this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
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chapotraphouse

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Hi, I'm here to announce that everyone pushing the standard Hexbear party line on the protest movement is a loser and wrong. I already know the weak-ass arguments you're gonna make and every single one of them reveals your disconnection from any actual organizing. Let's go through them one by one. If you have another that you think Marx Failed to Consider, please bring it up and I will explain how you are wrong in that way as well.

This was funded by the Waltons

No, one Walton bought an ad in the NYT. Who fucking cares? It has no material bearing on the movement whatsoever. There's no organization money is being funneled to other than the Democratic Party and Indivisble, which is not different in any way. The on-the-ground organizers in most cities and towns are not receiving a penny from the left's George Soros conspiracy. They're just normal people (and, to the next point, lots of leftists).

The Democrats are using this to steal the leftist energy of the masses

The Democrats certainly want to do that, but on the ground reports indicate they are losing all over the country. That's because leftists (especially PSL) are not leaving this space uncontested. I have spent an enormous amount of time putting in the work to earn the trust and legitimacy necessary to place a bunch of literal revolutionary communists in the leadership of the local movement. Not in some sneaky, behind the scenes way, but out in the open, succeeding specifically because we are literal revolutionary communists who never shut up about it. The Democrats, by my accounting, are losing the struggle in more places than not. If you refuse to engage because you're afraid the Dems will suck your leftist soul, you're just conceding the struggle and granting them victory. They don't co-opt by pressing a button, they co-opt because they have the resources to take leadership and then defuse. So far they have failed to do so specifically because the space is not empty and the communists are fighting harder to reach the masses (since we actually have an appealing program).

The attendees are all Kamala-loving liberals who just want to go back to brunch

If you had ever bothered to go to one of these events and talk politics to people, you'll discover a very broad array of political perspectives, including a strong trend towards explicit support for socialism. Yes, of course, the PMC bug-eating libs are there - who cares? They are by no means the only attendees. Maybe you're just Too Cool to be around someone who reminds you of your mom, but the rest of us are finding deep political discontent and activating it. When one of my comrades gets on the mic and says "we need to break from the democrats and do a literal socialist revolution", the crowd response, by and large, is incredibly positive. The retired dentists and accountants in the crowd grumble and whine, but they are a minority - and they don't leave. They stay and listen to the arguments we make. They say things like "you're right, I just don't think it's possible". They very, very rarely say "you're going too far".

This is a disorganized mess that's going to fizzle out

50501 and other decentralized spontaneous protest movements never last, but they do give an opportunity for dedicated political organizers to intervene on a stage where thousands of disaffected liberals and Democrat voters are asking "what is to be done?". If you decide not to show up and answer that question, the Democrat machine will coordinate the demobilization of this movement. If you do show up and you deliver the political argument you believe in. If you show up with the AV equipment, safety marshalls, march route, signs, and speaker list - the bare minimum for a halfway serious organizer - then you don't just hand out flyers and talk at a table but set the entire political line of the event. And in doing so, you demonstrate the leadership of the socialist movement and win a lot of those attendees to your side. If you can plug them into actual organizing work, you can bring them into permanent political motion. Does it matter if 95% of these people just go home and never bother to do anything besides another protest? If those 5% join the movement in a meaningful way, that's half a million new comrades.

Mao says: "All work done for the masses must start from their needs and not from the desire of any individual, however well-intentioned. It often happens that objectively the masses need a certain change, but subjectively they are not yet conscious of the need, not yet willing or determined to make the change. In such cases, we should wait patiently. We should not make the change until, through our work, most of the masses have become conscious of the need and are willing and determined to carry it out. Otherwise we shall isolate ourselves from the masses. Unless they are conscious and willing, any kind of work that requires their participation will turn out to be a mere formality and will fail."

Stop thinking about what you want to do and achieve and start thinking about the fact that we needs tens of millions of people to support revolutionary socialism in the US in order to get anything done. They are out in the streets begging for you to explain this to them.

These are just peaceful protests that won't achieve anything because they aren't revolutionary.

Lenin says: "What grounds are there for assuming that the “great, victorious, world” revolution can and must employ only revolutionary methods? There are none at all. The assumption is a pure fallacy; this can be proved by purely theoretical propositions if we stick to Marxism. The experience of our revolution also shows that it is a fallacy. From the theoretical point of view—foolish things are done in time of revolution just as at any other time, said Engels, and he was right. We must try to do as few foolish things as possible, and rectify those that are done as quickly as possible, and we must, as soberly as we can, estimate which problems can be solved by revolutionary methods at any given time and which cannot."

