doomer

I really like this and it's interesting because it's very similar to Mao's concept of the mass line, which I always find myself bringing myself back to when it comes to any sort of organizing work.

It's funny though, I wrote out a comment that completely contradicts your take here. Personally I switch between a mass line style of work when it comes to driving change within groups or orgs or workplaces etc. but in terms of engaging people generally, whether it's online or out in the wild, I tend to focus on agitation against capitalism to "bring up the intermediate" (to use Mao's framing) because it's not practical to do much more than that aside from isolating the backwards (e.g. calling out the person with the username EdgelordFourteenEightyEight and asking them what those numbers mean in their username so that people can be like "Whoa holy shit, there's a Nazi in our midst! I'm not taking anything they say on board wtf.")

I'm all about a diversity of tactics and I think an important aspect of avoiding feeling defeated is a clarity of purpose in what you're working towards - if it's getting the average Joe to internalize clear, accurate definitions of capitalism and communism and imperialism and colonialism then you're probably gonna set yourself up for disappointment in a lot of cases. But if your aim is to help them understand why capitalism sucks or how imperialism is fucking everyone over or to get them to join their union, you're probably gonna come out feeling like you've achieved something in the discussion.