There would be little point of having any interest in politics if this was true.

I beg to differ. The Climate is Changing, we need to pump the breaks on that. On the Concentration Camps. On everything we see.

Acknowledging the Accelerationists are in power is not the same thing as siding with them.

Incorrectly assuming there is nothing we can do lets the fascists win.

Agreed. But assuming that the only thing we can do is Vote? Is just as useless. Go actually help a person today.

Everyone should have voted for Harris in the last election.

Agreed. And the Party should have let Bernie win the 2016 Primary. But continuing to talk about them as though they are current day issues is as absurd as pretending Trump is some kind of Populist.

Giving up cultural capital to the fascists is a needless ceding of ground to fascists. We should celebrate what American has gotten right while still criticizing what American has gotten wrong.

Have you actually read “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn? Or are you just referencing Grade School fairy tales with “what America got right”?

I’m worried that by “refusing to cede cultural capital” that all you’re doing is cosigning the same roots of fascism that made Trump inevitable.

I’m worried you’re not prepared to actually address the criticisms of people actually harmed without tone policing the critique like you’re a Kamala staffer, and find it escalate from there:

https://www.therednation.org/the-red-nation-podcast-3/

This is why the indigenous didn’t swing for Kamala, by the way.

But the only way socialists candidates can even win an election is for people to fill out ballots.

Sure, I’ll vote. Again. But whether I come alone or with friends depends on whether the party allows a platform worth voting for.

The Acceleration is already locked in, and denying it is Liberal Fantasy. Now if we wanna pump the breaks? I need your help getting tools to build a movement.

Looking back at the failure of Kamala is not how to convince anyone. At all. Ever. Its a great way to get written of as a useless Liberal that can only be trusted to fill out a rigged ballot.

If you wanna dissect Kamala’s failure, build a strategy to do better in that environment? Let’s go, I’m down. But wallowing in “Kamala should be President” is how you get treated like a dirty lib.

Come join us in reality. The “Glorious Past” was fucking terrible too.

Well, different rhetoric for different locales.

This has been fun!

Next time let’s explore how you might bring up some Appalachian history that isnt being taught.

Those people ate out of Bernie’s hand on his fox news town hall.

At that pivot, sometimes before? I like to come out of the closet as a raging Leftist, and promising that I hate Liberals more than my audience does. “I want you to have a fair shot, even if you’ve been told I’m the devil.” I need a context where that won’t get me shot to pull that out.

“Capitalism just means that everything is owned by those elites that don’t f#$king live here.” Is one of my favorite lines. It goes well with calling the person in front of me “my neighbor because I can look you in the eye.”

See, when that pivot point hits, the conservatives I’ve known all either laugh it off or get angry. It’s not “Oh wow, I actually agree with these points!”, but “Ha ha, that’s a neat trick, like asking someone for Pen 15” or “This damn dirty crypto-liberal is trying to trick me with his mind games!”

Practice helps. So does being a stranger that’s visibly working class. I suspect you’ve run into a wall for being known and as a “hostile” for being a “liberal”. My best success comes from when I can get around that, one on one. Got a former coworker who still goes to that evangelical church, but watches Democracy Now every day.

But also… Yeah, that happens. Sometimes it makes people question their ideas, sometimes we’re sewing seeds for someone else to water. And that’s okay.

In a very real way, we are talking about Christian-style evangelism.

But you’re argument is an excellent example of how to be politically ineffective so I’ll keep dismantling it. People need to out grow this mindset of preserving their personal moral purity in order to be politically effective. Instead they’ll need to learn how to analyze what strategies are the most useful.

You’re spending time pressuring a post-anarchist voter to vote. Im a walking contradiction, but you won before this conversation started.

I’m spending my time asking you to pressure the Democratic Party for a coherent platform. At the point in the election cycle where they could actually have something workable for the coming elections.

They Democrats are our best electoral hope. Its time they took this seriously. If I promise to vote, can I ask you to demand the party infrastructure actually function?

This idea that we should only support democratic socialists like Mamdani and Bernie is ridiculous and is definitively accelerationist.

Are you familiar with the concept of “kayfabe” from American pro-wrestling? I need the Corporate Democrats to fear ALL of us walking away so they don’t do… Exactly what they’re doing to Mamdani anyway. 😓 that didn’t work.

