AOC has 9 million followers. That’s quite a lot of worshipping.
But, I’m not trying to compare to Trump, either in popularity or actions. I’m just saying the left does not have immunity against the cult of personality. The worshipping that has occurred on the right in the US has also occurred on the left in other countries.
Your definition of worship is weirdly loose. Like bizarrely loose. Following someone on Twitter, which is a weird thing to do in itself because why would you be on a Nazi website which says a lot about her I think, doesn’t mean you worship them. Do I worship windy.com because I’m subscribed to their weather app? Your neighbor says hi to you where they worshiping you? Oh I turned on the TV I was worshiping anything I’m watching. What just a completely ludicrous definition.
The context here is conservatives who worship Donald Trump to the point where they build golden Idols for him. And you’re comparing getting alerts when someone post a message as the same thing. Wow
It’s almost like… they’ve taken a different definition of the word to fit a narrative! But that can’t be right, they’re clearly discussing this in good faith!
It’s clearly not calibrated Trump. Because I’ve never seen anyone make a golden idol to Bernie Sanders. Obama hats and flags aren’t flying all over my neighborhood. Nobody bases their entire persona around Cortez. So if you’re calibrated to Trump your comparison is ridiculous.
The difference between worship and respect is that one is earned and the other is not.
If you worship someone you follow them unconditionally no matter what they do. They can openly brag about molesting women, they can get convicted felonies in 34 counts, they can make life hell for a large part of the population, and someone who worships that person will just lap it all up and follow right along.
Contrary to that, respect can be lost quite quickly, as seen with a lot of people who were very popular with left-wingers. 10 years ago most leftwingers loved Musk. How many left-wingers do you see that still worship Musk and follow his every mood?
Same holds true with every other person on the left who failed. They are gone in an instant.
I mean, if you make a line where dictatorship is on the far left and democracy is on the far right, then yeah, NK is “far left”. But on a more real note, there’s very little difference between the Kim dynasty and absolutist monarchies, or the dictatorships of Francisco Franco (Spain) and Antonio Salazar (Portugal), I doubt any of those were ever considered “political left” in any manner.
North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship, but it is also left wing.
It has public ownership, it is anti capitalist. Production and the entire economy is centrally controlled and it was founded as a Marxist state with the backing of the soviet union.
You are among the many here who are confusing authoritarianism/liberalism with left/right ideologies. Funny how you mentioned Spain and Portugal but avoided Italy.
Economy and politics are intrinsically tied to one another, no matter how much some economy masters try to say otherwise. Regulations, tariffs and taxes happen because of political pressure and they all have a very direct and measurable effect on the economy. Democracies may not directly control economies like dictatorships can, but they can and do heavily influence it to work one way or another, via tax or tax breaks, easier or harder credit, etc. Culture also plays an important role, even if the majority of economy academics downplay or ignore it, just like they downplay or ignore the importance of nature, but that’s a different discussion.
it was founded as a Marxist state
Alright, can you tell me what are some of the marxist teachings that NK applies to how it runs the state and the economy? Because “being founded as” and “actually run as” are not the same. I mean, it’s official name is “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”. It’s obviously not democratic and barely qualifies as a republic
confusing authoritarianism/liberalism with left/right ideologies
I’m not. Left wing ideology usually leans towards “the govt and economy should work for the good of the people”. Communism, which is as “far left” as it typically goes, assumes that the people collectively own all the means of production and government becomes unnecessary. Which leads to the next point
It has public ownership
NK doesn’t have “public” ownership, as in, the people cannot say that they collectively own anything, and literally have no say in how anything works, everything belongs to and is run according to the will of the state (or, more accurately, the current leader). Like I said before, not different from an absolutist monarchy. Unless you can argue that the majority of Kim’s policies are all for the good of the NK people, he cannot be considered “left”.
Funny how you mentioned Spain and Portugal but avoided Italy.
What, you gonna tell me that Mussolini was a far left politician?
NK doesn’t have “public” ownership, as in, the people cannot say that they collectively own anything.
Proof by contradiction. NK doesn’t have private ownership of companies therefore anything that exists is “public”. Definitely not right wing capitalism.
you gonna tell me that Mussolini was a far left politician?
