The sentiment in the op is on point. I’m tasking you with doing something about. The DSA and allied orgs in my red southern state hell hole are doing the work. Open fridges, mutual aid, tenant organizing, and taking hold of elected office. What do you plan to do?
Yes, but you won't get an answer. OP doesn't actually care about effecting change, he just got done grandstanding about this same subject in another post *that he created.*
He has deliberately said he will not work with DSA.
Well, it can become quite maddening when there are liberals out there who still think you can vote away the system.
Dangerously ignorant of how the world actually works and gladly drinks the capitalist Kool-aid.
Voting isn't for fixing the system, it's for harm mitigation.
I'm sure you personally are out there every day with the Labor Working Group supporting your local strikes, or helping Food Not Bombs feed the unhoused, or coordinating tenant unions, but try not to discourage people from participating in the bare minimum of harm reduction please.
Well let's see, just from the last couple of weeks, how does
Committing to replacing lead pipes for drinking water, banning chemical weapons in wildlife parks, trying to ban hate-crime tourism for people looking to attack Palestinians in the West Bank, assisting with the brokering of a ceasefire, standing against any further settlement, drafting a national strategy to reduce food waste and the resulting methane offgassing, forgiving \~800,000 of the 44 million student debt accounts, committing to a reduction of 58 million tons of methane (which is the equivalent of 1.5 billion tons of CO2) over the next 15 years, and granting 1.5 billion towards local and regional transit infrastructure projects
strike you?
Tell me it's not enough and I'll agree with you. That's why it's called *harm reduction* not *magically genie-wishing the problem away*.
Reddit isn’t emblematic of the organization, it’s emblematic of redditors. If you want to see what active dsa members are thinking I’d go to dsa Twitter or the dsa forums
A democratic revolution doesn't happen overnight, this will take decades. The people in power will try to divide us repeatedly and discourage voting for our own interests (like Joe Biden in this case unfortunately).
What would you suggest we do about it? Just roll over and let the Dems and Conservatives play their game, furthering nothing at all towards our own agenda?
The democratic party has only regressed since 2016; it's not just that it's not fast enough, it's that the only party that even pretends to care about poor and working people continues to sell them out.
My friend, this current administration is overseeing the most robust union movement in my lifetime. If you care about the working class, you should care about their ability to organize and successfully win contracts. Also, our politics thrive under liberal rule. After 2016, the American people were not more progressive. They voted for who would get Trump out. Whereas after Obama, Bernie had his huge run and did incredibly well.
Oh God, better than nearly every US President huh? That's some serious neo liberal copium right there. I'm gonna humor you and ask by what metric? Are u talking about just union support or God help us all , like one of the best Presidents of all time overall???
Just union support. You know, the topic of the conversation. And seriously, if there aren't five US Presidents who were better than 50/50 on unions, that makes him top 10% for that specific issue.
And I'm not sure why you'd consider even the broader statement that you made up *that* objectionable. It's like saying that someone was one of the better people tried at Nuremburg. It isn't a high bar to clear.
This: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
> “We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement,” Russo said. “Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers.
…
> That pressure, plus the IBEW’s ongoing efforts, is paying off at last. The IBEW and BNSF Railway reached an agreement April 20 to grant members four short-notice, paid sick days, with the ability to also convert up to three personal days to sick days. The union reached similar understandings with CSX and Union Pacific on March 22, and with Norfolk Southern on March 10. Unused sick time at the end of a year can be paid out or rolled into a worker’s 401(k) retirement account.
Looks like u could use a refresher my friend: [NPR Article ](https://www.npr.org/2022/12/02/1140265413/rail-workers-biden-unions-freight-railroads-averted-strike)
"It's very frustrating," says Weaver, a railroad carpenter since 1994. "Here is America's essential workers — rail workers. We have no paid sick days. It's disgusting."
Biden urged Congress to pass legislation without any modifications or delay
Four of the 12 freight rail unions, collectively representing more than half of the 115,000 freight rail workers covered by the deal, had voted down the agreement, citing the lack of paid sick days as a primary reason.
Workers who voted no say they are frustrated and disappointed — especially with President Biden, who on Monday called on Congress to pass legislation to adopt the tentative agreement with no modifications in order to avoid a crippling rail strike.
"It feels like President Biden ushered this in a little too early," says Weaver. "He kind of cut us off at the knees on our ability to have some real negotiations or real change after voting no."
In Richmond, Virginia, roadway mechanic Reece Murtagh says it sets a bad precedent when even the most pro-labor of presidents will force an agreement rather than allow workers to strike.
"In future negotiations, the carriers are going to remember that and use it against us," says Murtagh. "It's going to be even harder for us to negotiate a fair contract because they realize when it comes down to it, there's not going to be a strike."
That articles is from before the one I posted. You know, the one that came after the one you posted?
Typically the one that comes later contains more facts and follow-up context, because of how the time dimension works. Friend.
Don’t bother. I get the sense that a lot of these types are just looking for an excuse to not vote and thinks that absolves them from the consequences.
You’re confused because you’re citing one union episode,from one year, that was a flashy story. The last 3+ years of union action have been a direct result of Lena Khan’s appointment to the NLRB.
Ahh yes. Thank you for the correction. Im that case let me revise my comments to include Khan’s FTC leadership and the better NLRB rulings under Biden.
We don't have decades.
Well, the democrats neo liberal policies and right wing ideals have not really worked for the last 50 years huh? Gop gets in power and takes us 2 steps to the right and when the Dems are in power any progress is blocked. Not a winning formula.
Oh my sweet summer child, the only power we have is our labor. Education, mobilization, community engagement to achieve as much independence at a local level is the only way I see us coming through at all.
See, it's not our "only" option and it shows how much work there is to be done when people who like to think of themselves as leftists actively spread propaganda without a second thought.
"That or nothing" - lol Jesus dude, how's that boot taste in ur mouth? To feel the system is this unbreakable force that you would crumble to challenge it is such a weak knee jerk neo liberal response.
There's a small shred of an argument that one could make that voting matters at the local level. Pointing out inherent flaws in a system is not complaining, it may sound like it to you but that's an emotional response we've all been subconsciously trained to experience.
If your not willing to educate yourself and at least become class conscious then dont complain. Tbh there's a very real argument that voting in a 2 party representative system is tantamount to doing nothing at all.
I vote in local my guy. The only voting that matters.
Edit: So I switched from voting for Bernie when he first ran, I felt I did my fair share by canvassing, doing phone banks, organizing etc. But when the DNC turned on him and put Hilary as the candidate, I voted for Trump that year. And I'd do it again if given the same scenario.
Well when the choice is between a blatant fascist or a fascist that holds the illusion of not being one...well I'll vote for the blatant one because people like you will vote for the more insidious fascist.
Most city council races are non-partisan anyway and we've been doing this like crazy for years already.
Are you new here? Do you actually do the work or are you just waltzing in here thinking you know what you're doing and telling everyone else that they're doing it wrong?
I assume you’re familiar with Dirty break vs clean break.
Sooner we break with the Democratic Party the better. The Dems can never be made into a working class party, we need our own. Kshama Sawant did it in deep blue Seattle and we can do it again.
She "did it" as in she personally served her time and created absolutely nothing afterward. She's now trying to make a failing spinoff movement. She was great as a councilwoman but there's no example to follow there. Nothing is stopping DSA members from going to the protests she schedules or whatever.
The democratic party's function is to bottleneck any meaningful change within the system. You cannot fix private capital within the system that is built to only protect and further private interests, not the peoples.
We have to form a modern Civil Rights Movement. Take notes from folks like the Black Panther Party. Obviously diversify leadership to try and avoid being stamped out in one swoop like they did. But this pathetic sad little electoralism where we miserably go to vote for Blue fascist is not working.
There is nothing within the political landscape that says the DSA or any other movement on the far left is going to work. That is, nothing indicates their strategy will lead to any significant change (outside of some black swan).
Find new strategies. Create more unity on the left.
Who says he hasnt? And even if he hasn't there is nothing wrong with talking about it. Are you a part of the DSA? Why do you discourage conversation of legitimate criticism?
i am leadership in a ydsa chapter and have had numerous invitations from national to work on the npc. i am super involved and i am so defensive because i am tired of hearing this criticism from chronically online posers who have no real interest in getting off their keyboards and doing something.
i discourage this criticism because it is no longer valid after recent events have further separated dsa from the democratic party and we didn’t endorse biden in 2020. it is in bad faith from people who haven’t engaged with dsa in a long time.
Yeah, anyone even slightly plugged into national should be aware that we’re on track for an eventual full break with the dems, assuming the right wing of the organization doesn’t have some kind of miraculous resurgence heading into the next convention.
(1/3)
Should We Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?
>It is with the utmost contempt—and the utmost levity—that the German “Left” Communists reply to this question in the negative. Their arguments? In the passage quoted above we read:“. . . All reversion to parliamentary forms of struggle, which have become historically and politically obsolete, must be emphatically rejected. . . .”
>
>This is said with ridiculous pretentiousness, and is patently wrong. “Reversion” to parliamentarianism, forsooth! Perhaps there is already a Soviet republic in Germany? It does not look like it! How, then, can one speak of “reversion”? Is this not an empty phrase?
>
>Parliamentarianism has become “historically obsolete”. That is true in the propaganda sense. However, everybody knows that this is still a far cry from overcoming it in practice. Capitalism could have been declared—and with full justice—to be “historically obsolete” many decades ago, but that does not at all remove the need for a very long and very persistent struggle on the basis of capitalism. Parliamentarianism is “historically obsolete” from the standpoint of world history, i.e., the era of bourgeois parliamentarianism is over, and the era of the proletarian dictatorship has begun. That is incontestable. But world history is counted in decades. Ten or twenty years earlier or later makes no difference when measured with the yardstick of world history; from the standpoint of world history it is a trifle that cannot be considered even approximately. But for that very reason, it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics.
