I will drop any sarcastic tone and be direct: Our Party should not have to beg for forgiveness on account of the fact that Communist politics has not yet acquired the nationwide relevance, momentum and significance to the point where we would be unavoidable even at the everyday, local, offline level. That would presuppose a Party-movement not of thousands, but at least tens of millions. Even the DSA, which fraudulently boasts over 100,000 members, is rather avoidable at the everyday, offline level. Anyone who is genuinely interested in knowing anything about the American Communist Party has to actually make the effort to attend Party events, meet Party members, and actually investigate what is going on, on the ground: In other words, investigate with effort and intention. That we are avoidable offline is not a reasonable indictment against a two-year old, openly Communist Party — especially given the fact that our critics tend to be people who go out of their way to avoid our existence, both psychologically and physically.
We are, however, unavoidable in the realm which Lenin regarded with the most fundamental, inceptual significance (with respect to ‘real life’ organizing): And that is media, the basic ability for us to get our message out. Leninism 101 regards this not simply as important, but the first step. This should be elementary knowledge for any Communist. Question: Lenin writes an Article titled, Where to Begin? — how does Lenin answer that question? Establish a media presence at the highest possible scale, Who to reach?, with the highest intensity of accessible output in volume. Translated into the terms of our age: Go viral. Yes, that is basically what Lenin says. That doesn’t mean this is all Communist activity should confine itself to. It means that is the basic premise of any sustained activity at all.
In any case, Lenin himself already dealt with all possible arguments and objections to this reasoning. Lenin’s reasoning can be called Iskraism: The view that ‘lighting a small fire’ (media presence) is the condition of a big fire (real life presence, seizing power, etc.). The view of his critics (and their descendents today), who he both theoretically and practically discredited, can be called Immediatism, which is the opposite view (‘big fire’ is needed for ‘small fire’). My basic response to those who ‘criticize’ us on account of our outsized media presence (relative to ‘real life’) is to simply read what Lenin said in response to those who rejected his proposal to establish an All-Russian newspaper.
And by the way, I can already anticipate they will draw comparisons between the form of media a century ago, as an official, professional publisher — and the social media influencers of today. I will simply respond by, in so many words, pointing out the obvious fact that social media is distinct from the kind of media that existed a century ago, with the key distinction that everyone is now a publisher, editor, and ‘press organ,’ that formal and institutional curatorial control over the dissemination of information is impossible (can I ‘control’ what everyone who adopts the symbols, etc. of this movement ‘publishes’? Can our Party ‘control’ and curate everything its members publish?).
The way in which the production of media has changed: Institutionalization used to be the premise of media (a printing press). Various ‘communists’ have sanctified this outdated, historically accidental condition of media into a type of superstitious ritual (as religious dogmatists, forgetting the context behind the specific form of revelation, cling to it even now superstitiously).
That we are unavoidable online, though avoidable offline, means we have successfully accomplished what Lenin regarded as a fundamental premise of independent (emphasis on independent!) organizing and activity. And we should be credited for this, since we did it without any institutional accreditation, assistance, funding, or resources whatsoever beyond what we took from our own pockets. It’s not really all that complicated. If you have something to say to the masses, then get your message out there. If you can’t do that, you demonstrably, objectively do not have anything to say that is worth listening to (I can anticipate the response: Does that mean what is now the most viral content, is always worth the most? The logic doesn’t follow because it fails to account for potential, or Iskra, ‘small fire’). And yes, you can and must do this before you have built a movement of millions, won elections, acquired immense material resources, or already seized state power (because where does this stupid logic of old ‘immediatism’ end?).
Though we have successfully applied basic Leninist principles in the 21st century information age, the discrepancy between our online and offline presence provokes confusion, ambivalence, dismissal and even suspicion among many ‘leftists.’ This is compounded by the fact that many of them are boomer-slave cattle (which includes many millennial and Gen X personality archetypes), fundamentally loyal — even romantically — to an outmoded classical modernity; Epsteinian/Harvey Weinsteinian modernity, and the false, hypocritical sentimentality surrounding its supposed ‘authenticity.’ In the past, to have the same level of media-relevance we now do, surely did imply being more established ‘offline.’
