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Freddie deBoer's avatar

I joked with the copy editor that there would be one big glaring mistake we both missed, the first time, and there'd 'thing hard' sitting right here

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RC's avatar

The biggest problem with socialism right now, the reason it’s directionless and treated as an ironic joke, is that the people who are doing the organizing and are the face of the movement not only aren’t working class themselves but detest and have contempt for the working class. And no, I’m not talking just the white working class (although of course they do). I mean anyone without a college education and the right social view. There is a great divide where the bulk of the working class is aligned behind a political project they find deplorable, often with good reason. You can’t have a socialist movement when the majority of the working classes aren’t with you and where the majority of the organizers aren’t working class. The organizers can’t compromise their social values, which they hold very dear, to make common cause with the people going to Trump rallies and trucker protests. The people going to trucker protests and trump rallies have exactly zero interest in most of the causes they see prominently in the socialist movement, which largely involve telling them they are stupid, the things they like and listen to and watch are morally and aesthetically awful and that jobs that have traditionally been a point of pride with them and their family members (the military, police force, agriculture, coal and gas) are destroying the planet rather than holding up society. (I realize most working class people actually work service jobs, but I’m talking about jobs that even if only held by a minority of working class people, have long been aspirational for them and something of which to be proud). I think that sometimes the socialist movement has good reason for its stance on these things but it doesn’t matter because the cultural divide with the bulk of the working class prevents and purposeful and effective movement. You can’t have a socialist movement led by and comprised of almost exclusively the professional middle class. They joke because it is NOT serious to them. It’s a hobby for the comfortable.

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