#not that kind of tea party

[proletnous]

A Lame Donkey and a Rattlesnake

A Marxist-Leninist Critique of Lifestyle Brand Politics

A previous piece (“Why Democrats Lose”) examined the Democrats’ individual error as an electoralist party, now however we should analyze the broader conditions of federal American politics which produced such an astonishing failure. The American state, as well as its federal parties (both the Republicans and Democrats among other minor parties later discussed), have been hollowed out by Monopoly Capital in their administrative and functional capacities and have been replaced by a system of political “lifestyle brands” profiteering to offset the decline of the rate of profit. A lifestyle brand commoditizes in unison the self-concept and group identity, reifying the self-concept and phantasmal group identity though aggregate accumulation of branded commodities and public displays of affiliation with the brand. The halest of bourgeois states become feeble and pale from epidemic Capital’s consumption; lifestyle brands are the white lead makeup and cinnebar rouge on the corpse.

A key milestone was in the early 2000s when David and Charles Koch, antiques of Monopoly Capital and lords of oil and logging (and owners of one of the largest private companies in the U.S.), had set up the NGO “Americans for Prosperity” which in the spring of 2009 seized on a viral clip of CNBC reporter Rick Santelli calling for a “Chicago Tea Party” and created a “Tea Party” Facebook page and begin organizing “Tea Party” events. Quickly after its “founding” the Tea Party would transform into one of the most identifiable brands in political marketing, despite the formation having no clear political ideology let alone an identifiable goal. Yellow rattlesnake stickers, “1776”-emblazoned apparel and yard signs requesting to see Obama’s birth certificate could be purchased and were often seen equipped by many middle-class Republicans.

The Tea Party was not the first lifestyle brand in American federal politics but it was one of the most dynamic, second only to the self-identified “Leftists” who later coalesced around Sanders prior to the first Trump election. Both Sanders’ 2016 and Obama’s 2008 campaigns had developed as low form lifestyle brands, but such brands are tied to the persona of a single politician and have a limited shelf life. (The “Trump” brand has a limited life expectancy for the same reason.) As such, the opportunists saw a model in the Tea Party and similar consumer identities and spawned the “Leftist” “Movement”, a consumer identity serving as an umbrella identity for a myriad of smaller “Leftist” consumer identities. The “Leftist” consumer identity predominantly exists in benign contradiction with the mainline Democratic brand identity, the “Blue” Democrats, and with revolving-door fascist trends, both of which “Leftism” depends on for engagement and promotional material.

Certainly, the Democratic Party has long been the American institution for the disorganization and isolation of movements with potential for historic progress, but in the Tea Party model they saw a new opportunity to monetize that process. The result has created the most prominent form of opportunism the Communist movement has suffered. In 2016, our movement was not equipped to deal with this development, causing the mass dispersal of advanced proletarians throughout the Democrats or other, smaller dead-end “Leftist” organizations (DSA, CPUSA, PSL, etc.). This sort of organization (or formation in many cases) is characterized by being dues or donations based without expecting or requiring members to engage in regular and frequent common activity, or exercise discretion or political discipline. Instead, they encourage members to self-identify with the party on social media and buy and display branded merchandise to show off in their regular social life, fully enmeshing the ego with the organization’s (or “tendencies”) lifestyle brand. This invariably leads members to primarily engage with reactionaries (liberals, social opportunists, fascists and all variations of the middle-class) to the exclusion of engaging with and fostering comradeship with the progressively potent masses. In this way, those with potential are transmuted into opportunist functionaries.

The political lifestyle brands not only impact social movements but also enter into a prolonged dialectical relationship with the state. This has lead to social media influencers replacing career elected officials and bureaucrats and banditizing the assets of the state. (It has always been true that liberal republics are staffed by careerists and opportunists seeking to enrich themselves, but the recent development has meant a transition from tolerable parasitism to total autolysis.) Apart from individual advantage for the opportunists, this development benefits the syndicates of Monopoly Capital (far beyond just Koch Industries) by reducing administrative burdens and regulation, and opening up new business opportunities in the form of lucrative contracts to supplement the lost functions of the state.