Media used to be centralized, and based in a one-way informational relationship.
Media used to be far less dynamic. All media used to be rooted in the purport of some definite establishment — a printing press, publishing house, broadcasting station, etc. — Some random guy couldn’t just randomly and instantly go viral.
You used to need a fuck ton of money to have a big media presence. Having that much money already implies you have ‘that much’ motion (unless you’re robbing banks, which is impossible today). I mean, are you stupid? Why am I saying this obvious shit?
In the era of monopoly capital, it was impossible for independent media to scale without monopolistic financial backing. So if you could scale, it meant you were accredited by the imperialist hegemony — or you were somehow capable of exercising pressure on it due to the preexisting power of an established party/movement (i.e., there were cases of this in Europe, but even that didn’t vindicate ‘immediatism’ since the power was built up in an older era).
They don’t understand how the intense discrepancy between being established offline and being prolific through media is possible because it was not possible before the advent of social media, and people socialized primarily before the era of social media (as for my Zillenial self, I am ‘half’) are deeply confused by it. To charitably help them a little bit: The intense discrepancy is explained by the discrepancy between forces and relations of production itself. The productive forces corresponding to the information age (and not exclusively social media), defined by the rapid, instantaneous, simultaneous interconnectivity of knowledge, culture, language, experience, data, etc. — has leaped far ahead of the institutionalized and established productive relations of society, which are at least in part defined by the Epsteinian/Harvey Weinsteinian control of information (including the information that structures workplaces, scientific and academic environments, cultural production, organizations, political procedures, states).
What I am writing sounds complex. But it’s really as simple as the awkward discrepancy between any given brainrot slop and the various, seemingly wasteful, vain and outdated formalisms of their academic or professional environment (boomer prison planet). Even a retarded philistine like Adam Curtis admits: The world we live in ‘online’ is not the same as the one we live in ‘offline.’ Only, this basic observation by philistines almost always draws false, useless, tired, cliche, reactionary conclusions (a ‘return’ to ‘pre-mediated’ ‘authenticity’).
Communist ideas have rapidly proliferated online, in no way justified by any direct establishment of Communist institutions, resources, organization, etc. offline. Many leftists pretend otherwise, but they should admit this frank truth. Almost all leftist organizations (aside from ACP!) lie about their membership. The “CPUSA” has less than 1,500 active members. According to insiders, the PSL internally estimates its membership to be 1,400. The DSA claims 100,000, according to a method that would place the majority of ACP members in the DSA, since they clicked a few buttons on their website 10 years ago. But even if they had that many it wouldn’t matter, since that Democrat appendage neither claims to be communist nor a Party. Communist ideas haven’t become more relevant because of this supposed DSA prominence or the victory of scammers like Zohran Mamdani either. In fact, I would argue strongly that what little prominence the DSA enjoys can itself be explained by online radicalization vectors and not the reverse. The victory of Democrats and ‘progressives’ doesn’t intensify the aforementioned radicalization processes whatsoever.
The opposite is true: It’s the victory of the ‘disruptive’ Trump, both in 2016 and 2024, that has accelerated radicalizing tendencies within American consciousness. The victory of Democrats/’progressive’ always, without exception, contributes to deradicalizing tendencies. The victory of hucksters like AOC and Zohran almost always push leftists rightward — or at best, it demoralizes them entirely, crushing their spirits. When these Democrats inevitably sell out, leftists either make excuses for them, or are heartbroken. In either case, the outcome is always deradicalization. On the other hand, Trump’s electoral victories can be easily shown, scientifically and anecdotally, to be among the greatest radicalizing events in postwar US history. Before you preemptively assume this is what I argue justifies the MAGA Communist view specifically, don’t. I’m simply pointing out the absurdity of the ‘gradualist’ or ‘push DemoKKKrats’ left view which our estranged ‘comrades’ at Geese magazine seem to subscribe to.
