Thread by @Americanprole96

The bulk of negative responses against #MAGACommunism comes from idealist conceptions of the working class or movements that the Communists should be engaging with. It is a knee-jerk reaction that comes from the contradiction between the "pure" when faced with the real. 🧵

It also comes from another misconception of MAGA, which is itself a mixed composition between proles and petit bourgeois, those critical of the Republicans and those who strictly follow the line, those who are critical of the American system and those who seek its salvation.

Many American leftists and communists deem it more valuable to connect with those who already "think" and "talk" like them - the more "progressive," typically urbanite elements like Democrat voters, Starbucks Union organizers, self proclaimed socialists, and others.

These sections of the people match closest to the Ideal of leftists, but comes with the drawback of miscalculating how truly popular these elements are, how they relate to the broad working class and if the functions of their movements strengthens or weakens the establishment.

And too often these leftists get into the organizing game with the preconceived notions of what the working class *wants* before it ever engages with them on the ground. We see this in the abortion struggle, the controversies of the vaccine mandates, environmentalism, etc.

The issue of American communism is the issue of idealism in practice and moralism in analysis, even when they'll swear that what they're doing is genuine Marxism. We think that embedding ourselves within the "progressives" will have us flourish, but the reality shows otherwise.

Organizations like DSA, CPUSA, and PSL have high membership rates but are so riddled with radical liberals who are resistant to engaging with those who exist outside their ideological bubbles that none of them have any real relevance among the broad American working class.

Nobody outside of leftist college students or activists read Jacobin, People's World, or Liberation News for guidance, not just strictly bc of the difficulties of independent media but bc of the lacking resonance of what these papers offer and what the working class wants.

The folly of these organizations reveal the strengths of the MAGA movement - its populism, ruggedness, resonance with chiefly American conditions and concerns, charisma, and embrace of those disillusioned elements critical of both the establishment and the deceptions of leftism.

The problem facing us is idealism. Marx reminds us that Communism is the *real* movement of people against the actually existing order, not something mechanically imposed or something that needs to conform to our criteria. Our fate is irrelevance if we continue the idealist path.