Chatters deflated this dude in record time. Weaponizes mental illness and then immediately back peddled saying “you know that’s not what I mean”. Paints them as monoliths BE fans. Puts a ban out on all BE supporters in the chat for being “parasocial thinkers”. Then mopes and pouts for the next 20+ minutes.
I enjoy Hasan, I like the Fear& podcast, but I also see his limitations, and it fully drives me up a wall when he starts dropping “mental illness” derogatorily. Use that college education and find some new fucking words.
Anyway, I don’t know much about Graham Platner, but I love this part of his Wikipedia page:
He was pictured holding a sign reading “Free Kosovo, Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine, Kurdistan, Tibet”. When he was 18, he was quoted in the Bangor Daily News after protesting President George W. Bush and the Iraq War at an appearance by Bush at Bangor International Airport.[7]
Platner enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly after graduating from high school, and served three tours in Iraq, in areas including Ramadi and Fallujah.
How do you get from “protesting the Iraq war” to “did three tours in Iraq including Fallujah”?
I get it, he’s doing the populist thing, but we should be clear that populism isn’t socialism by it self. If I have that wrong then maybe Donald Trump is the greatest socialist of our time.
I have more faith in Zohran coming out of the DSA then this guy coming off the oyster boat. I have a funny feeling he won’t be met with the same resistance that these DSA candidates are getting hit with. At least there is a chance thr DNC turns on the DSA and forces them to rethink their strategy. There is nothing supporting this guy should he get the same treatment. I don’t think he will though. I think the dems like dudes who do 5 tours as an imperial foot soldier and another as a security contractor for the State Department.
everything i learn about streamers is against my will
Glad to be of service!
All I need to know about Graham Planter is he was an AmeriKKKan soldier, a combat veteran, and mentions being a veteran in his political ads like it’s a positive rather than an albatross around his neck.
I have a very simple and effective heuristic for AmeriKKKan soldiers and especially “combat veterans” who are not World War 2 vets:
If they’re good, they apologize anytime they bring it up, and they never act like it was a good thing. If they’re bad, they treat it positively (or, if they treat it positively, they’re by definition bad).
Graham treats it positively. Therefore, fuck him.
4 tours plus a stint in backwater
( I have not watched the video on the grounds that streamers tend to bore me)
It’s a simple rule, but a golden one.
Would these people accept this guy if he was Russian?
“Yes he volunteered for the Russian military to go to Ukraine, but now he advocates for better healthcare for Russians, which makes him based”
I’m sure they would accept him because to reject him would be hypocritical and only conservatives can handle the cognitive dissonance of hypocrisy, which is why. God damn I can’t do this bit anymore
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Holy shit I knew Kelly was based but I didn’t expect him to go this hard lmao
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Do not look at his actual genuine strips. Those are mostly concentrated liberalism.
from its lack of serfdom and theocracy
Free Tibet from democracy!people who only know the slogan and don’t know anything about Tibet
In what world does one see posts from the guy himself like this (especially the last paragraph) and then somehow convince yourself “oh yeah he’s my leftist anti-imperial guy”? Real tired of Bernie bros and dipshit American “leftists” like Hasan
what the actual fuck.
“350 upvotes”
please xi just send in the troops already
Hasan states in the video that his support is basically “is he going to support defunding Israel?” Which, to my eyes, allows for a MASSIVE open window for opertunism, especially since the DNC just voted down doing anything about Israel at all. Graham knows that they won’t be doing anything about Israel, he can say whatever he wants and shake his first at the party he is eager to join, and when nothing happens, he can say, “I was there! I was shaking my fist!” And before someone comes at me with, “Well, what are you doing?”, I’ll tell you what I’m not doing, I’m not running on a populist platform under the Democratic Party, which has clearly established that genocide means nothing to them. Someone with the power and motion to run for office, with the backing of a highly respected member of Congress, should have a lot more influence than me. Anyone with eyes and ears should be able to see that adding this one guy to the wretched waters of the Democratic Party isn’t going to make the waves any bigger. As time continues to move forward, we reach even more critical and escelating conditions in Gaza. Nation states have yet to implement any legitimate material measures against them. The best hope I have for the immediate future is the Freedom Flotillas. These brave comrades are putting their bodies on the line, and every time they do more people decide it’s time to put their bodies on the line. I have more hope for dock workers finally putting pressure on their docks to stop accepting ships heading to Israel. I have more hope in the Ansar Allah and the people of Yemin to be an even more forceful deturrent on shipping lanes.