And that is because Trump’s own electoral victories were mere symptoms of the more fundamental antagonism between the hitherto mentioned forces and relations of production. Trump represented the ‘fake world’ described by Adam Curtis, at least in some symbolic, representative sense (I’m well aware of the forces within the ‘real world’ that assisted his rise to prominence) — colonizing the ‘real one’ in the most fundamental and formally consequential institution itself: The Executive Branch of the United States government. In any case, don’t we already know that? Trump brought ‘memes’ to the White House, and likewise turned the White House into a meme. If you want to shoot me for saying this, on the grounds that it is woefully naive (neglecting the very ‘offline’ Adelsons, etc.) start first with, basically every normie in America who would probably agree with that observation.
That means Trump, regardless of the details surrounding his victories, is functionally and from the perspective of American consciousness, objectively a canary in the coal mine, a symbol of the fact that the Great Wall of Real Life, Fordist civilization, had finally been breached by the ‘fake’ world of simulacra, cybernetic civilization. It’s what the hippies had always prayed for, and Trump was he who received their prayers. The proliferation of radicalization pipelines on both the ‘right’ and ‘left,’ are mere symptoms of the coming flood. In basic Marxist terms, the productive forces have not only leapt far beyond what can be contained by the productive relations of society, they have outmoded them. What does basic Marxism teach about what arises from this discrepancy? Class struggle, civil war, and revolution: a comprehensive, abrupt, radical transformation of the given society’s superstructure which inevitably imposes a fetter on the further development of the productive forces.
The intense discrepancy between what is prominent on social media and what is ‘prominent’ in the ‘real world’ is directly proportional to the intense discrepancy between the productive forces and relations of society. The productive forces here, take the awkward form of ‘software’ and not immediately ‘hardware.’ Information technology is distinct from mechanical, directly materially ‘productive’ (Fordist) technology in that it facilitates the organization, direction, control, etc. of physical production, simultaneously advancing it (and establishing a basic cybernetic feedback loop between the realized, physical productive forces and how they are structured, modeled, connected, via information). We used to call the establishment of information technology ‘Silicon Valley.’ Now even liberals agree it is colonizing every aspect of society, far beyond the Bay Area (of course, they confuse ‘Silicon Valley’ billionaires, in every respect comparable to the mercantile bourgeoisie that was an appendage of feudal power, i.e. ‘big tech’ remains an appendage of imperialism/monopolistic finance, for the productive forces themselves).
The common denominator here, is the basic dialectical transformation of the old by the new, the ‘invasion’ of the present by the future (recall the language of Engels: “the production without any definite plan of capitalistic society capitulates to the production upon a definite plan of the invading socialistic society.”). The present generation ironically articulates this encounter, as ‘touching grass,’ which fulfills a unique register in the post-COVID age. Our ‘pods’ have consolidated; within our consciousness, the iron is hot — we have been fundamentally transformed by a new form of self-articulation, socialization, and interconnected, simultaneous, collective experience. Our circuits of affectivity, self-fulfillment have been completely rewired, and the basic, continuous experience of our reality and existence occurs within an entirely new, collectively, discursively, phenomeno-logically mediated register. All of this basically happened online, and this was the real virus that infected everybody during the COVID era.
Everyone has become enlightened, ‘woke,’ urbanised, globalized. This process has been unfolding for decades and has accelerated at exponential rates in the past decade. But the source of all the trouble is not here but in the encounter between this and the ‘countryside’ that was left behind. Everyone was so confused about why Trump won in 2016, in the Age of Aquarius where everyone had become so enlightened and cosmopolitan. The problem is they lack simple dialectics: The decisive thing is not when the bowstring is drawn back. That is where the tension maturates; it acquires completion only upon release. The true consequences of revolutions in the productive forces can only be known whereupon they begin to positively determine the now disrupted relations of production, but this positive determination is the consequence of a dialectical interpenetration of opposites, not the imposition of one foreknown reality over an apparently outmoded one (and perhaps that is the preeminent ‘eurocentric’ error of classical Marxism).
