I’d be cool with that.

Social constructs aren’t practical.

You called me a tankie for the sole reason that I said that Fascism and Stalinism are distinct ideologies and not interchangeable terms.

Maybe you aren’t a tankie, but if there was a verifiable test for the disease, I’d bet money you have it on that basis + the .ml yeah.

Not for defending Stalinism, not even for saying it’s not as bad as Fascism, just for saying it’s a different ideology.

because you see me say Stalinism and Fascism are different and just assume that I’m defending stalinism

Don’t play dumb. You are engaging in defensive apologia.

Don’t care, labels are descriptive, not a personal affectation.

No shit? I don’t embrace the label was listed as specific evidence that I wasn’t a liberal because liberals don’t care if they are called a liberal. I’d claim bad reading comprehension but that would imply you are capable of growth, its clear you have an ideological myopia and don’t want to engage in good faith.

There is basically nothing that could be contained within such emails that would change almost anyone’s mind about Trump that hasn’t already come to some kind of conclusion about him. The only thing is might do it reveal some kind of technical non-moral weak spot.

In desert heat. Humidity is a thing.

Possible if not likely, but also being an anti-Harris leftist indicates the sort of person who doesn’t touch grass anyway.

Though, I had seen handmade anti-Harris sign in Chicago once shortly before the election. “A vote for Harris is a vote for genocide” is what it said. I suspect that if there are some of those people do touch grass at all, they are aware of how incredibly unpopular they’d be in most progressive spaces if they openly stated they advocated against and refused to vote for Harris and would keep very quiet. Thus cowards.

OK. Non-sequitor.

IDK where you got that I did not write “deliberately divorcing emotion from the decision process and just looking at the facts as best I am able to understand.” … are you mixing up different replies?

The irony here is that liberals call everybody to the left of them “tankies”. Take note; this is what projection actually looks like.

There is no irony, the words “Tankie” and “Liberal” are not equivalent. Tankie is always a pejorative in response to specific stated politics. Liberal is an ideological identity that sometimes is used as a pejorative by some leftists because its an accusation that they actually secretly support capitalism. Its that you fundamentally don’t engage with the actual stated beliefs and decide that we actually believe something else entirely. Sort of like how actual liberals get called communists by fascists, nazis, and other far right conservatives.

If you wanted to say, call me a “Anarkiddy” or something that would at least be a little closer to the same thing as me calling you a Tankie. I’m not really strictly an anarchist anymore either, but still I’m infinitely closer to that than liberal.

The reason this matters is that specifically if I actually was a liberal, I wouldn’t be annoyed by Tankies and Campists using the word “liberal” as a pejorative against non-tankie/campist leftists. I’d just embrace the label.

I don’t embrace the label. I’m not a liberal. I just also don’t take the accusation from Tankies that I’m a liberal seriously anymore. I’m mostly just annoyed by the extremely boring and tiresome intellectual dishonesty.

Bernie has been faithfully playing his assigned role to keep increasingly radicalized sections of the working class and youth within the orbit of the Democratic Party.

No. This is a delusional take.

Despite my therapist not agreeing with me on politics, she thinks I am mentally fine.

She’s wrong if you genuinely think the Sanders is a pro-capitalist plant. Either that or you don’t actually believe this and you are arguing in bad faith because you actually simply dislike Sander’s openly stated politics.

Or you have not actually paid any consistent attention to Sanders at all or read up on his history before he became politically relevant.

Stalinism was a degeneration of the workers state in the Soviet Union. Fascism is an extreme counterrevolutionary form of capitalism. Assigning one (Stalinism) to the other (Trump/MAGA) is a category error. Ahisotorical and unscientific

Even if you are technically correct, none of this matters in the current political context. You are being nitpicky at best, but more likely just engaging in irrelevant intellectual masturbation/showboating. Further, this doesn’t actually explain why Sanders gives a pass to capitalism, you are just repeating the same point. Being anti-Stalinism and being open about that doesn’t make you apologetic to capitalism unless you take a very “You are with us or against us” campist perspective.

(and likelh a conscious distortion given Sanders political history and experience).

Instead of ignoring now, you are misrepresenting the context of his statement. The left in the US is currently on the backfoot. (Even with a specific notable newsworthy exception in NYC) Sanders knows that liberals and conservatives alike in the US associate Stalin vaguely with very bad things and is using that cultural association. Now, do I think this is politically effective? IDK. I suspect the problem with Sanders is generally that he is not mean enough to his opposition, and this is indeed tactical but not for reasons you are laying out. Given his history the idea that hes secretly a pro-capitalism plant is actually completely flabbergastingly stupid. Like I can’t take you seriously for saying that and I only continue this conversation due to curiosity.

Ironically, most actual Stalinists will have disavowed Stalin by now following his death and Krushev’s secret speech. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism, international Stalinists are largely reduced to trade union organizing and activist pressure groups. In the third world they routinely enter into coalitions with bourgeois nationalist governments. Edgy teenagers on the internet are not serious Stalinists.

OK, then it sounds like they’re red fascists to me. They are fascists who just want to not be associated with fascism.

Sanders plays into this tradition because he supports it (anti-communism).

No he doesn’t. He might not support authoritarianism but he’s not an anti-communist. A lazy example: he has defended Castro before.

He could have criticized Trump’s cult of personality by referencing the fascist Mussolini (or just made it a direct statement about Trump).

He’s compared him to Mussolini already. In 2020, “We have a president now who is a pathological liar. We have a president who is trying to undermine democracy. We have a president who admires authoritarian figures. I mean, it’s not an exaggeration to compare him to Mussolini.” Hes going to compare him to any historical figure views as authoritarian, because Sanders is anti-authoritarian.

Yes they are.

One can hate capitalism and also hate Stalinists. The “good vs bad guy” ideology is just projection on your part.

I could nitpick and state I’m not a liberal as well but whatever tankies call every other non-tankie leftist a liberal so who fucking cares.

I simply avoid actively educating myself on current affairs now. It still seeps to me through internet and casual socializing osmosis. I let the news come to me.

I’m done being the guy in the office/cafe/bar who brings up politics unless I’m really desperate for a topic of conversation.

That said, people do seem to bring up politics to me now, which has been fairly disarming. I was always the initiator before November 5th. Normies are reacting now that shit is negatively effecting them. I’ve still not encountered any anti-Harris lefties IRL only online. Fucking cowards.

Fascism and Stalinism are not the same.

People who unironically support Stalinism in the modern day are red fascists. Whether they are technically the exact same thing or not isn’t a meaningful discussion considering the commentary that Sanders is offering here. He is specifically operating within the context of modern American politics. Something average academic/armchair/larpy leftists are often completely fucking incapable of. His main use of analogizing Stalinism with Trumpism is the Cult of Personality not that they are literally the exact same thing. It is exhausting that this needs to be explained.

Sanders use of the term as a political slur wrongly directed at Trump confuses the issue, and ultimately gives capitalism a pass for its own crisis.

How does it give a pass to capitalism? Sanders himself would agree that capitalism contributed to Trumpism.

This is a deliberate falsification that is calculated to confuse political consciousness and hinder the development of revolutionary conclusions.

This is a level of paranoia suggesting actual brain damage, seek medical attention.