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The real damage is in channelling what could be a millions-strong grassroots movement directly into the graveyard of the Democratic Party. All that energy, all that hope, are funnelled into meaningless action like phone banking and canvassing for a party that is structurally, irrevocably dedicated to preserving capitalism. Instead of building real, independent power through unions, strikes, and community networks, people got a cult of personality around one candidate.

Reforms under capitalism are always conditional and designed to demobilize the masses. Imagine if all that energy had been directed toward unionizing every Amazon warehouse, organizing mass rent strikes, and building community mutual aid networks that create real dual power. Look at movements like MAS in Bolivia to see what's possible.

I think this point is key in learning how to tell a socialist from a "socialist". If one's political activism is dedicated to building popular power structures that transcend themselves and held by sectors of the working class, that's a socialist.

But if one models their political activism around getting themselves into office and builds only structures to position themselves as "the socialist alternative" that just needs to "get elected", that's not a socialist. That's a charitable liberal carrierist.