You're doing the ultra-leftism of conflating tactics with strategy. Our tactic in this moment is to intervene in these protests to convince people of the necessity of a revolutionary socialist political organization as the only solution to our sick society. Right now, mass revolutionary socialist consciousness and organization does not exist in the USA. Therefore, it is impossible to carry out open revolutionary militancy. If the current crop of people who are in some way directly involved in revolutionary socialist organizing (certainly a lower bar than revolutionary guerrilla warfare or sabotage) turned today to armed struggle, all ~100,000 of them would lose. The broader periphery of people who semi-passively support that objective through attendance at events and monetary contribution is probably a few million. The masses who would passively support probably number in the tens of millions, but that passive support is not particularly useful. And the number of people who would simply sit by and watch it happen is probably over 100 million. Every one of those groups needs to be elevated to the next stage - observer to passive supporter, passive supporter to semi-passive periphery, semi-passive periphery to revolutionary organizer, revolutionary organizer to doing the literal revolution. Each of these layers of the movement have a symbiotic relationship with the others that strengthen the entire struggle.

Here's the key lesson: WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH PEOPLE TO WIN VIOLENT STRUGGLE AND YOU NEED TO GO WHERE THE MASSES ARE TO RALLY THEM TO OUR CAUSE.

Amerikkkans will never do a revolution because they are labor aristokkkrauts

Ok, thank you for you contribution, you can resume sitting in a hole since your prescription is inactivity.

Please tell me your other weak-ass reasons why you're correct to sit on your ass.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

i will always say this here: good socialists will be salivating at the opportunity these protests present. either capital coopts this again, or we do.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Thank you comrade, you have totally changed my view for the better. I was not thinking critically at all before this and just judging the protests based off imperfection

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

A couple years ago I would have 100% agreed with this post but I've lived through several waves of these lib protest movement and it hasn't really left me optimistic about them. I'd love to be proven wrong but I ain't exactly holding my breathe either. Also some of the sign are so cringe I can't help but mock them.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I don't know who you're replying to so the impact of this post is lost on me. If someone on Hexbear said that Walmart is paying people to show up to protests then you should have called them out in the thread where they said it. Making a new post to say that all hexbears believe that is odd. Your whole post is like "Listen up here you fucking cracker reactionaries, I'm gonna set you strait and let you know that we need to build popular support before we can have a revolution!" Like who is disagreeing? This is premium Hexbear online posting. I don't know why we're kidding ourselves thinking this is some kind of grass-touching anthem.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (6 children)

If you went to the protest, did some canvassing/organizing work, and posted about it here later in the day, you'd know exactly where OP is coming from. I know because I did the same thing, but didn't have enough fury to bang out 7 paragraphs about it.

It's important to call out this ultraleft position in our community to invite our comrades to reflect and develop a different perspective.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Whatever gets the masses in the street is what gets the masses in the streets. We should be there to guide them to something actionable, if it exist.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Amerikkkans will never do a revolution because they are labor aristokkkrauts

This is not a prescription, its a statement based on historical precedent that needs to be proven wrong.

Anyways, it seems that the real argument here is:

The "hexbear party line" about the No Kings protest is a cope to justify people sitting on their asses.

Brother whether it is cope or not the truth as you have admitted yourself is that "mass revolutionary socialist consciousness and organization does not exist in the USA" and that the No Kings protests are decentralized and will eventually fizzle out.

Its true however that these protests are a good opportunity to continue developing the necessary mass organization that may eventually lead to Something Happening.

But its unlikely that Something will actually Happen due to these protests. They are not effective in and of themselves.

inb4 "so this is why you need to organize etc. etc."

Yes so clarify that, its not about the party line being correct then its more about it being necessary to organize and prove the party line incorrect.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (7 children)

I feel like my only persuasive skills when it comes to politics revolve around combating bad opinions in a mocking way so that onlookers find them less persuasive at the cost of entrenching the people I'm interacting with directly. I'm not good with crowds, I'm not good with strangers. I think it's completely possible that I would do more harm than good if I took the mantle of 'doing the thing' onto myself.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

I think it's completely possible that I would do more harm than good if I took the mantle of 'doing the thing' onto myself.

