One of the most common questions we get is whether or not we should “hide our power level” when it comes to our political positions. In this video, we look at the words and practice of Karl Marx, Fred Hampton, Vladimir Lenin, Fidel Castro, and Harvey Milk to tackle the question: should we hide our true positions as we build our movement?
I’m always just open with the fact.
Any conversation I’ve had, people have walked away with a softer view of communism because they talked to an actual human who believes it.
If you don’t outright say it, then their only engagement with communism is going to be strawmen and propaganda.
Remember, libs are like dogs who only understand tone. Stay cool and matter-of-fact. If you lose your cool, even if justified, then you’re “one of the crazies.” When I talk about trans issues with my family, I have to grit my teeth while they casually say the dumbest, most harmful, humiliating things. But it works . They’ll outright say, “wow, you’re not at all like those insane people I see on the news or in my slop videos.”
In my opinion, it’s not helpful to try to hide what you actually believe behind phrases like “democracy in the workplace.” Democracy in the workplace is part of a broader political project that needs to be clearly explained. If it is not contextualized that way, then it just becomes another item on the internally contradictory American political ideology buffet.
If it is not contextualized that way, then it just becomes another item on the internally contradictory American political ideology buffet.
Excellent way of framing it. Americans have no coherent political ideology, so the goal should be to introduce one to them.
Americans have no coherent political ideology, so the goal should be to introduce one to them.
Every country under the imperial core is like this, imo
Fuck no. We need to normalise communism not hide it. Otherwise you’ll just end up another movement poisoned by libs dressing up as Washington and calling that leftism
Yeah, I still have the tendency to want to “ease people into it”, but it doesn’t really seem like that’s actually effective. Then again I think I kinda suck at persuasion regardless of the way I try to approach political conversations. I just draw a blank when confronted with dumb lib takes and figure out what to say after the fact
I have a lot of success with easing people into things, but it really depends on the person. If they’re already open, you can come at them directly, but if they’re just starting to question why things suck, in my experience it’s better to stoke the flame of their frustrations before presenting them with the solution.
How do you do it? I always get very granular when I know zooming out and asking more questions would probably be the correct approach, I just can’t activate that part of my brain during conversation
It’s a person-to-person, situational thing. Usually I don’t say shit until they give me an opening. Like, if someone says something to indicate they’re starting to catch on that every story they hear about the DPRK seems too silly to be real, I will jump in and give them some actual information about Korea, like why there even is a North and South Korea in the first place.
Yeah, I guess most of my openings are people who are still civility-brained to some degree and just privileged to be white and insulated from shit. Like how do I come back at “those guys killing Jews, like the embassy shooter, thats just harming the cause and is gonna Make people feel even more strongly about destroying Palestine”. I feel like I get too caught up in the specifics of things like that where zooming out could probably be more effective I just don’t know how to in the moment. Wish I took a debate class
Urbanism focused approach can work with liberals, ease in to talking about how capitalism makes things so isolating and all the community is sucked out of our environment.
Others I usually don’t bother with too much.
I have gone with being openly communist and also really fucking cool 😎.
Well well well, get a load of the self confidence on this guy!
I tell people I’m a communist but I’m not really fucking cool so maybe thats the rub here
Im cool in like what a little kid in the 80s and 90s would think of as cool. I look like a mad max character but with anime hair, I know a shitload of super underground music, I make pizza for a living, terms like ‘rad’, ‘groovy’ and ‘sicknasty’ are a decent part of my lexicon. Plus im absolutely hilarious in person. No false modesty there, I bring the house down at least once a night at work and usually make other people participants in the bit. I just think of a way to make a conversation happen in a way that the other person will set me up for a punchline. This is mostly workplace charm stuff cause the people I see outside of work are already on the trolley, this is my talking to normies strategy. Combine a Ninja Turtles style aura with ninja turtles style kindness. At work I am dedicated to making shit as fair as possible and sometimes that means me taking on more so someone else can get a break but when its my time for the same im not gonna hesitate to ask the same be returned and be pretty assertive about it. Basically just actually care about people around you as well as yourself so you aren’t tsking any shit either. You manage the right balance and you’ve got a formula for behavior that is pretty much universally respected. One thing I try to do is give a direct yes or no answer to a yes or no question and then explain why. Explanation first is burying the ledge and seems wishy washy. Do a definite ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ and then follow with the reason if necessary, usually you only need a reason for no, people take yes as is
There’s no surprise here when it comes to how you describe yourself lol. I think when people get to know me I’m pretty likeable, I also feel like a cartoon character, and people have told me straight up that they admire my ability to speak up for my coworkers and speak on things that others get nervous to when it comes to standing up to management. I’m big on fairness as well, probably to a fault. I am autistic, mentally ill, and not a cisdude so those are pretty big strikes against me, however, in terms of capturing a lot of peoples hearts and minds.
