I seem to be getting some positive feedback for this post so I want to emphasize that going full doomer isn't a good idea. The role of Marxists, the builders of revolutionary workers' parties, is to give people a genuine source of hope. This is incredibly difficult to do without first disabusing cynical and demoralized people of a tendency to equivocating any and all forms of hope with false hope.
Those who believe that a better world was possible and have given up must be convinced that it still is possible if they're to become useful to liberation movements rather than defaulting to reactionary thought or resorting to useless small-scale terror after taking the black pill and collapsing under the added weight of the last straw. Capitalist realism is the first barrier that has to be broken, a barrier only penetrable through consistent, disciplined organization. Think about the working- and lower-middle-class libs who wanted M4A but voted for Biden...in the primary. Consider the grim pessimism that must have compelled the Bernie voters who refused to let go and move on to independent socialism to vote for Biden in the general, knowing fully that they were still voting against their class interests.
Imagine if the Greens or PSL had had their shit together ten years ago, how dramatically different the conversation might have been. Imagine if the DSA weren't led by Dem-entryists, and had focused more on non-electoral work and developing their membership instead of using the Bernie hype to accumulate thousands of inactive paper members. Imagine if SAlt had stood against the stream and refused to endorse Bernie or tail behind DSA. The road to cynicism and despair that still haunts us is paved not only with broken promises by liberals, but failures and shortcomings on the part of what should be the organized left. I still hold a grudge against the surviving boomer left for selling out completely to the Democrats and NGOs, especially the ex-revolutionaries who absolutely should have fucking known better. Especially the sheepdog sellouts like Bernie, who peddled false hope in reformism and collaborated with the enemy instead of pointing the way forward when his bid inevitably failed.
I seem to be getting some positive feedback for this post so I want to emphasize that going full doomer isn't a good idea. The role of Marxists, the builders of revolutionary workers' parties, is to give people a genuine source of hope. This is incredibly difficult to do without first disabusing cynical and demoralized people of a tendency to equivocating any and all forms of hope with false hope.
Those who believe that a better world was possible and have given up must be convinced that it still is possible if they're to become useful to liberation movements rather than defaulting to reactionary thought or resorting to useless small-scale terror after taking the black pill and collapsing under the added weight of the last straw. Capitalist realism is the first barrier that has to be broken, a barrier only penetrable through consistent, disciplined organization. Think about the working- and lower-middle-class libs who wanted M4A but voted for Biden...in the primary. Consider the grim pessimism that must have compelled the Bernie voters who refused to let go and move on to independent socialism to vote for Biden in the general, knowing fully that they were still voting against their class interests.
Imagine if the Greens or PSL had had their shit together ten years ago, how dramatically different the conversation might have been. Imagine if the DSA weren't led by Dem-entryists, and had focused more on non-electoral work and developing their membership instead of using the Bernie hype to accumulate thousands of inactive paper members. Imagine if SAlt had stood against the stream and refused to endorse Bernie or tail behind DSA. The road to cynicism and despair that still haunts us is paved not only with broken promises by liberals, but failures and shortcomings on the part of what should be the organized left. I still hold a grudge against the surviving boomer left for selling out completely to the Democrats and NGOs, especially the ex-revolutionaries who absolutely should have fucking known better. Especially the sheepdog sellouts like Bernie, who peddled false hope in reformism and collaborated with the enemy instead of pointing the way forward when his bid inevitably failed.