So I’m not even convinced that Hasan is viewing Graham as a leftist anti-imperial guy. I think he is hyperfocusing on changing the collective line on genocide within the ranks of the Democratic Party in the short term, while not acknowledging the damage supporting oppertunists like Graham will have in the long term. I can’t even give this guy a pass for being “young,” if his story is even true, frankly. The cognitive dissonance on display here is astounding. If he was only in for a year, even two years, and then got out, and was very critical of his own participation, I might be more receptive. To do 4 tours and then spend time as a contractor for the state department, that’s really wild. He strikes me as an “opposed to all wars except the current war” type, which will fit right in at the DNC.
Pretty common USA’ian upbringing. 18~19 year olds aren’t always known for having the most grounded political opinions.
And if he said, “I was a dumb, propagandized child and I regret my actions to this day”, it’d be a different conversation.
The guy doesn’t strike me as somebody who has figured out that the propaganda didn’t stop and he’s still heavily brain wormed by it. I’ll eat my hat if it turns out he was playing the long con with overemphasizing the “imma vet’ren” as his personal identity/brand soley to get the flag waving liberal types on board, but I’m pretty confident he isn’t.
“Twitter lefties” is now Hasan’s way of saying tankie isn’t it lol
hasan is mad that he isnt the most leftist person on the internet anymore
He should get more left then lol
I feel like that’s a real thing honestly. There’s a particular kind of online “leftist” that spends all their time just repeating what “their guy” said, or having shit takes, getting into arguments, and it’s a complete waste of time but they see themselves as principled activists doing important work.
Its a sign of powerlessness and learned helplessness, people alone thinking what they say and think online matters, and that its important to say X or Y or to “support” or “not support” X or Y when they literally have zero impact, its make-belief, and becomes a weird identitarian thing for people who engage in it.
I guess I’d call them online ultras or whatever but despite being very few, they are incredibly annoying.
“Leftists” who worship or give endless grace to US war vets(while dismissing groups like Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorists and regarding them to be just as evil as the IDF) are so damn annoying. Can’t wait to see this result in the entire Hasan fanbase to start stanning for said vets and ignoring their complicity in imperialist violence
I have a funny feeling he won’t be met with the same resistance that these DSA candidates are getting hit with
And that right there is the true litmus test, will the DNC back him or not, Zohran passed OUR test by failing the DNC’s test
If this fuckin Iraqi killing merc gets a DNC endorsement, then Hasan better correct himself
He gives statements about Gaza.I wonder if he will get the pass on it because
Actually now to think of it Im not sure if he isn’t just a liberal Zionist
I’m not going to waste time or energy pinning hopes on him. I did like to see that the line about Gaza in his speech got the loudest applause though by far
Banning BE fans seems pretty based as of late, dudes a transphobe
Everything good or positive BadEmpanada says can also easily be said by a principled communist. He holds no special analysis or anything that warrants “critical support” - all he deserves is full on criticism.
BadEmpanada is only useful in the sense that he is a professional twitter-shit-storm-starter. He is funny when he shits on America and NATO (remember his “troop exploder” bit?), but he is pretty bad on any issue that doesn’t involve posting about great power politics. Ultimately he is just a poster who gets paid to make noise.
Oh I agree, but that’s not why he banned them.
i do not like this graham platner guy, i’d like to hear him actually recant any support for having been in the imperial fascist death machine and that seems pretty unlikely.
that said, people that watch https://hexbear.net/post/6021351 this guy’s version of slop videos relentlessly and then parrot them everywhere are genuinely annoying parasocial ultras. he wields his platform in a way that often encourages pointless left punching and posting instead of going outside and organizing.
Oh I agree. I’ve never “had to give it to” BE. Especially not now. Anyone can be as “based” as he is by just having the most uncritical position possible, while being an insufferable asshole. Everything I hear or see from him is against my will and he gives of Destiny vibes. He’ll reveal more of his actually existing shitty takes like the one you linked in time. When people stop watching because the drama tap is running dry he’ll crash out again.
That’s such a weird list of places to free
Yeah it’s all over the place.