Its alright man you are still an asset to an organisation for doing the things in the background that are required for its sustained existence. You are also intelligent so you can help write/edit agitprop.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Then you need to get better. Being a revolutionary is a constant process of self-improvement in service of the people. Join an organization where they will train you how to do the work.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (4 children)

This is cope bro not everyone needs to be a people-person who goes and confronts the public. He can go play to his existing strengths and do stuff in the background that is required to sustain an org, like writing agitprop, administrative duties, painting banners, etc.

Everyone has their own part to play in something like this using their own personal talents, you can't make a chicken to flap its wings and fly across the atlantic. You are infected with the same american brainworms that make people think everyone can improooov themselves into becoming a millionaire. You better address this otherwise your org won't be benefiting from the strengths of its members.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

Everyone has their own part to play in something like this using their own personal talents, you can't make a chicken to flap its wings and fly across the atlantic.

Sure, but it is in a chicken's nature not to flap its wings and fly across the ocean. It is not in a human's nature to be static and unchanging. I'd argue that talking to other people is one of the things we're pretty fundamentally geared to do, so your analogy gets about as far as that chicken does on its trip to Portugal.

You are infected with the same american brainworms that make people think everyone can improooov themselves into becoming a millionaire.

Nah. It's far more an American mindset to believe that people are born with a certain capacity and improving it is impossible. Or your interpretation that personal growth is closely linked to economic outcomes. That's idealism. The truth is that we, as communists, believe more strongly in the capacity for human growth and improvement than anybody else - we just know material conditions are what bound or encourage that growth. Dismissing the human potential for self-improvement because it gets cynically twisted to blame poor people for their circumstances is way off.

I believe that @[email protected] is capable of that growth. He already lays out one rhetorical area where he has strengths - why should he not be capable of building and expanding those skills into a broader and more applicable capacity for face-to-face political discussion?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

I'm a centrist between your comment and u/jack

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I actually support every protest because I enjoy the violence

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I could join but I'm super duper busy, tho when I drive a bus that's going near the protests, I get stuck because the surrounding car traffic is garbage. So when I reach the end of the line and have no layover break, I get to flex my union rights and stretch/relax regardless if the bus is late.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

As a fellow grass-toucher, this post goes hard. I have never in my life been to a more libbed-up protest but I was happy to be there with my comrades. I think many armchair organizers are far more worried about appearing the same as liberals when instead they should be worried about making more socialists.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

As non American thats my take as well. It doesnt matter if the protests are lib as fuck. IF you go there and get some folks interested or curious about socialism thats a win.

Afaik there is no large left movement in the USA so one goal should be to reach as many people as possible through whatever means possible to create more socialists/communists anarchists etc

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I give up on them. I've had enough can kicking. I've had enough "the struggle continues" Our Princess is in another Castle bullshit. It's old. It's tiring. Every fucking time. The "have faith". It's no longer worth it to me. I don't have the sanity or patience anymore for it, nor the finances. I lost faith this place wil ever get better. If you still got fire and faith then well good on you.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Death to Amerikkka. Stop giving it life support. It needs to die.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

These rallies were happening regardless, you can take that opportunity to connect people that have a sentiment against the status quo and help lead them into a socialist cause rather then let them be corralled by the corporate dems that co-opt every movement. I didn't take this post as advocating anything like entryism or support for the US structure.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Nihilist cowardice since you’re not doing anything to help it die, just waiting to be saved by catastrophe

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

So you’re not a communist?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'm going to flip this and go back to my usual point which no one has answered.

How has PSL managed to grow for 10+ years and not sought and won a single local office? Is PSL actually running for local positions or state positions? At which point does PSL transition from talking to people on the streets and starts picking off as many offices in Dem-controlled areas as possible?

What you say and did is all well and good, but Lenin also urged us to participate in bourgeois parliamentary politics through a revolutionary party. Correct me if I'm wrong and PSL does do this but so far every PSL member I've spoken to doesn't seem to think this is happening in PSL beyond the Presidential campaign. Of course PSL is out at No Kings, this is the kind of thing PSL has done (and done well, granted) for about a decade, but this is obviously not sufficient. For a revolutionary party to be doing the same thing, funneling members to lib protests to siphon people, 10+ years later isn't a great look when unpaired with building local power. PSL seems to me like a party that likes to go to protests, which is cool and I'm not against, but doesn't seem to read one of the most important parts of "Left Wing" Communism. On the other hand, if people don't go to No Kings because they understand that, even as Communists, it isn't connected to a larger strategy then they aren't being "Left Wing" libs if they might just know there are better ways to get people involved at this stage than to go to these types of protests.

