Why are democratic socialists and non-ML types like Bernie Sanders, Hasan Piker (yes, I'm putting him alongside Bernie for laughs), Zohran Mamdani, AOC, non-commie Breadtubers, etc. looked down on as libs who enable the liberal establishment, despite constantly being critical of said establishment and voicing their hatred, frustration and opposition towards them? What do they do exactly?
Well, tbh I can see it with politicians like Bernie, AOC, etc., but what about the left wing influencer commentator types like Hasan or (I guess) Chapo Trap House? The former always says he hates the Dems and that we'll never get change with them, and that Bernie's too unwilling to not be a Dem Party guy, but he gets slammed as a lib who's a useful idiot for the Democrats. Why is that? I know he can be an arrogant douchebag, but I never fully understood when people online criticized such figures from the left.
keep that shit in /isg/
>>2493158IS-huh? Oh, that's a thing. OK, I'll check it out
>>2493151Every other day I am reminded by the newscasts that my country has so called "socialist" (socdem) parties, which used to call themselves communists (but democratic), in opposition to the USSR. Now the USSR is dead, they have gone from liberals to neoliberals. At least MLs and lefcoms tried to move towards communism.
>>2493151Those criticizing Bernie Sanders and AOC from the left know that they exist to co-opt US workers and youth into supporting the status quo of US capitalist imperialism against the rest of the world, not to organize workers as a force independent of the bourgeoisie, which is the opposite of what Marx, Engels, and Lenin said to do in a bourgeois election. Don't forget that the Democratic and Republican Parties are bourgeois political parties, and there's no possible way to reform them into a workers' party.
The Marxist position for bourgeois elections is not abstentionism, but rather organizing into a distinct revolutionary party of the working class for proletarian class domination that is independent of the bourgeoisie. Using the election to count forces and demonstrate its program to the masses, even if its candidates have no chance of winning. Voting for communist candidates is a duty if you call yourself a communist, to develop experience in the class struggle and spread propaganda to the masses.
Let's start with a link demonstrating my point about Bernie Sanders and AOC as an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOoTEDB7l18Now let's begin with three quotes from Marx and Engels on how communists should act in a bourgeois democratic election:
<Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body.
<Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 1850, "Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League"https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm
<The first great step of importance for every country newly entering into the movement is always the organisation of the workers as an independent political party, no matter how, so long as it is a distinct workers' party. And this step has been taken, far more rapidly than we had a right to hope, and that is the main thing. That the first programme of this party is still confused and highly deficient, that it has set up the banner of Henry George, these are inevitable evils but also only transitory ones. The masses must have time and opportunity to develop and they can only have the opportunity when they have their own movement–no matter in what form so long as it is only their own movement–in which they are driven further by their own mistakes and learn wisdom by hurting themselves.
<Frederick Engels, “Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1886”, Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge In Hobokenttps://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/letters/86_11_29.htm
<Complete abstention from political action is impossible. The abstentionist press participates in politics every day. It is only a question of how one does it, and of what politics one engages in. For the rest, to us abstention is impossible. The working-class party functions as a political party in most countries by now, and it is not for us to ruin it by preaching abstention. Living experience, the political oppression of the existing governments compels the workers to occupy themselves with politics whether they like it or not, be it for political or for social goals. To preach abstention to them is to throw them into the embrace of bourgeois politics. The morning after the Paris Commune, which has made proletarian political action an order of the day, abstention is entirely out of the question.
<We want the abolition of classes. What is the means of achieving it? The only means is political domination of the proletariat. For all this, now that it is acknowledged by one and all, we are told not to meddle with politics. The abstentionists say they are revolutionaries, even revolutionaries par excellence. Yet revolution is a supreme political act and those who want revolution must also want the means of achieving it, that is, political action, which prepares the ground for revolution and provides the workers with the revolutionary training without which they are sure to become the dupes of the Favres and Pyats the morning after the battle. However, our politics must be working-class politics. The workers' party must never be the tagtail of any bourgeois party; it must be independent and have its goal and its own policy.
<The political freedoms, the right of assembly and association, and the freedom of the press — those are our weapons. Are we to sit back and abstain while somebody tries to rob us of them? It is said that a political act on our part implies that we accept the exiting state of affairs. On the contrary, so long as this state of affairs offers us the means of protesting against it, our use of these means does not signify that we recognise the prevailing order.
<Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, "Apropos Of Working-Class Political Action".https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/09/21.htmLenin also agrees with me if you read the text “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder in the section written "Should We Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?", so I will leave the link to the page if you want to read it:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch07.htm >>2495777The issue is you cannot get a third party off the ground no matter what because of first past the post, all our unions are tied to the Democratic party and are inseparable from it
>>2495785Completely irrelevant, bourgeois parties that support imperialism are enemies and will be opposed to prevent workers from being co-opted. Furthermore, communists do not participate in elections with the interest of winning, but rather to spread revolutionary propaganda to the masses and workers' organizations, independent of the bourgeoisie, to advance the class struggle so that dual power can be formed and the bourgeois state can be pushed to its limits in crisis. Eventually, the workers and the revolutionary vanguard are prepared for the revolutionary situation. Therefore, the Democratic Party must be completely destroyed, and the entire bourgeoisie must give its full support to the Republicans and join them, without the ability to co-opt workers to support imperialist finance capital. The various labor parties of the past ran independently, even in first-past-the-post elections in Europe, against competing liberals and conservatives, and this changed nothing about the Marxist position.
bernie sanders is just a social democrat, it just that the US has become insane
What exactly is the issue with Mamdani though?