In terms of speaking to people when it comes to politics I’m pretty straightforward but I find that it’s hard for me to pull myself out of refuting the whataboutisms and redirecting the conversation. Like instead of arguing about civility it would be much more productive to ask questions, I think, and things like "why is the embassy shooting your main area of focus? Why do you think that “our side” has to be perfect where they dont? " or trying to get people to think about idealism vs materialism. I just can never access that part of my strategic debate brain
This is the best strat imo
If you come in as an open commie it keeps you grounded in the needing to stay cool as hell too. Once youre open about it, youre the representative and you should be a good example.
I kinda suck at persuasion regardless of the way I try to approach political conversations. I just draw a blank when confronted with dumb lib takes and figure out what to say after the fact
In a way you need to “ease yourself into it”. If you’re on here arguing with people about the finer points of the Iranian response to Israeli aggression or Chinese economic policy, it’s hard to shift gears to defusing liberal brainworms when you go offline. In this case it can be easier to just put your succdem hat on since you’ll at least be in some proximity to one another ideologically.
I’d almost say you can still call yourself a communist and argue from a socdem perspective, but that’s probably just confusing to people in the long term so actually don’t.
Yeah, I guess easing myself in/getting practice is the only way I can get better, like after the fact I can think of so many things that would be more productive to say. I have one friend in particular that I really want to work in who could be good practice. I wrote a 15 page paper on the history of Palestine starting back in the days of Canaan, basically. He read it not knowing I wrote it and I think it really framed his position from the outstart of Al-Aqsa Flood, he owns a keffiyeh now. So I should maybe pull out that card when we talk next time “hey I completely convinced you on paper, listen to me dammit”
Well you’ve probably noticed it takes a long time, you end up dropping knowledge over the course of months till it starts to “click” for people. I wouldn’t stress having all the right things to say all at once cause they can’t internalize all that anyway.
I think once thing that sets socialists apart from liberals on the ideological conversation front is that liberals retreat and want everything to be “a personal belief” etc (like religion and such). They don’t like to be wrong about anything ever, so everything needs to have studies and committees (especially when legislating) to ensure no wrong decision is made, even though the result is a hollow, ineffective, too-late decision at the end of the process.
Socialists will say and do a lot of things, and when we are 80-90% correct it’s not bad at all (just gotta clean up after anything that went wrong along the way). To the common liberal it shows. That trust is built quickly and people who have a materialist intuition can quickly rise to be leaders of their community or organization (in whatever form that may be). We tend to be “correct too early”, so we need to give the world time to catch up, but people do notice.
…just a few more thoughts, hope it’s useful to you…
That is useful, gotta remember that turning the tides is a protracted process and I gotta be patient!
Also isn’t that, like, what they accuse us of doing anyway? Like yeah DEI, LGBTQ+ advocacy, and all the other social policies aren’t inherently communism, but they’re certainly a big part of what we stand for. It plays into their narrative about us to lie about our positions.
The common true answer to these kinds of thoughts is always, “it depends”. Wanting simple and fast rules helps to frame questions, discussions, and solutions, but you would be incorrect to just say yes or no.
If a cop is harassing you, do you just call yourself a communist because you reject “hiding your power level”? Won’t that just pointlessly make them go after you harder? Will any observers understand or care what it means for the cop to arbitrarily detain and arrest you after sharing this fact?
If you are tabling and are cagey about your associations, won’t they, correctly, distrust you? Aren’t you missing out on opportunities to spread consciousness and recruit?
