- Get asked an obvious trap question by a pro-capitalist journalist who’s at least flirted with the CIA
- Give an answer obviously intended to soften Americans’ rabid opposition to even the word “socialism”
- Get ripped by online leftists for not going full “Stalin committed zero crimes,” which we all know to be the most effective way to move CNN-watching libs left
You’re operating under the false assumption that Social-Democrats are in any way shape or form allies of socialism instead of the imperialist capitalist classcollaborators and enemies within they have consistently been since they were forced to abandon Marxism due to the success of 1917
Give an answer obviously intended to soften Americans’ rabid opposition to even the word “socialism”
If “softening” the word socialism to the point it means capitalism with a welfare state I’d rather she didn’t attempt to soften and coopt socialism and remove its revolutionary content
Get ripped by online leftists for not going full “Stalin committed zero crimes,” which we all know to be the most effective way to move CNN-watching libs left
Firstly, Stalin did commit crimes (not shooting Kruschev, taking the moral high ground in 1925 when Kamenev and Zinoviev wanted to assassinate Trotsky etc.), secondly “moving left” is infantile. AOCs politics wouldn’t be out of step with most of post-war Labour party in UK.
And they ran the British empire just as well as the tories and why AOC capitulates on imperialism exactly the same
You’re operating under the false assumption that Social-Democrats are in any way shape or form allies of socialism
They self-identify as democratic socialists, not social democrats, a distinction Bernie made a point to draw. Coupled with credible opposition to capitalism, and with the necessity of not writing off everyone but my five True Leftist friends, they’re certainly worth counting as allies, at least for the moment.
“moving left” is infantile
Moving people left is literally the only way we’re going to get enough leftists to do anything. The vast majority of people aren’t going to wake up one day and decide to be a communist. The vast majority of Americans – steeped from birth in hardcore anticommunism – won’t even decide to be a communist as soon as they read communist literature. the vast majority of Americans won’t even consider reading communist literature to begin with. We have to walk people down the path. That means getting them to take one step left, then another, then another. Each step helps.
AOC capitulates on imperialism
AOC has had zero meaningful interaction with U.S. imperialism, and has had exactly zero real opportunity to stop any part of it. She’s a first-term representative who doesn’t even sit on any foreign policy committees. Criticizing her over something she’s had no power to change is needlessly pessimistic, and is not the way we should be treating the very few people who are moving in the right direction.
If AOC is a Democratic Socialist, why didn’t she point to Chile instead of these dogshit imperialist nations?
Stalin and Mao’s popularity has risen in recent years in tandem with the rising popularity of socialism. It’s obvious you don’t need to throw the prime examples of socialism under the bus to spread class consciousness, so why alienate actual communists and third-word leftists for seemingly no benefit?
Well she shouldn’t say things in an inflammatory and obtuse way, but there are ways to frame things better. Think to yourself how Richard Wolff would have answered this question. It still appeals to libs and it still defends socialism without distorting what socialism is.
Stalin and Mao’s popularity has risen in recent years
This is an extremely online take. The amount of people who will even say “you know, Stalin and Mao were good on balance” is small – even here, you’ll find some opposition to that. This isn’t throwing anyone under the bus, either; it’s sidestepping the subject of actual existing socialist countries altogether.
why alienate actual communists and third-word leftists for seemingly no benefit?
The benefit is getting significant numbers of people to soften their opposition to leftist ideas, and that’s absolutely crucial because we’re going nowhere unless we get tens of millions of more Americans to become leftists. American communists are already alienated from AOC – look around this thread – so there’s no real cost to this, either. Similarly, third-world leftists, being outside the country, aren’t going to be able to help bring socialism to the United States.
It’s not just AOC that’s alienating us, it’s people like you who defend her. You are creating a synthetic American “left” that is anti-communist and detached from the global proletarian movement.
How well did that work the last 50 times you yanks tried it? When will you learn solidarity?
