It is kinda funny to think about what the bitter liberation movement would be like.

Doomerism is the real cringe.

I don’t know… as a domestic violence survivor I see it differently. I wish people had said bad things about my abusers! It would’ve helped me get safe faster.

I have an easier time trusting people who call out bad people for doing bad things!

Maybe the reason is psychological? Being a people pleaser is the source of his charm so it’s hard to put down the people pleasing even when it’s not strategic?

He seems very unwilling to say bad things about his enemies. Should that make me nervous?

I also feel very worried about the meeting!

What do you think Mamdani is thinking?

Why do you think he did it?

THIS. IS. WILD!!!

My Cuban-American friend says the same thing! You make a good point that support for authoritarian communism can be about romanticizing your way past the bad things— not just the pessimistic attitude that only authoritarians stand up to capitalists.

I miss the way Twitter was before Musk ruined it! There was real writing community on old Twitter

Like you, I want a non-authoritarian revolution— or what is the point haha?! But from the perspective of someone who fully agrees with you, I think it’s not fair to describe the Maoists and Leninists as non-thoughtful. I think they’ve more succumbed to a seductive pessimism created by history.

Reading The Jakarta Method really helped me understand my tankie comrades. Basically, the CIA successfully took out all the non-authoritarian communists, only the authoritarians were ruthless enough to avoid falling to the CIA, which loved taking down communist democracies

Someone very close to me is a near-Trotskyist. Trotsky was assassinated rather than getting in charge— but like Mao and Lenin, he believed an authoritarian setup was necessary to be strong enough to withstand the attacks of capitalist empire.

So I have pitched into this debate on your side a time or two. Maoists can point to the literacy and health gains under communism as saving more lives than the butchering lost. Marxist-Leninists say that STALIN was responsible for the atrocities— not Marx or Lenin.

I guess as someone who grew up in Iowa, I’m used to everyone loving the Founding Fathers. They raped their slaves and participated in Native American genocide! So liking Mao/Lenin feels like a measurable step up from the American norm? That’s why it doesn’t phase me at all

People love to pretend like pastel QAnon and RFK and anti-vaxx moms are just a function of bored privilege and ignorance, but the reality is much more complex.

These anti-medical birth movements cross class and race lines and exploit very real gendered trauma from medical sexism related to birth.