Because “influencer politics” impaired the functions of the legislative branch most severely early on, it has also accelerated the centralization of authority in the executive branch. Which means, for the American State, the presidential administration has increasingly more sway over a government with increasingly less effect over its functions and territory, decreasing the overall stability of both ­– the American state has become obsolete, now the weak link in the global system of Imperial-Capitalism. It is now propped up largely by investments from American national capital, and China, motivated by America's residual entanglement in the current world-economic system as a hub for aggregating international extraction of imperialism, and the distribution of commodities across North America (highways and freight).

With the executive branch becoming the axis of the entire federal system, what the remaining administrative Republican faction had done was to identify and pursue key points in the electoral chain of the current system (state governorships, the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court). If Trump had failed to secure enough electoral votes, Republican governors of states that went for Harris could have withheld their electors until the deadline passed and the Republican controlled House would have to appoint the President, and the Republican-controlled Supreme Court was poised to legitimize the proceedings. With much of the American state being too hollowed out to avert this, the Democrats were given a choice: protest this play and break the phantasm of a functioning American state, or throw the election.

So, for 2024 we must consider the real possibility that beyond the usual tactic of electoral ransom and brinksmanship discussed in the previous piece, the Democrats intentionally tried to loose. That goes a long way to explaining why the Harris campaign (against the unanimous advice of its marketing consultants) went so far to “tank the brand” for her existing market segment, with public actions like bragging openly about inviting the Republican Party into her administration and putting forward the hated Liz Cheney. Since a lifestyle brand depends on alignment with its market segment’s self-concept, demobilizing that population by flouting the self-concept is as easy as mobilizing them by playing to its comfort. The absence in late 2024 of the once-formidable “KHive” is telling.

The way things worked out for the Democratic party was to delay the internal contradictions of America’s severe instability from becoming antagonistic contradictions while the Democrats were in office, to be left to be resolved during Trump’s term. In many ways, this would seem to be a familiar strategy from Democratic leadership, as when they have held power in the American state they have consistently managed to ensure its loss rather than be forced to use it (the most infamous example being when the Democrats “lost” congress after Obama’s 2008 election). This has a straightforward explanation: exercising political power for their “campaign issues” would attract a constituency with real expectations and less tolerance for being scammed.

This contradiction around the exercise of power was particularly acute in 2024 because the Supreme Court had just handed the executive near absolute power with their decision that a President cannot be prosecuted for acts performed in their official capacity. Had the contradictions following a contested election come to a head at the tail end of Biden’s administration, or during a subsequent Harris presidency, the Democratic President would be expected to use that power to deal with the compounding political and economic crises. As it was, Democrats got to spend their billion in donations and walk away as the underdog while delivering nothing. Their final act of incoherently blaming trans people, first nations, etc. was simply a smoke screen to distract from what they had just done in plain view and cover their escape from the responsibility of the Presidency.

With the Democrats’ social liberal exit scam completed, Republicans are now left holding the bag of destroying the remaining administrative capacity of the state so that they themselves are freed from delivering actual benefits for their own base. Only the newly ascendant national syndicates of Monopoly Capital benefit, but even there the benefit is short-lived, as this un-making of the administrative state will allow international hyper-extraction of the U.S. until either Russia (ha) or, more likely, the E.U. takes its place as the new legion for Imperial-Capitalism. (Some liberal and “Leftist” commentators suggest China is a contender in succeeding the U.S. as imperial hegemon, but if the People's Republic wanted to they would have years ago given their owning of a substantial share of America's debt!) The Republicans are now doomed to play resentful hospice nurse to a dying American Empire, holding onto the delusional hope of somehow raising an ascendant America from its cremated ashes (equal in absurdity to British nationalist hopes for a resurgent British Empire after Brexit).

The nature of the past twelve years in American federal politics has been foot dragging, trying to stave off change while extracting as much from constituents as possible. But, history progresses if the reactionaries like it or not; as they lined their pockets, decay rotted out the system from underneath them. Now all factions must be transmuted by the times: the Republicans to become more the party of Trump, the Democrats to a new form of opportunism (one should believe them when they speak of pivoting to appeal more to “moderate” Republicans), and we Communists must leave behind the opportunism of “Leftism” and the dead end husks of federalism, Americanism and electoralism. Opportunist parties (CPUSA, DSA, PSL, etc.) are the Gucci vs Versace of the rouge chic aspirational middle class; at this stage in development, trying to form a national party is wholly posturing, utter pretense, and ends in the same in lifestyle brand politics that leaves the international Communist movement in the East uninterested in our work. In the place of federal “Leftism” we must work exclusively with the proletariat in local and regional politics unconstrained by the boundaries of America’s provincial system. Each district one by one, each person bolt by bolt, shining metal machined together into the golden roaring locomotive of history – the vanguard party – racing down the tracks of today into tomorrow.