Every so often I’ll click around a Hasan video and just go
when I listen to him and think “this guy is a driving voice behind the online left” lol, but I can say the same thing about like all of Cum Town/Chapo/every Youtube, Twitch.tv, Twitter, your average Hexbear leftist.And sure, I think Hasan is right to some degree (at least from the like 3-4 minutes I watched) where he’s talking about how the US left has ‘nothing’ so it is not necessarily completely meaningless to participate in electoralism, and as a result you do sometimes have to overlook certain parts of a candidate’s beliefs/platform/past/upbringing/etc if you want to achieve any movement towards the left in this country. But I don’t think Graham Platner is a candidate to really do that for lol.
For how much he’s sucked about Israel and half a dozen other things - if you tell me “I am supporting Bernie still because I think he’s our best hope at having a somewhat left-of-center driving voice in American politics”, it’ll be hard for me to really have a true problem with that. I personally probably wouldn’t go out of my way to canvas for the old fuck or bother to go to another rally of his, but if you think throwing your money/time/support behind him is how we’ll get some crumbs of leftist policies in this country - go for it.
But some random ex-Blackwater retired Iraq/Afghanistan vet 100% military disability oyster farmer’s first campaign ever?? It is like online leftists haven’t learnt from their most recent mistake in candidates. [This would be where the one of John Fetterman emotes I KNOW we have would go, but the godawful tagging means you get stuff like
when you type ‘fetterman’ because anything with ‘fe’ or ‘er’ or ‘an’ or even a single letter gets displayed and of course, half of the emojis have the vaguest names imaginable…ANYWAYS)if you want to achieve any movement towards the left in this country
This is only true if you think that electing “your guy” is moving towards the left (which a lot of USians and US hexberians seem to think). Electing socialist candidates should be like a tertiary issue at best, but USians cannot comprehend what building a political party / mass movement actually means, and think that everything orbits the election cycle.
USians cannot comprehend what building a political party / mass movement actually means, and think that everything orbits the election cycle
sure lol but electing a socialist/leftist/etc candidate is part of moving a part of the political machine leftward and I wouldn’t say it is a tertiary issue. You’re not wrong that an actually viable political party or movement has to be built from the ground up and sustained by the community as a whole - but that has nothing to do really with someone saying “i am supporting this lib-left candidate because they have a chance at unseating the evangelical conservative in that district and if they win my liberal party will have a majority of votes” even if in reality their preferred party having a majority doesn’t guarantee left-of-center legislation/policies.
Org building, community outreach, etc that is required for building a political party or mass movement is pretty meaningless imo if you can’t translate that into getting actual legislation written/passed.
I think it is well and good to say “the people will come around to socialism/communism when they encounter the communist running the food bank in their community or the socialist doing free brake light repairs out of their garage” - I will never disagree with that - but I do think, at least in the US, stuff like that will never translate into something like ‘universal healthcare’ unless you also have some sort of horse in the overall electoral side of the race.
All this to say that again I don’t think Graham Platner nor Bernie Sanders is exactly it, although I can understand someone still clinging to Bernie thinking he is that dude lol.my liberal party will have a majority of votes
The democrats shouldn’t be your party! A liberal party shouldn’t be your party!! A communist workers party should be your party!!! This is what I’m talking about!
can’t translate that into getting actual legislation written/passed
The goal is revolution. I have no idea what you are talking about
the people will come around to socialism/communism when they encounter the communist running the food bank in their community or the socialist doing free brake light repairs out of their garage
No!!! The people will come around to socialism when you have a socialist party to set the agenda! Why is it so hard to imagine an actual workers party?
Why is it so hard to imagine an actual workers party?
There’s an answer for that: Because the state apparatus and especially its economic masters work in overdrive to discredit and vilify anything that becomes apparent as a communist party, worker’s party, internationalist party (“fifth column”), or coherent force against capitalism. This has been going on for longer than a century.
In other countries, you might be able to wave the red flag and get people flocking to you, and you’ll have to fend off the NGOs and the coups. In the USA, just for people to join you, they need to get over the massive obstacle of their ideological propagandizing since infancy, and then at the same time, in addition to what exists in other countries, you have the entire mass media demonizing you and spinning everything against you.
