It’s also in my experience the most terminally online leftists are the ones going online complaining about other people not voting instead of like actually doing organizing. I certainly don’t see a lot of them outside the internet or when doing things that actually matter instead of putting a piece of paper in a box thinking it changes anything.
Leftists-to-Liberals: “Our long term plan is to organize the neighborhood in an effort to incorporate the lumpen proletariat into the workforce, guarantee a basic living standard for everyone, and unshackle ourselves from the reliance on global militarized corporate capital. But our first big step is to discharge all these burdensome financial obligations and institute some basic civil services like health care, education, and public transit.”
Liberals-to-Leftists: “None of that is possible. Its all too hard, unless you have a big government daddy to handle it for you. Your plan is doomed from the start and I’ll be damned if I’m going to participate in any way.”
Leftists-to-Liberals: “Nevertheless, we’re going to try on our own.”
…
Liberals-to-Liberals: “Leftists never try to do anything.”
Leftists are that scene from Interstellar while liberals are
until the heat death of the universe.
The difficulty is demonstrating to libs that change is possible. My hope is that once that happens, at least some of them will realize this futility mindset was always nonsense. We gotta get some small wins to build momentum, to break people out of their complacency.
Typically by doing all the heavy lifting - the organizing, the popularization, the legislating, the bureaucracy, the enactment, the enforcement, the struggle with opposition, the re-legislating and re-bureaucratizing as you iron out the kinks. And then, once a policy is firmly entrenched in the status quo, liberals can support it. At which point they rewrite the history books to take all the credit.
We have a long history of wins, big and small. Everything from Social Security to LGBTQ Rights to Green Energy R&D to the modern Anti-War Activist Movement starts with leftist agitation and organizing. But lots of people are going to be complacent by construction. Getting the kind of education and free time to work with the necessary knowledge and expertise isn’t easy or cheap. You shouldn’t expect every lay schmoe to have a working understanding of advanced socio-economic theory. That’s the whole reason for the Vanguard Party.
The ultimate struggle is not with complacency but outright violent opposition. From liberal police departments tearing up homeless camps to liberal legislators stonewalling activists to liberal media magnets launching massive disinformation campaigns in order to discourage participation in left-wing causes. It is, in effect, a war between Vanguards. And the biggest hurdle for Imperial Core Leftists is the wealthy, entrenched capitalist opposition.