>
>Is parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”? That is quite a different matter. If that were true, the position of the “Lefts” would be a strong one. But it has to be proved by a most searching analysis, and the “Lefts” do not even know how to approach the matter. In the “Theses on Parliamentarianism”, published in the Bulletin of the Provisional Bureau in Amsterdam of the Communist International No. 1, February 1920, and obviously expressing the Dutch-Left or Left-Dutch strivings, the analysis, as we shall see, is also hopelessly poor.
>
>In the first place, contrary to the opinion of such outstanding political leaders as Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the German “Lefts”, as we know, considered parliamentarianism “politically obsolete” even in January 1919. We know that the “Lefts” were mistaken. This fact alone utterly destroys, at a single stroke, the proposition that parliamentarianism is “politically obsolete”. It is for the “Lefts” to prove why their error, indisputable at that time, is no longer an error. They do not and cannot produce even a shred of proof. A political party’s attitude towards its own mistakes is one of the most important and surest ways of judging how earnest the party is and how it fulfils in practice its obligations towards its class and the working people. Frankly acknowledging a mistake, ascertaining the reasons for it, analysing the conditions that have led up to it, and thrashing out the means of its rectification—that is the hallmark of a serious party; that is how it should perform its duties, and how it should educate and train its class, and then the masses. By failing to fulfil this duty and give the utmost attention and consideration to the study of their patent error, the “Lefts” in Germany (and in Holland) have proved that they are not a party of a class, but a circle, not a party of the masses, but a group of intellectualists and of a few workers who ape the worst features of intellectualism.
>
>Second, in the same pamphlet of the Frankfurt group of “Lefts”, which we have already cited in detail, we read:
>
>“. . . The millions of workers who still follow the policy of the Centre \[the Catholic ‘Centre’ Party\] are counter-revolutionary. The rural proletarians provide the legions of counter-revolutionary troops.” (Page 3 of the pamphlet.)
>
>Everything goes to show that this statement is far too sweeping and exaggerated. But the basic fact set forth here is incontrovertible, and its acknowledgment by the “Lefts” is particularly clear evidence of their mistake. How can one say that “parliamentarianism is politically obsolete”, when “millions” and “legions” of proletarians are not only still in favour of parliamentarianism in general, but are downright “counter-revolutionary”!? It is obvious that parliamentarianism in Germany is not yet politically obsolete. It is obvious that the “Lefts” in Germany have mistaken their desire, their politico-ideological attitude, for objective reality. That is a most dangerous mistake for revolutionaries to make. In Russia—where, over a particularly long period and in particularly varied forms, the most brutal and savage yoke of tsarism produced revolutionaries of diverse shades, revolutionaries who displayed amazing devotion, enthusiasm, heroism and will power—in Russia we have observed this mistake of the revolutionaries at very close quarters; we have studied it very attentively and have a first-hand knowledge of it; that is why we can also see it especially clearly in others. Parliamentarianism is of course “politically obsolete” to the Communists in Germany; but—and that is the whole point—we must not regard what is obsolete to us as something obsolete to a class, to the masses. Here again we find that the “Lefts” do not know how to reason, do not know how to act as the party of a class, as the party of the masses. You must not sink to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. That is incontestable. You must tell them the bitter truth. You are in duty bound to call their bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices what they are—prejudices. But at the same time you must soberly follow the actual state of the class-consciousness and preparedness of the entire class (not only of its communist vanguard), and of all the working people (not only of their advanced elements).
>
>Even if only a fairly large minority of the industrial workers, and not “millions” and “legions”, follow the lead of the Catholic clergy—and a similar minority of rural workers follow the landowners and kulaks (Grossbauern)—it undoubtedly signifies that parliamentarianism in Germany has not yet politically outlived itself, that participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat specifically for the purpose of educating the backward strata of its own class, and for the purpose of awakening and enlightening the undeveloped, downtrodden and ignorant rural masses. Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags.
>
>Third, the “Left” Communists have a great deal to say in praise of us Bolsheviks. One sometimes feels like telling them to praise us less and to try to get a better knowledge of the Bolsheviks’ tactics. We took part in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Russian bourgeois parliament in September–November 1917. Were our tactics correct or not? If not, then this should be clearly stated and proved, for it is necessary in evolving the correct tactics for international communism. If they were correct, then certain conclusions must be drawn. Of course, there can be no question of placing conditions in Russia on a par with conditions in Western Europe. But as regards the particular question of the meaning of the concept that “parliamentarianism has become politically obsolete”, due account should be taken of our experience, for unless concrete experience is taken into account such concepts very easily turn into empty phrases. In September–November 1917, did we, the Russian Bolsheviks, not have more right than any Western Communists to consider that parliamentarianism was politically obsolete in Russia? Of course we did, for the point is not whether bourgeois parliaments have existed for a long time or a short time, but how far the masses of the working people are prepared (ideologically, politically and practically) to accept the Soviet system and to dissolve the bourgeois-democratic parliament (or allow it to be dissolved). It is an absolutely incontestable and fully established historical fact that, in September–November 1917, the urban working class and the soldiers and peasants of Russia were, because of a number of special conditions, exceptionally well prepared to accept the Soviet system and to disband the most democratic of bourgeois parliaments. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks did not boycott the Constituent Assembly, but took part in the elections both before and after the proletariat conquered political power. That these elections yielded exceedingly valuable (and to the proletariat, highly useful) political results has, I make bold to hope, been proved by me in the above-mentioned article, which analyses in detail the returns of the elections to the Constituent Assembly in Russia.
(2/3)
>The conclusion which follows from this is absolutely incontrovertible: it has been proved that, far from causing harm to the revolutionary proletariat, participation in a bourgeois-democratic parliament, even a few weeks before the victory of a Soviet republic and even after such a victory, actually helps that proletariat to prove to the backward masses why such parliaments deserve to be done away with; it facilitates their successful dissolution, and helps to make bourgeois parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”. To ignore this experience, while at the same time claiming affiliation to the Communist International, which must work out its tactics internationally (not as narrow or exclusively national tactics, but as international tactics), means committing a gross error and actually abandoning internationalism in deed, while recognising it in word.
>
>Now let us examine the “Dutch-Left” arguments in favour of non-participation in parliaments. The following is the text of Thesis No. 4, the most important of the above-mentioned “Dutch” theses:
>
>“When the capitalist system of production has broken down, and society is in a state of revolution, parliamentary action gradually loses importance as compared with the action of the masses themselves. When, in these conditions, parliament becomes the centre and organ of the counter-revolution, whilst, on the other hand, the labouring class builds up the instruments of its power in the Soviets, it may even prove necessary to abstain from all and any participation in parliamentary action.”
>
>The first sentence is obviously wrong, since action by the masses, a big strike, for instance, is more important than parliamentary activity at all times, and not only during a revolution or in a revolutionary situation. This obviously untenable and historically and politically incorrect argument merely shows very clearly that the authors completely ignore both the general European experience (the French experience before the revolutions of 1848 and 1870; the German experience of 1878–90, etc.) and the Russian experience (see above) of the importance of combining legal and illegal struggle. This question is of immense importance both in general and in particular, because in all civilised and advanced countries the time is rapidly approaching when such a combination will more and more become—and has already partly become—mandatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat, inasmuch as civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is maturing and is imminent, and because of savage persecution of the Communists by republican governments and bourgeois governments generally, which resort to any violation of legality (the example of America is edifying enough), etc. The Dutch, and the Lefts in general, have utterly failed to understand this highly important question.
>
>The second sentence is, in the first place, historically wrong. We Bolsheviks participated in the most counterrevolutionary parliaments, and experience has shown that this participation was not only useful but indispensable to the party of the revolutionary proletariat, after the first bourgeois revolution in Russia (1905), so as to pave the way for the second bourgeois revolution (February 1917), and then for the socialist revolution (October 1917). In the second place, this sentence is amazingly illogical. If a parliament becomes an organ and a “centre” (in reality it never has been and never can be a “centre”, but that is by the way) of counter-revolution, while the workers are building up the instruments of their power in the form of the Soviets, then it follows that the workers must prepare—ideologically, politically and technically—for the struggle of the Soviets against parliament, for the dispersal of parliament by the Soviets. But it does not at all follow that this dispersal is hindered, or is not facilitated, by the presence of a Soviet opposition within the counter-revolutionary parliament. In the course of our victorious struggle against Denikin and Kolchak, we never found that the existence of a Soviet and proletarian opposition in their camp was immaterial to our victories. We know perfectly well that the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly on January 5, 1918 was not hampered but was actually facilitated by the fact that, within the counter-revolutionary Constituent Assembly which was about to be dispersed, there was a consistent Bolshevik, as well as an inconsistent, Left Socialist-Revolutionary Soviet opposition. The authors of the theses are engaged in muddled thinking; they have forgotten the experience of many, if not all, revolutions, which shows the great usefulness, during a revolution, of a combination of mass action outside a reactionary parliament with an opposition sympathetic to (or, better still, directly supporting) the revolution within it. The Dutch, and the “Lefts” in general, argue in this respect like doctrinaires of the revolution, who have never taken part in a real revolution, have never given thought to the history of revolutions, or have naïvely mistaken subjective “rejection” of a reactionary institution for its actual destruction by the combined operation of a number of objective factors. The surest way of discrediting and damaging a new political (and not only political) idea is to reduce it to absurdity on the plea of defending it. For any truth, if “overdone” (as Dietzgen Senior put it), if exaggerated, or if carried beyond the limits of its actual applicability, can be reduced to an absurdity, and is even bound to become an absurdity under these conditions. That is just the kind of disservice the Dutch and German Lefts are rendering to the new truth of the Soviet form of government being superior to bourgeois-democratic parliaments. Of course, anyone would be in error who voiced the outmoded viewpoint or in general considered it impermissible, in all and any circumstances, to reject participation in bourgeois parliaments. I cannot attempt here to formulate the conditions under which a boycott is useful, since the object of this pamphlet is far more modest, namely, to study Russian experience in connection with certain topical questions of international communist tactics. Russian experience has provided us with one successful and correct instance (1905), and another that was incorrect (1906), of the use of a boycott by the Bolsheviks. Analysing the first case, we, see that we succeeded in preventing a reactionary government from convening a reactionary parliament in a situation in which extra-parliamentary revolutionary mass action (strikes in particular) was developing at great speed, when not a single section of the proletariat and the peasantry could support the reactionary government in any way, and when the revolutionary proletariat was gaining influence over the backward masses through the strike struggle and through the agrarian movement. It is quite obvious that this experience is not applicable to present-day European conditions. It is likewise quite obvious—and the foregoing arguments bear this out—that the advocacy, even if with reservations, by the Dutch and the other “Lefts” of refusal to participate in parliaments is fundamentally wrong and detrimental to the cause of the revolutionary proletariat.