Yes. Mussolini initially had socialist roots. Only later did he move in the authoritarian axis towards nationalism and fascism.
I love how this reply of yours is just a bunch of bad faith arguments, especially the first part that neatly ignores the fact that the state owns everything in NK, not unlike how a company owns and runs its property. I fully expect you to say that nazi germany was left wing because “national SOCIALISM!!!”
Uff… again someone who thinks that politics are binary and left is left and right is right. Sure, a leader cult dictator is exactly the same as a liberal social democracy. All the same, correct?
The North Korean political system is close to identical to Nazi Germany. Another “far left” country then, correct?
We all know that liberty, freedom of personal expression and equality are the main ideals of North Korea, correct?
I expected that anyone who is actually following the discussion would understand that when we are talking about left and right we are talking about left and right in the year 2025 and not in the year 1958, and that we are talking about left and right in the west and not left and right in China or in countries that haven’t existed in 30+ years.
Because it’s some wildly different political movements with wildly different goals and ideals?
If you argue that all left movements throught time and space are identical, just because they are using the same rough label, then you are either argueing in bad faith or out of severe ignorance.
No. Elsewhere in this thread I argue that there are a lot of political dimension each with a spectrum of positions.
So if someone makes a massive generalisation and says “the left” don’t worship their political leaders, I feel it important to illustrate, with examples ,why that assumption is likely incorrect.
If AOC and Bernie were on the list, Dems would still say lock them up. Dems don’t care who is on the list, they want justice for it.
Now Dems in Congress? That’s a different story. MAGA wants everyone to go down, but would happy glare over every single time Trump is mentioned. And you know that.
Bernie’s not even a democrat. He ran as one because he needed a backing. Much like Trump isn’t a Republican, they just ate his shit up. He’s said the economy does better under Democrats, and ran for President under the Reform Party out of California before he realized the Republicans would support him more. The reform party was where Buchanan got all the KKK / white nationalist support back in the 90’s.
A quote from Trump from the time that was telling. “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.”
Not all leftists are the same, mate. For example, anarchists would love to kill the Bolsheviks. Bolsheviks would just love to kill everyone. Look at the history of Spanish Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, then tell me if they did not even shoot at each other at any point.
Oh, and did they. Bolsheviks who spoke out about the abuses of the Bolsheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries (ya know, actual left wing communists), Anarchists (every stripe), Soviet delegates, workers who went on strike, the Kronstadt sailors (Heros of the Revolution), peasants who fought expropriations, you looked at me funny…
The Roosevelts are widely applauded by the US left, but they don’t really worship them, and many are ready to admit they are flawed. Teddy was an imperialist despite being progressive for the time. FDR was an improvement but the Japanese internment camp was a stain in his legacy.
The communists would be more into cult of personality, but most American left are not communists and rightfully reject them.
I previously voted republican and was raised in the fox news soup. Its cult worship behavior that forces them to worship their leader. Its a big part of why it’s hard to move away from voting republican, they are all afraid of being cut out of the in group for disagreeing. None of that shit exists on the left, which is why they always argue about the basics.
Tankies. For the first two you’re thinking of tankies. They’re not leftists, they’re commie-boos who simp for regimes they were lucky enough not to live through just because they’re anti-US and have the same oppression kink as the right-wing trolls.
Stalin was the authoritarian, Lenin was more of a leftist who aimed to empower the working class and had a relatively more democratic and pragmatic point of view compared to Stalin. Lenin actually warned people about Stalin and advocated that he be removed from power.
Not that I don’t have major issues with Lenin’s approach as well, but it was far better than Stalin and I believe he meant well at least.
