Im gonna plant a big gay flag into the skull of one of these clowns that has STFU emblazoned on it.

PatSocs are fucking traumatized by twitter and social media. Absolutely fucking traumatized that the internet enabled FOR ONCE in history the safety of anonymity for non whites to let whites know exactly what they think FOR ONCE.

Im so sick and tired of PatSocs crying that sassy trans folks are the reason the roads are turning to gravel and the fucking power is going out.

Just… Shut the fuck up. My god.

It’s the disrespect of assuming the “wokies” have no idea what the concept of relationships to labor are. It would be a fucking MIRACLE if they stopped presuming that non whites just wanna be non white liberal elites or that they dont know any better because they simply have unique concerns.

America is uniquely evil. End of discussion.

This thread raises some interesting questions and offers some good answers. But there is a lot of confusion and it is not clear that people are arguing about the same thing.

The Problem

There is clearly no consensus definition of the following words:

• patriotism
• nationalism
• PatSoc
• patriotic socialism The clearest definitions for these words have come from those comments defending patriotism as Marxist.

I do not think we are arguing over nationalism as that question was answered a long time ago by e.g. Stalin and Lenin. Okay, their work may need updating, but updating means building on their legacy, which nobody is really trying to do here. The main references to nationalism are trying to:

• a. Argue that Marxists have an agreed notion of nationalism, which can be good in the periphery, and that this is what patriotism means (because e.g. in ex-colonies, it means liberation, etc); or
• b. Argue that Marxists have an agreed notion of nationalism, which may be bad in the imperial core, and that this is what patriotism means (e.g. because there it means homophobia, transphobia, patriarchy, etc).

So the question is not:

• i. What do Marxists think of nationalism?

The question is:

• ii. Are patriotism, patriotic socialists, and PatSocs the same as nationalism and nationalists?

And

• iii. To what extent do these terms relate to sexuality, gender, race, colonialism, etc?

Only by answering (ii) can we reach common ground and engage with the same idea. We may then disagree about each others’ conclusions, but at least those conclusions will refer to the same idea.

Therefore it seems necessary to identify agreed definitions for these words. For example: Is PatSoc only relevant to the internet? If so, who gets to claim the label? People who identify by it? Or people who use it to classify their enemies?

Regardless, there is a more important question to answer first:

• iv. What is the class character of patriotism, PatSoc, patriotic socialism, and nationalism?

These words will have an abstract class character and a class character that is unique to each country. If we take an intersectional view of class and avoid class reductionism, we may partially answer (iii) at the same time.

Marx and Engels wrote of the class character of socialism in the Communist Manifesto. We must do the same for our subject.

What is the class character of US patriotism?

Zac Cope argues in The Wealth of (Some) Nations that the majority of workers in the global north are labour aristocrats – paid well enough to look the other way on the imperial question, whether petite bourgeois or ‘proletariat’. There’s a lot to say about whether this is true or whether it was true but is now changing.

J Sakai argues in Settlers that the ‘white proletariat’ in the Settler Colony is a myth. Again, we could argue over whether a white proletariat’ has since grown.

Michael Parenti, at least, argues the ruling class has long sought the ‘third worldisation’ of the global north. This statement accepts classes are fluid.

It is difficult to classify the US as mainly this it mainly that. It’s class composition is constantly changing. It also comprises many states with reasonably independent legislatures and different demographics.

The important point for our discussion is that any presentation of the US as mainly labour aristocratic or petite bourgeois seems to accept the vision of the US that is shown in the entertainment and news media – created by the US ruling class.

That is, white, middle class (whatever that means), reasonably well-off, suburbian, liberal, content with the idea of a homogenous US if not with the way that it is governed under the Republicans or Democrats, and the world’s defender of democracy. This vision also includes a one sided view of patriotism, which involves a stripey flag, militarism, and pledges of allegiance.

Is this what the US is? It certainly seems so when the US is viewed through the prism of entertainment and news media. It almost certainly seems so to the millions of people who have been in the receiving end of US ‘democracy’. It probably seems so to many in America, who are subjected to the same images as the rest of the world, but from another angle.