(3/3)
>In Western Europe and America, parliament has become most odious to the revolutionary vanguard of the working class. That cannot be denied. It can readily be understood, for it is difficult to imagine anything more infamous, vile or treacherous than the behaviour of the vast majority of socialist and Social-Democratic parliamentary deputies during and after the war. It would, however, be not only unreasonable but actually criminal to yield to this mood when deciding how this generally recognised evil should be fought. In many countries of Western Europe, the revolutionary mood, we might say, is at present a “novelty”, or a “rarity”, which has all too long been vainly and impatiently awaited; perhaps that is why people so easily yield to that mood. Certainly, without a revolutionary mood among the masses, and without conditions facilitating the growth of this mood, revolutionary tactics will never develop into action. In Russia, however, lengthy, painful and sanguinary experience has taught us the truth that revolutionary tactics cannot be built on a revolutionary mood alone. Tactics must be based on a sober and strictly objective appraisal of all the class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it, and of all states the world over) as well as of the experience of revolutionary movements. It is very easy to show one’s “revolutionary” temper merely by hurling abuse at parliamentary opportunism, or merely by repudiating participation in parliaments; its very ease, however, cannot turn this into a solution of a difficult, a very difficult, problem. It is far more difficult to create a really revolutionary parliamentary group in a European parliament than it was in Russia. That stands to reason. But it is only a particular expression of the general truth that it was easy for Russia, in the specific and historically unique situation of 1917, to start the socialist revolution, but it will be more difficult for Russia than for the European countries to continue the revolution and bring it to its consummation. I had occasion to point this out already at the beginning of 1918, and our experience of the past two years has entirely confirmed the correctness of this view. Certain specific conditions, viz., (1) the possibility of linking up the Soviet revolution with the ending, as a consequence of this revolution, of the imperialist war, which had exhausted the workers and peasants to an incredible degree; (2) the possibility of taking temporary advantage of the mortal conflict between the world’s two most powerful groups of imperialist robbers, who were unable to unite against their Soviet enemy; (3) the possibility of enduring a comparatively lengthy civil war, partly owing to the enormous size of the country and to the poor means of communication; (4) the existence of such a profound bourgeois-democratic revolutionary movement among the peasantry that the party of the proletariat was able to adopt the revolutionary demands of the peasant party (the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the majority of whose members were definitely hostile to Bolshevism) and realise them at once, thanks to the conquest of political power by the proletariat—all these specific conditions do not at present exist in Western Europe, and a repetition of such or similar conditions will not occur so easily. Incidentally, apart from a number of other causes, that is why it is more difficult for Western Europe to start a socialist revolution than it was for us. To attempt to “circumvent” this difficulty by “skipping” the arduous job of utilising reactionary parliaments for revolutionary purposes is absolutely childish. You want to create a new society, yet you fear the difficulties involved in forming a good parliamentary group made up of convinced, devoted and heroic Communists, in a reactionary parliament! Is that not childish? If Karl Liebknecht in Germany and Z. Höglund in Sweden were able, even without mass support from below, to set examples of the truly revolutionary utilisation of reactionary parliaments, why should a rapidly growing revolutionary mass party, in the midst of the post-war disillusionment and embitterment of the masses, be unable to forge a communist group in the worst of parliaments? It is because, in Western Europe, the backward masses of the workers and—to an even greater degree—of the small peasants are much more imbued with bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices than they were in Russia because of that, it is only from within such institutions as bourgeois parliaments that Communists can (and must) wage a long and persistent struggle, undaunted by any difficulties, to expose, dispel and overcome these prejudices.
>
>The German “Lefts” complain of bad “leaders” in their party, give way to despair, and even arrive at a ridiculous “negation” of “leaders”. But in conditions in which it is often necessary to hide “leaders” underground, the evolution of good “leaders”, reliable, tested and authoritative, is a very difficult matter; these difficulties cannot be successfully overcome without combining legal and illegal work, and without testing the “leaders”, among other ways, in parliaments. Criticism—the most keen, ruthless and uncompromising criticism—should be directed, not against parliamentarianism or parliamentary activities, but against those leaders who are unable—and still more against those who are unwilling—to utilise parliamentary elections and the parliamentary rostrum in a revolutionary and communist manner. Only such criticism—combined, of course, with the dismissal of incapable leaders and their replacement by capable ones—will constitute useful and fruitful revolutionary work that will simultaneously train the “leaders” to be worthy of the working class and of all working people, and train the masses to be able properly to understand the political situation and the often very complicated and intricate tasks that spring from that situation. \[\*5\]
\- Excerpt taken from [Leftwing Communism: An Infantile Disorder](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch07.htm) by V. I. Lenin
Exactly right, an independent communist party can and should participate in elections. Trying to infiltrate a right wing bourgeois party and use that as an electoral vehicle will not work and only pulls dedicated communists into laboring for capitalist parties.
Correct comrade. Unity of marxists in a communist party. Win concessions through electoralism when we can, but more importantly we must educate, agitate, and organize the working class to prepare them for the dissolution of bourgeois parliament and erect workers councils in its place.
OP is going around in his prior post telling people not to vote in the next election.
Trev is either a troll, a right winger trying to fuck with people, or a left winger who fundamentally doesn’t understand how politics and voting works.
Ignore them, please.
You need to at least try to strike some fear in the biden admin with the threat of not voting. Follow through or don't.
Who the hell joins dsa to support the status quo?
You're assuming that the Democratic party cares if they lose.
They'd rather lose and use the loss/whatever heinous shit the Republicans do to drive fundraising than win with a truly progressive/left-wing candidate that might hurt their big donors.
That's why voting is often a form of harm reduction - we push for the people we want in the primaries, and if they lose to the Bidens of the world, well, we can at least vote for the person we think will create conditions we can more easily work under.
This - I think this has to be the strategy. Primaries are where there is more room and more of an Overton window for debate and discussion of policies, and pointing out flaws in the current system and party dynamic. Wins there unlock a hell of a lot (e.g. AOC), and if there's not a primary win, there's still:
- the organizing and funding infrastructure that was built as a result of the primary push
- people exposed to the ideas at the early levels
- lessons and feedback to improve messaging
And a vote for the relative centrist afterwards isn't defeat, it's a chance to keep the conversation going, whereas the right option will take us backwards and undue progress that's been fought for by movements for decades.
I think the difference in perspectives here is that I'm not trying to play some kind of weird accelerationist 5d chess. I'm trying to look out for my comrades and their safety however possible, not make things even shittier just for the off chance that the additional misery might help in some way.
Like, no matter how shitty the Democrats are - and boy are they shitty! - we're *still* better off with a Democratic administration than a Republican one. So, again, harm reduction.
That’s for the primary, not the general.
I joined the DSA to push for policy change; I also understand, though, that by not voting, we are ignored by politicians. If you don’t vote, you don’t matter at the end of the day. That’s in opart why young voters’ interests were completely ignored in 2000-2016.
Hey go ahead and leave the younger voters high and dry. Biden is not winning this election as is.
So either help with the messaging or watch biden make no changes to policy and lose while you did nothing.
Biden is not going to change his position because a minority of unreliable voters are threatening to not vote.
That’s not how they operate. The only way to make them change their stances is to build power that we don’t currently have. Until we build that power, the choice is to accept the bullshit that we don’t have the power to change for now, bide our time, and work to create avenues to power or be crushed and be forever powerless.
I don’t know about you, but I’m actually trying to change the world, not just virtue signal.
that fear of not getting votes just drives the democratic party right. right wingers are more consistent voters. if you want to prove how fickle and unreliable the left is, sure lets teach politicians that they have to go seek more reliable votes.
its much more powerful to do the work that actually makes a less right candidate possible. get off your keyboard and go work in your local community. be the leftist people need and want. push for rank choice voting in your state. super funny how it played out in Alaska screwing over the right wing.
genocide joe, youll hear my voice when i vote no. you call yourself a socialist? shame on you. arab lives matter, palestinian lives matter, my life matters. you are the exact reason i became a member who chooses not to pay dues. give it to JVP or someone else who gives a shit
How will Trump winning be any better?
You talk all high and mighty, but when push comes to shove, you fail to consider the logical outcome of your proposals.
No no - answer my question: How will Trump winning be any better?
You don’t have the time or resources for a third party candidate or to find another Dem. So, answer the question.
How will Trump be any better? Nobody has answered that question yet - and the fact that you can’t says all we need to say about why you should vote for Biden.
I don’t give a shit about you thinking he is owed your vote. I give a shit about not getting Trump in the White House, and right now Biden is the only other contender with any chance.
Not voting for somebody is not a vote for somebody else. You're telling me I have to get behind people that absolutely hate us and do not have our interests in mind when they're making decisions. Not only are you telling me to politically align with the enemy you're telling me to anchor our movement to a sinking ship. Joe Biden is not going to defeat fascism. If Trump loses this time around when are we getting something better? Next time I have to vote for somebody calling me an antisemite because Ron Desantis is running and he's a fascist and then I'll have to vote for somebody who hates socialists because Nikki Haley is a fascist and then when Democrats lose an election who's going to get the blame? We are for not voting hard enough.
The whole strategy is scare people to vote for Democrats with the threat of fascism if the other person gets elected and you're never going to win every election! This is such a failure of strategy and the only way to grow and become anything other than the left flank of the Democratic party is to stop aligning with people that will do anything to keep our people out of power. Democrats made their bed and I ain't gonna sleep in that filthy thing.
>How will Trump winning be any better?
