The second part is true though. Terminally online leftists have no power to change anything.
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2025
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Pragmatic Leftist Theory
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The neolibs are too far right. The tankies are doing whatever that is. Where's the space for the people who want fully-automated-luxury-gay-space-communism, but realize that it's gonna take a while and there are lots of steps between now and then? Here. This is that space.
Here, people should endeavor to discuss and devise practical, actionable leftist action. Vote lesser evil while you build grassroots coalitions. Unionize your workplace. Participate in SRAs. Build cohesion your local community. Educate the proletariat.
This is a place for practical people to develop practical plans to implement stable, incremental improvement.
If you're dead-set on drumming up all 18,453 True Leftists® into spontaneous Revolution, go somewhere else. The grown ups are talking.
Rules:
-1. Don't be a dick. Racism, sexism, other assorted bigotries, you know the drill. At least try to default to mutually respectful discussion. We're all on the same side here, unless you aren't, in which case kindly leave.
-2. Don't be a tankie. Yes I'm sure you have an extensive knowledge of century-old theory. There's been a century of history since then. Things didn't shake out as expected, maybe consider the possibility that a different angle of attack might be more effective in light of new data.
-3. Be practical. No one on the left benefits from counterproductive actions. This is a space informed by, not enslaved to, ideology. Promoting actions that are fundamentally untenable in the system in question, because they fulfill a sense of ideological purity, is a bad look. Don't do that.
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The point is both can't be simultaneously true. Either they're too weak to have affected the election, or their ultimatum (and demand going forward) of capitulation of the Dem Party doesn't make strategic sense. "Yes, WE wrecked Harris's bid, and we'll do it again if you don't change according to our desires!" and "N-no... we could never have been the reason that the levers of power in the US were handed over to the literal Nazis..." are mutually exclusive positions which are, nonetheless, often both touted by terminally online leftists.
That being said, if someone told me that 1%-2% of the electorate were terminally online leftists, I don't know that I would dispute it. And as noted, it only takes ~1% of the vote to lose an election in this fucked systems of our's.
I don’t think they’re even close to that many but I have actually been curious if there has been much polling that can estimate the size of fringe ideologies like this.
I guess it will be tough to measure due to the margin of error.
For reference, Claudia de la Cruz got .1% of the vote in 2024. And some of those people probably just protest voted without really understanding her platform. So I think we’re dealing with a tiny number of people here.
Also, the only way they would affect the outcome is if those people would have otherwise voted for Harris. Which is far from obvious.
It’s pretty clear that Harris lost because she was not well liked by all sorts of voters. The far left is just one tiny piece of the larger phenomenon.
Unfortunately, the only poll I've run across on the numbers is by the 'Victims of Communism Foundation' 🤢, which estimates some 6% of the youngest demographic cohort as seeing Stalin favorably.
I find the source dubious, but I could honestly buy one-in-twenty young folk being blinkered idiots (older folk are blinkered idiots too, but with more anti-communists amongst them due to Cold War propaganda), with a percentage point or two allowance for people giving ridiculous poll responses for the lulz.
Also, the only way they would affect the outcome is if those people would have otherwise voted for Harris. Which is far from obvious.
The meme addresses protest abstainers, though, which were a much larger percentage of the electorate - even if you only count those who voted for Biden in 2020.
It’s pretty clear that Harris lost because she was not well liked by all sorts of voters. The far left is just one tiny piece of the larger phenomenon.
Yeah, though I would argue that Harris not being well-liked by all sorts of voters also has a lot to do with the competing negative narratives pushed against her. All things to all people, in a negative sense - though I suppose part of that was her own goddamn fault for not taking firm positions on anything.
She was a shit candidate, in any case, and bears a piece of responsibility for the potential loss of the republic.
I feel like that’s probably including a lot of trolls or people who barely know who Stalin is.
On any survey with two responses you will get at least a few percent, even if the option is rather odious.
Not to mention that unless their sample size is huge, the margins of error will be very large on a small subsample like this.
So I mean I’m not saying it’s wrong per se but there are a lot of reasons it might not be completely accurate.
I don't think a lack of protests is what got Trump elected...
Protest abstainers are people who, in protest of Dem policy, abstained from voting in the 2024 election, largely for reasons related to desired leftist policy.