and tax cuts
The proper response to this is that all those countries seized their resources from foreign invaders and internal parasites with the state apparatus and chartered a path of self determination that led to improved lives for the majority of their people and maybe we could learn a thing or two from that. Maybe include that anyone losing their minds at the mere mention of these places (or using them as dog whistles) is engaging in bad faith and should be entirely disregarded.
I don't think she actually knows and/or cares though. She is like every other social democrat after 1917 who only wants to build a release valve on the empire so that it does not explode.
Is AOC sanctioning China "hiding her power level" you fucking RadLibs?
And let's address the argument that there's something to be gained by "hiding one's power level."
What? Did you people watch Bernie's two campaigns and somehow come away with the idea that working with the Democratic Party is a way to advance our interests? If so, you took away literally the opposite of what you should have, and are demonstrating exactly what happens when you water down Socialism.
She's talking about the NHS, which is in fact socialized medicine.
Reasonably certain she's talking about the NHS, not the Wizarding Academy
I mean what was she supposed to say? Doubt she could debunk the fucking Holodomor in one interview.
I don’t like her don’t get me wrong, but I don’t get all these “muh progressive Dems aren’t stanning Lenin on MSNBC!” owns. Yeah no shit it’d be career suicide.
Succdems need to just stop calling themselves socialists and be honest about their social chauvinism
In a country where one of the two major political parties calls Joe Biden a Marxist, the problem is definitely not what AOC and company call themselves.
They are parts of the problem, Republicans aren't the only ones calling everything socialism
Arguably, the more things that are called socialism right now, the better. It's the Boy Who Cried Wolf effect. If the word is used for everything left of Reagan it's no longer taboo to anyone persuadable, which makes it easier to talk to those folks about what socialism actually is. We've already seen this work: Republicans called Obama communist and socialist and Marxist and whatever other trigger words they could think of, and by the time Bernie came along "socialist" was no longer a smear capable of putting a fork in him.
Yeah but what does that matter if socialism just means welfare and Medicare in the eyes of the average American. We're not actually moving to the left we're just lying to people and changing the definition to make it less scary to libs, who hate socialism because of its actual substance, not because it's a bad word.
If we got a working welfare state and Medicare for All that absolutely would move us to the left. First, it would dramatically improve the material conditions of hundreds of millions of people, which is a pretty fundamental goal of socialism. Second, it would lift the boot a little bit off workers' necks -- it's a lot easier to challenge management when you know it won't cost you your healthcare, and when there's a safety net if you wind up losing your job. Third, it would be concrete proof that we can do big things for people and not destroy the country, and it would similarly be proof that the folks on the left might be worth listening to.
I see your logic and I agree that moving to social democracy would be a huge improvement but we already experienced this during the Great Depression and it only lasted long enough to cripple the nascent socialist movement in America and then started to get stripped away once we were no longer a serious threat to capital. And because of the trajectory we are on with the climate and capitalism in general just decaying to shit, we're going to get punished for that because we've tied ourselves to the withering welfare capitalist system and the only alternative that Americans would be interested in at that point is fascism because there's no independent socialist movement that made itself distinguished from the liberals that have ruined everyone's lives.
it only lasted long enough to cripple the nascent socialist movement in America
The socialist movement was crippled during the first Red Scare, long before the Depression even hit. Eugene Debs' last presidential run was in 1920, and it came from a prison cell. CPUSA's membership peaked after the New Deal.
Foregoing policies that help people right now is just accelerationism, and about the only strategy riskier than that is doing nothing at all. You can't build a movement by offering people nothing, or at least nothing until things get significantly worse.