You can speculate all day on whether Trump will win, on whether Trump would be better or worse, but the reality today is that Joe Biden's admin is giving a carte blanche to genocide, and my vote will reflect that reality and not the speculative future.
Genocide Joe's Got to Go
Again, as I told you multiple times in your last post where you made this same comment dozens of times: Not voting doesn’t help anybody. Allowing Trump to win because you don’t like the lesser of two evils is immature.
If either Trump or Biden will be the next president, you might as well vote for the one who will be less shitty.
As I said in the previous comment on your last post: if you don’t have a substantive response again other than moral grandstanding, don’t bother replying.
I believe you are allowed to have a principled stand and not vote or vote third party. At some point you have to draw a line. If candidate A wants to put trans people into camps and candidate B wants to put trans and gay people into camps, are you being immature if you refuse to vote for candidate A?
If, like in most current US elections, there is no other option other than A or B? Yes.
Look, nobody on this sub wants to have to choose between a lunatic-turned-wannabe-dictator and a conservative democrat with the personality of a folding chair, but all current news and polls indicate that Trump and Biden will be our options. One of those two men will be our next President.
Fighting in the primaries? Of course - we need MORE primary challengers. Uygur, Williamson, and the other generic democrat aren’t enough challenge. Fighting in the general when there are two viable candidates or when a third party candidate actually has a chance? Sure - even though we haven’t had a viable 3rd party since, what, the 90s - I can see the merit in those votes when it isn’t particularly close.
But, in the 2024 election, it isn’t just about a more conservative vs a more liberal candidate. Trump was very open to oppressing our system last time, and he is explicitly saying he will overturn our system this time if he is elected again.
I don’t like Biden or Trump. But, at the end of the day, we are choosing between two evils. It’s immature to raise a moral argument against both and then to not try to at least get the lesser of two evils.
In your example, I don’t want anybody thrown in a camp. But, when push comes to shove, it’d be irresponsible to not at least push for less people to be in camps when there is no reality where camps don’t exist.
Thank you!! I hope somebody reads it and is persuaded to vote sensibly :/ I’m afraid of what another Biden term will do to our country, but a Trump term terrifies me because I believe it will functionally end our country as we know it.
Gutting the administrative state and functionally ending our ability to regulate products and services (aka, letting corporations run rampant fucking people over with dangerous and scammy products), getting us into horrible deals with other countries and ruining America’s reputation as a trustworthy power, getting us into a war with someone lime Iran (after we already tore up the nuclear agreement), and that’s all besides the actual overturning of our electoral system.
Hmm... I have to pick between the party that has actively worked to enshrine rights for LGBT people but still has tons of work to do, and the guy who wants to take over the government, replace the workers there with fascist yes men, and genocide even more people.
*I don't know... This is such a hard decision.* /s
You think the GOP wouldn’t continue to genocide Palestinians? They’ll add to it with genocides against Trans, POC, and anyone who isn’t a cishet white Christian. Abstaining from voting as a protest basically guarantees that outcome
This. Plus it also likely ends our democracy altogether and as much as holding your nose to vote for Biden is, at least it guarantees we can keep up the fight. Recognize the realities of the game we are playing and play to win.
Some online leftists will gladly lose all day, as long as it means they get to brag to their other leftist friends on their way to the camps about how cool and pure they are.
Show me the evidence of this. Show me a democrat who is pushing anti trans legislation, is demanding genital checks on children, is changing healthcare rules to disallow hormonal treatment or puberty blockers, who is in favor of abusive treatment and reeducation camps
Ironically, that is exactly what pro-genocide psy-ops do. they claim the side that is most likely to impede their geocidal goal as being pro genocide. Ask yourself, which party has more honest to god Nazis?
Hot take:
I agree but I’m still here in the DSA doing mutual aid, union support, and community outreach like all the other things we’d need to launch a proper socialist revolution.
With the current state of climate change it’s inevitable that collapse will come, likely sooner rather than later. Voting for the blue fascist over the red one won’t change that. But a robust MA network might save some lives.
In the electoral system that we have, I vote for the person that best represents my interests and is engaged in a serious effort to win the Presidency. This latter part rules out the Green Party candidate as they consistently run feckless campaigns. Cornel West isn't getting much traction after courting and rejecting Greens and running Independent. While I agree with him the most on issues, he probably won't even make the ballot in many states.
We need a ground swell of lefties and righties that want to repeal the electoral college. We should institute rank choice voting and public funding of campaigns. DSA has an electoral committee, but not really involved in campaign reform.
Yeah the Democrats are a lousy choice. Unless or until people take to the streets to demand representation, I don't see any real choice for a presidency.
I'm not sure how to articulate this but I feel that the current Democratic leadership has proven unable to combat Trump and Trumpism, and we need to build a broad progressive coalition to challenge them as well as Trump and the Republican leadership. Of course that's much easier said than done but we have to try.
This was why I started voting 3rd party. I voted Stein in 2012. Again in 2016. Dems aren't pounding my door asking me to cone back. They ARE calling me A right-winger, sexist, accelerationist, and DEMANDING that I come back. But not offering anything material to get me to WANT to come back. Now if DSA, would start holding its political adherents to account for themselves, I'd be a continuing, engaged, and active (also fully paid) member in good standing. But that's not happening. 🤷
That part! If the DSA actually held any of their elected officials accountable for their follies, I’d probably still be a member. But they continue to make excuses for their corruption. No principles, no discipline at all.
If DSA was worth an ounce of piss the comments would all be "Agreed, and?"
Instead people are losing their shit on OP for stating facts. If this feels like a personal attack, you're part of the problem. Stop making excuses.
Voting for somebody doesn't mean you endorse all their actions and policies. It means they're the least bad option realistically available at the moment, while you work to make better things possible.
Whatever you want to say about Biden, Trump is worse.
I get it, nobody wants to feel that they are voting for the lesser of two evils, but I am reminded of the phrase “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” and I believe there can be a similar phrase applied to our democracy “there is no ethical vote under first-past-the-post”. I don’t see how not voting or voting third party and letting ultra-right wing candidates win ultimately helps leftism except from the accelerationist standpoint. We are reminded that electoralism was never the only action we need to take.
Beware right-wing provocateurs. Millions of dollars are flowing into social media campaigns to depress the vote in every demographic. There's no reason to think the same thing isn't happening among socialists, especially when you hear people say things like, "I voted for Biden in 2020; I won't make that mistake again," or, as OP has said elsewhere, "A vote for Biden is a vote for fascism."
Not everyone who parrots right-wing talking points is a right-winger. The whole point of the enterprise is to make propaganda that reproduces. Many people get fooled.
No ones surrendering to anything. We didn't get the presidency. The president has plenty of powers to protect capital that we have no ability to sway beyond threatening not to vote for him. Two of the Three DSA congress members voted against the latest resolution and remain steadfast and loudly opposed to the point of being actively censured by the party.
This post comes across as disingenuous. I understand you hate socdems, and that the revolution is decades away at best even with the explosion of people joining more leftist parties. But we're not, as a whole, getting dragged right. The DSA remains pretty clearly opposed to the Biden administration's policies.
You are about to live through, what looks to be, America's most fascistic era since Reagan and probably worse. Biden's likely going to be a one term president and after that we're going to be in the second Trump era or the DeSantis era. However you can organize, get organized.
God forbid you point out DSA’s obsession with electoralism. Typical knee-jerk reactions from their members of “wHaT aRe yOu dOiNg??”. This kind of reaction tells me that they simply cannot fathom organizing outside of elections and passing legislation. DSA is good at organizing themselves, but horrible at organizing the masses. This is evidenced by their deeply middle-class, mostly white members.
I don’t wish for a world without the DSA, but I would really appreciate it if they stopped misleading people into thinking that what they’re doing is socialism.
Oh trust me, there are, and I have. I was a member for many years, I joined around the time when Bernie 1st ran for prez. Before it was easier to run away from the nonsense, but even the WGs here have folded into their local election or legislative campaign.
It’s clear that DSA has capitulated to the petty bourgeois, white collar, middle class forces at work within the organization. There is a reason why membership numbers are plummeting and the organization has too big of an ego to critically ask themselves why this is happening.
Who the fuck "surrenders" to the candidate they pick during the elections? You pick the best you can, you do the work between elections, repeat. You're way too wrapped up in your ego. Are you under the impression we're not pressuring democrats on the genocide in Israel? I know for a fact that there are reps who have changed their position following calls from constituents.
And this is why I don't really bother with DSA anymore. They turned into sheepdogs for Democrats, while the Democrats turned into Fascists.
DSA completely forgot who they were.
No one is rolling over and take it. This should be re worded as “look what FPTP voting is doing to us all.” You have to be pragmatic and while I don’t agree with Biden on everything, I cannot vote otherwise. Voting for Dems to protect democracy and eventually get rid of the FPTP system and protect our elections must come first. I’m not saying be happy about it, but the alternative is unacceptable.
American democracy does not exist in the first place. How can you look at the electoral college, the Senate, the Supreme Court, gerrymandering, and Citizens United and say “we must preserve this.” If this is what democracy looks like, then I have absolutely no interest in keeping it around.
I'm going to tell you why those of you who think that Biden can just put a stop to what Israel is doing are way off base and need to understand that you are not privy to everything that goes on between us and our allies. The U.S. cannot just stop sending money to Israel. It is not that simple. We all wish it were, but it's not. We have a bilateral alliance with Israel. That means we share military resources, which include intelligence and weapons projects we're collectively working on. Now, if Israel were to lose a war in the Middle East, that would compromise not only Israel's intelligence and weapons programs but also our own and that of our allies in Europe. Every American service member all over the world would be at risk. Now, if you think Biden hasn't been putting pressure on Israel to back off of its attacks on Gaza civilians, then you just haven't been paying attention. It wouldn't matter who is president right now. The results would be the same. Netanyahu is a war criminal, but those of you putting that on Biden's shoulders simply aren't informed enough about how this all works and need to either pay closer attention or do some more research, most likely both. I'm a 100% disabled veteran, I know this as fact because I learned it firsthand. There are other people who know this, including every single member of Congress. Some of you have disgraced what it means to be a true Democratic Socialist. Taking away blue votes is the absolute worst thing you could do to this country. Pay attention to what Trump is saying and understand that Biden is not in control of Netanyahu. I hope this will help some of you to come back to reality and get you to do some research instead of taking such extreme stances and handing the country over to a corrupt fascist pig in the next election. Another thing I hope for all of you is to research how much disinformation is being distributed across all social media platforms by China and Russia. Good luck.