For this reason you need to appear limited in your ambitions, or to be subtle and gradual and only reveal your intentions when you are close to being powerful enough to enact them. I’m not saying anyone who has a 10+ year career in the overseas killing machine is worth putting any weight behind. But if there were any way that I would approve of using electoralism to further the movement, it would be running for local executive office under the banner of socialism and a limited platform of making an achievable set of benefits for the working class.
Sorry, could I get some time stamps? Not really a fan of this guy, and I don’t think I can watch him for 20 minutes straight, so if you could post timestamps for the offending content, that’d save me a lot of time.
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I can’t believe I ever thought Hasan was good. Honestly, this lesson has been hitting me in the head, but “Never trust large online leftist personalities who don’t explicitly support Joeseph Stalin, Dr. Huey Newton, and Leslie Feinburg” is a pretty good way to live tbh.
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That too.
Good or Bad is not a great lens for these things sadly, and online figures are always just online figures. I try to judge on results. That said I don’t really understand the argument here, I thought the position regarding electoralism and pressure on Israel was always pretty clear, I don’t see any kind of naive endorsement personally.
This isnt directed at you but I swear some people think doing fuck all but having takes and saying “oh you naive lib everything is useless and dumb” is somehow activism. We all think electoralism is shit, some still think pushing strategically on certain fronts is worth doing, some don’t. Kinda wish the people who don’t would shut the fuck up about it, it feels like a waste of time and drama farming tbh.
I feel like that’s probably more the reason he gets annoyed or whatever, it annoys me too.
What we are doing here is engaging in critique. It is not a waste of time, as critique is to some degree an endless process. The issue is that we have no real power to influence change in behavior from the electoralists, so it very much feels like we are wasting our time and breathe by discussing it. M
We cannot ‘drama farm’ because we make no money from doing that here. Twitter people to some degree can. Hasan on the other hand, benefits from engaging in the electoral farce because it engages the majority of his viewers, who are social Democrats. He therefore, has an incentive to be incorrect and pursue incorrect action.
I get what you are saying though.
For my money, he is a politics streamer, therefore I do not.like him. It is pretty simple.
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Yea I get you.
I think there is a grayzone that he doesn’t really engage with, which is pressuring the DSA to operate outside the Democrats. He seems to think you can recover the democrats from this blue fash trajectory right now (embodied by newsome). He seems dead set on entryism into the Democratic Party, which is clearly becoming a failed project. Zohran might be one of the last few candidates that attempt it if the Democrats continue undermining DSA candidates. They seem to be moving towards divorcing themselves from the DSA. If this gets backing from establishment Dems when Zohran doesn’t, it should tell us a lot. I don’t see Hasan doing this kind of electoral analysis and I think he should.
That’s a good point and on that in particular I have more trouble figuring out his approach.
I don’t think he believes the Dems can be saved, I don’t recall him talking about entryism, but I can see what you’re saying as well.
It could a very “good enough for now” thing, not that the dems can be good but that since we don’t currently have a strong DSA or PSL or anything, better to have left-side of the dems for now? Like a purely strategic thing, in terms of the media landscape, overyon window, what is/isn’t acceptable, and for agitation purposes? That’s the only valid use I can see for engaging in a limited way in Dems electoralism. Not with any naïveté, just a very broad “pushing, agitating and making noise and topics will prepare and radicalise the masses” kinda way. I don’t know if that’s entryism or what it could be called.
The reason I’m of this view is that from experience in my own country the topic of strategy regarding elections is often very noisy and a lot of leftists sort of talk past each other. Breaking the false hopes and naivety is good, criticism is required, but in pure strategy of “do we engage with things how they currently are, and if so how do we engage” is extremely specific, contextual and nuanced, and in that particular field I’m always willing to be as good faith as possible, and open to any strategy.
Sometimes you need to sort of “be there” politically even if it’s shit, while building something better. Sometimes you need to follow along more naive but popular things just to agitate and be where people are, not to do entryism but to already be in the right place and time when things go sour later, etc etc. I get the feeling my goals and hasan’s are aligned on 99% of things and I never feel like he’s pro dem or entryism so Im willing to hear it out or open to strategies (even if they’re messy), if that makes sense.
I don’t engage with him as a streamer but he has influence, that influence seems to bring decent results, and its those results I judge.
Honestly beyond the feeling of uselessness that seems to reign in the US left it looks like conditions have never been more primed and ready, looking from the outside. Not quite there yet, but getting there. Hasan just has to help it along or not get in the way, that’s my litmus test.
