There is a certain type of programming that comes with living in the imperial core, where one is bound to find profound dissatisfaction with the existing economic and political order (billionaires, the Supreme Court, maybe even capitalism itself), and yet feel that the system that produces this dissatisfaction has the best answers for how to resolve it. Rather than looking outside of the system for answers, one is hopelessly bound up with the liberal project, such that the existing order, as bad as it may be, really is the best of all possible worlds, and any experiments that sought to liberate humanity quite apart from the presuppositions of the liberal order must by default be failures; after all, they were not liberal.

A rather sad example of how this programming can produce counter-revolutionary behavior can be found in Comrade Jon Hochschartner, a self-admitted new member of DSA who has made it his personal mission to purge the org of the scourge of Marxist-Leninists (MLs), specifically the caucus Red Star, which has more than a handful of prominent leadership positions in the org. Leaving aside the veiled misogyny by which he singles out Comrade Megan Romer, Comrade Hochschartner not only writes of the need to eliminate any and all influence of MLs in DSA, but has gone so far as to personally email each and every single DSA chapter, asking them to join him in his holy crusade against the “tankies” that he thinks are insufficiently democratic for his liking.

It’s worth asking what exactly his specific beef is with the MLs in the org, and not say, the Maoists in the Liberation Caucus, who share similar convictions. One would search in vain for a coherent take on what exactly a ML is according to Comrade Jon, who self-admitted in a letter he submitted to the Weekly Worker, “Marxist-Leninist is a phrase which has really only been used as an ideological self description for Stalinists and their ilk… It was really just reserved for the most unapologetically authoritarian of authoritarian socialists.” What exactly a Stalinist is and why anyone would identify as one is not explained. Was the avowed Marxist-Leninist Fidel Castro a Stalinist, when he detailed the grave errors of Stalin such as abuse of power and the use of show trials to eliminate his enemies, allying himself with the Nazis on the eve of war, invading Finland, the Great Purges, and consolidating power? Can a “Stalinist” such as Kruschev, who not only directly worked with but enforced Stalin’s policies, have had such a negative view of him that he sought to discredit his entire tenure as General Secretary? As usual, the term obscures more than it reveals, and is used as a caricature to paint any ideological opponents as simply “authoritarian” (a convenient term used only for socialist experiments but rarely for governments perpetrating genocide). The issue is not that Comrade Jon has used a flimsy caricature for his opponents; after all, who has not indulged in trolling our opponents from time to time? The issue is that he genuinely believes this caricature is an accurate representation of comrades he doesn’t know or have any contact with.

It might also be worth pointing out that Comrade Jon has stated in the same Weekly Worker letter, “Honestly, I’m not sure why anyone in the United States, circa 2026, would identify as a Marxist-Leninist. The best answer I can come up with is members of the Red Star caucus are either ignorant or edgelords.” A staggering amount of incuriosity is at play here, and exhibits the kind of behavior one would find from someone intentionally trying to subvert the unity of the org. Rather than doing the unthinkable act of actually talking with and dialoguing with comrades he clearly has no understanding of, Comrade Jon finds it more appropriate to write articles criticizing the mere existence of Marxists-Leninists, painting them as hopelessly “authoritarian” (again, a term not defined in how that would apply to actual comrade behavior in DSA), and seeking to eliminate them entirely for being insufficiently ideologically pure in their love for liberal democracy and elections. How very “Stalinist.”

From his other publications, most notably The False Framing of the DSA Debate published in CounterPunch earlier this year, Comrade Jon seems to take issue with Red Star defending “dictatorships,” such as China and Soviet Russia. His analysis comes purely from the fact that these countries did not hold frequent competitive elections for the majority of the positions in their governments. This complaint might be valid if one considers competitive elections as a necessary prerequisite for democracy, as opposed to the demos themselves being the active participants in the movement of the governing of the country. After all, is the US a democracy when votes are predetermined towards the minority thanks to the ruling class gerrymandering their districts with impunity, purging voter rolls without notifying their victims, appointing 9 priests who are neither representative, recallable, nor elected to determine the laws we can and can’t have with no recourse to altering it, and regardless of which party you elect, you will get genocide and austerity regardless? Would it not be accurate to say that the US is a “dictatorship” by the mere fact that the popularity of legislation has no bearing whatsoever on what actually gets passed? The liberal framework that is our system of government, the standard by which each and every other system must be judged, obscures the fact that this framework is not neutral, but ideological, and specifically serves to perpetuate the notion that any attempt at a liberated society will inevitably fail. Comrade Jon is not so blind so as to be unable to see this, especially if he had given the dialogue with his “tankie” comrades a chance. He might come to see that the analysis of socialist experiments is not the same as his own, but is centered around a dialectical and materialist framework that judges systems based on how they resolve the material conditions of their existing circumstances, rather than how they measure up to ideals such as “freedom” and “democracy.” It’s not that these ideals are bad; it is that they are poor evaluators of how successful or “free” a country is, not least because they are ideologically motivated, but primarily because their definitions change with each passing decade. What is considered “free” today will be hopelessly oppressive in the coming decades and centuries. As someone who consistently writes about veganism and animal rights, surely Comrade Jon would see that our current definitions of these ideals are hopelessly narrow, and that it is better to judge societies not by how they measure up to ideals, but by how they conduct themselves given the constraints they have.

Ultimately, I do not fault Comrade Jon for not being a Marxist-Leninist. I do not fault him for wanting his ideas to become hegemonic in DSA. I do not even fault him for organizing with chapters nationally to push for his own politics. I fault him for his profound lack of curiosity, self -assuredness, and self-serving agenda that has already determined what must be true about people he doesn’t know, and every other act exists to confirm his preconceived notions. Comrade Hodgkiss has already written a well-intentioned and helpful response to Comrade Jon’s Cosmonaut letter, and I commend him for having a measured and even-tempered response to the necessity of democracy in DSA - something that even the Red Star "tankies" agree with. Where I find fault in this response is that Comrade Jon’s convictions do not lie with democracy, but with a boogieman he has conceived in his head. Ever the shadowboxer, he finds fault with every successful socialist experiment, and anyone who “supports” these experiments (often amounting to just insufficiently condemning them) must of course be an enemy to democracy. The issue here is not the differences between ideological tendencies, which is fair and will always be with us. The issue is rather the refusal to meaningfully engage with people you know so little about, so that you self-proclaim their only rationale must be to be edgy. Such an attitude betrays a certain type of religious fanaticism that sees anyone outside the bounds of one’s preferred circle as dangerous and an enemy to all that is good. If the Satanists believe in science, then certainly science must be satanic - and so on, until the only defining feature one has left is being against someone else. As a comrade in DSA, I implore Comrade Jon to do some self-reflection. To log off for a while. Read some Parenti or Losurdo. Or better yet, grab a coffee with someone he disagrees with. To fight capitalism, such acts of intellectual curiosity and generosity might be the most revolutionary of all!

In solidarity,

John Michael Trowbridge