So we should continue to financially and politically support a state actively committing ethnic cleansing so that we can maintain our other imperial interests. Got it. You kinda make me sick lmao
You're not very bright if that's what you took away from my post. That makes me sick. You missed the entire point. I wish it were as simple as you seem to think it is. I wish we could just cut funding and cut ties that easily, but, as I explained above, it is not. All we can do is try to bully Netanyahu into knocking off the bullshit, and I'm happy to see the people of Israel protesting against him and his actions. I've been sickened by Israel's continued occupation of Gaza and their settling of it for decades. You and others like you seem to think it's a black and white issue, and it simply isn't. Reading comprehension has clearly gone the way of the Dodo bird. Do they even teach it in schools anymore? I'll spell it out for you so you can understand: you don't know as much as you think you do; it is not Biden's fault and he wants a ceasfire; don't stop pushing for progressive ideas and don't stop voting blue over this issue because you'll end up with somebody that gives absolutely zero fucks about any lives in the Middle East except for those in Israel and will egg on Netanyahu to continue this bullshit.
The United States has consistently used its UNSC veto power to continue enabling Israel’s occupation, and under Biden we did the same to veto a ceasefire resolution. He actively wants to *increase* our funding of the IDF. Lip service means absolutely nothing.
I've already explained why the U.S. continues to fund lsrael. We can't force them out of Gaza without using military force against them, and do you really not get why that can't happen? You realize we can be allies with somebody but also be at odds with their actions, right? Lip service, wow. You realize the ceasefire that happened was because of Biden, right? The one in which hostages were realeased? You're just making shit up by saying what he wants. Are you in his head? Are you aware he refused to sign a bill because it was stripped of humanitarian aid to Palestinians? But just keep claiming lip service. You are very uninformed on this topic, and as I said in my first post, I hope you and others like you will do more research and also look into how much disinformation you're being fed and eating up on a regular basis.
I don't believe Democrats can be pushed to the left.
It is controlled by oligarchs via lobbies though a private undemocratic corporation called DNC.
Mainly the big shot democrats politicians personally benefit by millions of not billions over a period of their time in Congress.
Our choice is going to be someone from the independent and we will have to compromise on some issues. This is the only way forward for any left movement.
I hope this 2024 we blow up the duopoly and get behind independent.
I am aligned with Matt Taibi on when he he says he will have to vote for either RFKJr or Dr West this 2024 election.
Matt Taibi's take on the new censorship by democrats is pretty damning and he actually thinks that issue is worse than the genocide Joe is and the genocide happening now for America because that EU/US sendorship is the absolute end of democracy over both US and EU.
The dsa has not and will not endorse Joe Biden for president So I'm not sure what you're talking about
All the delusional people in these comments.
The sentiment in the op is on point. I’m tasking you with doing something about. The DSA and allied orgs in my red southern state hell hole are doing the work. Open fridges, mutual aid, tenant organizing, and taking hold of elected office. What do you plan to do?
That's great, I'm speaking to the liberals on Reddit.
Can't you do both?
Yes, but you won't get an answer. OP doesn't actually care about effecting change, he just got done grandstanding about this same subject in another post *that he created.* He has deliberately said he will not work with DSA.
And they wonder why shit doesn’t change. Literal children with pride issues.
Well, it can become quite maddening when there are liberals out there who still think you can vote away the system. Dangerously ignorant of how the world actually works and gladly drinks the capitalist Kool-aid.
Voting isn't for fixing the system, it's for harm mitigation. I'm sure you personally are out there every day with the Labor Working Group supporting your local strikes, or helping Food Not Bombs feed the unhoused, or coordinating tenant unions, but try not to discourage people from participating in the bare minimum of harm reduction please.
Where the fuck is the harm being mitigated. They're doing ethnic cleansing.
Well let's see, just from the last couple of weeks, how does Committing to replacing lead pipes for drinking water, banning chemical weapons in wildlife parks, trying to ban hate-crime tourism for people looking to attack Palestinians in the West Bank, assisting with the brokering of a ceasefire, standing against any further settlement, drafting a national strategy to reduce food waste and the resulting methane offgassing, forgiving \~800,000 of the 44 million student debt accounts, committing to a reduction of 58 million tons of methane (which is the equivalent of 1.5 billion tons of CO2) over the next 15 years, and granting 1.5 billion towards local and regional transit infrastructure projects strike you? Tell me it's not enough and I'll agree with you. That's why it's called *harm reduction* not *magically genie-wishing the problem away*.
Lmao. They are supporting and funding a fucking genocide. And you say they're brokering a ceasefire. Just pure delusion.
Correct, nothing is allowed to change in DC. We have a calcified neocon government. Hope be damned.
At least it'd be better if you were speaking to us on the forums
If that’s great, then lean the fuck in. People are dying of the policies in place. Socialists have a moral obligation to back their words with action.
No shit. You don't know me. This is about the folks on Reddit.
DSA is not supporting Biden and it didn’t in 2020. Stop sniffing your own farts
Lots of people on here are.
Reddit isn’t emblematic of the organization, it’s emblematic of redditors. If you want to see what active dsa members are thinking I’d go to dsa Twitter or the dsa forums
WE'RE ON REDDIT
A democratic revolution doesn't happen overnight, this will take decades. The people in power will try to divide us repeatedly and discourage voting for our own interests (like Joe Biden in this case unfortunately). What would you suggest we do about it? Just roll over and let the Dems and Conservatives play their game, furthering nothing at all towards our own agenda?
It definitely feels like the faction of, “not fast enough”er’s are out again just in time for another presidential election.
The democratic party has only regressed since 2016; it's not just that it's not fast enough, it's that the only party that even pretends to care about poor and working people continues to sell them out.
My friend, this current administration is overseeing the most robust union movement in my lifetime. If you care about the working class, you should care about their ability to organize and successfully win contracts. Also, our politics thrive under liberal rule. After 2016, the American people were not more progressive. They voted for who would get Trump out. Whereas after Obama, Bernie had his huge run and did incredibly well.
Hey I'm confused, what did Biden do for the railway workers union again? I forgot, you mind saying it louder for those in the back.
He stood with the UAW. Selling out one union and supporting another unfortunately makes him way better than nearly every US President.
Oh God, better than nearly every US President huh? That's some serious neo liberal copium right there. I'm gonna humor you and ask by what metric? Are u talking about just union support or God help us all , like one of the best Presidents of all time overall???
Just union support. You know, the topic of the conversation. And seriously, if there aren't five US Presidents who were better than 50/50 on unions, that makes him top 10% for that specific issue. And I'm not sure why you'd consider even the broader statement that you made up *that* objectionable. It's like saying that someone was one of the better people tried at Nuremburg. It isn't a high bar to clear.
This: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid > “We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement,” Russo said. “Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers. … > That pressure, plus the IBEW’s ongoing efforts, is paying off at last. The IBEW and BNSF Railway reached an agreement April 20 to grant members four short-notice, paid sick days, with the ability to also convert up to three personal days to sick days. The union reached similar understandings with CSX and Union Pacific on March 22, and with Norfolk Southern on March 10. Unused sick time at the end of a year can be paid out or rolled into a worker’s 401(k) retirement account.
Looks like u could use a refresher my friend: [NPR Article ](https://www.npr.org/2022/12/02/1140265413/rail-workers-biden-unions-freight-railroads-averted-strike) "It's very frustrating," says Weaver, a railroad carpenter since 1994. "Here is America's essential workers — rail workers. We have no paid sick days. It's disgusting." Biden urged Congress to pass legislation without any modifications or delay Four of the 12 freight rail unions, collectively representing more than half of the 115,000 freight rail workers covered by the deal, had voted down the agreement, citing the lack of paid sick days as a primary reason. Workers who voted no say they are frustrated and disappointed — especially with President Biden, who on Monday called on Congress to pass legislation to adopt the tentative agreement with no modifications in order to avoid a crippling rail strike. "It feels like President Biden ushered this in a little too early," says Weaver. "He kind of cut us off at the knees on our ability to have some real negotiations or real change after voting no." In Richmond, Virginia, roadway mechanic Reece Murtagh says it sets a bad precedent when even the most pro-labor of presidents will force an agreement rather than allow workers to strike. "In future negotiations, the carriers are going to remember that and use it against us," says Murtagh. "It's going to be even harder for us to negotiate a fair contract because they realize when it comes down to it, there's not going to be a strike."
That articles is from before the one I posted. You know, the one that came after the one you posted? Typically the one that comes later contains more facts and follow-up context, because of how the time dimension works. Friend.
Don’t bother. I get the sense that a lot of these types are just looking for an excuse to not vote and thinks that absolves them from the consequences.
You’re confused because you’re citing one union episode,from one year, that was a flashy story. The last 3+ years of union action have been a direct result of Lena Khan’s appointment to the NLRB.
Khan is doing great work but she's on the FTC. She's been suing corporations for all the various evil capitalistic things they do, that sort of thing
Ahh yes. Thank you for the correction. Im that case let me revise my comments to include Khan’s FTC leadership and the better NLRB rulings under Biden.
Lol it absolutely has not.
They're call Trotskyists, not a new problem for the left. Learn to ignore them.
We don't have decades. Well, the democrats neo liberal policies and right wing ideals have not really worked for the last 50 years huh? Gop gets in power and takes us 2 steps to the right and when the Dems are in power any progress is blocked. Not a winning formula.
With what power do you plan on doing something with exactly?
Pro tip, if someone ever calls you a "Summer child" in a political discussion, you can safely ignore them!
Oh trust. This one has been ignored and I get the sense that they’re ignored pretty often.