But when it comes down to it? After the primaries, we still need to hold our nose and think of the Climate and all people first, for any even-marginal slowdown. Results matter.

With that out of the way? The Democrats have a chance to actually be a part of real change, real success, and to build a real future for the party and country. But they’re refusing. It is maddening.

Did you see the way Walz alienated the indigenous voters? I’m deeply curious about what response you get from Palestinian-Americans grieving their families. To absolve Democrats of their inability to message coherently when we need it most? Is simply unacceptable.

Some part of me wishes for a Local that could run as a Republican as a DSA member, and get entrenched that way. I would knock on so many doors for that person. The Parties have switched before.

But this is the time to pressure the Democrats for a platform worth voting for in 2026 and 2028 - what are you doing? This isn’t maximizing their success.

But you’ll argue against voting for candidates who aren’t fascists in future election. Even if that means the fascists will continue to genocide the people you pretend to care about. No thanks.

Again, I voted the same way you did. It was self defense. I’m pissed off at Democrats for using this to consistently concede towards the Right for decades, but I don’t have the power to create a better choice. And further, I felt that every piece of rhetoric to bring comrades with me? Was taken from me by the liberals who wanted my vote.

How much of this was media “dissonance”? We really should unpack. Not to declare blame, but to prepare for it next time.

Comrade, we’ve been arguing from what is actually two sides of the same position. I’d rather focus on what’s next than what’s past for its own sake, and that’s how you came off to me.

I’d rather focus on what gets people excited - Mamdani, rn.

If I may be permitted a moment to disappear up my own asshole: I just deleted several paragraphs unpacking something I’m going to describe as “post-anarcho-nihilism.”

The Acceleration is locked in - just look at Texas flooding again. Again again. Use anything and everything you can for collective human dignity and survival.

And even I vote Blue, holding my nose the whole way. But sometimes I’ll fall short in bringing sources of valid, quality info to my community about when its time to bring them to the ballot box for a holding-action on that deepening Acceleration.

What do you suggest we do better next time?

Nah, I didn’t understand quite who I was talking to, and chose a frame a Liberal would take the way you’re taking it.

But when you’re talking about Democracy within a single party? An American isn’t going to understand the party as a structure to unify all, they’re going to take it as the domination of one Camp over another. And that’s something I need Communists to take from that same statement.

An American is not going to see anything they recognize as Democracy in the DPRK. Especially when three leaders in a row are named Kim, we’re going to see a Monarchy.

Is that reality? I don’t have the access to know. But I have read enough Kim Il Sung to realize how much of their theory really isn’t that different from anything else leftist, just presented in a way that fit the moment for the Korean people.

Simply searching ‘Mamdani’ by user ‘PugJesus’ comes up with:

Thanks for the tutorial.

And yeah, I’m falling into an old pattern of arguing with people I agree with. Im actually arguing against a real Liberal I see elsewhere, but don’t have the standing to argue against without social consequence.

Damn. My bad comrade.

Cynicism. The idea that these people are ready to be our comrades with just the right phrasing is, unfortunately, insanity. The core issue is not misinformation, or the wrong policies - otherwise you would be right, there is hope. The core issue has been the development and cultivation of sickened values over the past 70 years that are directly contrary to functional politics.

100% real. But a LOT of them have this double think about the older values too. The values they act on come from a cultivated fear that’s been maintained so long its seeped into the whole ass person. This is the core of what Fascist Movements look like, unironically.

They need cult-deprogramming. Which means extracting them from their entire current cultural context, and replacing it. This is easiest with an online-only dudebro that’ll probably end up a mass shooter if we don’t. But a whole community? A whole Trump-worshipping church?

The “Republican Jesus” memes never escape Liberal circles. They need someone they can recognize as their own to call them out. I won’t be happy until there’s protests outside of Megachurches calling the Pastor a “Grifting Antichrist”, telling the Parrish to Repent this Sin.

I suppose I can’t speak to that. My experience is overwhelmingly with poor, rural, religious conservative America.

My experience is varied. Some of the rural folk, but also the men who think they’re above that, and think Trump will cut their taxes. Evangelicals too.

