this takes a myopic view IMO, rhetoric like this absolutely does damage class consciousness in the US. just the other day on hexbear, a bunch of active DSA-left folk were saying their primary task right now is tearing down decades of anti-communist programming with the American proletariat - if that's true, having the two most popular faces of American (ostensible) socialism saying shit like "Israel has the right to defend itself from the horrific Hamas" (Bernie) and "Cuba and Venezuela are brutal dictatorships" (Zohran) points them in the absolute wrong direction. It creates a public perception that socialism = capitalism with all the same chauvinism and global exploitation, but with the balm of economic reforms internally ameliorating its most obvious contradictions and harms. it worsens what is and has been arguably the central contradiction of socialist organizing in the imperial core (the bribes of imperialism kneecapping these movements).
this takes a myopic view IMO, rhetoric like this absolutely does damage class consciousness in the US. just the other day on hexbear, a bunch of active DSA-left folk were saying their primary task right now is tearing down decades of anti-communist programming with the American proletariat - if that's true, having the two most popular faces of American (ostensible) socialism saying shit like "Israel has the right to defend itself from the horrific Hamas" (Bernie) and "Cuba and Venezuela are brutal dictatorships" (Zohran) points them in the absolute wrong direction. It creates a public perception that socialism = capitalism with all the same chauvinism and global exploitation, but with the balm of economic reforms internally ameliorating its most obvious contradictions and harms. it worsens what is and has been arguably the central contradiction of socialist organizing in the imperial core (the bribes of imperialism kneecapping these movements).