To be fair, any "elected" officials in capitalist countries don't hold much power to go against capitalists. Most things that Trump is doing benefit at least some major faction of the capitalist class. If he tried to nationalize Boeing or something, the next shooter wouldn't miss.

On the other hand, Mamdani is doing some good stuff here, and is probably annoying billionaires. I guess it's going to be tolerated as long as the damage to them is less than the damage which would be caused by removing him, and thus delegitimizing the remaining perceptions of democracy in the states

[–] QuietCupcake@hexbear.net 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I guess it's going to be tolerated as long as the damage to them is less than the damage which would be caused by removing him, and thus delegitimizing the remaining perceptions of democracy in the states

It makes me wonder just where that boundary is and how much he could feasibly do before it was decided, public perception of legitimacy be damned, that he must be taken out. That's not to say I think he'll ever actually even begin to approach that line, being the social democrat that he is. But when positive material gains like this are achieved, small as they may be in the grand scheme, I can't help but wonder how much more might be possible within the given bourgeois framework before the ruling class deemed him or any hypothetical elected socialist too much of a nuisance to be worth maintaining the facade of democracy and just take him out.

Great comment btw.

[–] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Bernie wasnt even useless to the empire and look how they did him. In general if you control the media to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize literally any inconvenience ain't that hard.

[–] ziggurter@hexbear.net 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

TBF, while Bernie wasn't dangerous to the Empire, the movement he jumped out ahead of with his baton could conceivably have been. Especially because it had not yet been made all that certain how well the donkey end of the uni-party would appropriate the renewed use of terms like "socialism". Occupy scared them a little (though it probably needn't have).

The capitalists and their pet donkeys stand on much firmer ground now.

[–] QuietCupcake@hexbear.net 3 points 2 days ago

That doesn't really address what I was wondering though. First of all, Bernie wasn't successfully elected, for all the reasons you pointed out. But as an already-elected mayor of one of the largest and most politically and economically significant cities in the US, Mamdani (or a hypothetical actual socialist) has a fair amount of potential power to accomplish good things already despite the media control.

expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize literally any inconvenience ain't that hard.

It's not as though they didn't try to do that with Mamdani already, because they tried to prevent his election using media control and failed. I realize they could ramp all that up, but he's already in there doing some good things with the OP being an example, and I think there could be room for a lot more that bourgeois media control alone wouldn't be able to prevent or squelch. And at some point, more drastic measures would have to be taken. I was just thinking about how far it could go before that happened, again despite media control. Don't get me wrong, I don't and never did think Mamdani would end up doing more than any typical socdem working within the capitalist structure, but I get very curious about where the potential lines are.