I’ve even gone off on some religious nut to “repent his following an Antichrist,” which spooked him enough to make him leave.

1984 had it fucking right, man. The level of people to engage in doublethink is overwhelming.

Calling them on that outright rarely does anything, unless we can get someone else to follow up with the same until we wear them down. And they blow up every single time.

Alright, but many of them take a perverse pride in poverty, don’t work three jobs, and quite explicitly love the elite. Like, the level of idolization of rich folk who share their dogwhistles that goes on is insane.

See, my first instinct is to call those elites they love? Manipulate Liberals. But that takes work and deep cultural access and context to discern, and I rarely have that.

Elite hate isn’t a smokescreen for something more nefarious - step back, take in the full view of their position, and it is literally just that - hate for elites. The issue is that the ‘elites’ they despise are people who make them feel ‘lesser’ intellectually.

This is why I usually start with a frame of hating Liberals. Out loud. 5-10 minutes of “sounding like Tucker” to get them nodding along. Invite them to learn. Whether they do or don’t, make them feel smart for even nodding along… And then switch the frame when we hit a natural pivot point. It doesn’t work every time, but they at least walk away respecting me for not being an elitist Liberal.

And the worst part is, many of these people are not stupid, inherently. But they’ve been raised to see incuriosity about their preconceptions as a virtue. They will simultaneously express what a BADASS REBEL they are by meekly submitting to conservative social norms and what a GOOD UPSTANDING LAW-ABIDING CITIZEN they are for meekly submitting to conservative norms. And if you point it out, they see no contradiction. Which, in practice if not principle, to be fair, I suppose there isn’t.

Crystalized as “conservative is the new punk rock” in more recent years. I see that.

This is where I talk about being good neighbors. When my neighbor hurts, it hurts me. And if I can look you in the eye? You’re my neighbor. I owe you some basic respect simply for you being here. How can I help, neighbor?

A fair point.

The emphasis on voting, and openly running defense for Liberal politicians.

As much as I tell you I voted for Kamala, and beg you you to say Zohran Mamdani’s name and acknowledge him as a Democrat in your unrolled “vote blue no matter who” screeds, you’re gonna project that “purity” onto me?

Do you want to actually unpack what I actually believe to understand the absurdity of your statement, or do you wanna be a useless shitlib that knows “you’re right”?

Believing in shared ideals like freedom and justice for all means rejecting a state when it abandons those ideals.

Good. Glad to hear you’re not that kind of “patriot”.

The whole point of rejecting a national identity is to form a broader human identity. But instead of that people seem to take leftism as another kind of American libertarian individualism were the goal is to reject being apart of anything bigger than yourself.

You’re on the right track. Think Globally, act Locally.

What if I told you that any genuinely Left Irish Republicanism, even from the Irish Diaspora, requires calling for a Free Palestine? We have arrived at that same human collective conclusion while allowing for Pride in our own identity to participate in cementing that.

About Zohran Mamdani, say the words, Liberal: Vote Blue No Matter Who.

Say it.

Quit dancing around it, quit pretending this has nothing to do with everything else I’ve brought up in our discussion.

Say the Line, Bart.

Say it.

Because when all I hear is “vote blue no matter who” unpacked, without acknowledging him? Is Liberal Cope, from a meat-bot that cannot acknowledge the reality implied by the principles it spews.

No more dancing. No more trying to be clever. Say the fucking line, Bart, and be an actual person again.

Yes. And I am arguing which option is the “island of one” is Patriotism.

What’s passed? Is in the past. I voted for Kamala.

Going forward? We’re in the time to actually put pressure on the Democrats NOW for a platform worth voting for.

Now. Can we get some support for Zohran Mamdani, America’s Next Mayor, and harbinger of a New Democratic Party? Or are you too busy arguing with brick walls that they “shoulda, coulda, woulda” ?

Still digging, not seeing your comments on Mamdani.

But the way you run defense for Biden and Cuomo without actually committing to them? Doesn’t leave me hopeful that I can call you a “comrade” in any sense.

Critiquing the Soviet Union? With Nuance? Actually Based. I wanna see what happens when you read William Hinton’s (admitted racist) firsthand account of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in his book “FanShen” and his secondhand account of the reversal in “ShenFan”.

