Exactly! If we're judging people for practical purposes like this then great. If we're judging people as big idiots just for the purposes of sniffing our own farts, leave me out.
It's realist. These are the material conditions we live in.
Keep organizing where you can but the US is never going to have a socialist movement, not in its current state anyway. You can still do things to help people and try and push back a little against the imperialist war machine but you'll never have the broad support of the USs labor aristocracy.
the US is never going to have a socialist movement
No realistic analysis can produce such an absolute conclusion. We're in largely uncharted territory for a dozen reasons, and socialists have pulled off all sorts of unlikely victories before.
It's realistic to note the many difficulties between us and our goal, but it's defeatist to say "yeah have fun doing little things but you're going to lose no matter what."
Not to mention when the people got a sniff of a Social Democrat talking about class issues, his supporter base almost toppled a 30-year political dynasty in the Democratic Primary.
Imagine if actual revolutionaries could be heard and seen at the scale Bernie was.
>Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed.
This is what irks me so much whenever this discussion comes up. What does "judging people" or "holding people responsible" for believing propaganda look like? What is the conclusion we're drawing off of that?
And they're never consistent about what that means. Does it mean leftism is doomed in the West because the anglo brainpan is genetically predisposed to imperialism and fascism? Is that why they "choose to believe" propaganda? Are people just naturally selfish and will choose their own wealth over the benefit of others? Wow, that would mean capitalism is the natural state of society!
It's this vague, nonsensical babbling about "guilt" and "responsibility" without ever as much as indicating what that actually means.
The only purpose of this argument is so you can feel superior to all these stupid idiots around you who consume the propaganda because they are dumb and bad people, while you are the only one smart and moral enough to become a leftist instead. It's completely unproductive and ideologically self-sabotaging. If you don't believe that the majority of Americans can ever become convinced by leftist ideas because they just love fascism so much, then what the fuck are you doing here? Go hang out with the centrists since you believe better things aren't possible.