Those countries are substantially farther left than the U.S., and have substantially more labor power, which may be a path further left. Universal healthcare is not a one-way ticket to socialism, but countries that have it are already farther left than the U.S., and are much better situated to take the next big step.
don’t believe that social democracy is a stepping stone to actual socialism because thats been debunked by history
Considering that arguably no one has yet achieved socialism (especially not in the imperial core), and that history can't be read like a book of prophecies, nothing's been debunked. We don't have any idea what the path to American socialism will look like, but I'm betting something that greatly enhances worker power would be helpful.
they don’t have the leftist presence one would expect if social democracy increased avenues for leftist political participation
But they are substantially further left than us. We can't say that Bernie would basically be a conservative in most countries and then turn around and say those countries are basically as capitalist as we are.
without other pressures, you’re just solidifying the labor aristocracy
There definitely need to be other pressures, and a leftist movement that grows by delivering material improvements can provide those pressures. Even with the baby leftists we have now, they're talking about a lot more than just healthcare and welfare.
they just have a measure of economic safety for their citizens
That's an enormous "just." "Just" giving people healthcare instead of letting them go bankrupt when they have appendicitis is a huge material improvement, and by itself makes those countries significantly further left than we are. Then look at labor protections, unionization, criminal justice, how far left you can be and have any shot at political power, etc. They're not leftist, but they're substantially further left than we are.
Baby leftists in the US are barely calling for m4a and welfare
They commonly talk about the Green New Deal, free college, ending mass incarceration, making it easier to unionize, etc., and Bernie even talked about getting worker representation on corporate boards.
a less heavy boot on your back doesn’t mean anything if there isn’t an org taking advantage of it. If we had one concrete movement/party which was pushing for demands like m4a and worker protections and was able to force concessions from the government
This is exactly the DSA's strategy, and they're not far from realizing at least part of it.
I'm similarly skeptical of its enforcement mechanisms, but I would describe it as cautious optimism and I would say they deserve the benefit of the doubt. There was that Chicago City Council vote a month or two ago, for instance, where they immediately started disciplinary procedures when a representative broke ranks on a vote.
I’m never going to say we ought to neglect one area of political engagement entirely, so pretty much anyone trying has a baseline benefit of the doubt.
:10000-com:
In addition, members must attend CPC meetings
God I wish this was the CPC I'm thinking of. But that's a nice start.
I mean I agree. Not many people is the states know the difference between Succ, Socialist and Commie so it’s not like it’d make any difference in anyone eyes save us online commie dorks.
- Get asked an obvious trap question by a pro-capitalist journalist who's at least flirted with the CIA
- Give an answer obviously intended to soften Americans' rabid opposition to even the word "socialism"
- Get ripped by online leftists for not going full "Stalin committed zero crimes," which we all know to be the most effective way to move CNN-watching libs left
You're operating under the false assumption that Social-Democrats are in any way shape or form allies of socialism instead of the imperialist capitalist classcollaborators and enemies within they have consistently been since they were forced to abandon Marxism due to the success of 1917
Give an answer obviously intended to soften Americans’ rabid opposition to even the word “socialism”
If "softening" the word socialism to the point it means capitalism with a welfare state I'd rather she didn't attempt to soften and coopt socialism and remove its revolutionary content
Get ripped by online leftists for not going full “Stalin committed zero crimes,” which we all know to be the most effective way to move CNN-watching libs left
Firstly, Stalin did commit crimes (not shooting Kruschev, taking the moral high ground in 1925 when Kamenev and Zinoviev wanted to assassinate Trotsky etc.), secondly "moving left" is infantile. AOCs politics wouldn't be out of step with most of post-war Labour party in UK.
And they ran the British empire just as well as the tories and why AOC capitulates on imperialism exactly the same
You’re operating under the false assumption that Social-Democrats are in any way shape or form allies of socialism
They self-identify as democratic socialists, not social democrats, a distinction Bernie made a point to draw. Coupled with credible opposition to capitalism, and with the necessity of not writing off everyone but my five True Leftist friends, they're certainly worth counting as allies, at least for the moment.
“moving left” is infantile
Moving people left is literally the only way we're going to get enough leftists to do anything. The vast majority of people aren't going to wake up one day and decide to be a communist. The vast majority of Americans -- steeped from birth in hardcore anticommunism -- won't even decide to be a communist as soon as they read communist literature. the vast majority of Americans won't even consider reading communist literature to begin with. We have to walk people down the path. That means getting them to take one step left, then another, then another. Each step helps.
