people will move to PSL by attacks on an anti-Zionist

Most people are not fans of Nazis or paedophiles, I would hope, though maybe America is different. So when it is made abundantly clear, repeatedly and openly, that this is what bourgeois democracy offers them, people will naturally start looking for alternatives where alternatives exist. This is where the whole agitating amongst the masses is supposed to come in where PSL steps forward with the answers and alternative that moves outside the system.

I’m in PSL mate. You know what most people think about him? “I don’t live in Maine. But if I did I’d vote for him over a Zionist” and then we move on and keep organizing for a protest or immigration rights training.

You wouldn’t run your own candidate, spread your platform, and use the campaign to agitate? Then what exactly is the point of communist electoral work?

If you hooked Lenin to a generator, he could power Moscow.

Communists should not be entering bourgeois elections with the fantasy that socialism can simply be voted in. You should exclusively be entering them to expose the limits of parliamentarism, spread the communist programme, raise class consciousness, and organize people outside the electoral machine. That is Lenin 101.

You know what gets most people to join PSL? It’s not trying to be “more left than thou”. It’s some dude in DSA that joined DSA because they liked Bernie Sanders and Mamdani, joined DSA, and then met PSL people at protests. That’s the normal way people find us.

If that is the only recruitment PSL receives, then PSL is doing a far shittier job of agitation and engagement than I was led to believe.

Communists should be present among the masses with a clearer revolutionary line. Not tailing reformism or refusing to criticize social-democratic politicians because they are “better” than open Zionists.

PSL. We are not the viable alternative to Platner. We don’t run in political races to win. We essentially use them as an advertising campaign and nothing more.

Yes. Exactly. No communist party is going to become a viable electoral option under bourgeois liberal democracy simply by being morally correct. The bourgeois state, bourgeois media, bourgeois courts, bourgeois ballot laws, bourgeois funding networks, and the entire ideological apparatus are designed to prevent that.

That is why, from a communist perspective, electoral work should primarily be propaganda and agitation. It is not about pretending the imperial state can be captured by voting harder. Again, this is basic Leninism.

It makes no sense to be upset when people use the contradiction to agitate. Why is exposing the “anti-Zionist” social democrat’s imperial politics suddenly treated as harmful? If the purpose is agitation, then exposing the limits of the best acceptable candidate bourgeois democracy can produce is precisely the point.

They don’t magically join PSL when they see some cringe post about Platner.

Obviously. That is where the whole “agitation among the masses” part is supposed to come in.

Nobody thinks someone sees one post and instantly becomes a disciplined communist cadre. That is a strawman. People are won through repeated struggle, political education, organization, and direct experience with the failures of liberalism and social democracy.

When the internet lefties spend all their time attacking an anti-Zionist socdem the only material outcome of that is support for the next viable alternative to the socdem. And that, right now, is a Zionist.

It is extremely cringe how you are policing what the victims of your empire are allowed to say about the nice king versus the mean king. You are basically saying: “Please stop criticizing this imperial politician too harshly, because it makes tactical sense for people inside the imperial core to vote for him.”

This is the electoralist fantasy. You are assuming the only possible “material outcome” is movement within the Democratic electoral field: from one bourgeois candidate to another bourgeois candidate.

Yes, some liberals will run back to the Zionist because criticism of the anti-Zionist social democrat makes them uncomfortable. That is what liberals do. But communists should not determine their line by asking what makes liberals feel safest. But agitate around contradictions and organize the people who are ready to move beyond them.

If you want to help PSL. Just shut the fuck up about Platner already.

No.

If you want to help PSL, stop acting like communists should provide left cover for a bourgeois politician because he is the less disgusting expression of empire.

Voting is not picking a partner in a relationship, sure. It is a tactical question. But tactics have to be subordinated to revolutionary strategy. If your tactic requires communists to stop exposing an imperial politician, then your tactic is not using bourgeois politics. Bourgeois politics is using you.

Politicians are TOOLS for revolution - we will use them anyway we can.

Bourgeois politicians are not tools for revolution. Bourgeois elections can be used as tools for revolutionary agitation.

Communists should not prettify bourgeois politicians because they are tactically preferable to worse ones. Communists should participate in reactionary institutions when useful in order to expose them, reach the masses, and develop revolutionary consciousness beyond parliamentarism.

Do you think Lenin would spend his time attacking a socdems that wanted to stop genocide while ignoring their further right opponent?

Platner does not want to stop genocide, he went to Iraq multiple times to help carry out one.

And Lenin literally spent most of his life in polemics against socdems. Platner's probably even worse than Kerensky.