I use the first as evidence that we can do better when we talk to each other - that “ground game” you maligned in this thread. I use the second to describe the Strong-State’s problem of accountability for leadership’s incompetence, and the incentive for workers to outright Lie as a survival measure.

There is hope for you yet. But I would love to hear you explain what soaking in a rightwing geography has pushed you to.

And yes, I still want to hear your thoughts on Zohran Mamdani. They’re buried. Either I need a new interface that makes this search easier, or a restatement.

fucking what? I’ve commented numerous times on Mamdani??

My bad, I’ll dig thru your profile for that.

Bruh. I lived in a deeply conservative area for most of my life. My social circles were deeply conservative, and I feigned being ‘apolitical’ to avoid having to go nuclear at a time when my living position was precarious.

I feel that, and I can relate. I’m less precarious today.

Thinking that there’s a commonality of dislike there is falling for the extremely thin mask they put on whenever some liberal gives them pushback. It’s not real. They immediately drop the mask when around people they think are similar to them.

Oh, that? That’s not what I’m talking about for a motive. But in retrospect, I can see how I read that way.

We have to distinguish between a spectrum of rightwingers - the ones who know the dogwhistles are such, and those who are so uneducated they bought the frame of “small government” as good in its own right because “everyone agrees”. Like it’s a religion they were raised in.

“Hating the elites” (whatever that means) isn’t a coherent political idea as a result. Having 3 jobs and being pissed that you’re still broke? That’s a coherent political thought they don’t even have the vocabulary to express.

Is the “elite-hate” just antisemitism pretending to look vaguely leftish? Potentially. Or has this dudebro been so starved of literacy that he takes the dogwhistle unironically, but won’t connect “billionaire” with that on his own? This is a spectrum.

I’d rather find and talk to the drive of “why am I still poor when I work this hard?”

If an upscale clothing store manager steps to me talking about “these kids don’t know how to work,” I’m acknowledging how exhausted he looks. His is not a life of dignity, and I will say this to him. The education system has failed him through his trainees, and he is being asked to pick up the slack. Where are bank tellers going to come from when kids graduate unable to count money? What kind of AI are data scientists going to build when they don’t understand what each statistics distribution describes?

We are failing to invest in our country, and he will either see how this affects him personally, or he will walk away seething. If he brings up DEI or trans anything, or immigrant crime? I have a one-liner to address it and move back to the real conversation - you work too hard bro, and its because our systems are failing.

This is a hilarious and I relate, but it doesn’t actually help us. Or anyone. One sandwich to a homeless man? Is more actual benefit to the world than saying this.

Unless you go and start a conversation with a Red-hatter this way. Get them riled up and cheering for how you HATE the same people they do, and use it to glean some motivation deeper than “owning the libs.”

Then you can maybe, just maybe talk to a voter about how society has left them behind too. From experience, they have the same concerns, fears, pressures as what drives people to the Left, its just been twisted by gaslighting propaganda about who we are. Before I could bring this red-hatter to a pride parade, they need a LOT of therapy. But for many there is realistic hope.

You still haven’t commented on Mamdani, and that disappoints me.

Meanwhile, I’m here saying “both”.

Do both.

Actually go help your neighbor in person. Directly. Personally. Help your fucking neighbor.

If you want Lefties excited to go vote, give us something to vote for instead of against where the Centrist Libs concede to the Fash every god damn time.

What are your thoughts on Zohran Mamdani? Give me candidates like that, and I’ll bring 20 non-voters to the polls, and each will cast a ballot.

Give me another Clinton, another Cuomo, another Biden? Sorry, when I vote, I vote alone - and this isn’t up to me.

Which way, Western Man? Grow the voter base, grow the party? or grow the campaign warchest from donors that want both sides indebted to their lobbyists?

How we vote in the Primary is how we can get money out of politics.

In the meantime, have you made a sandwich to give away to a stranger? Have you handed a history book to a stranger? Have you had conversations about WHY Fascism doesn’t address our neighbors’ needs?

Your lack of groundwork is disturbing. For as much as you care, you come off like a filthy Casual this way. Let’s fix that?