this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
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What's your alternative? Do you think an armed revolution is going to happen? Do you think the millions of comfortable liberals are going to be fine with that?
We cannot push this all at once, all we can do is nudge the needle back towards progressivism until it starts to choke capital. We don't have an army, we don't have enough uncomfortable people, we don't have fucking leadership so lets get real.
That won’t work. When has it ever worked? Labor right were won through violent strikes often times involving shootouts with the police. Civil rights were won with mass public disobedience alongside the looming threat of violent confrontation. Dr. King derided the same comfortable liberals you seem to want to appeal to. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect incremental progress through compromise and insider politics when that’s never been an effective strategy.
Of course I don’t discount the reality that we are not in place where enough people are ready and willing to make the sacrifices necessary to put capital on the defense. That said, inequality is rising, living conditions are degrading, and the US government is becoming increasingly brazen about the ways in which it intends to sell out its own citizens to the highest bidder. The path of decline that we are on will create a mass of people with not much left to lose. That’s when there is real opportunity to organize people into something capable of turning the tide.
Basically we can prepare for that eventuality or we can have a blind faith in a handful of well intentioned yet painfully impotent elected officials. That’s not to say we should sit out elections but rather said elections need to be a tool for organizing disaffected people rather than a promise to change the system from the inside.
What do you mean "worked"? What is "working" to you?
I care more for material outcomes so when we talk about whether or not something is "working" I want to define what that means. Has progressive politics fallen off a cliff in the 2010's on? Yep. But where was it before that? What had society scored? How many accomplishments can I list towards a better future should I list? It was activism and pushing for marginal progress that got us everything from gay marriage to 8-hour-workdays to repairing the hole in the ozone layer.
There are a lot of things we want for a better world, and we're simply not getting it all at once, nor fast. So again, your choices are the following:
Armed rebellion and social revolution akin to what China did, which is making any tankies that made it down this far already get erections, but this is not a fair or just outcome unless you've decided that individual rights and cultures are not a progressive value after all. Also, see previous: we have no army nor mandate, and even if we did it, we would have to live next to tens of millions of people who wanted none of this.
Social reform through rebuilding community and reforming politics through actual involvement and making incremental, boring-ass advances which mean all that shit you probably hate like sitting through city council meetings about the distribution of funds for various infrastructure projects while you sit there looking out the window at a world burning. It's not the fun path, it's often not even the winning path... but the reason we've lost so much ground in the 2010's on is precisely because people have lost interest in trying. We all checked out of community and now everything is a shit pile which took years to pile up, and somehow we expect we can shovel it all away in one go because suddenly we're in a huge hurry because now we're noticing how bad it's gonna be.
Check out. Stop caring, work your 9-5 and collect your 401k, and despite all else happening in the world, the chances of you living a long, happy, healthy life with normal outcomes is very, very high. Why are your chances of living a long, fruitful, happy life without political involvement so high? See above: people worked for it, pushed for it, demanded better for their country and got us here.
If we all just choose #3 we will have nothing, and if we choose #2 we will probably have serious, horrible losses but we will also have gains. Our species simply is not going to be what we both wish it was, we are going to be fighting ourselves forever so we need to change mindset that we can "fix" things. You can't fix the nightmare of greed and capital and genocide any more than you can "fix" having to do your laundry. It is forever.
So understanding that our overnight success is probably a childlike fantasy akin to the right's obsession with the Rapture or race-wars or whatever, would you be able to sit through that city council meeting on fund distribution without clawing at your desk and looking out the window? Because that's where we need to get to and we need to get there in a hurry because that proceduralism that we all hate is a necessary evil, because those comptrollers are going to be the ones who will find fraud first, and that fraud is what is holding up all the corruption above it. We need engagement and actual passion, and if New York can do it and elect an actual passionate leader who wants better outcomes, we can do it anywhere but it takes effort towards boring, small steps forward.
Oh come on. There are countless options you’re just ignoring between sitting through a city council meeting and a protracted people’s war. I even gave you examples of how progressive politics was advanced in the past. If you don’t want to learn the lessons of history then why should anyone listen to do? Are you actually that allergic to any sort of politics that inspires and mobilizes people? You can call anyone who wants to do more than sit in a city budget meeting a “tankie” and then pat yourself on the back all day, it won’t make your argument any less wrong. I mean seriously, the last meaningfully economic progressive policy was the creation of Medicare and Medicaid which happened in the 60’s and yet you’re acting like the decline started in the 2010s. But yeah sure, progressivism was doing so well during the Reagan and Bush eras. Lol
I can't spell it out across such a fine-tooth list of qualifiers to appease your specific vision of what you want to see happen, but whatever it is, it doesn't succeed without actual effort towards the less-flashy, more nuanced and balanced direction for policy and representation. My examples were broad-speaking and not literal and... now i'm done, this is just going to get pedantic and derailed about nine-million specifics and examples and counter-examples of this and that, and I have community to build. Have a good one.
Well one of the ways we can liberate our minds is to get off mainstream social media. So kudos to us for doing that.
I think the next steps is to create the conditions for revolution to be successful. The no 1 thing I think is to BUILD COMMUNITY. I have been volunteering at free clinics for the last few years. I try to have gatherings when I can. Then The next most important thing is to organize, so join an organization that offers something that fits. I recently was offered a job at a coop. I've attended some DSA events, trying to figure out a way to fit more of that in my life. The next most important thing is to build your independence from big tech. So get off their services as much as you can.
You're right, were not ready to take to the streets, even tho that is the real thing that needs to happen. So we as individuals can help build our independence, organize and believe in community. We can get there, it'll take a long time, but just because it seems like a big task doesn't mean we can't get there eventually.
I have been endorsing building community and working towards active participating in that for years and years and continue to endorse it as our answer to most of our worst issues, but we have to also understand that we don't get ecscape from politics, which definitionally means compromise between two or more forces. Those communities will still need representation, those representatives will still need to interact with a world that is largely controlled by forces we don't agree with, and thus people you like will have to do things you don't like from time to time, otherwise we're just roleplaying and trying to build a militia in private and that gets us nowhere.
That's all I'm saying, we do not turn our backs on people otherwise fighting for a better future just because they have to make tough choices to earn political capital. We just have to understand the nuance here and when it crosses a line to corruption.
Mussolini was not dragged out by a plucky band of rebels with their own, separatist value system, he was arrested by his own king and government due to political pressure and handed over to the opposition group. We still need to interact with the system and play the game.
I think that's probably the right course. We are forced to work with what we got and you can't abandon the people that are here. But I think it's important to be mindful that compromising will only get you so far. It will never take you all the way.