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?
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?
You are creating a synthetic American “left” that is anti-communist
The American left today is as communist-friendly as it’s been since McCarthyism.
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.
