That does indeed look right up my alley, thank you very much <3.

I’d also recommend “The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth” to anyone interested, for probably a bit more polemic piece that, from what I see from “Climate Leviathan”'s description, probably roughly argues around similar dynamics.

I only recenlty learned I have had undiagnosed autism my whole life (in my thirties now), and being able to recontextualise that I literally did have an - on average - different way of experiencing reality, with some filters missing, some intuitive normalities just not developing, and my brain focusing in a different way, that’s helping me a whole lot. Finally I don’t have to gaslight myself into thinking I am just lacking will and strength of character to fit into this world, as that’s what my socialisation had been instilling into me.

With having been obsessed with history and philosophy from a young age, I am also often not able to understand that the vast majority of people actually lives in a world where those things are at best superficially engaged with. Personally, at least at this moment of time, I think that is genuinely dangerous, because, oh boy, looking at the current material situation of the world and taking historical situations to estimate the possible consequences, things are not looking good. I firmly believe we need a globalised, socialist/communist mode of production and more short term, an international political infrastructure to organise the challenges ahead, but I fear it will only come about after things will be getting worse for quite some time, still.

So, take this point of view as what it is: a view on the situation from an outsider, I am not American, I am a German communist. While I do probably look more closely at American politics than most likely the average American simply from being interested in politics to a pathological degree, I might not have the full picture of an American who is also as interested in politics.

I think in this particular moment, as much as the Democrats do their best to antagonise you, as much as you are correct that someone like Biden will continue with the same status quo bullshit that created the situation to begin with, as much as he won’t be helping the people suffering from (neo)-colonialism in a meaningful way overseas - I don’t think that this particular election is the time to vote third party. The chance may come, and best then to do it not as individuals based on your personal conscience, but as an organised group, with concrete messaging communicated. And even in other elections and outside this vote, organising for a third party - while I personally don’t have a lot of hope for electoral politics - is certainly better than investing energy into the Democratic party, whose supporters seem to have no problems spewing hatred towards you for not agreeing with their party line and view of reality.

But I think underestimating Trump could be genuinely dangerous. Not because he will “ruin America” or anything like that. Simply, because he will be in a position to dial up repression, potentially leaving you with a situation in 2-4 years, where the party you voted for has to move underground, either having gotten outlawed or further marginalised and infiltrated. The situation looks critical enough to me, that under a Trump presidency, unions and leftist orgs will face open persecution much more than under someone like Biden - who is admittedly bad enough. Persecution up to outright criminalising them, to encouraging right-wing militias to kill their members with a slap on the wrist as a consequence or no legal repercussions at all. Yes, I do think that is unfortinately a realisitic possibility. And at this point, I don’t think leftist orgs in the US have the resilience yet to efficiently organise in the underground.

That being said, I won’t tell you a vitriolic “you will be at fault” if you choose to vote and organise as you want to. I do also see advantages, like getting visibility for your issues and potentially by reaching certain threshholds getting public funding support and the likes (that exists in the US too, right?). But I’d still advise it in this election - as shitty and cynical as it is - to vote for the old fart that doesn’t swing the whip of the state as hard on your back as the one that might outright strangle you with it. Getting a proper communist, grassroots organisation running in the United States is important for the whole world, and I fear it will be impossible, or at least much, much harder under Trump (mostly, again, because there are no proper structures in place to move into illegality and organising underground, from everything I can tell.)

Outside of voting, you have options. I’m not American, but I’d advise any communists to vote Biden simply because the repression under Trump could get really ugly, hindering any proper organisation. Just view it as what I think it also actually is: A cynical, pragmatic move to save you and other working people from more open repression, nothing more.

But before and after voting: Put your energy into unions like the IWW, into neighbourhood organisations for mutual aid, into community defense like the SRA or Redneck Revolt, into antifascist organisation, into refining your own position and presenting it to others. Create networks and connections. All preventing Trump is doing is buying time for now to do exactly that. Things will only get worse in the decades ahead, with no end in sight for the climate catastrophe and further decay of capitalism - and laying the groundwork of actually being able to do something is critically important right now, in my opinion.

