My experience with hexbear has been pretty fucking far from them knowing political theory, outside of one very specific niche they can kind of articulate as long as you don't ask them to reduce any of it to fundamentals or first principles.

As far as I can tell, their one trick is quoting books they haven't actually read, assuming nobody else has read them either. I've literally had this same interaction three or four times at this point, over books which don't say the things they think they say. Like multiple people arguing that some Chomsky work supports their orthodox ML theory.

You can literally get them to argue against the works they are trying cite by quoting them. It's amusing for a bit, but then it's just sad.