The point I made the other day, that liberal religion is a real part of American society with the power to make real political change whereas neither Marxism nor anarchism has ever been more than a side show is proved by simple arithmetic. But the counting isn't easy.
Trying to keep track of the various "parties" involved in the anti-religious, atheist left is extremely difficult due to the fact that, in lieu of electoral successes and laws passed and implemented, the major events among the Marxists, the various Marxist - socialist parties and various anarchists are the "power" struggles, the ideological struggles, the furious and angry splits and formation of new parties to be the vanguard of the glorious revolution, the expulsion of members on the basis of failure to adhere to ideological purity and new lines - some of those, indeed, ordered from Moscow - and other such edifying events. Trying to trace the genealogy of the infamously argumentative and schismatic Baptists is child's play by comparison.
Still, the highest membership figure I've seen for an American Communist party is a high estimate of 60,000, the rival Socialist party at about, 40,000. The highest vote total, ever, for a Communist party candidate was for William Foster in 1932, at 103,307, as a contrast, the moderate Socialist, widely despised by others of the "left" for his moderation, Norman Thomas got 884,895 and the Republican who got trounced by FDR, Hoover, 15,761,532. I believe those were the high points in both of the officially leftists parties. Others never achieved anything like those numbers. Obviously, at their height, if they were religious denominations, they'd have counted as among the smaller ones.
The various factions that never approached those numbers for the least unsuccessful of the would be vanguard of the revolution, are safely ignored except in so far as they made themselves a focus of attention through violence, outrageous rhetoric, admiration for murderous dictators and the such. Clearly those don't count as benefiting the real left.
Probably even more important in their political futility for the more genteel would be left is their gift for alienating non-members as they compete with each other to out-radical the next one or to attach themselves to leaders who do that. The result has been political poison, more useful to reactionaries as an accusation against members of the real left than as any help to that real left. You can contrast other, even very small religious denominations such as the Quakers in terms of who actually influenced public affairs and brought about positive change, benefiting those who were supposed to be the beneficiaries of the program of the left. To the utter frustration of so may of the would be leaders of the new order, most poor folk, most members of oppressed minority groups, most people knew they were a bunch of bumbling idiots who would never do anything good and so they rejected their bid for leadership. After going on a century and a half of watching that kind of thing, it's time to force their retirement so we can do something while there's still a world and there are vestiges of democracy to build on.
Update: With a Friggin' Rebus?
I'm so glad you point out that relatively few people read my blog. No, I really am because of the operative word in that accusation "read". When you write a blog like mine, the only motive for people to click on to it is to READ IT. Anyone who does more than post quips and pictures, anyone who writes at even moderate length should understand that they're never going to be big time blogger. There's a reason that Twitter is commonly deemed to be where the real action had gone - that is "had gone." Where "it" is now, I don't know. As to the popularity contest among the kewl kids who are up on things, I doubt their importance.
This reminds me of one of my former favorite blogs, which we called "The Good Roger Ailes' blog" a post in which he dealt with a massive Pew study of blogs and the bloggers who blog them way back about nine years ago. Since I remember The Good Roger Ailes with great affection - though I have to admit I seldom get around to his blog anymore, here's the section of that post I was reminded of.
Twenty percent of blogs don't use text, but only ten percent don't invite comments from readers. That means 10 percent of blogs invite comments from readers without using text. How do they do it, with a friggin' rebus?
And why did it take eight months to survey 233 readers?
I've got to make it a point to read Roger's blog more. Get back to my roots.
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