[gishh]

> Jacobin is not a whole journal on literal communism. It’s a magazine with a professed socialist view point but it’s more aligned with left-of-center American politics. Think Sanders or Mamdani rather than Stalin or Mao.

> Sanders or Mamdani

Sanders and Mamdani are about as far left of center as one can get at the moment, such that they almost meld into Stalin or Mao.

The mental gymnastics you’re doing to blunt that fact is absolutely incredible.

[dragonwriter]

> Sanders and Mamdani are about as far left of center as one can get at the moment

No, they aren’t. They are about as far left of center as you can get and be competitive in US elections, maybe, but that’s a very different thing. There’s a lot to their left (as you an see from the by the opposition from leftist as sellouts to capitalist/imperialist/etc. institutions both have.)

[tavavex]

> Sanders and Mamdani are about as far left of center as one can get at the moment, such that they almost meld into Stalin or Mao.

So, when's Mamdani's Great Purge coming? Do you think he's gonna stand by the standards of his historical ideological equivalent, Stalin, and execute a couple hundreds of thousands of elites (if we're going by the same proportions as the USSR), or is he going all out - maybe he could get a million deaths in? Maybe he could also start a famine or two on the way there?

The utter insanity of American politics baffles me. "Anything left is abhorrent totalitarian communism in the making" isn't just a meme, it's a foundational piece of mainstream American ideology that has been at its core for nearly a century now.

[AlexandrB]

While I agree that the US has a historical obsession with communism, "anything right is abhorrent totalitarian fascism in the making" has been a far more commonly stated position for the last decade. At this point, it's necessary to regard both "communism" and "fascism" as simple pejoratives and focus on the specific policies being discussed.

This is unfortunate but perhaps inevitable. There are not that many left that remember the horrors of either ideology clearly.

[rsynnott]

> such that they almost meld into Stalin or Mao.

... Oh, come on now. I can't tell whether you're extremely confused about Sanders and Mamdani, or extremely confused about Stalin and Mao.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/25/bernie-sande... would have gone very differently if Sanders was Mao, for a start.

[gishh]

You really think if they had the unchecked power of Stalin or mao they would be… better?

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It’s a no-kidding literary tool used throughout history.

[mightyham]

> such that they almost meld into Stalin or Mao

Stalin was an ideological authoritarian that executed political rivals and used lethal force, price controls, and other governmental tools to control the economy and the general working population. The idea that Sanders and Mambani advocate anything close to that is laughable.

The rhetoric on both the right and left that liken today's politics to extremism in the 20th century is a ridiculous anachronism that needs to be called out more often.