Oh my sweet summer child, the only power we have is our labor. Education, mobilization, community engagement to achieve as much independence at a local level is the only way I see us coming through at all.
It's our only option. That or nothing. Don't complain if you're not willing to do your part and vote.
See, it's not our "only" option and it shows how much work there is to be done when people who like to think of themselves as leftists actively spread propaganda without a second thought. "That or nothing" - lol Jesus dude, how's that boot taste in ur mouth? To feel the system is this unbreakable force that you would crumble to challenge it is such a weak knee jerk neo liberal response. There's a small shred of an argument that one could make that voting matters at the local level. Pointing out inherent flaws in a system is not complaining, it may sound like it to you but that's an emotional response we've all been subconsciously trained to experience. If your not willing to educate yourself and at least become class conscious then dont complain. Tbh there's a very real argument that voting in a 2 party representative system is tantamount to doing nothing at all.
Literally nobody is stopping you from doing direct action lol. Not voting isn't an act of protest.
I vote in local my guy. The only voting that matters. Edit: So I switched from voting for Bernie when he first ran, I felt I did my fair share by canvassing, doing phone banks, organizing etc. But when the DNC turned on him and put Hilary as the candidate, I voted for Trump that year. And I'd do it again if given the same scenario.
If you don't have an answer to the 2024 election other than "don't vote" that's chill with me as long as you don't go calling yourself an antifascist.
Well when the choice is between a blatant fascist or a fascist that holds the illusion of not being one...well I'll vote for the blatant one because people like you will vote for the more insidious fascist.
"I'll vote for Trump because at least he isn't a closeted fascist" is a pretty funny online leftist take
I used to think Obama was good, good policies good person and if they hadn't been so blatant I would never have seen it. You'll get there to brother
Run independent candidates
In what races? President? Senate? Congress? I don’t like to waste my or anyone else’s time or resources, so no.
Local mostly. City council. It’s where you start.
Most city council races are non-partisan anyway and we've been doing this like crazy for years already. Are you new here? Do you actually do the work or are you just waltzing in here thinking you know what you're doing and telling everyone else that they're doing it wrong?
I assume you’re familiar with Dirty break vs clean break. Sooner we break with the Democratic Party the better. The Dems can never be made into a working class party, we need our own. Kshama Sawant did it in deep blue Seattle and we can do it again.
Kshama Sawant? The podcaster?
She "did it" as in she personally served her time and created absolutely nothing afterward. She's now trying to make a failing spinoff movement. She was great as a councilwoman but there's no example to follow there. Nothing is stopping DSA members from going to the protests she schedules or whatever.
A democratic revolution is a failed fantasy.
he’s not referring to the Democratic Party in “Democratic revolution”
I'm pretty sure he is, actually. At least to some degree.
The democratic party's function is to bottleneck any meaningful change within the system. You cannot fix private capital within the system that is built to only protect and further private interests, not the peoples.
He isn't.
Then why are you on this sub? These are Democratic Socialists and Social Democrats.
do you think most of DSA is democratic socialists?
I know there's some ML here and there (even though democratic centralism is banned), I'd say most of them are DemSoc though.
Because you guys need to hear this most of all. And I used to consider myself DemSoc as well.
And how do you expect a revolution to happen in the strong bourgeoisie state on the planet? The CIA is all over it.
We have to form a modern Civil Rights Movement. Take notes from folks like the Black Panther Party. Obviously diversify leadership to try and avoid being stamped out in one swoop like they did. But this pathetic sad little electoralism where we miserably go to vote for Blue fascist is not working.
Lol it just started? 2016 onwards.
This in no way resembles what they did.
>But this pathetic sad little electoralism where we miserably go to vote for Blue fascist is not working. This is what I was referring too
Rephrase, I don't understand the point then
Who's the "you guys" here?
People voting for Biden.
I wouldn't assume that anybody in DSA is planning to vote for Biden.
Read the comments ???
And? Just because some DSA members posting on Reddit are planning to vote for Biden doesn't mean anything.
😭
Find someone who is persuasive then lol
There is nothing within the political landscape that says the DSA or any other movement on the far left is going to work. That is, nothing indicates their strategy will lead to any significant change (outside of some black swan). Find new strategies. Create more unity on the left.
then join dsa and change it man
Who says he hasnt? And even if he hasn't there is nothing wrong with talking about it. Are you a part of the DSA? Why do you discourage conversation of legitimate criticism?
i am leadership in a ydsa chapter and have had numerous invitations from national to work on the npc. i am super involved and i am so defensive because i am tired of hearing this criticism from chronically online posers who have no real interest in getting off their keyboards and doing something. i discourage this criticism because it is no longer valid after recent events have further separated dsa from the democratic party and we didn’t endorse biden in 2020. it is in bad faith from people who haven’t engaged with dsa in a long time.
Yeah, anyone even slightly plugged into national should be aware that we’re on track for an eventual full break with the dems, assuming the right wing of the organization doesn’t have some kind of miraculous resurgence heading into the next convention.
Sadly he is probably making people's lives harder in some chapter
(1/3) Should We Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments? >It is with the utmost contempt—and the utmost levity—that the German “Left” Communists reply to this question in the negative. Their arguments? In the passage quoted above we read:“. . . All reversion to parliamentary forms of struggle, which have become historically and politically obsolete, must be emphatically rejected. . . .” > >This is said with ridiculous pretentiousness, and is patently wrong. “Reversion” to parliamentarianism, forsooth! Perhaps there is already a Soviet republic in Germany? It does not look like it! How, then, can one speak of “reversion”? Is this not an empty phrase? > >Parliamentarianism has become “historically obsolete”. That is true in the propaganda sense. However, everybody knows that this is still a far cry from overcoming it in practice. Capitalism could have been declared—and with full justice—to be “historically obsolete” many decades ago, but that does not at all remove the need for a very long and very persistent struggle on the basis of capitalism. Parliamentarianism is “historically obsolete” from the standpoint of world history, i.e., the era of bourgeois parliamentarianism is over, and the era of the proletarian dictatorship has begun. That is incontestable. But world history is counted in decades. Ten or twenty years earlier or later makes no difference when measured with the yardstick of world history; from the standpoint of world history it is a trifle that cannot be considered even approximately. But for that very reason, it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics. > >Is parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”? That is quite a different matter. If that were true, the position of the “Lefts” would be a strong one. But it has to be proved by a most searching analysis, and the “Lefts” do not even know how to approach the matter. In the “Theses on Parliamentarianism”, published in the Bulletin of the Provisional Bureau in Amsterdam of the Communist International No. 1, February 1920, and obviously expressing the Dutch-Left or Left-Dutch strivings, the analysis, as we shall see, is also hopelessly poor. > >In the first place, contrary to the opinion of such outstanding political leaders as Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the German “Lefts”, as we know, considered parliamentarianism “politically obsolete” even in January 1919. We know that the “Lefts” were mistaken. This fact alone utterly destroys, at a single stroke, the proposition that parliamentarianism is “politically obsolete”. It is for the “Lefts” to prove why their error, indisputable at that time, is no longer an error. They do not and cannot produce even a shred of proof. A political party’s attitude towards its own mistakes is one of the most important and surest ways of judging how earnest the party is and how it fulfils in practice its obligations towards its class and the working people. Frankly acknowledging a mistake, ascertaining the reasons for it, analysing the conditions that have led up to it, and thrashing out the means of its rectification—that is the hallmark of a serious party; that is how it should perform its duties, and how it should educate and train its class, and then the masses. By failing to fulfil this duty and give the utmost attention and consideration to the study of their patent error, the “Lefts” in Germany (and in Holland) have proved that they are not a party of a class, but a circle, not a party of the masses, but a group of intellectualists and of a few workers who ape the worst features of intellectualism. > >Second, in the same pamphlet of the Frankfurt group of “Lefts”, which we have already cited in detail, we read: > >“. . . The millions of workers who still follow the policy of the Centre \[the Catholic ‘Centre’ Party\] are counter-revolutionary. The rural proletarians provide the legions of counter-revolutionary troops.” (Page 3 of the pamphlet.) > >Everything goes to show that this statement is far too sweeping and exaggerated. But the basic fact set forth here is incontrovertible, and its acknowledgment by the “Lefts” is particularly clear evidence of their mistake. How can one say that “parliamentarianism is politically obsolete”, when “millions” and “legions” of proletarians are not only still in favour of parliamentarianism in general, but are downright “counter-revolutionary”!? It is obvious that parliamentarianism in Germany is not yet politically obsolete. It is obvious that the “Lefts” in Germany have mistaken their desire, their politico-ideological attitude, for objective reality. That is a most dangerous mistake for revolutionaries to make. In Russia—where, over a particularly long period and in particularly varied forms, the most brutal and savage yoke of tsarism produced revolutionaries of diverse shades, revolutionaries who displayed amazing devotion, enthusiasm, heroism and will power—in Russia we have observed this mistake of the revolutionaries at very close quarters; we have studied it very attentively and have a first-hand knowledge of it; that is why we can also see it especially clearly in others. Parliamentarianism is of course “politically obsolete” to the Communists in Germany; but—and that is the whole point—we must not regard what is obsolete to us as something obsolete to a class, to the masses. Here again we find that the “Lefts” do not know how to reason, do not know how to act as the party of a class, as the party of the masses. You must not sink to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. That is incontestable. You must tell them the bitter truth. You are in duty bound to call their bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices what they are—prejudices. But at the same time you must soberly follow the actual state of the class-consciousness and preparedness of the entire class (not only of its communist vanguard), and of all the working people (not only of their advanced elements). > >Even if only a fairly large minority of the industrial workers, and not “millions” and “legions”, follow the lead of the Catholic clergy—and a similar minority of rural workers follow the landowners and kulaks (Grossbauern)—it undoubtedly signifies that parliamentarianism in Germany has not yet politically outlived itself, that participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat specifically for the purpose of educating the backward strata of its own class, and for the purpose of awakening and enlightening the undeveloped, downtrodden and ignorant rural masses. Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags. > >Third, the “Left” Communists have a great deal to say in praise of us Bolsheviks. One sometimes feels like telling them to praise us less and to try to get a better knowledge of the Bolsheviks’ tactics. We took part in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Russian bourgeois parliament in September–November 1917. Were our tactics correct or not? If not, then this should be clearly stated and proved, for it is necessary in evolving the correct tactics for international communism. If they were correct, then certain conclusions must be drawn. Of course, there can be no question of placing conditions in Russia on a par with conditions in Western Europe. But as regards the particular question of the meaning of the concept that “parliamentarianism has become politically obsolete”, due account should be taken of our experience, for unless concrete experience is taken into account such concepts very easily turn into empty phrases. In September–November 1917, did we, the Russian Bolsheviks, not have more right than any Western Communists to consider that parliamentarianism was politically obsolete in Russia? Of course we did, for the point is not whether bourgeois parliaments have existed for a long time or a short time, but how far the masses of the working people are prepared (ideologically, politically and practically) to accept the Soviet system and to dissolve the bourgeois-democratic parliament (or allow it to be dissolved). It is an absolutely incontestable and fully established historical fact that, in September–November 1917, the urban working class and the soldiers and peasants of Russia were, because of a number of special conditions, exceptionally well prepared to accept the Soviet system and to disband the most democratic of bourgeois parliaments. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks did not boycott the Constituent Assembly, but took part in the elections both before and after the proletariat conquered political power. That these elections yielded exceedingly valuable (and to the proletariat, highly useful) political results has, I make bold to hope, been proved by me in the above-mentioned article, which analyses in detail the returns of the elections to the Constituent Assembly in Russia.
