5318008 comments on “The left” is a joke

[–] 5318008@lemmy.ml 1 point 1 week ago* (3 children)

But, I think we need a banner to gather under, don’t we?

Your typical American family hasn’t a clue... They know “socialist bad”...

This is why the specific banner probably doesn't matter very much. The association "socialist → bad" just comes from a long-running campaign by Western Capitalists to make sure that the peasants make that association. It basically goes,

The USSR is bad, and
they are socialists, and therefore
socialism is bad.

And that's enough for most people. It's easy to highlight a country's flaws and convince someone that the country is bad, so 1 took hold, for reasons both reasonable and unreasonable. And 2 is free because they have socialism in the name. And 3 is a common logical fallacy, but it works, because it turns out people aren't very rational.

If we picked up the "Proletariat" banner instead, the same thing would happen.

The USSR is bad, and
they implemented some of Karl Marx's ideas, and so
Karl Marx is bad, and so
the proletariat are bad.

It's not a marketing problem. It's a problem with who gets to control all of the marketing narratives.

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[–] CardboardDecoy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

'Not a marketing problem, it's a problem with markeing'...

Look I don't want to drag you too hard here but you do have .ml in your handle so I'm gonna just do this as briefly as possible:

You are referencing a 70 year old political movement as if we haven't had 70 years of history happen since then. We are so far past red scare tactics that everyone who found out how fucked it was died and now they're trying it again but stupider.

We have a crazy unbelieveable opportunity happening right now, actively, in New York, where someone openly referring to themselves as socialist is making massive moves where they are proving that Government can actually be leveraged to make improvemnts for the working class and can also remove incentives for weath hoarding. People are actually paying attention to the DSA and D's are actively campaigning against 'themselves' with more effert than we've seen them use in 10 years against Trump.

So no, not a marketing problem, it's an availability to actually express power and follow through on actual governance problem. I know you haven't said anything about electoralism so I will take ownership for bringing it up, but it's effective electoralism that is going to keep this door open. It's happening.

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[–] 5318008@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 week ago (1 child)

It’s not a marketing problem. It’s a problem with who gets to control all of the marketing narratives.

‘Not a marketing problem, it’s a problem with markeing’…

It's clear to me that I said two different things. Is there anything about either that you would like me to clarify?

Compare: "It's not a strategy problem; it's a game-design problem."

You are referencing a 70 year old political movement as if we haven’t had 70 years of history happen since then.

I'm explicitly referring to it because of the 79 years of history. 79 years of history tends to have an effect on the public consciousness.

We surely don't believe that the average person formed their “socialist → bad” association from exposure to socialism, right? Then, why do they believe that? Most Americans can't even accurately describe what socialism is. How did it come to pass that they are so convinced that “socialist → bad”? If this is about the USSR, then surely the organic version of this is that everyone would be convinced “USSR → bad” instead, right?

The only reason it's worth mentioning in this context is the resulting 79 years of shaping public opinion.

We have a crazy unbelieveable opportunity happening right now, actively, in New York, where someone openly referring to themselves as socialist is making massive moves

Yes, that's great. I'm happy that people have the opportunity to see the impact that well-managed social policies can have. I would say that the marketing is quite good.

and D’s are actively campaigning against ‘themselves’ with more effert than we’ve seen them use in 10 years against Trump.

Yes, and that's part of what I'm referring to when I say that it’s a problem with who gets to control all of the marketing narratives. We have a two-party system, and both parties are actively stacking the deck against anyone campaigning on good social policy.

Consider how the average person gets their political information. If both major parties have decided that it's better if everyone believes “socialist → bad”, that's simply what most people are going to be exposed to, and what most people are going to believe.

Mamdani is an anomaly: he happens to be so likeable, with ideas that are so popular, that this didn't stop him from winning anyway. It also helps that paying a few thousand influencers to spam anti-leftist content can be somewhat counterbalanced by paying 200 influencers to spam pro-Mamdani content.

https://campaignlegal.org/update/campaign-finance-regulations-must-address-influencers-and-streaming-platforms-protect-voters

Hopefully driving this point home: the marketing strategy for these ideas is good, because people generally like good social policy. However, the marketing environment is biased toward whoever spends the most money.

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[–] CardboardDecoy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

So yes, to be clear, you're saying two different things but I feel like if you're going to invoke something like marketing you need to acknowledge that marketing itself is not ever going to be the thing we use to fight something like capitalism, in which the very concept of marketing is like 'we'll take the giants fingers and crush his own windpipe with it.' The master's tools' and all that.

Think about everything ICE is doing that isn't being televised. Think about what Gaza would look like if this was 1990 and we only had the same kind of coverage available as we did with the Gulf War. Yes, obviously the people in power are only going to let us see the events and definitions they want to implant in the median voter but it's so much bigger now than in the McCarthyist era.

And obviously whoever spends the most money in the marketing arena is going to win. But even then the cracks are showing. AIPAC has made itself known and we're starting to see people, Mamdani included, who are overcoming the money in lieu of principle. Of course he's likeable and persuasive and all of that, he's an effective politician who understands strategy and optics. We just need more.

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