The basic point in all of this is that everyone is terminally online. But what is actually dying and terminating are old relationships of production and the consciousness that has hitherto arisen from them. This has made a revolution in the real Marxist sense inevitable, destined to affect, disrupt, and radically transform every aspect of civilization itself (including politics!).
It takes real, revolutionary courage to abandon the pretense that you somehow have your shit already figured out “offline.” No Communist does. The majority of people radicalized into Communist kinds of consciousness inhabit a world inside their own heads that’s completely different from the world they actually exist in. They work menial, boring jobs, follow mundane routines, and live ordinary lives, while daydreaming about very extraordinary historical events, and if they are lucky, stories of future events yet to be told. And you know what? That’s okay. Revolutionary feeling doesn’t come from an already big fire, but a small fire, at the risk of sounding gnostic, a small spark. The intensification of the contradiction between the forces and relations of production will continue to induce this small spark in ascendent generations because the world itself yearns to be burned.
It takes real revolutionary courage to take the first step, into the real world and muster the audacity to see what this exact spark is really made of. None of us are beginning from a standpoint that is particularly experienced when it comes to going out into the real world, building a real collective organization, talking to everyday people, and applying what we have come to love inside of our heads to a world that is by no means immediately receptive to it. We, the new generation of Communists, risk all that we have come to invest our hopes, dreams, and belief inside our heads, by testing them against the reality outside. We have the sincere belief that the outcome of this will vindicate our deepest convictions, even if we have no clue how. History, as we learn from both Marx and Engels, is after all profoundly ironic and dialectical — but never irrational.
That’s all we, members of the American Communist Party, claim to have done. We do not claim to be just as unavoidable offline as we are online. But that we are as unavoidable as we are online, reflects the profound potential, faith, and fascination people have invested in us, at least within their consciousness. All manner of virtual (in Deleuze’s proper sense!) possibilities, potentialities, etc. have appeared through the medium of the internet. They give expression to the real tendencies within the material base of society, which mass consciousness now reflects in the most diverse and disruptive of ways. These are real tendencies, even if they have yet to be fully wrought out. LARP attempts to realize the reality of curated, refined, narratively-cultivated online phenomena directly, down to formal, aesthetic, phenomenal, etc. precision-detail.
I don’t believe this would be an accurate description of the ACP: LARP implies a ready made ‘role’ that can be ‘played.’ We have no readymade role, pageantry, costume, etc. — we are trying to actively discover our role within the coming revolution by facilitating an extremely risky, difficult encounter between a consciousness born online and practices that bear all the intimidating weight and authority of convention, prejudice, and established sensibility. We do not go out into the real world as e-colonizers, attempting to impose our ‘terminally online’ worldview upon it. We neither go out into it as ‘immediatist’ LARPers, believing we have fully rid ourselves of our online era’s awkward stampings; pretending to have already embedded ourselves in the ‘true real world’ as it ‘really and actually is.’ The truth is, the world we’re used to is rapidly transforming, and we humble ourselves as the students of this revolutionary process.
What does it mean to actually be a Communist? To actually apply Marxist theory to the real world? To be a revolutionary, not just someone who was won over to the persuasion and beauty of stories, songs, ideas, but someone who risks attempting to discover what our own stories might look like, by venturing out into the world with the sincere conviction and belief that there is something in it which resonates with the stories of past revolutions we have all fallen in love with? We do not necessarily know what this looks like, but MAGA Communism represented, if nothing at all (and it was certainly more than that), a sincere attempt to acquire a pulse of what form that resonance takes with humility. We have no foreknowledge of what a Communist movement is going to look like in this country in this era. We have to be radically open to the fact that we don’t automatically know what it will look like, and in fact, it will likely contradict our ideological, purely ideal pretenses. MAGA Communism was simply an attempt to not only embrace that contradiction, but for the first time, give it form.