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Yeah, that makes sense. Sorry for bringing you distress.
Not in distress no worries. I get confused why people are so involved in liking or not liking some guy. Take care comrade <3
Does he endorse him?
My understanding was like “yea he sucks on X/Y and you should keep your criticism in mind but my priority goal is more people that push to stop arming Israel/stop the genocide even if they’re libs” last time I saw an argument like this.
I don’t think hasan is ever actually a fan or defender or even someone like Bernie, he’s just focused on specific issues in terms of agitation and policy, and the rest is secondary.
On that honestly im the same. Electoralism is strategy, you push where you think it can help agitate or shift a particular issue but its always kinda shit. Never got the impression he ever “endorsed” anyone naively.
I think what I and others have grown to see as criticism of Hasan here is how little he appears to factor in peoples proximity to the democrats and the DNC. The democrats as an organization are not interested in ending the genocide. They voted in favor of it just last week. For this guy, I have a strong feeling he’s going to fit right in because he is clearly a military enthusiast, which tells me Gaza is only a bargaining chip for him (maybe). Could he be anti war consistently? It’s hard to say, but I know that this current DSA situation stands a better chance of being actually principled on the matter as opposed to this independent/Democratic hopeful.
Hasan always seems to admit or take this position after getting into spats with his chat. I’m honestly suspect of powerful figures finding the light on Gaza now because there is a clear “point of no return” that were entering into or HAVE entered into where the population will be so damaged by the famine that they will experience yet unheard of mass levels of health complications that will last for generations. I think some people seeking power are cynical enough to make that calculation.
Oh yea I agree I don’t trust the vet guy lmao, but when I hear the actual arguments from hasan in this sort of thing I tend to agree with the reasoning and strategy, have not paid attention this time. He also shits on the DNC and anyone close to it a lot so I feel like he’s not naive on this guy, the bar is just incredibly low regarding palestine, and I get it tbh. Anything that can move the needle and put pressure now even if the guy is shit layer, Palestinians don’t have a lot of time.
At least that’s how I understand it. People seem insistent to put online figures on a good or bad pedestal when I really don’t care about them beyond actual results.
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maybe Donald Trump is the greatest socialist of our time.
Uphold Gavin Newsom Thought
Hasan’s ableism is a legitimate critism, probably his biggest flaw IMO. Even r/hasan constantly shits on him for it. I wish he wouldn’t use this because I suspect its just Gamer slur he should have grown out of it and its not excusable.
I get it, he’s doing the populist thing, but we should be clear that populism isn’t socialism by it self. If I have that wrong then maybe Donald Trump is the greatest socialist of our time.
I don’t think you disagree with him though, he clearly states mostly the same thoughts as you do here @9:40.
He is literaly telling his chat how the online left view him and others as some revolutionary leader or movement builders when the reality is that clearly they’re not and his only real hope is marginal improvements. So very clearly he is not supporting someone because they just socialists alone. Its obvious given how close he is with Bernie/AOC etc…
At the current global stage where there is no global socialist movement and the left rethoric is “multipolarity is good when global south fascists get together because they resist the US
even when they clearly don’t” then he is right to say we’re cooked and not just the US. There is no USSR and no real hope for any socialist movement until material conditions deteriorate a lot more.He even concedes you can disengage from electorialism and Zohran if you want too.
The only real commentary on this video is TL;DR “he clears the Gaza genocide bar” and even though that is a low bar, its enough to give the benefit of doubt given the situation. This random guy is definitely irredeemable based on principles alone for sure, but the point here is to create pressure by having any sort of alternative political candidate against the genocide. For now the standards are low but once more and better candidates appear you’d obviously pick them over any random pro-Palestine grifter or so the logic goes.
Bernie etc are shit because they have a proven record of being shit. Is the new random guy saying marginally good things this week also shit? Yes probably, but keep in mind he is not speaking to people like us but the average person that already lost all hope. I don’t particularly care about lesser evilism politics, but it is always an argument to be made.