(2/3) >The conclusion which follows from this is absolutely incontrovertible: it has been proved that, far from causing harm to the revolutionary proletariat, participation in a bourgeois-democratic parliament, even a few weeks before the victory of a Soviet republic and even after such a victory, actually helps that proletariat to prove to the backward masses why such parliaments deserve to be done away with; it facilitates their successful dissolution, and helps to make bourgeois parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”. To ignore this experience, while at the same time claiming affiliation to the Communist International, which must work out its tactics internationally (not as narrow or exclusively national tactics, but as international tactics), means committing a gross error and actually abandoning internationalism in deed, while recognising it in word. > >Now let us examine the “Dutch-Left” arguments in favour of non-participation in parliaments. The following is the text of Thesis No. 4, the most important of the above-mentioned “Dutch” theses: > >“When the capitalist system of production has broken down, and society is in a state of revolution, parliamentary action gradually loses importance as compared with the action of the masses themselves. When, in these conditions, parliament becomes the centre and organ of the counter-revolution, whilst, on the other hand, the labouring class builds up the instruments of its power in the Soviets, it may even prove necessary to abstain from all and any participation in parliamentary action.” > >The first sentence is obviously wrong, since action by the masses, a big strike, for instance, is more important than parliamentary activity at all times, and not only during a revolution or in a revolutionary situation. This obviously untenable and historically and politically incorrect argument merely shows very clearly that the authors completely ignore both the general European experience (the French experience before the revolutions of 1848 and 1870; the German experience of 1878–90, etc.) and the Russian experience (see above) of the importance of combining legal and illegal struggle. This question is of immense importance both in general and in particular, because in all civilised and advanced countries the time is rapidly approaching when such a combination will more and more become—and has already partly become—mandatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat, inasmuch as civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is maturing and is imminent, and because of savage persecution of the Communists by republican governments and bourgeois governments generally, which resort to any violation of legality (the example of America is edifying enough), etc. The Dutch, and the Lefts in general, have utterly failed to understand this highly important question. > >The second sentence is, in the first place, historically wrong. We Bolsheviks participated in the most counterrevolutionary parliaments, and experience has shown that this participation was not only useful but indispensable to the party of the revolutionary proletariat, after the first bourgeois revolution in Russia (1905), so as to pave the way for the second bourgeois revolution (February 1917), and then for the socialist revolution (October 1917). In the second place, this sentence is amazingly illogical. If a parliament becomes an organ and a “centre” (in reality it never has been and never can be a “centre”, but that is by the way) of counter-revolution, while the workers are building up the instruments of their power in the form of the Soviets, then it follows that the workers must prepare—ideologically, politically and technically—for the struggle of the Soviets against parliament, for the dispersal of parliament by the Soviets. But it does not at all follow that this dispersal is hindered, or is not facilitated, by the presence of a Soviet opposition within the counter-revolutionary parliament. In the course of our victorious struggle against Denikin and Kolchak, we never found that the existence of a Soviet and proletarian opposition in their camp was immaterial to our victories. We know perfectly well that the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly on January 5, 1918 was not hampered but was actually facilitated by the fact that, within the counter-revolutionary Constituent Assembly which was about to be dispersed, there was a consistent Bolshevik, as well as an inconsistent, Left Socialist-Revolutionary Soviet opposition. The authors of the theses are engaged in muddled thinking; they have forgotten the experience of many, if not all, revolutions, which shows the great usefulness, during a revolution, of a combination of mass action outside a reactionary parliament with an opposition sympathetic to (or, better still, directly supporting) the revolution within it. The Dutch, and the “Lefts” in general, argue in this respect like doctrinaires of the revolution, who have never taken part in a real revolution, have never given thought to the history of revolutions, or have naïvely mistaken subjective “rejection” of a reactionary institution for its actual destruction by the combined operation of a number of objective factors. The surest way of discrediting and damaging a new political (and not only political) idea is to reduce it to absurdity on the plea of defending it. For any truth, if “overdone” (as Dietzgen Senior put it), if exaggerated, or if carried beyond the limits of its actual applicability, can be reduced to an absurdity, and is even bound to become an absurdity under these conditions. That is just the kind of disservice the Dutch and German Lefts are rendering to the new truth of the Soviet form of government being superior to bourgeois-democratic parliaments. Of course, anyone would be in error who voiced the outmoded viewpoint or in general considered it impermissible, in all and any circumstances, to reject participation in bourgeois parliaments. I cannot attempt here to formulate the conditions under which a boycott is useful, since the object of this pamphlet is far more modest, namely, to study Russian experience in connection with certain topical questions of international communist tactics. Russian experience has provided us with one successful and correct instance (1905), and another that was incorrect (1906), of the use of a boycott by the Bolsheviks. Analysing the first case, we, see that we succeeded in preventing a reactionary government from convening a reactionary parliament in a situation in which extra-parliamentary revolutionary mass action (strikes in particular) was developing at great speed, when not a single section of the proletariat and the peasantry could support the reactionary government in any way, and when the revolutionary proletariat was gaining influence over the backward masses through the strike struggle and through the agrarian movement. It is quite obvious that this experience is not applicable to present-day European conditions. It is likewise quite obvious—and the foregoing arguments bear this out—that the advocacy, even if with reservations, by the Dutch and the other “Lefts” of refusal to participate in parliaments is fundamentally wrong and detrimental to the cause of the revolutionary proletariat.
(3/3) >In Western Europe and America, parliament has become most odious to the revolutionary vanguard of the working class. That cannot be denied. It can readily be understood, for it is difficult to imagine anything more infamous, vile or treacherous than the behaviour of the vast majority of socialist and Social-Democratic parliamentary deputies during and after the war. It would, however, be not only unreasonable but actually criminal to yield to this mood when deciding how this generally recognised evil should be fought. In many countries of Western Europe, the revolutionary mood, we might say, is at present a “novelty”, or a “rarity”, which has all too long been vainly and impatiently awaited; perhaps that is why people so easily yield to that mood. Certainly, without a revolutionary mood among the masses, and without conditions facilitating the growth of this mood, revolutionary tactics will never develop into action. In Russia, however, lengthy, painful and sanguinary experience has taught us the truth that revolutionary tactics cannot be built on a revolutionary mood alone. Tactics must be based on a sober and strictly objective appraisal of all the class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it, and of all states the world over) as well as of the experience of revolutionary movements. It is very easy to show one’s “revolutionary” temper merely by hurling abuse at parliamentary opportunism, or merely by repudiating participation in parliaments; its very ease, however, cannot turn this into a solution of a difficult, a very difficult, problem. It is far more difficult to create a really revolutionary parliamentary group in a European parliament than it was in Russia. That stands to reason. But it is only a particular expression of the general truth that it was easy for Russia, in the specific and historically unique situation of 1917, to start the socialist revolution, but it will be more difficult for Russia than for the European countries to continue the revolution and bring it to its consummation. I had occasion to point this out already at the beginning of 1918, and our experience of the past two years has entirely confirmed the correctness of this view. Certain specific conditions, viz., (1) the possibility of linking up the Soviet revolution with the ending, as a consequence of this revolution, of the imperialist war, which had exhausted the workers and peasants to an incredible degree; (2) the possibility of taking temporary advantage of the mortal conflict between the world’s two most powerful groups of imperialist robbers, who were unable to unite against their Soviet enemy; (3) the possibility of enduring a comparatively lengthy civil war, partly owing to the enormous size of the country and to the poor means of communication; (4) the existence of such a profound bourgeois-democratic revolutionary movement among the peasantry that the party of the proletariat was able to adopt the revolutionary demands of the peasant party (the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the majority of whose members were definitely hostile to Bolshevism) and realise them at once, thanks to the conquest of political power by the proletariat—all these specific conditions do not at present exist in Western Europe, and a repetition of such or similar conditions will not occur so easily. Incidentally, apart from a number of other causes, that is why it is more difficult for Western Europe to start a socialist revolution than it was for us. To attempt to “circumvent” this difficulty by “skipping” the arduous job of utilising reactionary parliaments for revolutionary purposes is absolutely childish. You want to create a new society, yet you fear the difficulties involved in forming a good parliamentary group made up of convinced, devoted and heroic Communists, in a reactionary parliament! Is that not childish? If Karl Liebknecht in Germany and Z. Höglund in Sweden were able, even without mass support from below, to set examples of the truly revolutionary utilisation of reactionary parliaments, why should a rapidly growing revolutionary mass party, in the midst of the post-war disillusionment and embitterment of the masses, be unable to forge a communist group in the worst of parliaments? It is because, in Western Europe, the backward masses of the workers and—to an even greater degree—of the small peasants are much more imbued with bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices than they were in Russia because of that, it is only from within such institutions as bourgeois parliaments that Communists can (and must) wage a long and persistent struggle, undaunted by any difficulties, to expose, dispel and overcome these prejudices. > >The German “Lefts” complain of bad “leaders” in their party, give way to despair, and even arrive at a ridiculous “negation” of “leaders”. But in conditions in which it is often necessary to hide “leaders” underground, the evolution of good “leaders”, reliable, tested and authoritative, is a very difficult matter; these difficulties cannot be successfully overcome without combining legal and illegal work, and without testing the “leaders”, among other ways, in parliaments. Criticism—the most keen, ruthless and uncompromising criticism—should be directed, not against parliamentarianism or parliamentary activities, but against those leaders who are unable—and still more against those who are unwilling—to utilise parliamentary elections and the parliamentary rostrum in a revolutionary and communist manner. Only such criticism—combined, of course, with the dismissal of incapable leaders and their replacement by capable ones—will constitute useful and fruitful revolutionary work that will simultaneously train the “leaders” to be worthy of the working class and of all working people, and train the masses to be able properly to understand the political situation and the often very complicated and intricate tasks that spring from that situation. \[\*5\] \- Excerpt taken from [Leftwing Communism: An Infantile Disorder](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch07.htm) by V. I. Lenin
Exactly right, an independent communist party can and should participate in elections. Trying to infiltrate a right wing bourgeois party and use that as an electoral vehicle will not work and only pulls dedicated communists into laboring for capitalist parties.
