It’s fascinating to me how the same people who like to do purity tests for China or Vietnam claiming they’re not actually communist are also the ones who’ll defend places like US or Canada saying yeah it’s not perfect, but it’s the ideal of the system that matters.
It’s such an incredible example of cognitive dissonance. These people able to recognize that their own system doesn’t live up to the ideal they have in their heads, but still treat it as a valid interpretation of the idea, but when it comes to a system they dislike then the same logic doesn’t apply all of a sudden.
They are really hooked over the weird idea of “hiding the power level”. For them, socialist governments consequently realising plan of building socialism are the hidden neoliberals, while succdems like Bernie, consequently participating in imperialism and neoliberalism are real socialists who only wait for finally being in power to suddenly push the communism button (and they also accuse us ML’s of being “blanquists”).