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 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.
Absolutely only support people with accountability to real and serious organizations that do not care at all about opportunism. It’s what makes Sawant such an effective city council member, she’s literally just a talking head for a greater socialist org that makes all the decisions.
You probably wouldn’t see AOC act so opportunistically if this was the case with her too. She is accountable to DSA and justice dems, they just aren’t in the driver’s seat.
Not sure who was grifting more, Josh or his campaign staff. Did nobody think to put out some ads?
Dude didn’t even have a single yard sign in all of Thurston county. Every corner has a dozen from the dozen people running, except him. Fucking grifter.
