Political Memes

being organized to negotiate better wages puts you in a better position to start a revolution as well, even if that's not your initial intent. I mean, that's why unions have been at the forefront of nearly every major leftist revolution.

Of course, which is why it's still good advice, but to follow up on that example I'd argue that the unions at the forefront of major leftist revolutions were a lot more aggressive than anything America has now, because for instance they were the ones who (sometimes literally) fought for essentially everything modern workers have. Compare to modern unions who won't even strike if it's illegal and you'll see two completely different mentalities at work; unions back then were already predisposed to forceful direct action, which is at least part of why they were such important revolutionary actors. It's still better to have the organizational infrastructure (assuming it's not captured by capital) than to not have it, but the mentality shift needs to happen for anything near what 19th and early 20th century unions were doing to take place and so far almost nobody with nationwide prominence is even trying to have that conversation. This gets us back to my original point: The people best positioned to hasten this mentality shift such that it happens within a reasonable timeframe are all in denial. I'm not asking for people like Bernie and AOC to call for anything illegal, but the fact they're not out there actively calling for active resistance to the regime is a problem; someone needs to fill that hole and fast.