I guess my view has a longer tail, and I’m pretty pessimistic about getting movement out of the house and the senate on the matter Gaza, given their recent votes in the DNC, that by the time we get enough individuals who will side with Gaza against Israel, it’ll be far too late. I have more faith in the grass roots movements sending boats, doing work stopages at ports, and groups like Ansar Allah and maybe even Iran to create more pressure than Democrats and the US Federal Government broadly. I’m thrilled to see that something like 90% of Democratic voters support an arms embargo, but I’m also very aware that they’re just going to vote for the D on the ballot. Meanwhile, we’ll have “critically supported” guys like Graham Platner who are, by all accounts, “Social Imperialists” who are ready and willing to fight the next war and report to have always been against the last war, leaving us effectively where we started. I don’t believe Hasan would call himself a “Leninist,” so that could be where we differ. The conditions are ripe for cynical opertunism for those looking to build a political corrier, and Platner really fits the mold.
I think disengaging from electoralism is a grave mistake at this stage of development, so that’s not something I’m trying to push here. I think viewing the Democratic Party as a vector for change through your engagement with electoralism is also a grave mistake. They have their fangs out for Zohran, Omar Fetah, and even liberals like David Hogg. They imploded the Sanders campaign, which was a real fork in the road for countless people like myself. It’s obvious they do not want to be reformed and that they will resist it at all costs, including supporting the genocide of Palestinians. The DSA should also awaken to this reality as well, and for the long-term success of building a socialist program in America, I hope they do. I think history shows us how repulsed the Democrats are by actual reformists, and that sounds like a good contradiction to accelerate through electoralism directly and not entryism. Long term, I want to see more motion from all the major socialist parties and more direct collaberation around building a working-class party.
I don’t think you disagree with him though, he clearly states mostly the same thoughts as you do here @9:40.
Specifically here, his comments read incredibly pessimistic about the nature of organizing in the country and read increadably defeatist on the matter. He is retreating to support for attempting to push the Democrats more left. I’m actually of the opposite opinion. For as liberal as the 50501 movement has been, the mobilization of Americans has been a huge opportunity for leftist organizations. Concentrating people who see the state devolving and their elected leaders motionless in response to genocide in one place makes for a good landscape for recruitment. The success of Zohran isn’t signaling success in remforming the Democratic Party; it’s signaling people’s hunger and openness to economic populist ideals, and we can’t allow the Democrats and Sanders to capture that energy and redirect it into the ground yet again. Sanders is using his prestige as king “socalist” to back a social imperialist. Maybe he’s working with what he has; I’ll give him that much, but Sanders doesn’t need the support of the volume of eyeballs Hasan can attract; he’s doing just fine. I actually think we are finding ourselves yet again in a ripe field of budding supporters of socialism, and all we need to do is shepard them away from the Democratic Oppertunists.
IDK, I’m just some dickhead killing time at work who has spent the last two months cramming Lenin into my brain. So take my opinions for what you will.
I think disengaging from electoralism is a grave mistake at this stage of development, so that’s not something I’m trying to push here. I think viewing the Democratic Party as a vector for change through your engagement with electoralism is also a grave mistake. They have their fangs out for Zohran, Omar Fetah, and even liberals like David Hogg. They imploded the Sanders campaign, which was a real fork in the road for countless people like myself. It’s obvious they do not want to be reformed and that they will resist it at all costs, including supporting the genocide of Palestinians. The DSA should also awaken to this reality as well, and for the long-term success of building a socialist program in America, I hope they do. I think history shows us how repulsed the Democrats are by actual reformists, and that sounds like a good contradiction to accelerate through electoralism directly and not entryism. Long term, I want to see more motion from all the major socialist parties and more direct collaberation around building a working-class party.
libs that weren’t ready to be radicalized by what was done to Sanders are getting pretty mad about Zohran and Hogg getting it too. I doubt it’s enough to prevent them voting for Newsom or driving them into the streets for some actual organizing because of how isolated and alienated everyone is.
Consider this for a moment: If you were 10 years old when the Sanders campaign was derailed by the Democrats, you’re 21 now. How much does the typical American 21-year-old even know about that part of recent history? Even still, there were countless people radicalized by what happened to Burnie’s campaign, and many became right-wing instead of left-wing. Those people still hold those economic populist values, and Donald Trump capitalized on that in the following years. The Trump Mamdani crossover vote is very real, and so is the Trump AOC crossover vote. There is a common denomimator here, and it is economic populism. Obviously, this is because when the economy takes a nose dive, it impacts everyone on class lines. It’s pretty obvious evidence of class warfare.
I doubt it’s enough to prevent them voting for Newsom.
