I think they mean the situation where someone is in a class but some people are working harder than them and they don't want to feel inferior to how much the hard working students will do well than you so they make fun of these hard working students to belittle their self esteem.

In other words, in the USA, the left is very weak and marginal, whereas the BRICKS coalition is undermining imperialism better than the American left ever could, so they insult the parties that they are actually jealous of for succeeding where they should be succeeding.