AOC capitulates on imperialism
AOC has had zero meaningful interaction with U.S. imperialism, and has had exactly zero real opportunity to stop any part of it. She's a first-term representative who doesn't even sit on any foreign policy committees. Criticizing her over something she's had no power to change is needlessly pessimistic, and is not the way we should be treating the very few people who are moving in the right direction.
If AOC is a Democratic Socialist, why didn't she point to Chile instead of these dogshit imperialist nations?
- It wasn't a planned remark
- It wasn't a deep comparison
- The idea is basically "think of countries that are broadly viewed positively and associate those positive vibes with socialism"
The year is 2030. Half the US believes that Socialism is when you make third world countries pay for your healthcare. What now?
That's not a realistic scenario. For starters, it would mean acknowledging the realities of how capitalism exploits the third world.
Exactly, they are entirely unaware of the contradictions within Social Democracy, do not see why it's insufficient, and are not prepared to make any sacrifices to bring about Socialism, as they think you can do it via ballot. What now?
So we're assuming M4A has been passed in this scenario? Then the working class is significantly more powerful as workers are no longer chained to their employer's health plans, we've increased the baseline level of care we think all people are deserving of, there's an enormous skin on the wall for whatever leftist movement pushed M4A through, and people have more faith in their ability to change their government for the better (because they just did).
It's far easier to challenge American imperialism in this situation than in the current one, and that's assuming the American left (which already is shot full of anti-imperialist sentiment, concern for immigrants, and opposition to the U.S. war machine) just flat-out ignored foreign policy for a decade.
Hahah yeah man we live in a Democracy where what people want matters. We're definitely gonna get M4A, just keep waiting!
No, I said that half the country thinks Socialism is Social Democracy and it's good. You somehow believe that what half the country wants has literally anything to do with what legislation is passed.
Look, I can't turn your chicken shit hypothetical into a chicken salad hypothetical. You started with an unrealistic scenario, then implied people would be thinking deeply about Social Democracy despite not having even one basic part of it (again, unrealistic), then went and congratulated yourself when I tried to make some sense of your jibberish.
What the fuck even is your point?
My point is that misleading people about what Socialism is is not going to lead them or us to Socialism, it will teach people that they can vote for Democrats to do it and that it will not involve any sacrifice or hard decisions. We all get free healthcare, don't ask how.
Extrapolating "I want people to think of countries they like when they hear socialism" to this is a stretch at best. It's assuming the worst intentions and worst possible outcomes. That's needlessly pessimistic -- we're getting nowhere if that's how we criticize people who actually go out and try to move us left.
It's a pattern. Obama endorsing her, meeting with those Bolivian coup supporters, deferring to party leadership on Venezuela, sanctioning China. At worst she's an active anti-Communist and at best she's a Social Democrat who is learning to operate Democratic Party machinery and being changed by it.
Again, this is reading the worst possible intentions into small (and mostly symbolic, if meaningful at all) actions, and ignoring all evidence to the contrary. We will fail if we treat each other like this.
Stalin and Mao’s popularity has risen in recent years in tandem with the rising popularity of socialism. It’s obvious you don’t need to throw the prime examples of socialism under the bus to spread class consciousness, so why alienate actual communists and third-word leftists for seemingly no benefit?
Well she shouldn’t say things in an inflammatory and obtuse way, but there are ways to frame things better. Think to yourself how Richard Wolff would have answered this question. It still appeals to libs and it still defends socialism without distorting what socialism is.
She is part of a long tradition of social-chauvinism that will be coopted into the Democratic Imperialist party and accomplish nothing, like all her predecessors before her, because she is fundamentally compromised and not linked to the global proletariat movement
The least she could do is not spew imperialist and anti-communist propaganda from her pulpit, but even that is too much to ask.