Lenin complained in his letters that[29] his bureaucratic “apparatus has already become gigantic — in some places excessively so — and under such conditions a “personal dictatorship” is entirely unrealizable and attempts to realize it would only be harmful.”[31] Loginov explains that Lenin attempted to compensate this “lack of real power” with either with “abundance of decrees” or “simply with strong words.”[29]
The Bolsheviks also used terror as a means to dissuade unrest. On August 20, 1918 Lenin wrote to Nikolai Semashko, ‘I congratulate you on your energetic suppression of the kulaks and White Guards in the district. We must strike while the iron’s hot and not lose a minute, organize the poor of the district, confiscate all the grain and all the property of the rebellious kulaks, hang the kulak ringleaders, mobilize and arm the poor under reliable leaders out of our own unit, arrest hostages from among the wealthy and hold them.’[32]
I’m glad you’re out here correcting people. I’m definitely a layman, but as I see it the entire concept of the Vanguard is immediately antithetical to communism, so I think Leninism is at best a bastardization of Marxist communism. Again, at least as far as my very uneducated opinion goes based on my understanding
Oh yes they do. Lenin, Mao Zedong and (to a much lesser extent) AOC and Bernie.
Rose tinted glasses fit on the heads of everyone.
The subject is worship, or maybe even “deify”, so no we fucking don’t.
I guarantee if Bernie/AOC did 1% of the things Trump does, their support would evaporate. I know I personally would support their primary challengers…
AOC has 9 million followers. That’s quite a lot of worshipping.
But, I’m not trying to compare to Trump, either in popularity or actions. I’m just saying the left does not have immunity against the cult of personality. The worshipping that has occurred on the right in the US has also occurred on the left in other countries.
Your definition of worship is weirdly loose. Like bizarrely loose. Following someone on Twitter, which is a weird thing to do in itself because why would you be on a Nazi website which says a lot about her I think, doesn’t mean you worship them. Do I worship windy.com because I’m subscribed to their weather app? Your neighbor says hi to you where they worshiping you? Oh I turned on the TV I was worshiping anything I’m watching. What just a completely ludicrous definition.
The context here is conservatives who worship Donald Trump to the point where they build golden Idols for him. And you’re comparing getting alerts when someone post a message as the same thing. Wow
It’s almost like… they’ve taken a different definition of the word to fit a narrative! But that can’t be right, they’re clearly discussing this in good faith!
My definition of worship is calibrated to Trump. It is liking someone for their personality, not their policies or actions.
AOC is worshiped. Bernie less so. Obama a lot more so. However you define Trump worship, you can find (less extreme) parallels on the left.
This is not criticism. The whole job of a politicians is to be worshiped, so that you are given the power to enact your policies.
It’s clearly not calibrated Trump. Because I’ve never seen anyone make a golden idol to Bernie Sanders. Obama hats and flags aren’t flying all over my neighborhood. Nobody bases their entire persona around Cortez. So if you’re calibrated to Trump your comparison is ridiculous.
From 0 to Trump, this is about a 3.
I’m not claiming the left’s worshiping is equivalent to OMGTrumpMAGA, but it undeniably exists.
The difference between worship and respect is that one is earned and the other is not.
If you worship someone you follow them unconditionally no matter what they do. They can openly brag about molesting women, they can get convicted felonies in 34 counts, they can make life hell for a large part of the population, and someone who worships that person will just lap it all up and follow right along.
Contrary to that, respect can be lost quite quickly, as seen with a lot of people who were very popular with left-wingers. 10 years ago most leftwingers loved Musk. How many left-wingers do you see that still worship Musk and follow his every mood?
Same holds true with every other person on the left who failed. They are gone in an instant.
The former communist bloc took a lot longer than an instant. Their leaders were worshiped by some of the population.
North Korea is far left and their leader and his family are almost deities.
I mean, if you make a line where dictatorship is on the far left and democracy is on the far right, then yeah, NK is “far left”. But on a more real note, there’s very little difference between the Kim dynasty and absolutist monarchies, or the dictatorships of Francisco Franco (Spain) and Antonio Salazar (Portugal), I doubt any of those were ever considered “political left” in any manner.
North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship, but it is also left wing.
It has public ownership, it is anti capitalist. Production and the entire economy is centrally controlled and it was founded as a Marxist state with the backing of the soviet union.
You are among the many here who are confusing authoritarianism/liberalism with left/right ideologies. Funny how you mentioned Spain and Portugal but avoided Italy.
