this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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and then says vote blue despite his endorsees never accepting his views, thus functionally it's nothing. all that money and attention ends up in same coffers.
do you think chomsky never said such things?*
*money fishing from epstein aside, he is at least had much clearer and educated rhetoric, and a wealth of knowledge, which we substitute for a guy yelling at tv.
Hasan Horseshoe Theory:
The right hates Hasan because he supports the Democrats. The centrists hate Hasan because he does not support the Democrats enough. The Left hates Hasan because he supports the Democrats.
Thus, the left must ask ourselves: "what do people think if we loudly go around saying 'Hasan sucks cause he supports Democrats!'"? Do you think people will be receptive to our views? Is that going to expand support fo the global socialist movement?
There may well be a time to actively denounce Hasan, however one must recognize the context of their rhetoric. A viable alternative must exist for that to practically generate an expansion of the political left. The alternatives (DSA, PSL, something else...) are still in an incubation phase, and denouncing he most prominent left-wing media figure in the imperial core does not build those movements at this time.
He could solve this and have the left like him by not supporting the democrats whatsoever
My view of hasan has changed recently. I was reading Stalin's foundations of lenninism in which Stalin defended the Bolsheviks participation in the 3rd bund as essential for 2 reasons.
And even more importantly
I've never actually been a viewer of hasan but if this is the plan he is following I must begrudgingly support him for it
I don't think it is strictly necessary to cite Lenin to support Hasan, but this is pretty close to what his approach is. Biggest difference is that he is just a very online guy, rather than a party (which does not yet exist in the US in a viable form).
I mean I could make a less effective argument without it sure, but why would I do that? & Yeah he is not a party but even so if he can make some amount of Americans realize bourgeoisie democracy is bullshit I don't really see why being an individual or a party matters?
Like, with the level of class consciousness and worker solidarity we have I will absolutely take every scrap of revolutionary potential I can get.
No yeah I think you and i are aligned just was trying to expand the discussion a little, but your post pretty much says it all
You can spin him to be whatever you like, he himself does, but I have never in well over a hundred hours of listening to him heard him explain his project this way. The way he explains his project is: You need to meet the masses "where they're at," which means participating no just in bourgeoise government but supporting and running candidates in bourgeoisie parties in order to try to use it as a platform for socialism (I view this as ridiculous) and to promote progressive policy so that Americans can understand that a society can be run in a more pro-social way and thereby be more functional rather than less, as they had been misled (I think this is fair enough).
You can say that Lenin was wrong or irrelevant, but to say he was in agreement with Hasan's strategy when he, like Marx, strongly opposed participating in bourgeois parties in favor of running socialist candidates under a socialist party, is incorrect.
Hasan has a little bit of a Waiting for Godot problem where he wants an electorally viable socialist party to already exist before he's willing to admit that voting for whatever kamalabot the dems put forward is counterproductive, when making such concessions is detrimental to the formation of an opposition party because it's literally the most fundamental point of the dem's anti-domestic-left strategy to maintain the duopoly by extracting those concessions.
I didn't say lenin was in agreement with Hasan, Lenin is especially not irrelevant. I also don't think it matters much of hasan is doing this, consciously, to prove that bourgeois democracy will never produce the needed results for the working class. All that matters is that people see the Dems failing them time and the again and slowly realize the bourgeois democracy will never help them because the next logical step after that is "howdo we get a democracy that represents us. The answer is a socialist revolution
There's a lot of value being in those local Dem spaces. I'm not talking national but the local county and state parties. They're not all ghouls and a lot of those Democrats are a nudge away from gaining class consciousness. A lot of good organizing ends up in that party because a lot of people do not know alternatives are even possible.
We all all shold learn to get more comfortable being uncomfortable. Agitate at these Dem events.. Those spaces are where we meet the workers now, now the ideal form of them that hasn't materialized in several decades of non-electoral organizing.
Local dem spaces where I am are doing fundraisers for zionists and calling the cops on protesters
Sounds like a great reason to grab some comrades and disrupt that shit. I bet there are people even in that room that agree with you and just need "permission" to speak out
The people “speaking out” are the protesters who are being arrested and screamed at by the democrats
That really depends on the space. Not all local Dem parties are like that. From where I sit non-electoral organizing also hasn't brought qny change in the last few decades so IDK if either of us are right or wrong. It's more likely you pick the lane that gives you the best shot in the place you live rather than discard any one way to make progress
hexbear will never be communist will it, mamdanism forever
Yeah I'm an MLM (Marxist-Leninist-Mandanist)
unironically half this website
there's no modern day bolsheviks though so your analogy kind of falls apart. who is it that is "seeing being the curtain"? A streamer? A couple opportunist succ dems without any party line?
Very clearly not the point I'm making
Plenty of people can see behind the curtain. At least 50% of people don't vote at all, and a good majority don't because they don't think it matters in the slightest.
The issue at hand is organizing these disaffected people in a way that can make them affective. Hasan is so busy in his goal to move people left, but all these arguments are only good for pulling people who are already politically active, who are not a majority of the country.
Hasan isn't usually detrimental to the movements, but he is only radical in context that we are extremely fucked here in the West. It is an extremely bad sign when our most popular leading figure is a media critic.
"Says vote blue" is a very shallow description of the role he plays.
If you don't understand his role, I would encourage you to expand your analysis. Best way to do that is to listen in on a few streams instead of going off of clips and tweets.
If you can't figure out how to make him useful to your own propaganda, I think that's a skill issue. Hasan is an informer and educator doing the arduous task of re-education for you. As a better-educated socialist engaged in political practice in your community, you should be the political leader of those around you. Your voice should be louder than his to the people around you, but the good news is that if you post on Hexbear, you agree with Hasan 98.5% of the time.
