The Democratic Party will never go full socialist, but it can be made to be social democratic as it has been before. It’s easier to organize real grassroots socialism under a social democratic regime than a fascist or neoliberal one. Actively advocating against electoralism is self-defeating. You should advocate instead for direct action and bottom-up organizing in conjunction with electoralism.
SOCDEMS are the catch all for disenfranchised liberals to keep them rounded up in electoralism that only aids the oligarchy. It gives them the illusion for a few years that any moment they will have a seat at the table. The system is operating exactly as designed and no amount of electoralism will change that
I don’t know, Mamdani seems to be pissing of the rich fucks too much to be a oligarchy plant to placate the masses. The way the establishment Dems look at all the social Dems with fear seems like a step in the right direction.
I’ve acknowledged and agree that there are hard limits to what electoralism can accomplish, but I disagree that it’s completely pointless. Electoralism can and has resulted in considerable improvements to the material conditions of vast swaths of working class people, and that can only be a good thing even if it does rob some energy from direct action movements. It’s a lot harder to organize when you’re working every waking moment and struggling to provide for yourself and others that depend on you, so winning concessions from the oligarchs actually helps a fair bit when you’re trying to reorganize society. Why does everyone insist on this false binary between electoralism and direct action when the obvious play is to thoughtfully divide your energy between both?
The difference - in theory - is social democracy preserves private property (and therefore capitalism) while democratic socialism does not. Has Mamdani abolished private property in New York City, or does he plan to before his term as mayor ends? If not, then there is no practical difference between a social democrat and a democratic socialist in our current context except perhaps in the vision that is offered. The fact is that reorganizing a capitalist society to be socialist is not possible by electoral means alone; doing so requires that workers organize to seize the means of production for themselves independently of the state. An elected official that is truly committed to a democratic socialist vision may support workers in their efforts to do so, but there’s nothing they can do on their own to make it happen. Mamdani might truly believe in a democratic socialist vision, but what he is practicing as mayor is social democracy and nothing more because that is what is feasible for an elected official to accomplish. Even a vanguardist revolution cannot accomplish more without the people organizing on their own (and historically I would argue that they haven’t sufficiently done so, resulting in AES being social democracies at best, and autocratic state capitalist regimes at worst).
The Democratic Party will never go full socialist, but it can be made to be social democratic as it has been before. It’s easier to organize real grassroots socialism under a social democratic regime than a fascist or neoliberal one. Actively advocating against electoralism is self-defeating. You should advocate instead for direct action and bottom-up organizing in conjunction with electoralism.
Fucking thank you for having the ability to hold this vision
I can clearly see this for myself as well but for some reason it is hard to convince certain more hardcore leftists
SOCDEMS are the catch all for disenfranchised liberals to keep them rounded up in electoralism that only aids the oligarchy. It gives them the illusion for a few years that any moment they will have a seat at the table. The system is operating exactly as designed and no amount of electoralism will change that
I don’t know, Mamdani seems to be pissing of the rich fucks too much to be a oligarchy plant to placate the masses. The way the establishment Dems look at all the social Dems with fear seems like a step in the right direction.
I’ve acknowledged and agree that there are hard limits to what electoralism can accomplish, but I disagree that it’s completely pointless. Electoralism can and has resulted in considerable improvements to the material conditions of vast swaths of working class people, and that can only be a good thing even if it does rob some energy from direct action movements. It’s a lot harder to organize when you’re working every waking moment and struggling to provide for yourself and others that depend on you, so winning concessions from the oligarchs actually helps a fair bit when you’re trying to reorganize society. Why does everyone insist on this false binary between electoralism and direct action when the obvious play is to thoughtfully divide your energy between both?
deleted by creator
Mamdani is a proponent of democratic socialism, which is distinctly different from social democracy.
The difference - in theory - is social democracy preserves private property (and therefore capitalism) while democratic socialism does not. Has Mamdani abolished private property in New York City, or does he plan to before his term as mayor ends? If not, then there is no practical difference between a social democrat and a democratic socialist in our current context except perhaps in the vision that is offered. The fact is that reorganizing a capitalist society to be socialist is not possible by electoral means alone; doing so requires that workers organize to seize the means of production for themselves independently of the state. An elected official that is truly committed to a democratic socialist vision may support workers in their efforts to do so, but there’s nothing they can do on their own to make it happen. Mamdani might truly believe in a democratic socialist vision, but what he is practicing as mayor is social democracy and nothing more because that is what is feasible for an elected official to accomplish. Even a vanguardist revolution cannot accomplish more without the people organizing on their own (and historically I would argue that they haven’t sufficiently done so, resulting in AES being social democracies at best, and autocratic state capitalist regimes at worst).