Permanently Deleted
OK, so what’s the solution? If you’re skeptical to the point of cynicism about everybody, you’ll never support the folks who actually have good intentions. So how do we do a better job vetting people who are political newcomers?
Don’t support candidates running for Congress with no prior organizing experience. Pressure opportunists like J4C to run for lower offices first before stepping up to the big leagues. Dude could have just run unopposed for a school board position or something, but that’s not glamorous enough for TikTok.
That’s not a bad idea, but we can’t really afford to spend 10 years building a bunch of candidates’ resumes. We need people on the left to shoot for those bigger offices today.
Look at DSA backed candidates, whose campaign staff is active in other organizing organizations.
DSA- backed candidates also wind up being unaccountable to the membership most of the time, because membership in the DSA isn’t required for endorsement and accountability basically begins/ends at the point of endorsement.
Ideally, you want to, yourself, be a member of an organization that fields candidates from within the organization to run on a democratically-decided platform.
I hope that changes in the future as DSA continues to grow but it’s not quite feasible right now in the congressional districts we backed candidates in. I think for NYC city council there may be a push for requiring membership, at least I will be pushing for it. The chapter is large enough that its city council candidates being backed in this way is viable imo.
I guess don’t throw weight behind them unless you see actual campaign progress and popular support in their constituency.
Of course, some people will write off electoralism entirely (which is understandable), but before going that far there’s the obvious problem that his strategy was shit. If you’re going to donate (or risk Corona to vote) then do it for someone who already has an actual chance.
Even if I didn’t have my own opinions on what the correct use of electoralism is and from what party, the fact still remains that this is an approach and strategy that never helped neither the working class nor the socialist movement materialy in any way.
Electoralism helped establish policies like the minimum wage, workplace health and safety protections, anti-discrimination measures, etc. Each of these policies absolutely, unquestionably helps the working class. You can (and should) say that none of these are enough, and that they’ve been rolled back over time, but to write them off completely is doomerist nonsense.
Electoralism is also leading the charge to challenge the stigmatization of socialism in American politics, which is a prerequisite to growing any meaningful socialist movement. If every single politician is rabidly opposed to any sort of anti-capitalist ideology you never get any mainstream discussion on the topic. Capitalism just gets taken for granted; it’s so orthodox it never even gets mentioned. But if you get even a few politicians who are willing to challenge capitalist orthodoxy even occasionally, suddenly you mainstream the issue of capitalism and alternatives to it.
You don’t want to put all your eggs in the electoral basket, but ignoring the most visible and most easily-accessible levers of political power in this country is a recipe for failure.
Electoralism is also leading the charge to challenge the stigmatization of socialism in American politics,
Yes but only by running real socialists. By running CIA-socialists like the Dems do you do not destigmatize actual socialism so much as pervert the word to mean social democrats which is exactly what the bourgeoisie would like to do. They want people’s conceptions of what is possible on the left to be no more than welfare capitalism built off the exploitation of the global south.
If you really want to change things you need to run on actual socialist platforms. PSL and maybe PCUSA seem like the best parties for that. They have the most members, good platforms, good ground organizing outside of elections.
You don’t want to put all your eggs in the electoral basket, but ignoring the most visible and most easily-accessible levers of political power in this country is a recipe for failure.
Entryism into the Democrats is doomed to failure. If you do this you are not only foolish but you are wasting precious time and energy. They have decades of experience subverting attempts at pulling them left even into Bernie-liberal territory. Biden and his success with Republicans has convinced them to move further right. Besides they are fundamentally a party of capital. They serve capitalism, they will rig things, they will cheat, they will lie, they will change rules all to keep even minor reformists away from power and from raising taxes on those they serve.