This is actually a propaganda question, and for propaganda just about your very first thought should be about identifying your intended audience(s), what you want them to think or do after your interaction with them, and what threats might exist and how you will mitigate them. That should determine how open you are about communism. For example, if you are in the US at a party and calk yourself a communist to a stranger, they will probably not even understand what you mean by that. You will fail to communicate if you rely on this alone. You’d need to explain it shortly in a way that speaks to things familiar to them, like working a job and imperialism. If you lead with “communist” they may end up leaving before your explanation. Better to explain first and label later. On the other hand if you’re giving a speech for a communist party.
Overall I think it is best to explain yourself as best you can to be understood when it comes to non-enemies. Sometimes that looks like hiding your power level and sometimes it doesn’t.
Crazy to think this guy and badmouse both started as ancaps and then noncompete went on to become a very thoughtful and intelligent leftist.
I thank Luna Oi for this
Isn’t badmouse the smug “if gommunism good, then why liberate Ukrainians in Poland with Marathon-Ribbedcock pact?” How is that anything but anticommunist revisionist propaganda?
No matter whatever political position he takes, badmouse will always do it in the most smug, pretentious way possible. Even his ML videos were annoyingly condescending.
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of All Countries, Unite!
– last paragraph of the Communist Manifesto
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.
What part of this means you have to say “communism”, your views and aims are probably not saying a word so if your politics have a chance to be popular but your political identity does not maybe focus on the former. Notice how anti-immigration fascists don’t say they’re fascists nor that they’re doing fascism when they’re doing stuff that’s popular like deporting migrants.
We’re not in 1848. “Never ever be subversive” has never been an objective principle of communist strategy, nor recognized as universally good political tactics, if it’s worth doing you do it.
In most people’s imagination “Communism” is a thing that already happened and mostly ended, whatever changes the world is going to be called something else even if it retains the same views and aims.
I think you just did the thing where one provides a quote and lazily confuses principles with strategy.
Two closely related points on this -
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When your messaging is limited, I think there’s a lot to be said for emphasising a position over a label. “SUPPORT COMMUNISM (plus let’s make life better)” has a very different vibe to “LET’S MAKE LIFE BETTER (Communism can help)”.
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Secondly, relatedly, there’s a compromise between ‘hiding it’ and ‘blaring it without context’. If you just say “I’m a communist” and then leave, people will ascribe whatever they want to you and you’ve probably done your credibility a disservice in the public’s eye. If you contextualise that with some relevant position or two, then it becomes a lot more obvious and helps normalise the term.
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Yes 100% if possible if your starting something new you should not come out swinging with complicated positions/theories/political identities that people don’t understand nor have the power to achieve when in the immediate term all you’re really going to be doing is trying to revive unions.
Look at recent insurgent political parties in europe that achieved at one point significan results, both left and right, a lot of them do say the “neither left nor rigbt” thing, even when its obvious which it is, they also have non-ideological names look
Reform, Podemos(we can), Chega (enough), 5 stars movement, that new greek party, hell even macron’s “republic en marche” etc
So all I can say is corbyn should name his new party Solidarity or Revival or some anodyne shit like that.
5* movement isn’t recent at all really, they were eclipsed by the fascist party years ago
And at one point they were in first place so my point remains, and now they’re explicitly left-wing (idk how that happened), also I consider anything that had it significant results since the left-populist moment in the early 2010s recent.
And the fascist party you mentioned could also be an example of part of what I’m saying , they’re not “neither left nor right” but “Brothers of Italy” is a lot more attractive than “Fascist party of italy”.
I could add to this melenchon’s “Insubmissive France” which is explicit about its political identity but namewise is a lot more anodyne than “Socialist party splinter group with a bunch of agglomerated trots party”.
Corbyn might have a harder time saying this, but in his new party I’d use “neither left nor right”.
At this point in time, we need to be hiding our power levels.
Yeah that’s where the “starting something new” part is more relevant, corbyn isn’t new so it’d be a conversion of his, and his movement’s, political identity into something else, even if its politics remain the same, and there’s no guarantee that actually works out well. It’d be very hard for him.
