He is a major figure for BRICS and was there at the founding. Not sure if he was entirely his idea or not but he deserves a lot of credit for its creation and resurgence.

Yeah it also comes up during election cycles in the US. If you say you don’t want to vote Democrat, you might hear someone say that you shouldn’t focus on purity and vote pragmatically™.

Of course they are either unable to understand that there are different politcal aims at play, or they are trying to extort you.

When the “Republican friend” tries to suggest a moderate or alternative dem for “pragmatic purposes” it’s often taken in bad faith. RFK Jr is a decent example of this today, a lot of Dems hate him because he sucks and is an obvious grifter. But if a communist or some other ‘lefty’ doesn’t want to vote for Democrats, they are selling everyone out to Trump because of a dangerous lack of pragmatism.

The main problem that I see is that a lot of people on the left are rejecting effective methods for building a movement that have been proven in the past as being authoritarian.

Occupy Wall Street comes to mind. It’s like a natural demobilizing ideaolgy that grows in reaction to neoliberalism. People get focused on grassroots and bottom up approaches, which makes sense and is necessary. But then they get taken over by astroturfing because their leadership is basically unofficial and nothing more than a friend group that got their first. I’m looking at you David Graeber (RIP). And now the whole “99% vs 1%” rhetoric is all but entirely used by the right wing.

I feel like reddit moved in next door.