Economy and politics are intrinsically tied to one another, no matter how much some economy masters try to say otherwise. Regulations, tariffs and taxes happen because of political pressure and they all have a very direct and measurable effect on the economy. Democracies may not directly control economies like dictatorships can, but they can and do heavily influence it to work one way or another, via tax or tax breaks, easier or harder credit, etc. Culture also plays an important role, even if the majority of economy academics downplay or ignore it, just like they downplay or ignore the importance of nature, but that’s a different discussion.
Alright, can you tell me what are some of the marxist teachings that NK applies to how it runs the state and the economy? Because “being founded as” and “actually run as” are not the same. I mean, it’s official name is “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”. It’s obviously not democratic and barely qualifies as a republic
I’m not. Left wing ideology usually leans towards “the govt and economy should work for the good of the people”. Communism, which is as “far left” as it typically goes, assumes that the people collectively own all the means of production and government becomes unnecessary. Which leads to the next point
NK doesn’t have “public” ownership, as in, the people cannot say that they collectively own anything, and literally have no say in how anything works, everything belongs to and is run according to the will of the state (or, more accurately, the current leader). Like I said before, not different from an absolutist monarchy. Unless you can argue that the majority of Kim’s policies are all for the good of the NK people, he cannot be considered “left”.
What, you gonna tell me that Mussolini was a far left politician?
Proof by contradiction. NK doesn’t have private ownership of companies therefore anything that exists is “public”. Definitely not right wing capitalism.
Yes. Mussolini initially had socialist roots. Only later did he move in the authoritarian axis towards nationalism and fascism.
I love how this reply of yours is just a bunch of bad faith arguments, especially the first part that neatly ignores the fact that the state owns everything in NK, not unlike how a company owns and runs its property. I fully expect you to say that nazi germany was left wing because “national SOCIALISM!!!”
There’s no bad faith. I’m giving historical and contemporary examples of left wing authoritarian worship.
There hasn’t even been an argument put forward to back the claim that this is impossible.
So now you’re gonna be one of those that pretends Italian fascists and German Nazis were “liberals”?
No. I refer you to my previous comment.
Wish I could still be this delusional. Ignorance really is bliss.
Uff… again someone who thinks that politics are binary and left is left and right is right. Sure, a leader cult dictator is exactly the same as a liberal social democracy. All the same, correct?
The North Korean political system is close to identical to Nazi Germany. Another “far left” country then, correct?
We all know that liberty, freedom of personal expression and equality are the main ideals of North Korea, correct?
This is the exact opposite of what I am saying.
The left/right spectrum is being conflated with the authoritarian/libertarian spectrum.
I’ve given many examples to counter the claim that “the left” won’t worship a leader.
I expected that anyone who is actually following the discussion would understand that when we are talking about left and right we are talking about left and right in the year 2025 and not in the year 1958, and that we are talking about left and right in the west and not left and right in China or in countries that haven’t existed in 30+ years.
Different years and countries were provided as examples of people on the left worshiping politicians.
What reason is there to believe that “The Left in the US in 2025” would be any different to what happened in other countries in other years?
Because it’s some wildly different political movements with wildly different goals and ideals?
If you argue that all left movements throught time and space are identical, just because they are using the same rough label, then you are either argueing in bad faith or out of severe ignorance.
No. Elsewhere in this thread I argue that there are a lot of political dimension each with a spectrum of positions.
So if someone makes a massive generalisation and says “the left” don’t worship their political leaders, I feel it important to illustrate, with examples ,why that assumption is likely incorrect.
If AOC and Bernie were on the list, Dems would still say lock them up. Dems don’t care who is on the list, they want justice for it.
Now Dems in Congress? That’s a different story. MAGA wants everyone to go down, but would happy glare over every single time Trump is mentioned. And you know that.
Bernie’s not even a democrat. He ran as one because he needed a backing. Much like Trump isn’t a Republican, they just ate his shit up. He’s said the economy does better under Democrats, and ran for President under the Reform Party out of California before he realized the Republicans would support him more. The reform party was where Buchanan got all the KKK / white nationalist support back in the 90’s.
A quote from Trump from the time that was telling. “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.”
The guy who wrote:
“Leftwing communism, an infantile disorder.”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/"Left-Wing"_Communism%3A_An_Infantile_Disorder?
Yes, that guy. There he is critiquing people even further left than he was. What point are you trying to make exactly?
