YOU are speaking!
Have you made any poignant commentary on the recent election in the U.S.? Do you have a good response to liberals who are upset with the results or process of the election? Have you written or seen something as a comment reply/post that you think has standalone value? Did you see a new take or analysis you hadn’t previously considered?
Whether it’s a long idea with lots of context, or a short and sweet one liner, we want those thoughts aggregated here. This post is intended to be a resource for comrades to draw from when having actual discussions outside of Hexbear both online or IRL regarding the election.
Consider this a mini-effortpost aggregator. This is not for shitposts, but humor is completely acceptable if it helps make the point.
I’ll start by just saying that the classic response to the election results remains timeless:
If democrats were serious about protecting the things you cared so much about, they would have taken the election more seriously than nominating a candidate who so clearly had dementia that they were eventually forced to pull him from the race. They only pulled him from the race just months before the election because his mental decline was so obvious that it was completely indefensible, and that’s after he did untold damage in both voter turnout and campaign time.
And he is still in Office too. Really shows how incompetent they are at doing anything political that isn’t just civility coronation pecking order BS.
Never ever forget that what did Joe in was not him bankrolling a genocide but a bad TV performance. Then they ran his VP. These people were never serious about winning.
A softer list I made on a Lemmy.ml thread that got a good amount of momentum and very little pushback on what liberals should do in the coming years, a mini What is to be Done?
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Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to the Workers to protect themselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there’s an org you like more near you and join it, the point is that organizing is the best thing any leftist can do.
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Read theory. A good primer is Blackshirts and Reds. It will help contextualize what fascism is, what causes it, and how to stop it. I can offer a good introductory reading list regarding Marxism if you’d like, but this is a good starting point.
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Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground.
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Be more industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well. Theory guides practice, which sharpens theory to be reapplied to better practice.
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Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. The Democrats will not save us, we must save each other.
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Be persistent. If you feel like a single water driplet against a mountain, think of the Grand Canyon. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.
Here’s a little “intro to Marxism-Leninism” list I threw together, modified a bit. It’s critically missing Queer Theory, Feminist Theory, and National Liberation theory, so any additions on that matter would be excellent. I am working through intersectional theory right now, which is why it is missing from this present list, the goal is to be as straight to the point as possible.
A good intro for someone with no familiarity is Engels’ Principles of Communism and if you are anti-AES but willing to read I recommend Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds.
From there, it becomes more important to understand that Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components:
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Dialectical and Historical Materialism
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Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx’s Law of Value
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Advocacy for Revolutionary Socialism
And as such, I recommend, in order:
- Politzer’s Elementary Principles of Philosophy
By far my favorite primer on Dialectical and Historical Materialism. By understanding DiaMat first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism.
Further reading on DiaMat, but crucially introduces the why of Scientific Socialism, essentially explaining how Capitalism itself preps the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates.
- Marx’s Wage Labor and Capital as well as Wages, Price and Profit
Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value.
Absolutely crucial and the most important work for understanding the modern era and its primary contradictions.
- Lenin’s The State and Revolution
Excellent refutation of revisionists and Social Democrats who think the State can be reformed, and not replaced. Also a good call to action to cap off the intro.
After reading all of this, whoever has completed these works should have a good grasp of the basics of Marxism-Leninism and be equipped to do their own Marxist-Leninist analysis, though tons of excellent and fairly critical works were dropped for the sake of limiting the scope to an intro reading list.
maybe for 6. you could add foundations of leninism i thought it was pretty good as an summary of lenin, maybe add one that focuses on colonialism like Wretched of the Earth
Leaning heavily towards Fanon, need to read it myself first but additionally I am trying to find a good, easy link for it that isn’t just anna’s archive. Epubs and online versions are much nicer for quick agitprop IMO.
Foundations of Leninism is good, but I do think the rest of the works thus far touch the same bases. Plus, since this is directed at libs, I fear linking Stalin may scare too many away, when the primary purpose is churning out MLs who will read Stalin at some point anyways, still going back and forth on that one in my head. Trying to capture the radical sentiment of disillusioned American libs in the aftermath of having their worldview rocked, not existing comrades. (Don’t want to create ultras, but if you ask me reading the works listed should logically prevent ultrafication due to the inclusion of Blackshirts)
cowbee i remembered that our comrades at ChunkaLutaNetwork had an online archive-library maybe there are some good book pdfs about decolonial stuff
(On Democrats running to the right to appease donors, rather than left to appease voters, and losing the election)
They always will, they serve the same donors and bourgeois powers. Marx and Lenin are vindicated by the passage of time. They were not clairvoyant, they just accurately analyzed the systems around them and saw what necessarily follows from their directions.
Everyone, get organized, read theory, learn self-defense and self-sufficiency. A good primer is Blackshirts and Reds. Defend yourselves and protect each other.
I made a similar post from some early successes I’ve had today. Most of it is functionally aftercare. Here’s the gist:
- Holy shit this worked REALLY REALLY WELL. STRIKE NOW COMRADES (shoutout to @Sickos)
- I also had good luck with this so far.
I’ve also had success with: “The disenchantment with the Democratic party will pave the way for a true 3rd party that represents regular folks instead of rich donors.”
so do they have to wait until the 3rd party gets crushed to learn about the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and that the only use for electorialism is as publicity for its own failings?
Losing is unimportant, just look at Trump lmao!
More seriously, electoralism can be a gateway for actual organizing, and there is use to running doomed campaigns. From talking about why third party candidates have uses
that workers’ candidates are nominated everywhere in opposition to bourgeois-democratic candidates. As far as possible they should be League members and their election should be pursued by all possible means. 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.
can be a gateway for actual organizing
this is what I was trying to imply with “publicity for its own failings” but I could have been clearer
Your post partially inspired my post here: Let a hundred local socialist parties bloom
Summary for those who won’t click through is:
- we know as socialists we need to “organize”
- liberals are ready to get serious (trump bad)
- there are many reasons currently to not jump in to an existing org (it doesn’t exist near you, “political differences”, liberal friends aren’t ready to leap in to it with you etc…)
- logical, though experimental, approach is to create a “microparty” with your friends. Then you are organized and you have a platform to educate them while also working as a political unit.
- next step is to merge your microparty with an org that actually matters, or maybe you grow big enough to get something done in your city, or maybe yours is the best one and other microparties coalition and/or merge with you?
