Am I reading something different than everyone else here? Because I completely understand what she’s trying to get at.
Leftists are dismissing the song because its early interest was astroturfed. This is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, because it has actual interest among people now, because of the astroturfing. How do we combat this problem? Just because we dismiss the song as astroturfed right-wing propaganda doesn’t mean the listeners are. The right is changing minds with content like this, and it’s problematic for us.
“It can’t be viral because it was astroturfed” isn’t a helpful assessment, because the song absolutely is viral now. It even came up in my feed on a music community. I clicked it because it looked like it would be up my alley based on the title and thumbnail (I enjoy folk music that shits on capitalists) and I only realized it was that song once I got to the line about people “milking welfare.” The astroturfing may have raised the song up the hill, but at a certain point it had enough views and such to carry it based on momentum.
What I think the author is trying to say is that the right is succeeding here, and largely leftist media fails to make the same impact. Probably because we don’t have the same connections that allow astroturfing that the people who pushed this song do. But that does leave a meaningful question: how do we reverse this trend and get people interested in leftist topics through arts and culture? How do we promote the material we have already created?
Edit: Oh no, I just heard it on the radio.
I’m reading the same thing. I think people are upset because they want her to be wrong, but the reality is that if there were to be a revolution in the US, Germany, or UK today, it would undoubtedly result in an openly and unrestrained fascist government. The reason leftism isn’t going viral has nothing to do with astroturfing and everything to do with a lack of an effective propaganda strategy given current material conditions. It’s possible that there IS no such strategy to be found. In this case, CJ is demanding something impossible, but the correct response is not to say she doesn’t get it but rather to actually do the work of attempting to develop a strategy or a theory. I think people are far too hopeful that Western leftists can actually get something revolutionary done.
I think a simple part of the problem is that fascism “has it easy” when it comes to messaging: they get to scapegoat easy targets, and appeal to populism. We do not have the luxury of such easy-to-consume messaging. This is also why our memes get made fun of for being wordy or hard to understand, whereas right-wing memes can be easily distilled to “haha minority bad.”
We’re also fighting against decades of entrenched liberal propaganda in each individual we try to reach, whereas fascists get to build upon that foundation.
I don’t disagree with you, mostly. I just think the conclusion from this has to be that the current outcome of any collapse or revolution will be open and bloody fascism. If we managed to change this and get better at propaganda, maybe we could move the needle to point more towards balkanization of the USA and some regions will be openly fascist and others will be openly communist. But right now, we suck at making things happen and the evidence is what you cite in your comment.
Leftists are dismissing the song because its early interest was astroturfed.
No, leftists dismissed the song before the astroturfing was discovered. After it was found out, it just reinforced what people thought to begin with.
Yes, I understand that. What I am trying to say is that they are dismissing the song’s impact as if every view was from a bot, when they are not. Real people are listening to and talking about it.
Who’s saying that? Yeah, there’s no doubt people are listening to the song, but c’mon 9.5 million views in 5 days? I’m sorry, most of those views are 100 percent astroturfed.
You just did, now. I’m saying that we know that not all of those are bot views simply because of the number of people talking about the song, and we shouldn’t dismiss its impact because it is absolutely having an impact.
You’d think, as a bunch of paid CCP sock puppets and shills, we’d have some better astroturfing of our own.
I’m with you. Sometimes it seems like we’re content to sit back and be proven right by the failures of capitalism, but if we want to actually build anything that lasts then we need to engage instead of sticking to our insular pockets. I do think federation has been a step in the right direction for that reason.
she thinks that people like the song despite the bigotry, when they obviously like it because of the bigotry. this isnt even a far right song, its an average conservative song. there are millions of conservatives in usamerica its moronic to think that the left needs a “response” to a regular ass racist song. if anything all the usamerican left cares about is propaganda.
Roger Waters has faces more backlash for simply opening his mouth on any given day of the week for the last forty five years than this fella has over the last week. It’s illegitimate to pretend like there hasn’t been a organized and concerted effort by elites controlling all forms of popular media to quell the left’s point of view for over 50 years. Where’s the lefty viral artists?
Pawn Stars Rick: “Best I can do is a Grimes.”
Where’s the lefty viral artists?
they were all found in burning cars
I’m glad I don’t know who these people are or what they’re referencing.
I get what she’s trying to say, as goofy as this hog song is, it did it’s job and people are eating it up. The left will never reach the masses with pro working class art, that stuff is going triple tinfoil and reaching nobody when you compare the numbers.
She later deleted it saying:
Gonna delete my “Rich Men North of Richmond” thread because too many people are mistaking it for an argument in defense of the song, which it isn’t. My fault for not communicating better. I’ll probably write an article fleshing out my thoughts later on.