~ Quality of Concept∴ and Blossom of the Hundred Flowers∴ November 29, 2024

Illustration by Psy-1917∴

[egophiliac]

I feel like F/P/S was still a pretty weird one, even by Lance's standards.

sorry for (in an ironic twist) not doing much Ride Kamens art now that it's actually started; I've been pretty slow going through it and I feel weird posting about things I'm not caught up on! though I'm. definitely gonna have to set aside some time to actually get through episode 13, after what they posted today. (w-what did they do to my Leon) (NOBODY TELL ME I HAVE TO FIND OUT ON MY OWN) (LEOOOOOOOON)

[chimerical-daydreams]

stars im actually gonna explode i love this au so much

I HAVE TO KNOW, does the king make tea with Odile once she joins the party.

Nothing quite like sitting down with some tea and discussing arising trends in contemporary Vaugardian poetry with the bestie <3

[royalarchivist]

Jaiden: Cucurucho, you have a lot of power, right?

Cucurucho: ...I don't know. Maybe.

Roier: Ah... Yes, you know, don't act like a dumbass, you have it. You have it, man. Eh?

Jaiden: Is there a way for us to protect all the Eggs? Do you know? I don't want anything to happen to the Eggs that happened to Bobby.

Cucurucho: Ha ha ha

Roier: WHAT? [Smacks Cucurucho]

Jaiden: [Bops him] Headpats.

Cucurucho: Maybe.

Jaiden: [Continues to bop him] Headpats. C'mon, I can get it out of you! Headpats! Chin scratches! Belly rubs!

Roier: [Joins Jaiden in bopping Cucurucho, chuckling and laughs]

Jaiden: Yeah? He's comin' around!

[Jaiden and Roier both laugh]

[hellspawnsparks]

care for some tea? the Fairykinz Tiger Cub would love to share!

[phoenixcatch7]

More possessed doll au!

Each time a bat is ready to take on a new form, they must pay a visit to the tea party. Should they be accepted, through whatever strange reasons the dolls use, they will find another figure seated at the table, dressed in full tea party doll regalia. It is up to them to modify the doll within the limits imposed, and learn its form to achieve its full potential. The Robin doll, so far, is the only one to return to the table despite being moved to a display case, and truly makes the mysterious sidekick timeless.

Despite its obviously supernatural origins, the bats have found very, very little can effect the dolls outside of physical force. They do not use wires and electricity to move or think - they cannot be hacked. They are not, to their knowledge, superseding other minds - they cannot be exorcised. They use no magics to fight crime - they cannot be traced. They have no blood to be identified, no teeth pattern to compare, no fingerprints or retina to give them away. Gas cannot affect them, hypnosis requires a brain, pain cannot override them. For all intents and purposes, the dolls are perfect for fighting crime.

So where, Bruce thinks, lying awake in bed one night after patrol, do they come from? Alfred knows nothing, neither of them found anything in the archives or library. His father grew up on the estate - surely he'd explored the caves himself at some point? The doll had been right at the well entrance - had he simply never entered that way?

After the first time meeting their doll, they do not need to touch it to transfer their consciousness again. It's a breeze through an open window, ever so slight, in the back of their minds, and one simple twist can send them spiralling into their other body.

But when Robin became Nightwing, and the child sized body was retired, it was placed in a sturdy glass display case. Jason was already making noises about joining them on the streets, but a transition had never been attempted. They assumed a third doll would become the new Robin, and the first would simply become inert.

That was not the case.

When Jason - against Bruce's decision to wait a few more months - decided to make the walk to the doll house, and deeper still to the tea party cave, he found, waiting, an untouched child sized doll. The light from his torch cast across its Victorian style waistcoat, the plumped breeches and buckled leather booties, all in the bright and bold colours of his predecessor. It sat at the right hand of the empty throne, porcelain tea cup in hand, as though left by a rich little girl called away just a moment ago to supper.