Not all leftists are the same, mate. For example, anarchists would love to kill the Bolsheviks. Bolsheviks would just love to kill everyone. Look at the history of Spanish Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, then tell me if they did not even shoot at each other at any point.
Oh, and did they. Bolsheviks who spoke out about the abuses of the Bolsheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries (ya know, actual left wing communists), Anarchists (every stripe), Soviet delegates, workers who went on strike, the Kronstadt sailors (Heros of the Revolution), peasants who fought expropriations, you looked at me funny…
The list is almost endless.
Exactly my point. Yet some here are claiming that no-one on the left will ever worship an authoritarian figure.
I’m showing that some on the left already have.
Context makes it clear we’re talking about liberals in the US today.
Your point is pointlessly pedantic.
To claim that the US left will never worship a leader is baseless and false.
The Roosevelts are widely applauded by the US left, but they don’t really worship them, and many are ready to admit they are flawed. Teddy was an imperialist despite being progressive for the time. FDR was an improvement but the Japanese internment camp was a stain in his legacy.
The communists would be more into cult of personality, but most American left are not communists and rightfully reject them.
So, do you accept or reject the statement that the American left would never worship a politician?
If the communists are dominant, then sure (but even so, there are different kinds of communists).
Weath inequality in the US is currently higher than during the French revolution, and rising.
I don’t think hard-core communism will be necessary.
I previously voted republican and was raised in the fox news soup. Its cult worship behavior that forces them to worship their leader. Its a big part of why it’s hard to move away from voting republican, they are all afraid of being cut out of the in group for disagreeing. None of that shit exists on the left, which is why they always argue about the basics.
Totally agree with the first part. Cult worship can exist on the left but currently in the US it is highly localised (e.g. unions)
Are you actually this dumb? Or are you an LLM purposely trained to have a backwards training set?
I agree with what you say about the right.
I don’t see an argument why it can’t also exist on the left.
Tankies. For the first two you’re thinking of tankies. They’re not leftists, they’re commie-boos who simp for regimes they were lucky enough not to live through just because they’re anti-US and have the same oppression kink as the right-wing trolls.
Tankies are definitely authoritarian loving, but I would still put them on the left wing more than the right wing.
Nope. You can respect someone without worshiping them.
I’m an anarchist so I wouldn’t even go so far as to say I respect Mao.
Do I think Bernie and AOC are better than most politicians? Of course. If I found out they were sexual predators I’d still say throw them in jail.
LOL, no one in the US worships Lenin or Mao Zedong.
The closest the left comes is with Bernie and that’s only on the internet.
No one in “the left” supports far right authorizations…
The confusion may be you’re not aware far right authoritarians lie constantly, especially about what they support and why they support it
The left is perfectly capable of supporting Authoritarianism.
Authoritarianism can be both left and right.
Here, we see the “enlightened centrist” in his habitat of false equivalence…
Your jokey comment is highlighting the misconception.
Is a different axis to
You might be confusing Lenin with Stalin.
Stalin was the authoritarian, Lenin was more of a leftist who aimed to empower the working class and had a relatively more democratic and pragmatic point of view compared to Stalin. Lenin actually warned people about Stalin and advocated that he be removed from power.
Not that I don’t have major issues with Lenin’s approach as well, but it was far better than Stalin and I believe he meant well at least.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror
Lenin wanted to be an authortarian and publicly complained his followers weren’t mobbing up to kill more people he politically disagreed with…
So yeah, I stand by my comment.
Lenin intentionally set the stage for Stalin, but would have done worse if he had the following.
I’m glad you’re out here correcting people. I’m definitely a layman, but as I see it the entire concept of the Vanguard is immediately antithetical to communism, so I think Leninism is at best a bastardization of Marxist communism. Again, at least as far as my very uneducated opinion goes based on my understanding
This is some premium grade high quality delusion. Impressive stuff big dawg.
Human nature dude. Just because the right easily attracts brainless sheep, that doesn’t mean the left can’t.
At least the left’s brainless ship don’t worship politicians as the second coming of Jesus Christ son of god.
They do, but usually the leftist cult leader gets stormed by SWAT before he (very rarely a she) gets the chance to become president.