this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
776 points (91.5% liked)
Lefty Memes
5440 readers
1177 users here now
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
Rules
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Getting said literal fascist elected by doing fuck all to solve the problems he said he would, gave said fascist a pass by assigning a mealy mouthed investigator, and hanging out in the race long enough to help depress turnout?
We also need to understand why we got to this place, and saying "who the fuck cares" just emboldens the Dems in power to keep trying the same shit that doesn't work.
Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and mainstream media also played a pretty big role in Trump's rise to power back in 2016.
Yep, I've bitched about that for the better part of the intervening 8 years. Still not sure if the establishment learned the right lesson from 2016.
Most people aren't even aware. I'll keep pushing that fact even if it angers people.
We all loosely share responsibility for Trump rising to power and maintaining said power, and the best way to remove his power is to pull the wool away from everybody's eyes.
The Democrats do not represent the people or workers and they will not fight for anybody or anything besides capital. No matter how progressive they brand themselves in the future or how much they claim to want to fight oligarchy.
They have zero plan or power — they are not serious actors and my assessment of them has nothing to do with purity testing. You are either focused or solutions or you are not. We need solutions imminently — we need a new system.
Well, they're the only other game in town unless you want to sit back and let the fascists take power because people stayed home like they did this year, our hands are pretty much tied come election day. And that is a fact I will keep repeating as long as people refuse to understand that our country is run via electoral politics and no amount of sitting out will change that.
I'm all for getting better candidates on the ballot, but when the only alternative is naked fascism, telling people to stay home or not vote for them is a great way of shooting your pet causes in the foot.
Well clearly we are already almost at a breaking point just 112 days after the start of Trump's presidency. He is ignoring due process and established rights, he is foregoing his oath to uphold the constitution, and everybody in the administration is openly breaking laws left and right. The administration is also arguably in criminal contempt of court.
Personally, I don't think we'll even make it 2 years into the presidency before protests of a massive scale or a collapse.
1/3 of the country doesn't vote in the presidential election, 2/3 are propagandized or coerced into voting for the duopoly. There are many, many people who voted for Trump that likely don't approve of him now. There are many, many people who voted for Kamala who likely didn't actually endorse her, they just didn't want Trump.
If a revolution or similar event is going to happen, it's during this presidency. Otherwise there will be no facade of democracy left to participate in when the next election is supposed to come around. The Democrats aren't going to save us, the answer isn't to sit back — the answer is to create a new system.
We already know how we got here, which is why it doesn't help anything to bitch and moan about how "both sides suck".
Quit your bitching and infighting and blaming everyone else, and focus on what we can do now.
How does it solve anything beyond the shortest of terms to keep seeing salvation in a party thats been creeping right in line with the Fascists for half a century?
What will your opinion be in another 5-8 years when the Democrats have followed the Overton window into calling for extralegal deportations of naturalized citizens and Republicans are just calling for the whites to shoot the non-whites in the street with impunity?
"Better support the Democrats, they only want to deport those people to foreign prisons not execute them on the sidewalk! Get that both sides crap out of here!"
-You in 5 years, probably.
We can co-create a new system as this one falls apart.
Clearly, given how the power structure is doing things differently, right?
Yeah, try to get the establishment to understand a lesson on what failed and have them finally back policies that will encourage people to show up so I don't have to spend 6 months begging people to vote for them because they fucked the dog yet again?