Within the context of US politics, the center left/Democratic Party is the largest political obstacle for socialists. So antagonism towards the center left seems to be rational within that

Democrats hate progressives

Democrats hate socialists. Their job is to ensure that the leftward fringe of the party, and of acceptable mainstream discourse, never moves past progressive/social democracy. The Democratic Party serves capital by ensuring a neutered American left

Hopefully this can be changed

The current structure of society is wrong and is extremely harmful. Oligarchy is an abomination which produces terrible outcomes.

You wouldn’t choose this system in a vacuum. Therefore, the system must be fundamentally altered. To oppose this restructuring is both cruel and irrational. It is the epitome of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good - you’re so afraid of change that you’d rather keep an evil system in place.

Such paralyzing cowardice is not reasonable, and it is even less reasonable to feel smug about such cowardice. If you are going to protect this harmful system, then the more appropriate emotion to feel is shame.

Lots of people die in the United States as it is. Homelessness is rising drastically. How long until you’re next to be put out onto the street? Your employer can’t wait until they can automate your job and fire you.

Also, the United States has a long history of carrying out genocide even prior to Gaza. Odd given your fallacious implication that capitalism is peaceful

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_1965–66

He doesn’t focus on any of those things though, and instead talks about prioritizing anti-poverty and anti-hypocrisy.

The line that the Gospels are the why and socialism is the how appears to be apt. Liberation Theology is based on this principle. Which is the sect of Catholicism that clearly has heavily influenced both Francis and Leo

The currently alive billionaires largely didn’t design it; previously alive billionaires designed it and the currently alive ones have refined it.

Which is the way capitalism is supposed to work; it’s a society ruled by and for capitalists - aka the billionaires who own the largest units of capital

Regardless, it is this system that is to blame. The actors within the system are also contributors, obviously. But individualizing systemic issues is not an effective way at seeing the solution.

The way to solve the problem of a bad king is not to replace him with a good king; it is to abolish monarchy altogether and replace it with a system wherein the people are the ruling class

It’s like saying NFL linebackers don’t cause concussions, rather its the rules and protective gear of professional football which cause concussions

Both ways of seeing it are true - the linebacker is the one actually performing the tackle, but he would not be permitted to cause that damage were he not enabled by the inherently dangerous rules and equipment

Same thing here. Clearly the billionaires are the ones directly causing the harm. But they are only able to do so (and only able to become billionaires in the first place) because of the existing system

If the goal is to simply build towards protests and riots then that is a foolish goal because protests and riots are insufficient

If the goal is to build something larger than that, then different methods are required

When people rise up without a clear plan or shared vision, they often end up reinforcing the very system they’re trying to challenge. That’s because the people in power already control the tools that shape our thinking—like the media, schools, and pop culture.

If we want real change, we need more than just passion. We need a shared understanding of what kind of world we’re trying to build. Otherwise, we risk repeating the same mistakes and rebuilding the same broken system in a different costume.

Capitalist ideas have had centuries to take root and evolve. They’ve got a head start and powerful platforms to keep spreading—TV, textbooks, social media, movies, everything. To challenge that, we need a complete shift in how we think about power, community, and freedom.

So here’s the big question: Is this shift happening? Can we see it in the protests, mutual aid networks, labor strikes, and grassroots organizing across the country?

If we believe it’s possible, then now’s the time to act—together, intentionally, and with clarity. Let’s build a new vision of society—one not handed down by the powerful, but created by us. Start by asking: What do you really want the future to look like? And who’s with you in building it?

An entirely spontaneous movement will end up reproducing the dominant ideology in a given society, because the dominant class has the means at its disposal to propagate and reproduce the dominant ideology.

So a revolutionary movement must know in advance what its revolutionary theory is; it must be united around a particular vision of society, a particular theory of revolutionary change, or it will simply reproduce the society that it is acting against.

Ideas that support capitalism have been around much longer than alternative ones, are more refined, and have way more tools to spread themselves—like the media, schools, and culture. A drastic change in structural thought is necessary.

Where is the evidence that this change in structural thought is actually occurring in the United States? How is this present in the dissent that has manifested thus far?

Yes, but an entirely spontaneous movement will end up reproducing the dominant ideology in a given society, because the dominant class has the means at its disposal to propagate and reproduce the dominant ideology.

So a revolutionary movement must know in advance what its revolutionary theory is; it must be united around a particular vision of society, a particular theory of revolutionary change, or it will simply reproduce the society that it is acting against.

There is no evidence that this is what is occurring in the United States. Replacing the bad king with a good king will not solve our problems; our problem is that we are ruled by kings in the first place

If the conclusion is that a revolution is necessary then protests and riots are obviously insufficient. Which means that posting is not the correct path, particularly because it seems to be very lacking in building irl community, though it is effective at convincing posters that their engagement is “doing something”. It isn’t, aside from enriching tech oligarchs through their attentional engagement