>>2495888He's capitulating to the party by retreating from his more radical positions and allowing the same huckster that sabotaged Bernie's 2020 run to head his campaign. The signs are there for it to be AOC all over again.
>>2495819When you do that the government comes and kills you
>>2496220Also irrelevant, if the capitalist government wishes to create some martyrs in the class struggle, then you prepare other workers and revolutionaries to continue the class struggle and the independence of the working class from the bourgeoisie. Eventually, all of this will be useful as propaganda to dismantle the bourgeois state and build the Workers' Self-Defense Committee to serve the interests of the proletarian class without the control of the bourgeoisie, in solidarity with the workers of the world.
This talk of yours is merely the opportunistic cowardice of a traitor seeking to co-opt workers to serve finance capital, fearing chaos and sacrifices that will prepare for the revolutionary situation to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat in the future that will spread revolutionary terror.
We can elect any Bernie/AOC type, but the contradiction of what this economy functions on (imperialism) and the limits of what they can reform will make them a failure hated from all sides. First, they or any Democrat will put back up any guardrails Trump knocks down which is another way of saying they will make themselves impotent. They will accept limits from congress and the judiciary, tools of the ruling class to besiege any such administration to try to make them a lame duck on day 1. They will try to bargain and sell out core left wing positions and probably keep the bombs and wars going after the press universally screams at them. And therefore they will be known as the president who didn't even achieve single payer whose failure all future socialists will be associated with. It's a waste of time!
Anyone trying to take on that crucible would have to be way more cynical, well read, and iron spined than AOC, she has already shown a capacity to be bullied and made a fool of by the same fucking establishment that Trump himself has run circles around. Anyone qualified to be better than AOC is immediately hated by the AOC/breadtube sphere, they chain themselves and everyone else with their programmed response to anything that can be cast as "tankie" policy, so they are at a dead end before they ever got started.
>>2513447
doesn't really apply to Turkish people though
They seem to love both cats and dogs
>what about the left wing influencer commentator types like Hasan or (I guess) Chapo Trap House?
They're vain, superficial, obnoxious, overprivileged clickbait media whores who don't have a shred of integrity or self-awareness.
Genuine socialists trying to infiltrate the system and reform it from within by playing the politics game are making a valiant effort to do something that actually makes a difference in the world. Are they overambitious and naive and perhaps even self-righteous idealist windbags? Of course they are. Are they going to succeed in their quest? Of course they won't. But at least their intentions are in the right place.
Hasan shocks, fucks and then eats his dog.
>>2513434They shoulda used a picture of a dog that actually looks like Hassan's dog for this meme. Lazy craftsmanship tbh
>>2494580Islamist cope lmao
>>2513458I too basically just right off all e-celebs,podcasters,influencers and most youtubers and streamers for the same reasons regardless of what they believe in.
>>2495888Supporting regime change in South America should be a nonstarter. Bro is a worm.
>>2515049write off*, like you've got a checklist of things and you see something that makes you conclude that item checked then and there. I used to say "right off" too don't worry.
Because demsoc’s want to increase class consciousness democratically in order to get enough support for a Coup. I don’t think that’s bad.
>>2515245left kautskyism gang
>>2513634This is actually a good version lol. Tho the original spicy key chain image might be my favorite funny of all time so I'm easily persuaded in this instance
>>2493151The problem with not establishing a proletarian dictatorship is that you're always in danger of a grifter like Javier Milei winning and destroying everything.
American politics is so right-wing that the best we're ever going to get is a Sanders, AOC or Mamdani. Don't get me wrong, I understand none of them are perfect or all that radical for that matter, but that's just something we have to accept.
Any socialism that happens in America will ultimately retain whatever came before it. Social democracy is the only thing worth fighting for at this moment. There is literally zero point to being an anarchist, Marxist-Leninist, or Maoist (especially an anarchist or Maoist) in America today, and possibly not for the next 30-40 years. Even if a Maoist party were to seize power in America, all they would be able to implement would be social democracy. That's it.
So yes, it makes perfect sense to support AOC or Mamdani despite their obvious flaws.
>>2493151"Democratic socialism" is a dumb tautology but it's still socialism. Only problem is that mainstream politicians who utilize this label are closer to socdems (aka capitalists) not demsocs (aka socialists), so it gets muddled.
>>2525745If Maoists somehow took control it would mean the USA was already extremely destabilized, so they'd be able to implement a lot more of their agenda than you're assuming they would.
Because succdems are just would be revolutionaries but they have been caught in the party politics and IDpl spectacle
Bernie Sanders would probably be considered a centrist by European standards.
>>2526198it's possible he just hides his power level and he's actually much more hardcore because he doesn't want to scare the average voter
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