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US American communists, where do we go from here? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 6 days ago by to c/communism@lemmy.ml
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In the election mega on Hexbear, u/jack was pointing out that some PSL candidates got over 2% yesterday - which is a significant improvement over 2024.

An early exit poll showed 17% of people who voted identified as democratic socialist.

DSA-backed candidates performed really well, especially including the primaries earlier this year. And I’m including Angie Nixon in that, because she performed very well given the characteristics of Florida, possibly the most ideologically anti-socialist state in the union.

Plenty of polls over the last year show young voters in particular are very open the idea of socialism, even if they may not be working with a proper definition of socialism.

Anecdotallly, at a recent event for my union, in some personal conversations, there are quite a few brothers and sisters who are feeling very radical.

So my question is, in terms of tactics and strategy, where do we go from here?

I bring up all that above because I think they are indicators, and even the biggest anti-electoralist I don’t think would say we should ignore indicators. I am admittedly a huge weather station nerd. If I see my barometer drop and the winds start going east to west, I know a storm is coming. Right now our instruments are giving us a lot of useful information, but I’m thinking about how we interpret it and what do we do.

My early opinion is that we need to put more resources into educating and building up those US Americans who are sympathetic to socialism or identify as socialists but aren’t really educated on what that means or are involved in an org. I think we really need to build up leaders - everyone from savvy organizers to Marxist economists to people who can make cool art for their DSA chapter’s Instagram page to lawyers who can find little loopholes that can help us out. Obviously that’s a long term project and something we are already doing. But if you think of this stuff in terms of video game sliders, previously I had my “try and get people to not associate socialism or communism as ‘bad’” tuned all the way. Might pull that one down some and pull up “educating workers who already are down with socialism”.

But I’m just throwing that out there as an example of what I’m thinking, I’d rather hear from you all.

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[–] 0 points 6 days ago (1 child)

It took the outright fascists 50 years to solidify control over the functions of state. They organized, took over mass media, took over the churches, redefined the terms of debate and engagement, and leveraged the angst of generations and the white supremacy latent in the culture to create a reliable voting block out of single issue voters.

The same has to happen on the left. We need to find where the people are, undertand their needs and desires, and sell them on solutions that feel good, and that make sense to them, while also being genuinely pro-social and pro-worker. We need our own communication and media platforms that don't allow the technofascists from blocking our messages. We need to get people off of corporate social media and into spaces we can actually reach them, and we need to do it without actively pissing them off and getting them frustrated with us.

And we need to embed ourselves mainstream political parties. We need the more moderate, more socially acceptable of us to be on internal political party committees, to run for office, and to sell our ideals. Possibly without ever mentioning the "C" or "S" words. And we need a spillover party that both collects the more radical and, uh, grating members of the movement, and to promote more radical ideas and positions, providing an ideological anchor for the comrades in the mainstream parties, making them look more reasonable.

Now is the opportunity to make moves. The working class is angry at the right. Collect them now. Pull them away from their echo chambers, and from technofascist websites, and redirect their anger. Bring them here. Give them someplace new to feel a sense of community and belonging. Send out leaflets and newsletters. Create an alternate media ecosystem that laughs at the messages of individualims and exceptionalism.

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  • [–] 7 points 6 days ago

    The infiltration strategy is a lost cause. You cannot implement socialism within the boundaries of a capitalist state, and the people are the engine of revolution, meaning they themselves have to be socialist-minded and aware. You cannot "trick" people into socialism, this would collapse any goodwill a worker party had.

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