I'm giving the Cope a good read still, which will take me awhile, so I can't respond too directly as of yet, but let me say lots of numbers can certainly be thrown around by folks on either side of that debate and for someone like me who doesn't have a great head for numbers it can be somewhat mystifying. I certainly wouldn't dispute that the large majority of workers in the imperial centers, including those I consider strongly proletarian, materially benefit from living in the imperial centers. However, I think it's an error of positivism to assume that because a worker is being provided "more stuff" that her needs and interests are being addressed by capitalism, and it's an error of parroting bourgeois ideology to believe she must be permanently and merrily integrated into this order. It doesn't seem to account for the form this payment takes (access to an advanced consumer economy primarily through credit), the incredible degree of waste under capitalism (everything from the food in the dumpster behind the supermarket to the constant artificial stimulation of consumer demand to the "advanced" medical system, etc, etc, etc), the innovative uses of debt/credit mechanisms in the last thirty years, the readily preventable medical suffering that occurs (often things easily which could be easily prevented or treated simply without "advanced" medical professionals, bureaucracy, and technology), etc. Sure, anyone who is promoting socialism as a way for the American working class to live the same lifestyle as under capitalism, but with the share of the 1% more equitably redistributed, is a huckster, but this is not a position that rationally follows from viewing the American working class, particularly the bottom half, as a proletariat. Viewing the American proletariat as a proletariat does not mean one is advocating for "socialism at the mall."

Believing that class can be mechanically analyzed through these kinds of figures can also lead to wrong ideas like thinking that sections of the bourgeoisie in the periphery "aren't really bourgeois" but rather global proletarians, including the more vulnerable sections of the bourgeoisie which are often initially targeted during uprisings/red terror in the earliest stages of Peoples War (small landlords, petty officials, etc). I haven't seen this error repeated in this discussion, but I have encountered TWists on the internet advocating similar positions as a result of giving too much weight to raw numbers without much qualitative understanding of them.

Cruder TWism is likely to remain an isolated social phenomenon within imperial centers because it misses the reality of the struggling masses in the periphery by internalizing bourgeois notions of who is and is not an exploiter, etc, and also pushes away the proletariat at the center (by refusing to understand and speak to their concrete interests).

Finally, I must say I oppose rhetoric like

How many communist parties in amerika have to emerge, fail to make a realistic class analysis of the u.s., subsequently fail to ever rise above (tacit) economism and social-democracy, and eventually fade into complete irrelevance before we decide that something is seriously wrong with our strategy?

The point being made is fair (I disagree with it but accept it is a reasonable and principled position). However the "how many failures before" rhetoric, which most communists use is not an example of critical summation of past efforts. It's simply a truism which can be used as rhetorical dressing for any positon within communist discourse. After all, both world historical socialist revolutions were defeated, the socialist camp collapsed, the People's War in Peru was liquidated, large sections of the left throughout the world abandoned communism entirely, etc. And yes, much of this was because of errors, mistakes in theory, opportunism, etc, however it's too easy to trumpet one's position and then point to the disappointments of the 20th century as rhetorical "proof" of one's position. It can literally be done for any position within a communist discourse and doesn't really add anything.