Great man idealism. People aren’t becoming socialists because of Bernie. Bernie was popular for the same reason socialism in general is becoming more popular, deteriorating material conditions and economic collapses. Bernie is riding a wave, he is not creating it, and suggesting otherwise is idealism.
Your implication from this is the only way “socialists” (read: left liberals) can gain power is through electoral means. You baked your failure into your own assumptions.
Stalin and Mao’s popularity has risen in recent years
This is an extremely online take. The amount of people who will even say "you know, Stalin and Mao were good on balance" is small -- even here, you'll find some opposition to that. This isn't throwing anyone under the bus, either; it's sidestepping the subject of actual existing socialist countries altogether.
why alienate actual communists and third-word leftists for seemingly no benefit?
The benefit is getting significant numbers of people to soften their opposition to leftist ideas, and that's absolutely crucial because we're going nowhere unless we get tens of millions of more Americans to become leftists. American communists are already alienated from AOC -- look around this thread -- so there's no real cost to this, either. Similarly, third-world leftists, being outside the country, aren't going to be able to help bring socialism to the United States.
It’s not just AOC that’s alienating us, it’s people like you who defend her. You are creating a synthetic American “left” that is anti-communist and detached from the global proletarian movement.
How well did that work the last 50 times you yanks tried it? When will you learn solidarity?
You are creating a synthetic American “left” that is anti-communist
The American left today is as communist-friendly as it's been since McCarthyism.
How high bar. They aren’t as anti-communist as the arch anti-communist. Real high aspirations here. Plus, the radlibs were not as viscerally “anti-tankie” and anti-China just a couple years ago. Jacobin state department socialists are as deeply embedded into the synthetic American left as ever before.
If you're going to write off a generational openness towards communism as insufficient, have fun starting your protracted people's war with your five True Leftist friends. That's where you're headed if you shit on anything short of ideal.
How is there any openness to communism displayed here? How does AOC shitting on communism create openness to communism? It does the opposite. It’s a filter, a sheepdog.
AOC shitting on communism
Sidestepping an obvious trap question =/= shitting on communism.
And the openness to communism exists independent of AOC, anyway. For example, she's endorsed by the DSA, and the DSA has plenty of communist caucuses.
Imagine thinking that endorsing communism is a trap and then pretending you are a communist. Just admit you are a liberal already. Stop the charade.
AOC isn't a communist. Anderson fucking Cooper asking "so you're socialist, right?" is obviously intended as a trap.
I’m talking about you. You believe that saying anything good about socialism is a trap. That’s saying a lot about your beliefs.
You believe that saying anything good about socialism is a trap.
lmao not remotely, keep guessing
That’s what you just said. It’s an “obvious trap” to say anything positive about real socialism whatsoever, so obviously AOC did the right thing by dodging the trap and shitting on socialism! - you the big brain socialist
I said Anderson Cooper asking a loaded question on national TV is a trap. That's not anywhere close to "no one can ever say anything good about socialism."
It may seem loaded to you because you are ashamed of the USSR and Cuba and Venezuela, but any principled communist would have affirmed their support and given reasoning why in a convincing snippet of rhetoric.
Instead the real big brain smart move is to denounce socialism and align yourself with bourgeois monarchies and look weak
you are ashamed of the USSR and Cuba and Venezuela
If you're going to tell me what I think just type out both ends of the conversation and save me some time.
Look, I know you want AOC to get up there and say Stalin committed zero crimes, and even then you'll attack her for not singlehandedly ending the Cuban embargo or something. It'll never be enough. But I can believe that's a terrible fucking idea that would be grossly counterproductive and still have no problem going out and talking to people about socialism myself. The optimal communication strategy for Some Guy On The Internet is a lot different than that of an elected representative.
The absolute bare minimum is don’t throw the entire projects under the bus and denounce them as wholly unconnected to you. Got it?
What are you even talking about? A one-line redirection of a loaded question isn't anything approaching that.
Socialist ideas aren't fragile. Whatever slight you're perceiving here is far, far offset by stuff like making it acceptable to call yourself a socialist in American politics.