Is this what the US is from the inside? Maybe not.

(Apologies in advance for defining people as ‘not white’. I do not think it will come off as any less racist by trying to list and differentiate all the people who are not included in the ruling class white supremacist vision.)

To cite some (problematic) 2020 data (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/2020-united-states-population-more-racially-ethnically-diverse-than-2010.html):

“The most prevalent racial or ethnic group for the United States was the White alone non-Hispanic population at 57.8%. This decreased from 63.7% in 2010.” “The Hispanic or Latino population was the second-largest racial or ethnic group, comprising 18.7% of the total population.” “The Black or African American alone non-Hispanic population was the third-largest group at 12.1%.”

This data is problematic because in trying to recognise ‘diversity’ it presupposes racial difference along biological lines. Still, the data indicates the US is not white.

Nor has the US ever been white.

It’s ruling class and white petite bourgeois segments think it is white. They are delusioned by white supremacism, and could not and cannot see the toil and suffering of indigenous Americans or slaves as part of the US.

To the ruling white supremacists, those workers are always somehow separate to ‘the US’. Unfortunately, this is a pervasive idea. To paraphrase Marx and Engels in The German Ideology, the ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling class.

The above census data, showing a ‘decline’ in the white population, gives the impression that whites were once the majority. False.

At the beginning, the indigenous Americans were the majority. Afterwards, Africans and indigenous Americans were the majority, perhaps depending on where one draws state / city lines on old maps. At some point, the proportions turned.

What is the US?

Any revolutionary worth the name must be unified with all ‘minorities’, whether defined by class, race, gender, sexuality, etc. Together these people comprise the majority. The US is these people.

The US is not the cis-het white, males of the ruling class, whether depicted as a banker in a suit, a Proud Boy, a lone adventurer protected in a wagon circle, or a struggling, salt of the earth, and slightly racist rural lumpen.

Thus we have:

1. The US defined by the people who live in it, who built it, who feed each other, and care for each other; and
2. The US defined by its ruling class.

And there we may have the solution. Patriotism of (1) may be revolutionary. Patriotism of (2) is almost certainly reactionary. I don’t think anyone in this thread would disagree. Reply if you do; I’d like to know what I missed.

If this is correct, it is up to patriotic revolutionaries to decide on appropriate patriotic symbolism. This may mean abandoning the current flag or keeping it.

I imagine that any Marxist would hope the Stars and Stripes eventually go the same way as the Confederate flag. In the meantime, due to the prevalence of the ruling class notion of patriotism, there are likely many people who could be radicalised, but who also respect the flag. It seems a bit self-defeating to exclude these people from the revolution.

Remember, the majority is not cis-het, white, male, and middle class, but to my understanding, all have to praise the flag as children every school day, and must somewhat accept this white supremacist vision of the US. These ‘patriots’ might not lead the revolution, but if the flag brings them along?

Finally: PatSocs

Are PatSocs revolutionary Marxists? It’s beside the point, really, because the label is contested. People identify by it and others use it as a derogatory category. They could be, but they may not be. We would need a class analysis of any given person to decide. And we would first have to ensure that calling a person a PatSoc is not a category error.

Edit: formatting. Edit 2: formatting headings

@SaddamHusein24 I think you have a small misunderstanding. The patriotism of actual Marxists, dare I say even in America, should be upheld - and I mean the patriotism of wanting your country to be destroyed and reborn as Lenin said, and to flourish for all the American people. The genuine belief that the American worker should be supported and treated fairly, regardless of minority grouping, and that they deserve better is a great thing!

The “patriotism” of “PatSocs” is vastly different. PatSocs are a very specific reactionary group with specific views here in the west. They believe that we should all hunker down and throw away the “liberal wokeness that is internationalism” and put trans people in gulgas since they’re “lib degenerates” and that’s what Stalin would have wanted. It’s reactionary position not based on any real material analysis, and as such, should be combated.