I agree with this fully; however, as I said, I take a longer view on this issue. I don’t expect these latent conditions to suddenly lead to voters, in mass, rejecting the Democratic candidate for president in favor of someone else. Though there is evidence that voters would simply disengage all together if Newsom is goulish enough. Engaging in electoralism isn’t simply showing up and voting. Engaging in electoralism is about building a working-class party that the working class can vote for that holds party lines on working-class intrists and agitates the masses through the parties participation in the electoral system. Sanders does this, but then funnels those agitated masses back into the Democratic Party. He could be redirecting them to the DSA, but he’s never shown much interest in the organization, from what I can tell. He could be funneling them into a new, working-class party, but he says now isn’t the time.
The DSA, for all its flaws, is one of the largest left organizations in the country that also has a proven record of running working-class campaigns and winning. Their strategy of entryism into the Democratic Party seems to be engendering a growing aversion within the Democratic Party establishment, especially now that the Democrats are becoming more openly fascist. This could, should it continue to be successful, lead to a full separation between the DSA and the Democratic Party. This presents an opportunity within the DSA to pivot into becoming a fully fledged ballot party. The presedental race will be, for a long time, dominated by the Democrats and the Republicans, for many reasons, but not the least because of the way electoralism is structured in the country. Should this pivot to becoming a fully fledged ballot party come to pass, the DSA needs to build its base, and I can think of no better way to do that than with local races for mayorships, govenors, and state legislatures. One of the things that made Zohran successful in New York was their focus on the non-voting class.
Mamdani, 33, was unapologetic, and in his post-primary remarks pointed out that 40 percent of the population in NYC was born outside the US. His primary run as a Democratic Socialist got the attention of thousands of previous non-voters, drastically changing this year’s electoral map. According to a New York Times analysis, about 37,000 people were newly registered to vote for the first time in the recently concluded Dem primary, compared with only about 3,000 newly registered voters back in 2021.
Broadly, young people constitute the largest share of nonvoters, according to Pew Research. Circle has data from 2024 that shows only 9 states had more youth registration than in 2020, and overall, it was a net negative registration of young voters across the country. That would suggest the non-voting class is growing. Yet, when a candidate like Mamdani engages with the struggles these young people see so clearly, he turns out almost two to three times youth voter registration compared to 2021 in some districts.
All this tells me that a working-class party would undoubtably be successful if time and energy were put into building one. It will be a long project, but a project worth engaging in to agitate the masses and raise class consciousness. While youth comprise a large portion of non-voters, since 2008, according to census data, youth engagement in electoral politics is at an all-time high. It tells me that electoralism isn’t “politically obsolete.” To quote Lenin,
Even if only a fairly large minority of the industrial workers, and not “millions” and “legions”, follow the lead of the Catholic clergy—and a similar minority of rural workers follow the landowners and kulaks (Grossbauern)—it undoubtedly signifies that parliamentarianism in Germany has not yet politically outlived itself, that participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat specifically for the purpose of educating the backward strata of its own class, and for the purpose of awakening and enlightening the undeveloped, downtrodden and ignorant rural masses. Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags.
I think that’s a poor choice of words in your title but maybe I’m wrong. I’m wrong all the time.
is this a “butt hurt” is homophobic angle? Pegging has been in the zeitgeist for over a decade and white people eating chipotle has been so constant i’m not even sure butt hurt is a sex/sexuality thing at all.
I think it started as a 4chan-ism
I am 40 years old and butt hurt definitely predates 4chan. Still poor connotations.
I recall my dad saying butt hurt before 4chan was a thing
It was always used as a homophobic connotation where I grew up. I’ve never heard it used as anything but that.
It was not a disciplinary thing. It was a perceived lack of masculinity thing. But whatever. People are gonna say what they want despite it.
it’s been over a decade since i was around casual use of explicit homophobia
I live in south Texas. That should explain it I guess.
I looked it up and it comes from spanking. I always assumed it was homophobic, and I suppose people do still use it that way in some cases, but that’s way better than I thought. I’ve never said it myself and probably never will, but that’s basically an aesthetic preference.
It makes a lot of sense. It’s usually used to refer to someone who is seen as being whiny after being scolded/corrected
I’m pushing 40 and that is always how I’ve known it, especially since my parents still observed a little spanking as part of discipline.
