the worst dudes online are the guys who are like “the time for electoral politics is over, it’s time for guillotines.” yeah bud i’m sure you’ll stop posting and get the ball rolling on the guillotines any minute now.
this basically serves the same purpose as QAnon shit on the right. it projects itself as an aggressive form of political engagement, but it’s really just a retreat into fantasy and nihilism
They learned it from QAnon and MAGA spaces. Since it felt like those groups "won" and "got their way" their tactics must be better than other tactics. Whole premise of the "dirtbag left," really.
the communist party had radio shows, the early 20th c. equivalent of the "podcast", and trotskyist groups have been infamous for their newspapers, which are basically the same thing too. all of our present socialist discourse is informed by this historical experience.
I'm talking about one particular, post-2016 iteration of the left, and the political events that precipitated it. It doesn't pay to be completely ignorant of the past, but also, some times and situations are different from others. :)
one of the co-hosts on the most popular "dirtbag left" podcaster was a prominent member of the american socialist movement. literally no american socialist discourse is cleanly extricable from the past, there is historical continuity there.
leftism grew after 2016 because of material conditions that made people more conducive to socialist thought. the podcasts are a reflection of that, not a cause.