Of course everyone is in the end their own master when it comes to decisions like this. Just - remember that by not voting in this specific election you also aren’t changing anything. And while I fully understand the desire to organise for a third party, they have been marginalised effectively, at least I personally don’t think electoral politics will bring any relevant changes, one way or the other. They are just about who carries the whip used against you, and in this case if the are openly and harshly, or covertly and less efficiently using it.

That all being said - I think a few people here overestimate the amount of tankies and communists that won’t vote Biden. The group is marginal in the big scheme of things. If Biden loses, you can be certain, they were not responsible, they are most likely less than 1% of voters. Personally, I’d blame the corporate core of the Democratic party and middle class liberals for being out of touch with reality.

True, thank you for pointing that point out, because this actually does show an important angle of messaging ahead. What makes the article itself cope in my opinion, is its misleading headline and overall presentation. It’s tabloid-level of presenting the message, your interpretation is actually a lot better.

It’s a single focus group of specifically undecided Latino voters. Only more standardised and statistically significant polling will give a better estimation. Could there be an unexpected, seemingly paradoxical effect? Maybe, shit is complicated, yo. Politics are a chaotic system at times. I personally doubt it, but, hey, we will see.

But this article in particular? To be blunt: It is cope.

Isn’t this one really obvious? They are selling toupées for your butt and accidentally added a “W”. Not confusing in the slightest, really.

Ich kann dir zwar leider nicht weiterhelfen - abr als Empfehlung um vll noch ein paar Antworten mehr zu bekommen: Am besten crossposten auf feddit.org, dahin verlagert sich der Diskurs mehr und mehr. [email protected] [email protected]

I think that analysis is missing an important fact: Yes, Trump’s mental decline is visible to anyone taking a closer look. He is a liar who just as much as Biden, more even, can just get things wrong unintenionally on top of that. But one thing that is important about him, is that he is a narcissist. Projecting charisma and using bullshit to shield himself is literally what his pathology and the very core of his unconscious mind is built on, it will be the very last thing to go. That is why the “Biden is old” narrative is still working with people - both are old, both are showing signs of it, but Trump can keep up the optics, because that is the very essence of what his life and psyche is revolving around.

I had a very quick look at post-debate rallies of both Trump and Biden. (Sidenote - where was that energy during the debate, Biden? Your voice actually had proper inflection and power, what happened there?) Trump spewed bullshit, of course, lies, falsehoods, nonsense. But he knew how to interact with the crowd, he knew how to speak, he knew how to adjust his message and demeanor between talking to his supporters and talking to a more general audience. Biden was competent enough with his speech - more competent than during the debate for sure - but he still felt like someone who had lacking dynamism. And in light of the debate that just happened, his enthusiastic supporters and his hype-people trying to build him up felt… surreal to be 100% honest. The chants of “You can do it” did not feel like a powerful message of competence, but like cheering someone on out of pity. His message in light of the current situation also felt confused. Saying both (not direct quotes, from memory) “I know I am not the youngest”, semi-acknowledging that there were problems, while also saying that “Trump is too dangerous” - that definitely sparked the immediate thought of “Yes, Trump is genuinely dangerous. So why are we running with you as our only hope of defeating him?”

I understand, talking about things right now is also about optics, it’s about trying to convince others, and yourself, to go vote, to believe in your chosen team and candidate and all that. But lets not delude ourselves, because that idea of Biden beating Trump on the sole basis of being not Trump has led to this situation. The optics of the mental decline of both candidates are different, and the pushed narrative of Biden being old is far from effectless.