The doll had been sorted in a locked case. Glass. In full view of the main area of the batcave. With cameras. It should not have been able to be taken away without several people noticing. He had taken a different route to try and sneak past Bruce, but...

It was not the first time a doll had moved. It would not be the last.

@puppetmaster13u

@dehydratedmockingbird

[theverglaswindow]

[the-blossica-fan]

Vila: I mean... no offence to anyone within the suitcase. I truly do not. But are they all a little... how do I say this... 'unhinged'?

Mesmer Jr.: ...Yes. I would say you get used to it but, being honest--

(*In the distance, Jiu fell over, and is now being carried by Yenisei*)

Mesmer Jr.: ...You don't. At the very least, for a few, it's entertaining to watch.

I like to imagine there's this corner for the most "normal" individuals, by that I mean, mentally sane. (Mesmer Jr is there because she refuses to leave that corner)

This corner includes: Vila (sometimes accompanied by Windsong), Ms. Moissan, Kaalaa Baunaa and Mesmer Jr, sometimes Vertin, Druvis III and Ezra join but it's just those three there.

They watch everything, unfortunately.

Kaalaa: Mm? Isn't that Sotheby?

Vila: She's getting chased by a bunch of small critters! Comrade Moissan, is this a common occurrence in the suitcase?

Moissan: ...I'll be right back

Mesmer Jr: I swear to God if these arcanist don't stop flirting with each other I'll...

Windsong: I think it's time I leave, goodbye Comrade Vila! (Trips on the way to the wilderness)

Vila: Excuse me, my girlfriend seems to be in... A situation

Mesmer Jr: (holds back a tired sigh)

Moissan: Someone should take Blonney's gun away (2.1 garment), she could harm someone, and I don't agree to letting any arcanist get a hold on a gun

Vertin: It'll be okay, Ms. Moissan, I'm pretty sure she can handle it, she is a responsible adult and-

(A distant shot, metallic sound, screaming and very loud apologies sounds in the background)

Mesmer Jr: Responsible? An arcanist?

Vertin: I am an arcanist and I am responsible

Kaalaa: (touches an empty jar of Picrasma Candy) Your sugar consumption is far from responsible.

Ezra: The suitcase is pretty comfortable, although I never get to stay for long, it's entertaining to see the many arcanists get along and have fun together. I wish I could see it more often.

Mesmer Jr: Don't.

Vila: ... It'll be best if you stay outside of the suitcase as you have, comrade Ezra.

Moissan and Kaalaa: (nod)

[morexlapis]

uhm im gonna go offline now.

[the-wandering-blob]

BEHOLD!!! MY REGRETEVATOR OC!!!

Her name is Penelope Plaything, but everyone just calls her Plaything. She is a little ragdoll who really likes tea (🇬🇧) and loves to play. She’s very sweet and happy, but also cares deeply about her looks:3

She spawns from a floor called “The Playroom”. There’s a little toybox that she climbs out of and goes over to the elevator. The way you complete the floor is that you have to pick up the toys that are randomly strewn about the floor and put them in the toybox! Nothing bad happens if you don’t get them all, you just get send back to the elevator.

[elina231211]

Tilrey dream casting

To answer a question that's been plaguing me forever: is there any actor beautiful enough to play Tilrey in ColdColdHeart's stunning Oslov series? May I humbly present an option: 28yr old Brazilian artsy and prolific mlm-role actor Michel Joelsas 🥵

Granted poor guy looks a bit too happy, and he's a lil older Tilrey here than the Malsha years (all pics age 21-28, except the last one at 18 when he was on a teen show), but damn! I could see the Councillors not giving this up and Gersha instantly losing his mind & throwing his near-celibacy out the window @welcome-to-oslov

(For the record, we consider him blond in Brazil 😂🔥)

[honeyboyfelix]

my mom got me a tea advent calendar and every day since i have been thinking about it 😥 can it stop being november so i can drink them

[creativesplat]

ok but the monarchs of fe engage are awesome and they needed to be done in this format.

[forseties]

i want to draw party member jasper shenanigans... does anynyan have scenario ideas... i cant think of anything

[buckingham-ashtray]

when things are really getting around the bend and you start using british accent to have conversations with yourself out loud:

[moonilit]

A punch of fucked up kids and their equality fucked up adopted parent going about it through life