Sure, Caitlin, we misunderstood what you were trying to say lol
I think she’s simply trying to say “fuck, we need a viral 2023 lefty song”.
Of course that shit might be boosted by the someone “tilting” the youtube algorithms, but also, a lot of people is reactionary. The virality of that shit might be “genuine”.
It’s concerning that astroturfed or not, two conservative/fash songs in quick succession seem (emphasis on the seem) to have had a way bigger impact outside of its usual base than any left wing music on the same people in the past 5 years. We can talk about how the working class of the imperial core can at best only be social chauvinist, and most of the time actively fash to justify it, and how the US is an actively fascist culture, but the observable effect is that two country songs with an openly bigoted and hateful message got big in the past month or two, and that requires some self-crit and reflection on what the left is doing in terms of mass art for the working class.
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I don’t think she was defending it. I genuinely think you misunderstood her.
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This. I have zero idea what any of these tweets are about. Nor do I really care. She has solid takes on things I do care about though.
A communist Tom Macdonald would be pretty amusing
Does this moron not realize there’s plenty of leftist folk singers out there and also that youtube is heavily astroturfed by the right who game the system?
If I read correctly, she does, she’s just saying “fuck, we need a 2023 viral lefty song”
Sure worded it weird and went on a tangent about it then.
I feel like we need to make an effort to understand what people are trying to say and not shame them for communicating their ideas in a way that we don’t understand. To do the latter can be unintentionally ableist.
I think that’s the curse of substack subsistence writer. Every online thing happening (in their sphere) must have a take for it and every take just be long winded and try to cram in a unique perspective as an advert for what you get if you subscribe, regardless of whether those things are warranted.
A bit of this, and I think she’s asking the question: why does the left not have viral songs that capture the imagination of the working class, too? I think she’s saying that astroturfing or not, the song has taken a hold in popular culture and that the left needs to get a move on rather than just point at past successes.
Isn’t that what she said? Lol
Caitlin Johnstone is good. She gets a little excited in her posts and tweets sometimes, but whom amongst us hasn’t?
Nah, she really isn’t. Aside from that she was spreading Pizzagate conspiracy nonsense as well as anti-lockdown/anti-vaccine mandate statements.
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650,000 people die of the flu every year. Do you support governments forcing everyone to take a flu vaccine, and if not why are you an evil anti-vaxxer who wants to murder 650,000 people a year?
My point of course is not that Covid is the flu, it’s that everyone who supports vaccine mandates has a line at which they believe they not be justified. It just happens that I and many others do not believe Covid is the line where such measures are just.
It’s not that vaccine mandates are never justifiable under any circumstances; a sufficiently deadly virus with a sufficiently excellent vaccine could make a solid case that such intrusive measures are necessary. It’s that this particular virus and vaccines don’t make such a case.
Three statements about mandates from her. As far I as I could tell, she hasn’t said anything about lockdowns being bad, so I misremembered.
Yeah I was wrong. I remembered her saying something a few years ago about how much money she could make saying covid was fake and the lockdowns and vaccines were a Bill Gates plot and she wasn’t going to go there, but she did jump into skepticism without going whole hog.
I knew this song was trouble when it popped into my feed. Its fash shit folks.
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Yeah I’m out of the loop too
Who the fuck is this guy and do I have to listen to the song or can I just ignore this?
It’s a song that lures in discontented working class types with lyrics that court their hatred of their bosses and rich people who flaunt their wealth, but it also promotes right-wing talking points like “welfare queens.” It’s being talked about here because it has become very popular on social media recently. You do not have to listen to the song, it is not very good.
Thanks, I had no idea who this was either. I’m gonna go back to listening to Benjamin Tod when I want to hear some working class folk music.
Because she does say many things that are correct and worthy of taking seriously
Think about all the incorrect/weird shit that all the acclaimed and celebrated Marxist philosophers wrote/said
because she mostly writes interesting ideas, even if she sometimes has really bad takes like these because she’s a complete idealist
But the notion that Anthony’s viral success owes nothing to his song and everything to the machinations of conservative apparatchiks is a bit odd. I have no insight into whether Anthony organically came onto the radar of right-wing commentators, who then used their clout to promote him, or was somehow recruited for a meticulously planned propaganda operation. Regardless, it is not as though Matt Walsh has the power to mint chart-topping country songs at will. If he did, he’d be in a different and more lucrative line of work. The music industry is perpetually trying to “Astroturf” hits through concerted and expensive promotional campaigns. It does not always work. Anthony’s song would not have gone viral if it lacked genuine appeal.