Going viral online is extremely easy compared to all the risks, difficulties, and contradictions that come with actually initiating an active relationship between theory and practice. But to introduce people to the real sense of revolutionary faith that compels both myself and my comrades: We already know that and accept it. We aren’t claiming to already have all the answers, know everything, or have reached the point of being a giant mass movement. We now venture uncharted waters with the genuine faith and conviction that we are at the beginning, critical stages of what will eventually amount to a historically remarkable process.
We’ve all been hypocrites as Americans, as human beings in general. We have almost all come to acquire a highly advanced form of consciousness (regardless of whether it is Communist or not) thanks to the decentralization of information. Nobody believes in the system anymore, at least within their consciousness. A great, stormy revolution has already happened ‘online.’ But it radically contradicts the practical weight of old habits, old conventions, old, unconscious prejudices. In theory, we have all become revolutionary. In practice, we all remain conformists. Hell, the majority of people even still vote like cattle. It isn’t because they aren’t terminally online. It’s because they’re scared of confronting this contradiction. It is scary! Isn’t the unknown the scariest of all things to a human being?
At the risk of sounding a bit ridiculous, perhaps even a little LARPy: Isn’t the revolutionary thing, having the courage at attempting to bridge this contradiction and attempting to embrace this unknown? Do not fault the ACP for having an outsized online influence relative to its offline reality. There is a profound, radical asymmetry and discrepancy between the entire collective consciousness of the American people and its actual, practical, offline reality. The difference is that our Party launched with the purport, in both word and deed, of attempting to practically explore and take responsibility for this contradiction. With no money, no institutional backing, and not even as much clout as others. Don’t think this hasn’t been difficult for us. It’s changed all of our lives. Many of us have spent our actual, real, material resources and life savings attempting to pioneer something entirely new. Many have been ostracized from their communities, risked and even forfeited their professional careers.
It has been painstakingly difficult adjusting and accommodating to a new collective existence, as individualistically minded Americans. If I say this as Executive Chairman, the paramount leader of the Party, just imagine how difficult it has been for ordinary cadre, who place themselves on the line regularly for something none of us have any exact clue will look like in the end. Many of us have dedicated our entire existence to this. I personally was already a social media influencer. We were already an online ‘movement.’ It would have been easy to grow mere numbers by abandoning the movement’s founding principles. I’m certain I would have been embraced either by leftist or Rightist influencers had I simply abandoned the inceptual principles of Infrared. I would have made a lot more money and gotten way more clout. But however LARPy it sounds, I mean it when I say I would rather have been shot dead than betray the loyal following of this movement, whose sincere belief in the mission of Communism in a new age has given my life a clear purpose for which no amount of money or popularity could exchange.
Together with my close comrade Jackson Hinkle, my new comrades from Midwestern Marx, and experienced veterans of the CPUSA, we decided to make the solemn decision to venture into the unknown and reconstitute the Communist Party in 2024. From this we have profited nothing. In fact, in terms of material resources and potential short-term clout, we have ‘lost’ immensely. Midwestern Marx was ostracized and ‘canceled’ for their association with me. Jackson, for his part, was successful enough without the Party. Slandered as a ‘grifter’ and still smiling through it all, he has given everything and taken nothing. As for Infrared, it is true that the ACP participates in fulfilling its original, messianic vision (Communist Party 2036) with indispensable necessity. But how poor, broke, and impoverished short-term financial gain, or superficial popularity, would compare with the profundity, sublimity, and greatness of this vision. Do I sacrifice by choosing this path, rather than getting rich or really popular (which I could easily do)? No, I gain immensely, even personally: I acquire the privilege of a life with clarity and purpose.
Don’t fault us for not having yet conquered this nation, in exactly the way we have conquered the internet. Merit us for taking the simple first step everyone in this nation, to say nothing of ‘leftists,’ seem scared shitless of doing, and that is genuinely risking the disruption of our slavish habits, conventions, and prejudices — by the grace of something genuinely new, yet already redundant within our consciousness, where the iron is hot…