I’m admittedly not as optimistic when it comes to positive change through electoralism, to me, it is much more about postponing negative change. But it is a tool in the toolkit

Exactly. I, myself, do not think that electoralism is the only tool needed for positive change. It is like a gauze pad in a first aid kit. It is primarily used for treating wounds and trying to staunch bleeding. There are a lot of other tools available, some of them very much overlooked. Yes, there’s direct action and protests but there’s also community building, education, and kindness. The latter three, I find, are frequently overlooked, due to the lack of immediate return.

Spanish anarchists participated in elections to explicitly get the huge amount of political prisoners freed in the preludes to the Spanish Civil War, a conscious decision where they, as an organised group, pressured the republican forces to give in to their demands. That’s also an example of where not voting can be a valid tactic - if you actually have a large, organised group of people that is able to use it as a means to pressure concrete government actions.

Again, a lot of agreement with you there. Context and data are critical. Without the right context (which I’m not aware of existing anywhere in the West at this time), not voting is, by the data, completely ineffectual at creating change. That’s why things like community building and interpersonal diplomacy are so vital. That’s also why there have been such concerted efforts against Leftism, intentional communities, etc for the last half-century.

Granted, I am too disillusioned to be an anarchist.

I deal with that, like I dealt with my depression; developing near-pathological optimism as a coping mechanism. Also, with radical acceptance. I know that the changes that I would like to see and world that I would like to live in is not achievable in my lifetime. Maybe if we had healthy generational power transfers but, at least in the US, that’s a bit of a pipedream and patience is required. My ideals are a “North Star” to guide my actions when attempting to make long-term changes to society (if something good can happen overnight, it can be taken away just as quickly).

I worked within anarchist groups in the past and my personal experience has been, that they are maybe a bit too idealistic and loyal to principles instead of practicality. Finding consensus, in my experience, led to a whole slew of psychological dynamics within the discussions. Stuff like people feeling pressured to give up their own position, later regretting it, charismatic “leaders” de-facto still taking over discussions, and it being very vulnerable to inducing gridlock on purpose by bad-faith actors.

This has been a huge problem over here. Both intentional bad actors and those that have the same impact due to ignorance or short-sightedness.

Also, the idea of changing the minds of a vast amount of the population, instead of being willing to take power if necessary, is something I encountered a lot, and I simply don’t agree with, especially in light of how the present and future look.

This one hits me hard too. I’m a “no first strikes” pacifist. I wasn’t always but learning about the histories of peoples that have suffered far more than most of my ancestors pushed me there. My allegiance is to humanity, not ideology. Is violence necessary to protect and defend? Sometimes, like with slavers and fascists. However, I do see a lot of people, especially online MLs, that are chomping at the bit for it, without regards to the fact that violence itself causes harm but just to the recipient, but also the perpetrator and society at large (see: Ireland and Algeria).

That all being said, in my experience anarchists are at least more open to study and learn with a proper, reflective mind, while many MLs I met treat their own position as a holy, unshakable truth, which in my opinion, goes against everything the Marxist project has been about. They unironically talk about scientific Marxism, while treating it as a religion, it can be quite tiring in my opinion.

Yes! It is good to see that others, especially a communist, have found a similar pattern of behavior. You cannot have dialectics without making everything open to analysis, including ideology and recorded history. I received a ban from an ML-moderated comm a while back by suggesting further analysis of the motivations and historical context of the Finns and the alliances formed in the wars that they fought during WW2 (maybe invading a country that has a history of centuries of repression at the hands of the Russian Empire wasn’t a good way to win over its people). Not to mention suggesting any leaders of historical communist countries or movements may not have always been in the right or had the best of intentions (they really didn’t like that). Not being able to examine and analyize the pillars of one’s ideology with any depth or criticality without being excommunicated puts it solidly in “religion” territory.

No matter what side we are on when it comes to how we see ourselves - good luck to you too, and most of all, good luck to all proletarians worldwide. We are all gonna need it in the decades to come.

The same to yourself! And absolutely, again, no matter what happens in the coming years, I wish there best of Luck to our fellow people (sure, maybe we’ll have artificial prolitarians that need our help too at some stage) and hope that we’re able to lay the foundations for a world where they have no need of Luck.