This is meant in good faith, by the way. I like PSL and I've been in contact with them longer than most here have but genuinely and frustratingly do not understand what the hell it's doing as a party.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Contesting tiny little local elections is not effective at growing the party or the movement from a cost-benefit analysis perspective. You end up spending many hours of effort by comrades on elections that neither engage large numbers of people nor win meaningful power to advance useful reforms. When our task is to grow the party, that's not effective. It's a matter of tactical timing - we are not opposed in principle to electoral campaigns, they just largely haven't been the right move for the party in most cases.

Now that the party has gotten much larger (because the tactics you see us doing are very effective at that), you'll see us take on more elections of meaningful signficance in the next few years. We hope to recreate the success of the Claudia-Karina campaign from last year, which roughly doubled the membership of the party.

There are also ways to intervene without directly running party members. In Cleveland, rather than running members, we are advocating a policy platform that can be practically implemented and utilizing it to influence insurgent City Council candidates who we've built relationships with over the last few years. That gives us electoral legitimacy and influence at the local level through alternative means. It's a new tactic so we'll have to assess its efficacy after it's played out.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's debatable if it's not effective to grow a party that way but I suppose I would agree that either way PSL was not yet ready then.

Until it starts doing that though, I really don't see a point in joining this party and continuing to meet people at protests so those people can go to other protests to meet other people in the name of the party and on and on and on for another decade, maybe just one more decade after that if the party decides it still isn't yet ready. I want to see a point but I don't. There are other avenues where people can win small, personal campaigns that radicalize them and while they don't necessarily get connected to a larger political party that seems more worthwhile to me than the new lib fest of the month.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There are other avenues where people can win small, personal campaigns that radicalize them and while they don't necessarily get connected to a larger political party that seems more worthwhile to me than the new lib fest of the month.

That, by far, is the bulk of the work we do. My branch is almost a hundred people and about five of them were needed for a few weeks to prepare the last protest and twenty to run it day of. The rest were doing work in the community.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

What kind of work though? And if you have that large of a base in the community, how are you not ready to run a local campaign? If you could activate everyone to do an electoral door knocking campaign, you could win something!

If we want to really take power, we need to hold any and every type of position available in the same way Democrats and Republicans do. There are no small positions, only small parties.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Really good point about door knocking. 100 door knockers on a Saturday is absolutely massive. Door knocking can also be used to build relationships with sitting local politicians in reelection

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

And even more effective for joining members than going to a very lib protest as well.

Not to say I completely disagree with going to the protest but I still am very confused about PSL's moves.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Many of my own comrades disagree with me on this, but from my experience and talking with others, I see the primary utility in socialists running for office to be gaining membership and increasing organizational capacity. Regardless of whether you win, you always gain new members from the campaign. And hey, if you keep it up you'll eventually have the muscle to actually win.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's a question of opportunity costs and who you connect with. The types of folks who pay attention to local elections outside of big city mayor and council are generally not the demographic we identify as revolutionary subjects (poor, colonized, especially Black). You can put that effort into other campaigns that, I think, will produce better outcomes for party building. But once your party is able to contest (or at least be very visible in) high profile elections, that calculus changes.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

The types of folks who pay attention to local elections outside of big city mayor and council are generally not the demographic we identify as revolutionary subjects (poor, colonized, especially Black).

That hasn't been true in my experience, especially when people understand their local issues can many times be solved at the local level. They might not often be ready to go independently vote or participate in these campaigns but that's a different question entirely.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Preach!

I found an anti-ICE contingent in my local protest that also shouted about freeing Palestine, No War in Iran, and other stuff like that, and people actually clapped, cheered, and chanted to those, too. There are people to be reached out there.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'm thankful somebody finally says something. I've been slowly getting burned out on this space for months, but it felt too futile to effortpost against the consensus of the "shitposting and arguing with ex-redditors is the only acceptable form of praxis" idiots on here. Anything else is either liberalism or adventurism to these people, so the answer to what is to be done is always a convenient "let's just rot". I'm sick of this shit.

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