Yes, you raise a very important point that I completely glanced over with sleep-deprived tunnel vision brain. Young males are a group, where ideological factors are a lot more prevalent. A constant barrage of presenting the desirable thing to be succesful - everything from sexual gratification to security in life depends on it - is given to, well, actually everyone, but even today still predominately young males. In addition, the ideological explanation presents no proper “out” that has analytical value: If you don’t succeed, you are just some sort of beta cuck or whatever. How about you buy this course by this YouTube influencer, on how to get money and pussy by changing your own inadequacy, which of course in reality throws the vast majority of their fans into dependence and diminishes any resources they had.

This demand to be succesful, dominant, happy and stoic, weighing on the superego as basically an old dream of success that is becoming more and more unattainable but is still presented everywhere, is also in conflict with material reality. Being the breadwinner of a household where you have a wife that delivers reproductive labour and sexual gratification to you, while you earn the money and keep her dependent? Even with chauvinists that are deep into that ideological prison, households being able to earn enough money without both people working (often even more than two jobs) is not what we are seeing in the present and the future. So, this discrepancy has to be explained in a way, that is compatible with their ideology.

As a side note: parts of the liberal, more well-off “left” (a very relative term here) will basically just give them the answer “well, you are a stupid, low-IQ chud loser, so its your own fault” - basically reinforcing the very “sink or swim, be succesful, if you can’t be, it means something about you is wrong” ideology that creates this whole mess to begin with.

But of course, the answer many will then land on is a variant of my previous post: It worked in the past, right? An outside malevolent force must have corrupted this. It’s the feminists. It’s the Jews. It’s the insert enemy here. That is the core of it again - discrepancy between material reality and ideological demands and dreams within society. Concerning young men, the extreme right also has good illusionary ways to provide them with a sense of being powerful when they are in reality not, through violence that doesn’t threaten the upper classes, and relative privilege within their ideological stratified view of reality.

Ironically, that material reality of proletarisation can even fuel “tradwife” romanticism for some women - basically, the dream of being a loved and loving housewife, being submissive to and dependent on their husband and his income, anything, just to escape the dread of having to work under current conditions without any of the security of the past. (Note that actual submissive impulses that people potentially have as a fetish are a whole other thing in that discussion, but it is relevant, that for some submissive people at least, that can of course also add to the allure of that fantasy, just as the idea of being a breadwinner that has a dependent person giving them sexual gratification and admiration is alluring to people with dominant fetishisations)

So, I am heading to bed for the night, because I have been awake all night and day and the day before to catch the debate - but the short answer is: The decline of the middle class and the petite burgeoisie - which I in this case view not in the traditional definition, but also broader, as all the people owning a little bit of capital i.e. savings for old age in some fond or maybe a house of their own. Also the disappearance of job security and stable work relations.

With it, the conservative “lets keep things as they were” mindset of people who had a decent enough life, i.e. mostly boomers that lived through the economic growth phase of the post-war era, but also younger people dreaming of that time or having profited from it through their parents, comes into crisis. But as this mindset argues from its own experience, it dreams of the past (“Things worked back then, right?”), while missing, that the very same “working” system was what had within it, already the inherent nature that eventually led to it decaying around us. So they need to explain the decline as something caused by an outsider, a malevolent force.

At the same time, this decline of the middle class leads them to try and grasp to divisions that might “save” them from proletarisation - becoming properly dependend on paycheck to paycheck and owning nothing but their own labour power to sell on the market. So, racism for example - if you are white, you might just be spared from the above fate. And you can kick down, targeting all those brown people below instead of punching up - the latter is a lot more risky after all. And the people up above can’t be at fault, after all, you (or the people you heard about from the past) had a great life when those were around, right? It just have to be the “right” people, like you and the people of your nationality/race/religion/other ingroup - often depressingly arbitrary.

This is still a very reductive summary, a lot is missing, globalisation, how it relates to the net rate of profit, how consolidation happens, details about the ideology of our current times. But broken down to it’s basics it can be summarised as such. The middle class is disappearing as a consequence of capitalist development, which leads to them becoming panicky and diving headfirst into ideology.

