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.
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.
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.
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.
When you run on the status quo, and the status quo sucks, people are gonna turn to whoever manages to present themselves as an alternative.
When you run to the right, and the people who like right-wing policies already have a party giving them the policies they want, they’re not gonna switch parties, and you’re just going to alienate the parts of your base/coalition that are affected by those policies.
Not an effortpost but I think those are two simple, straightforward responses to anyone being like, “How could this possibly happen?”
I’m also running around countering any “she lost because she’s a woman” takes with with Tammy Baldwin in WI and Elissa Slotkin in MI winning despite their states going to Trump, which are two invaluable rhetorical data points, imo.
One step closer to revolution. Only time will tell if it’s a fascist one
I wish I could just work every day to meet quotas to achieve a five year plan and complain about how boring it is with my coworkers while hanging out in a public third space after our 5 hour full time shifts, before going home to our brutalist social housing block and calling it a day
(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.
