politics

Here's one bit of rhetoric folks might find useful.

What is more important, people having a place to live, food to eat, etc or the profits of the wealthy? Zohran wants to try some new ideas that boil down to using power to help the working class in real material ways. And the panic of the wealthy and powerful very clearly shows this is a serious threat to their dominance of society.

The idea is to use this moment to empower class consciousness in contrast to liberalism.

e: This is also useful to help libs understand the alignment of capital in relation to this moment:

“I’m not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other," the president said. "But if it's gonna be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’m gonna pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you."

I myself struggle with the incredibly simple comment “Zohran wants to do socialism”. Because while the obvious and not incorrect response is to just outline what he wants to do and how that obviously is not socialism, just practical actions that help people. But there is a part of me that feels that by sticking to that, it leaves the potential to interpret, by silence, that socialism is still “bad”. So I am thinking about adding in there “socialism is a fundamental change in how people work and who owns what, and that is well beyond what a mayor can do”, to indicate that I don’t think socialism is bad even if it was something that was in a mayor’s power to implement.

Not really the point of the post but I genuinely think that if you (royal), as a leftist, have a problem with Zohran you are missing the forest for the trees. Dude's running arguably what is the most successful left-wing campaign the US has had in awhile and while his opponent is generating AI slop to use as attack ads, he's going out and connecting with real working class voters at the gay club, at the airport, at the park, so on and so forth. I said it before and I'll say it again, not supporting him is really stupid as an American leftist when you look at how his mayoral victory in the largest city in the country may shape national politics.

I've said before that electoralism has it's uses, including spreading the word.

More seriously, electoralism can be a gateway for actual organizing, and there is use to running doomed campaigns. From and talking about why third party candidates have uses

that workers’ candidates are nominated everywhere in opposition to bourgeois-democratic candidates. As far as possible they should be League members and their election should be pursued by all possible means. Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled.

EDIT: @FunkyStuff@hexbear.net said it best:

IMO tactically participating in elections to further the socialist position, without necessarily staking your movement on their outcome, is not electoralism, it's just basic Marxist Leninist strategy.

I said 'electoralism' when I meant 'tactically participate in elections'. A good reminder to myself that word definitions matter.

Oh, more American defaultism

"23 Things" is pretty good. I picked it off a library feature shelf a few years before I became an avowed socialist.

Chang kept saying "but I'm still a capitalist, I still think it's the best system" and I couldn't help but think "why?".

10000% agree and good ass post.

People may quibble with this but depending on where you live I think it’s also worth positioning yourself as being pro-Z but wary of the big D.

Ultimately we all have to accept how short Zohran may come up despite the optimism and momentum. To me, the biggest reason for that has to do with the historical hegemony of the Democratic Party in NY and their general antagonism to this very popular candidate. I don’t think his agenda is overly ambitious, nor should it be, but I think there will be a lot of rat fucking from his ostensible allies.

If you can’t change their mind about socialism, it may be worth laying the ground work for the argument to be had later that ultimately it was the party that held him back.

I am not suggesting you set up excuses in advance. It’s more about demonstrating that you can be a socialist AND be wary of the Democratic Party.

It’s not gonna be an easy needle to thread, but for any shortcoming in his admin, socialism will be blamed, not the party.

I think it’s worth pushing back on that now so we don’t look like the blind leading the blind if it/when it comes to that.

Vote for Z and vote PSL down ballot!

Any advice for any of the common criticisms you see against socialism and how to speak against them as a normie?

It's tough because I always have to stop myself from using jargon or going into tangents on history.

I was kind of hoping the counter propaganda community would help with that but it hasn't been used a lot.

everyone i talk to is already woke (in the original sense of the word) to some degree. Since i'm not really able to shut up about it, as i have severe autism and basically can't. People tend to either agree to some extent or not want to interact with me. Honestly though if you are using a term like social fascism in the prescense of the general public and outside of a theory specific context you are just ignorant of revolutionary theory. Building class consciousness needs to be a gradual process. Though, I guess in general being against electoralism is also ignoring revolutionary theory anyway so.. Electoralism as far as i know has been pretty consistnetly been seen as a good way to build a base of support for a socialist movement to get the ball rolling.

My thought is - he identifies himself as a demsoc, and is a member of DSA - a big tent organization that includes many strains of socialism, from anarchists to trots to socdems.

But his policies are definitely not "socialist" - he isn't able to reorganize the economy in that broad sense with the powers of mayor. However, just look at his policies, and consider that if someone offered policies that will explicitly help you out with your most dire issues (your rent, your groceries, perhaps more local issues), don't be afraid because they might call themselves a socialist. It means, at worst, that they just want to improve your life somewhat.

I think people understand very well that mainstream politicians on both sides of the aisle are beholden to the billionaires, and hopefully they begin make the association that socialists are the outsider group that is not.

No no use this to get them to go to an action or read a book with you

As an aside, does anyone know more about the situation with pre-K child care in NYC? Zohran wants to establish child care for 6 weeks to 5 y.o. kids. Which as a parent I can say that’s amazing and I’m sure most parents across the political spectrum support. But is there anything in place now and Zohran is just expanding on it? Or are parents in NYC totally on their own now until their kids go into kindergarten?

i stepped back from here a bit for the same reason as AcidSmiley (really miss seeing you around)

i have had trouble restraining myself when topics come up around imperialism. starting with my parents. my mom it took time and patience just to give her broad overviews of some basic Blowback style topics

i've found the easiest approach for normies (at work, acquaintances, anyone you chat with and they are familiar with you) is just broad economic concepts. through this I've learned that the average American would go hard for market socialism/cooperative economy. nobody defends the bougoise anymore since they have gone mask off and shown their asses. everyone i have engaged with seems to think they are just criminals and corrupt, but often think the capitalists of the past actually "built stuff", which is a tough one to crack

I've also found I have to often have to just sell socialist concepts from a very selfish position. remind people that a secure, well cared for and egalitarian society = you can be chill, unbothered, and unstressed and just grill

selling socialism as stability is a solid one. no more business cycles, lay offs, etc. in real life most people don't think they are one idea away from becoming billionaires. that's been closed off forever. lottery, maybe.

otherwise with more personal relationships I have pretended to be earlier in my ideological development and take them on a journey with me. it's more organic and not deceptive because i just replicate my own previous development and can excitedly explain new concepts that I just "discovered" and work them through it. this has worked best for taking someone who was flirting with fascism to the left and it took a solid year of work

but yeah just be confident and assertive and patient. people are desperate for answers and don't use any red scare trigger words until they are ready to handle it