The NYC mayor's race is the most watched political race in the US right now, by a large margin too (I guess the second most is Prop 50 in CA? Either way that one is way behind). After Tuesday, Zohran's win will probably be the big story that normies IRL will be talking about here. "Socialism" will be a topic on top of everyone's minds.
And I think everyone here - even if you have major issues with Zohran specifically or electoralism in general - should be ready to speak to it among the people in your life.
Opportunities like this don't come around very often. Right now Americans are getting a ton of misinformation about what socialism is due to a demsoc running and very likely winning the job of mayor of the biggest city in the US. On top of that, this misinformation is transparently bad ("Zohran wants to sieze all the grocery stores in New York!") that if you simply point to what's actually being proposed, you will look pretty knowledgeable by comparison. This is all very low hanging fruit.
But you have to be prepared. Like literally, you should practice how you will respond to people who want to talk to you about Mamdani and socialism. The other day, AcidSmiley made a comment that I've been thinking about ever since: she said she had to deradicalize herself a bit from this site because she was having trouble interacting with normal people and not sounding like she was unhinged. I absolutely do this too. Whenever a topic tangential to socialism or imperialism comes up with people IRL, I end up overshooting. I scare people away even if they have a sense that I'm right. What I say sounds totally reasonable to us here, but to people who aren't engaged with stuff it doesn't matter how correct you are; if you can't meet them where you are they will tune you out.
So for me, today and tonight I'm gonna skim through Ha-Joon Chang's "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism". It's not straight Marxist analysis but it's written for the people I'll be talking to. I'm also going to try and brush up on my knowledge of Zohran's specific policies (like freezes on rent for rent controlled apartments, that seems to be one everyone brings up and I don't feel I know enough about it).
For those of you who are strongly against Zohran or electoralism.... do whatever you want ofc, but I'm just saying if a normie asks you about Zohran and you say "he's just a social fascist" and scoff, then that will be a missed opportunity. People will have no idea what you are talking about and frankly probably won't be interested in hearing more.
I think "deradicalizing" is absolutely the wrong answer unless you are in danger of being beaten or shot. In terms of simply talking to people, it is good to stand for what is true even if it is far removed from what they believe, it's just a matter of communicating it competently (and it actually being true rather than just moralizing bullshit, which is where "wall" discourse comes from).
I have had lengthy debates, for example, with an educated professional who said that they had never even heard of the idea of landlordism not being a real job, much less considered the idea, until I said it to them. I nonetheless was able to persuade them that it was true and build credibility over the course of a few discussions.
I agree. When I think about things on Hexbear that make me sound incomprehensible to non-Hexbears, I'm thinking of extremely ironic in jokes that other people aren't going to understand without a long primer on our niche of Internet history. When it comes to politics itself I will (for example) fully defend the Maoist uprising against the landlords without qualification.
Counterpoint: saying "another kkkrakkka down" to "normies" is really funny.
As long as you're not trying to convince them of anything, it can be.