Well, anyway, good night, hope it was possible to understand what I was trying to bring across in my rambling

Yeah yeah, heard it all, haha, dae larper revolution lefties playing teenage boy shooters? Okay, I am sleep-deprived, and I am just genuinely concerned about the state of the world, so yeah, I will write out my position a bit more clearer, well, I will try to, because it is not accelerationism.

So, to assume you are arguing in good faith, even with the ad hominem:

Do you think it’s completely impossible that fascist groups might react with violent actions when Biden or another Democrat wins? I think it is very much a possibility, they are deluded and armed. And they would be trounced, they don’t have the proper support and organisation. It would indeed weaken them.

My goal is not accelerationism, accelerationism is a silly concept to begin with. If so, I would support Trump. But that’s the kind of BS some communist groups did in the 30s “Oh yeah, as soon as the mask of capital falls of its face and Hitler gets elected, people will revolt!”. Nope, as soon as the mask of humanity slips from capital, it kills you. Dead. And uses your hair and teeth as resources. I’m German (and before any arguments come about me keeping out of debating US politics: your politics influences the world, so while I won’t be able to vote, I will have a voice in it). I’ve seen Auschwitz, I’ve read the debates that were held in the 30s. I’ve studied how the center-right thought they could outmaneouver and control Hitler and use him to get rid of those pesky socialists and social democrats. Hell, the NSDAP never even won a proper majority, power was handed to them.

I just look at the global net profit rate over the course of one and a half centuries (spoilers: it’s falling, with the only major times it is rising rapidly after destructive wars - almost like there is something to Marx’s theories of capital consolidation and the pressure it creates. The stagnation only slowed for a while, because the profit crisis of the late 70s was mitigated by neoliberal politics - i.e. class warfare), look at how economical consolidation happened before WWI (the economy was enormously globalised through Colonialism, and trusts or even outright monopolies across industries, with integrated production/logistics/distribution in single companies - think Walmart and Amazon as the closest analogues today), look at how Germany looked in the 30s. I look at ever more desperate venture capital adventures to find avenues of profitability for all the stagnant dead capital that has accumulated, like “Big Data” or now “AI”. I look at the statistics and projected models for the future - I think a lot of people just completely underestimate what kind of a complex shitshow climate change will create. It’s even beyond economics, the material reality of nature is changing under our feet, we have been changing it. There will be death. There will be wars. There will be chaos. I won’t be able to change that, you won’t be, at best, we can mitigate it. That is what the logic of growth and capitalism has given us.

I don’t believe in accelerationism because it is nonsense. No one has to accelerate this shit. Capitalism does its job to reach its logical conclusion fine on its own. It’s also delusional - what, me, some German commie autist who just happened to have the misfortune of having philosophy and history as a hyperfocus is going to influence politics towards anything? Politics follows material reality, with idealism only influencing it insofar as it is itself a material force, in a dialectical, reciprocal exchange with material reality. All I can do at this moment is play Cassandra and argue my position, trying to do my best to support those that are building real-life connections and organisations, within the limits of what this body and brain can do - support unions, neighbourhood groups for mutual aid, educational groups, community defence groups, antifacist groups - and yes, even the Democrats, because I do think, again, that it will be good to have a Democrat in office in this historical moment, even though it, as you may have guessed, it’s very much a lesser evil to me, that I view rather cynically, to give people as much time as possible to organise without extremer persecution, before that one will happen eventually - and maybe weaken reactionary forces by getting them to be stupid, they are good at that.

Now, I don’t write this to convince you. Not to convince many people reading it. In my experience, my positions are usually too radical for centrists, too critical of Marxism-Leninism for the tankies (hell, I think the Soviet Union had, essentially, and in a Marxist analysis, a capitalist economy - even Stalin acknowledged the rule of value still being in effect in “The Economic Problems of the Soviet Union”), too Marxist for the anarchists. And reactionaries, well, I am already looking into what to do if AfD wins over here in a few more years/decades. Not a guarantee, thank god, but that it is even a real possibility in fucking Germany is chilling and just hammering home what the current historical moment and current reaction to the changes in economical and material realities are, globally.

