The argument I’m making is not ultimately about Jackson Hinkle, because someone doesn’t need to like Jackson Hinkle in order to apply the lesson I seek to impart. This lesson is that when you witness an effort to reduce the discourse to arguments around one individual, one should reject such a narrow framing.
We’ve seen this with Trump derangement syndrome, which somebody doesn’t need to be a Trump supporter to avoid getting. One only needs to be conscious of how the discourse managers obsessively focus on this one personality, and keep their perspective broader than that.
During Trump’s term, the pro-imperialist nature of TDS was transparent to anyone who applied that kind of critical thinking to the media they were exposed to. Whenever Trump broke from the neocon orthodoxy in any real or perceived way, the Democrats used this to demonize whatever country he was bringing into the discourse. Trump vaguely introduced the possibility of improving relations with Russia (something he in practice ended up doing the opposite of), and they worked to convince liberals that opposing the new cold war means supporting Trump. Trump pursued diplomacy with the DPRK, and they used this as an opportunity to further the vilifying narratives about that country.
These dishonest rhetorical tactics were effective, but only insofar as they could solidify the pro-imperialist orientation of the “Blue MAGA” Democrat loyalists. Leftists and communists overwhelmingly aren’t invested in the Democratic Party, nor in the “Russiagate” conspiracy theory that portrays Trump as a puppet for Putin. So the narrative managers have come to target these ideological elements with a new discourse psyop. One that’s at the moment centered around discussing Hinkle, and his ties to anti-imperialist countries.
What we need to understand about the backlash towards Hinkle’s media projects around Russia, China, and Yemen is that the outrage isn’t truly about Hinkle. It’s about Hinkle’s audience. The left-wing discourse actors who are leading the backlash can’t accept that an element of the masses outside the “leftist” niche is gaining an anti-imperialist consciousness. That “leftism” isn’t able to dominate the concept of anti-imperialism, and is comparatively tiny up against the mass international audience which accepts figures like Hinkle. The left organizations that have been rejecting antiwar coalitions because they don’t want to associate with Hinkle, such as PSL, above all else want to be able to monopolize the struggle. To hold an authority over organizing spaces which can’t be challenged.
That’s why PSL, and the individuals who are loyal to it, have lately often acted like the most important question is whether one can sufficiently show their opposition towards Hinkle. They’ve reduced the anti-imperialist movement to a referendum on one individual, frustrating the efforts to accomplish anything practical. Developing radicals are being aggressively asked to condemn Hinkle (or LaRouche, or Dugin, or the other derangement syndrome objects within this discourse), rather than being encouraged to focus on the actual issues. The effect is that Marxists in the imperial center get separated from the geopolitical struggle, and drawn into a culture war that centers around personalities.
The best-case scenario for someone who’s gotten influenced by this discourse psyop is that they advance a type of anti-imperialist practice which is heavily tied to “leftism,” and therefore limited in its potential. A practice where they profess support for multipolarity, while always performatively disavowing the figures who they’ve been conditioned to have derangement syndrome for. Worst-case scenario, they conclude that the willingness of anti-imperialist countries to platform Hinkle and other taboo figures shows these countries aren’t worth supporting.
Caleb Maupin is another example of a person who the psyop machine has intensely targeted with ridicule, then used as a caricature for the anti-imperialist position. When liberals have written hit pieces against Maupin, the narratives they’ve employed have been compatible with sectarian leftist arguments. Which makes the left open to the pro-imperialist arguments that these liberals put forth; because Maupin has done journalism in Russia, Iran, and other countries that oppose the hegemon. And when liberals can convince leftists that he’s a fascist, they can apply that label to the governments he’s engaged with.
The conspiratorial rant that the liberal academic Alexander Reid Ross published in 2018, which accused Maupin and numerous other antiwar journalists of aiding “fascism,” showed how insidious these manipulation efforts can be. Ross utilized the common tropes that Maupin’s leftist detractors have employed over the years (such as acting like he shares all the ideas of every person he’s attended panels with), then concluded that Maupin and other pro-multipolar individuals are agents of a fascist plot. Now that Hinkle has come to prominence, we’re seeing the narrative managers shape the discourse around him in the same ways.
What all who oppose U.S. hegemony need to understand is that you aren’t going to be safe from such smears, nor from the inevitable wave of repression, if you signal that you’re against these figures. Disavowing this or that “bad” anti-imperialist, and affirming that you’re still loyal to “leftism,” will just leave you more vulnerable to the smears and the state persecution. As you’ll be left with fewer allies, and the only “allies” you’ll have are members of a fundamentally opportunistic project.
The reason why I now avoid the kinds of casual negative statements I used to make about Hinkle is that when your foremost priority is to advance the anti-imperialist cause, it’s wise to show people like the ones in Hinkle’s audience that you’re willing to enter into alliances. You can feel that Hinkle isn’t right about everything, or even dislike him. We need to recognize, though, that a great deal of the people who’ve been drawn towards him are individuals who have potential to participate in revolutionary efforts. And who often already are, in the sense that they’re fighting important parts of the information war against liberalism’s narratives. The same goes for many within the MAGA base, the libertarian base, and the other big tent political communities which primarily exist due to dissatisfaction with the liberal order.
Such ideological elements don’t need to be persuaded out of believing the lies of liberals like Ross, because they’re not coming at politics from the perspective of the left-liberals who so often fall for those lies. The members of these elements don’t care about what it means to be a good “leftist,” because they’re already alienated from the left. Which can lead them to embrace reactionary politics, but many of them can just as easily be brought towards Marxism and anti-imperialism. And when you can connect with people who lack the baggage which comes with leftism, you won’t need to get them to unlearn the liberal propaganda about multipolarity being “fascist.” They’re already able to reject those narratives, which are designed to influence leftists in particular. The only reason why I keep bothering to directly combat such ideas is because Marxists mainly come from leftist backgrounds, making it necessary to try to bring them away from left-wing pro-imperialism.
Beyond the online commentary space, where the main types of people are ones already heavily involved with politics, the biggest elements of people who Marxists will need to reach are the ones who’ve been politically alienated. We need to connect with the people who are disillusioned, but will become political when shown a program that looks like it can advance their material interests. Since the death of the old left, conservatives have been the ones who’ve mainly had success at recruiting from this alienated element. And they’ll only have more success if communists keep surrendering the illiberal masses to them. We bring back the old left’s practice of centering the people, and we’ll be able to win the people.
MAGA, libertarianism, and conservative-adjacent influencers like Hinkle have gotten so popular because they’ve been able to appeal towards the many people who oppose the liberal order. As a communist, I’m of course not a Trump supporter or a libertarian, and there are important differences between myself and Hinkle. It’s not strategically smart, though, for the communists in my tendency to signal that we don’t welcome conservatives or Hinkle fans. The pan-leftists want anti-imperialists to do that because it will isolate us from our cause’s biggest potential base of support, making us have nowhere to go besides the PSL. We need to break out of that confined space, and broaden our project to all elements which are compatible with anti-imperialism.
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