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 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 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.