"the purpose of the system is what it does" analysis of hasan leads to some very unfortunate conclusions. tell me, materially or rhetorically, results of hasan existence? as i see it, rhetorically it's: vote blue, spend money on bezos platforms, never engage third parties, embrace matt dussism. materially it's get expensive house, rub shoulders with dipshits.
i agree with conservative coworkers on 80% things as well, if i pose questions in the right way, so
The normalization of pro-Palestinian politics, the normalization of anti-imperialist and anti-war positions, the mainstreaming of socialist theory, the radicalization of millions of demoralized Gen Zers who might otherwise fall into right-wing traps
Whether you like it or not the face of American socialism is a buff handsome Turkish man who can and does articulate almost all our talking points to the mainstream
But all of that is supposed to be trumped because he interviews Illhan Omar and AOC? Lenin once wrote a whole book about why this kind of mal-prioritized thinking is counterproductive
Years ago now Hasan was the guy who pulled my now adult (then teenager) son towards communism and in the process all of it radicalized me, his dad and the ripples of it keep going around in my family affecting all the libs. We have all moved further left than Hasan long ago, but he was one big influence in why I am now pursuing Marxist academic work and my son is reading Stalin.
For what it's worth my kid has told me that there was a time where he could have gone another way, some of the streamers he was watching before Hasan ended up in dark places. My son is very online and I am forever grateful for a voice like this in a sea of right wingers and the fact that this is what my kid ended up watching.
Hell fuckin yeah
i like or ambivalent that he is handsome, i just doubt he spreads socialist action theory fitting the moment or does anything differently from previous failures.
To defend Hasan, he played a large role in getting Zohran elected. Is Zohran a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist? No. But did Zohran personally get Trump to release multiple pro-Palestinian activists from prison? Yes. Those comrades would be in prison right now if it were not for Zohran and probably Hasan's endorsement of him. You you can't say he has has not done anything different than other similar fugures, that statement is materially false.
I really am curious to know what your example of "fitting the moment" is. In our techno-feudal modern age, all information streams are controlled by billionaires - your message will never reach the masses unless your words remain within the limits set by those billionaires. And considering the low level of class consciousness the average American has, do you believe "revolution now" is a good message that "fits the moment?" If America has a revolution now, it will inevitably turn into a fascist revolution.
Nobody in America is even protesting the Iran war now, despite the high gas prices and lack of propaganda effort from the Trump administration. Are these the people who would support, or possibly join, a socialist revolution? I think the best we can hope for in the USA, in the short-term, is an FDR like figure ushering in a New "New Deal" era, which historically did not make America a socialist state but did lead to many other countries in the global periphery launching left-wing projects - Mexico under Cardenas nationalizing Pemex for example. Would it not be a good idea to take the Eye of Sauron off of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, etc. by electing a social democrat / democratic socialist who could enact a "Good Neighbor" 2.0 policy?
The overall purpose is still unfolding because the political situation in the US is currently turbulent and class issues are in the process of being mainstreamed.
He does third parties, though with a light touch (at this time). If PSL will invite him to collab, why should I cast him out?
Right, so put them on Hasan so he can do the work of bringing them ~18% of the way closer to you. Meet up with them in 6 months or something and you just need need to direct them into your org of preference.
Once again "vote blue" is an underdeveloped analysis. "Spend money on bexos platforms" is having a job, he doesn't have another source of income outside of Twitch subs. "Get expensive house" is not an argument about anything, nobody cares, socialism is not a poverty cult.
"Rub shoulders with dipshits" doesn't matter if they are powerful dipshits, political practice is a social game. If you aren't doing the same to at least a minor extent, I have a difficult time imagining that you are an effective political operator in your community.
the class issues are in the process of further subjugation (by share of worker gdp or union density further decline), amerikkkans are in the 1870s russia (going to the people, questionable empire, nihilism, undirected actions, security state spreading its wings), not even 1905 (although i think russia is all sorts of wrong, while some parallel of peasants paying their imposed liberation thingy might be comparable to rents, it's still entirely different class, weimar republic in 1920s is both alarmist and fits even worse, france under napoleon 3rd also kinda fits with some adjustments, yet same time period)
i won't put them on a millionaire streamer, please be serious. socialism is not poverty cult, but also socialism is love for the fellow human, not treatlerism. i like to think my coworker believe me more when i volunteer on week-ends and share some donation stuff i think fits their profile, be it free software or some global south issue or some pet shelter.
50 years of effective operators rubbing shoulders with powerful people, how did that work out for unions? going well i hope.
This attitude right here turns so many people off of our cause. I hope you don't talk to people like this IRL
tbh it feels like he occasionally says "vote blue" every now and again so libs will listen to him then spends 99% of the time convincing them of our political positions and directing them to people who will immediately tell them actually they shouldn't vote blue while explaining marxism in more depth. So I'd say it's a decent tradeoff ngl.
He gets a large contingent of listeners who support the bernie/AOC/zohran wing of the dem party and would refuse to listen to him if he condemned voting, moves them further left and then directs them to people who will explain why they shouldn't vote dem. imo he's probably a net-negative on the number of dem voters ngl.
Edit: also by being nominally pro voting for the Dems he gets access to a whole mainstream media sphere to talk directly to normie dems about his actual beliefs and is allowed to be far more openly critical of the democratic party on these platforms than he would be able to otherwise
Didn't he finally break and say he was voting PSL?
I think it's correct to feel that Hasan obviously isn't enough but I still think it's good he's bringing our talking points to the forefront. Of course I would rather have a real revolutionary but I hardly think having someone explaining our position to the masses is bad thing. No he's not Stalin or Lenin or even remotely close but he is at least saying mostly correct statements.
How will we ever gain mass support and create a mass movement if we are completely unwilling to talk to the populace of the nation?