So I am writing this to at least make someone, somewhere think. Take a step back. For one moment, forget that there are teams, and I am on the “enemy” team. Do you think the status quo is tenable? Do you think moderate politics will survive the next decades? Not because of some larping agitators you think are destroying them, like with accelerationism (again - as if some accelerationists are influential enough to do anything there at this historical moment), but simply because capitalism has always had crises, they have had horrible consequences in the past, and this one comes with a huge climate catastrophe on top. Do you think it’s people like me, somehow fantasising about violent revolution like some CoD game as you seem to imply, that push for violence - or do you at least acknowledge the possibility that violence will simply happen due to material and socioeconomic changes, globally? Revolutions are not pushed by agitators and propagandists, they are pushed by the price of bread. And agitators and propagandists can only try to structure the way a revolution plays out. And that is why I think we will have to prepare for that reality, and eventually doing away with the system and mode of production that led us to this point - as it really is not the only option, no matter how much ideology has presented it as that.

Doubt a lot of people will read the wall of text, and feel free to downvote and criticise me for the instance I cose (back when it was afaik the only one, but admittedly, it fit my politics at least somewhat as well), but this time, you can at least attack my character on the point of my actual positions, maybe call them delusional or something - or surprise me and develop your own positions dialectically against mine, I have no absolute guarantee I am right, so proper critique is welcome - while maybe some tankie might call out how I am a liberal reactionary. But keep this wall of sleep deprived autism-energy monologue at least somewhere in the back of your mind, as one option to analyse what will be coming up in the future.

Yeah, while the republicans have basically openly moved to reactionary and fascist politics, thus implicitly accepting the status quo is over, the influential parts of the Democrats seem to have been clinging completely to the idea that the status quo is what is to be preserved - even though material reality will not make that possible.

Right now, we seem to be in a historical moment, where old privileges are breaking away from a continuing crisis in capitalism that basically has been smouldering since the (late) 70s and kept stable through neoliberal policies thus far. Old privileges being lost results in a reactionary shift worldwide at the moment. It will be harrowing, but there is at least always the possibility of the pendulum swinging the other way - right now, in the coming years, organisation, connecting people, openly presenting radical alternatives to prepare for that moment seems to be the most important work to me.

Too late, I watched it all. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so sad.

I think that is the worst thing trolling has done to internet culture: People will assume that their conversation partner is not arguing in good faith as the standard assumption.

Zieht die Freitagsfliege dann auch demnächst auf feddit.org um?

You know, as much as one has to keep Machiavellian machinations and Realpolitik in mind… Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Biden did not do well. They report about it in a way that gives them clicks. There is no plan.

I do have an issue with the tankie dumbfucks who will STILL talk about “Genocide Joe” when we have video evidence of trump saying he outright wants the Palestinians eradicated and thinks Biden is too soft on them.

Oh, I get that one. Might lose me some brownie points with some of my fellow communists, but I think they overestimate their own influence and overly moralise the questions when they talk about Biden. Personally, I think the important thing is moving towards communism by making organisation of the working people possible, and that will be forced much more into the underground under another Trump presidency. To me, the one question on my mind is: How can this situation be further used for empowering an eventual revolutionary change, ultimately, it is about power.

As a bonus point: I do think Biden winning might bait the fascists into doing something stupid, like armed revolts which they are certainly not ready for yet, potentially weakening them further, and moving some moderates into openly antifascist organisations.

Well, beauty is a social construct as well, and yet plastic surgery is a massive industry, with shifting trends as well.

Social construct does not mean entirely abstract, but in dialectic exchange with material reality.

Fucking cognitohazards in this subreddit, and I lost the game too, great.