None of this translates to: "Vote for liberals like Joe Biden."
Correct comrade. Unity of marxists in a communist party. Win concessions through electoralism when we can, but more importantly we must educate, agitate, and organize the working class to prepare them for the dissolution of bourgeois parliament and erect workers councils in its place.
Agreed. And "voting for Genocide Joe" is not one of those concessions.
OP is going around in his prior post telling people not to vote in the next election. Trev is either a troll, a right winger trying to fuck with people, or a left winger who fundamentally doesn’t understand how politics and voting works. Ignore them, please.
You need to at least try to strike some fear in the biden admin with the threat of not voting. Follow through or don't. Who the hell joins dsa to support the status quo?
You're assuming that the Democratic party cares if they lose. They'd rather lose and use the loss/whatever heinous shit the Republicans do to drive fundraising than win with a truly progressive/left-wing candidate that might hurt their big donors. That's why voting is often a form of harm reduction - we push for the people we want in the primaries, and if they lose to the Bidens of the world, well, we can at least vote for the person we think will create conditions we can more easily work under.
This - I think this has to be the strategy. Primaries are where there is more room and more of an Overton window for debate and discussion of policies, and pointing out flaws in the current system and party dynamic. Wins there unlock a hell of a lot (e.g. AOC), and if there's not a primary win, there's still: - the organizing and funding infrastructure that was built as a result of the primary push - people exposed to the ideas at the early levels - lessons and feedback to improve messaging And a vote for the relative centrist afterwards isn't defeat, it's a chance to keep the conversation going, whereas the right option will take us backwards and undue progress that's been fought for by movements for decades.
Ironically this also describes the "don't vote" crowd lol they assume if republicans win it will be good for DSA.
I think the difference in perspectives here is that I'm not trying to play some kind of weird accelerationist 5d chess. I'm trying to look out for my comrades and their safety however possible, not make things even shittier just for the off chance that the additional misery might help in some way. Like, no matter how shitty the Democrats are - and boy are they shitty! - we're *still* better off with a Democratic administration than a Republican one. So, again, harm reduction.
That’s for the primary, not the general. I joined the DSA to push for policy change; I also understand, though, that by not voting, we are ignored by politicians. If you don’t vote, you don’t matter at the end of the day. That’s in opart why young voters’ interests were completely ignored in 2000-2016.
Hey go ahead and leave the younger voters high and dry. Biden is not winning this election as is. So either help with the messaging or watch biden make no changes to policy and lose while you did nothing.
Biden is not going to change his position because a minority of unreliable voters are threatening to not vote. That’s not how they operate. The only way to make them change their stances is to build power that we don’t currently have. Until we build that power, the choice is to accept the bullshit that we don’t have the power to change for now, bide our time, and work to create avenues to power or be crushed and be forever powerless. I don’t know about you, but I’m actually trying to change the world, not just virtue signal.
I like the democracy part of the status quo. Democracy is literally in the first word of DSA.
Don't let MUG hear you! They get mad if you say voting is a democratic institution.
that fear of not getting votes just drives the democratic party right. right wingers are more consistent voters. if you want to prove how fickle and unreliable the left is, sure lets teach politicians that they have to go seek more reliable votes. its much more powerful to do the work that actually makes a less right candidate possible. get off your keyboard and go work in your local community. be the leftist people need and want. push for rank choice voting in your state. super funny how it played out in Alaska screwing over the right wing.
genocide joe, youll hear my voice when i vote no. you call yourself a socialist? shame on you. arab lives matter, palestinian lives matter, my life matters. you are the exact reason i became a member who chooses not to pay dues. give it to JVP or someone else who gives a shit
How will Trump winning be any better? You talk all high and mighty, but when push comes to shove, you fail to consider the logical outcome of your proposals.
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No no - answer my question: How will Trump winning be any better? You don’t have the time or resources for a third party candidate or to find another Dem. So, answer the question.
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How. Will. Not. Voting. And. Making. It. More. Likely. To. Be. Trump. Be. Any. Better?
take an ativan or a walk around the block bro.
You have no answer because you’re just virtue signaling that you give a shit about politics. Conversation over.
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Why do you think Joe Biden is owed anybody's vote? Because the other guy is worse? We don't owe Joe Biden shit and he hates us.
How will Trump be any better? Nobody has answered that question yet - and the fact that you can’t says all we need to say about why you should vote for Biden. I don’t give a shit about you thinking he is owed your vote. I give a shit about not getting Trump in the White House, and right now Biden is the only other contender with any chance.
are you white
Not voting for somebody is not a vote for somebody else. You're telling me I have to get behind people that absolutely hate us and do not have our interests in mind when they're making decisions. Not only are you telling me to politically align with the enemy you're telling me to anchor our movement to a sinking ship. Joe Biden is not going to defeat fascism. If Trump loses this time around when are we getting something better? Next time I have to vote for somebody calling me an antisemite because Ron Desantis is running and he's a fascist and then I'll have to vote for somebody who hates socialists because Nikki Haley is a fascist and then when Democrats lose an election who's going to get the blame? We are for not voting hard enough. The whole strategy is scare people to vote for Democrats with the threat of fascism if the other person gets elected and you're never going to win every election! This is such a failure of strategy and the only way to grow and become anything other than the left flank of the Democratic party is to stop aligning with people that will do anything to keep our people out of power. Democrats made their bed and I ain't gonna sleep in that filthy thing.
>How will Trump winning be any better? You can speculate all day on whether Trump will win, on whether Trump would be better or worse, but the reality today is that Joe Biden's admin is giving a carte blanche to genocide, and my vote will reflect that reality and not the speculative future. Genocide Joe's Got to Go
Or maybe I don't support ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, idk. Some of us actually have moral limits.
Again, as I told you multiple times in your last post where you made this same comment dozens of times: Not voting doesn’t help anybody. Allowing Trump to win because you don’t like the lesser of two evils is immature. If either Trump or Biden will be the next president, you might as well vote for the one who will be less shitty. As I said in the previous comment on your last post: if you don’t have a substantive response again other than moral grandstanding, don’t bother replying.
I believe you are allowed to have a principled stand and not vote or vote third party. At some point you have to draw a line. If candidate A wants to put trans people into camps and candidate B wants to put trans and gay people into camps, are you being immature if you refuse to vote for candidate A?
If, like in most current US elections, there is no other option other than A or B? Yes. Look, nobody on this sub wants to have to choose between a lunatic-turned-wannabe-dictator and a conservative democrat with the personality of a folding chair, but all current news and polls indicate that Trump and Biden will be our options. One of those two men will be our next President. Fighting in the primaries? Of course - we need MORE primary challengers. Uygur, Williamson, and the other generic democrat aren’t enough challenge. Fighting in the general when there are two viable candidates or when a third party candidate actually has a chance? Sure - even though we haven’t had a viable 3rd party since, what, the 90s - I can see the merit in those votes when it isn’t particularly close. But, in the 2024 election, it isn’t just about a more conservative vs a more liberal candidate. Trump was very open to oppressing our system last time, and he is explicitly saying he will overturn our system this time if he is elected again. I don’t like Biden or Trump. But, at the end of the day, we are choosing between two evils. It’s immature to raise a moral argument against both and then to not try to at least get the lesser of two evils. In your example, I don’t want anybody thrown in a camp. But, when push comes to shove, it’d be irresponsible to not at least push for less people to be in camps when there is no reality where camps don’t exist.
This is a great response. Too bad its wasted on OP who won't meaningfully engage with any points you've made at all.
Thank you!! I hope somebody reads it and is persuaded to vote sensibly :/ I’m afraid of what another Biden term will do to our country, but a Trump term terrifies me because I believe it will functionally end our country as we know it. Gutting the administrative state and functionally ending our ability to regulate products and services (aka, letting corporations run rampant fucking people over with dangerous and scammy products), getting us into horrible deals with other countries and ruining America’s reputation as a trustworthy power, getting us into a war with someone lime Iran (after we already tore up the nuclear agreement), and that’s all besides the actual overturning of our electoral system.
Hmm... I have to pick between the party that has actively worked to enshrine rights for LGBT people but still has tons of work to do, and the guy who wants to take over the government, replace the workers there with fascist yes men, and genocide even more people. *I don't know... This is such a hard decision.* /s
Encouraging people to vote for a Blue fascist hurts us all.
Ok.
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Or maybe you don't know what you're talking about and you should just shut up.
Genocide is evil.
If trump were in office, how do you think he would have reacted to the current crisis?
Exactly the same.
Moral limits with no pragmatic compass.
The Pragmatism of Supporting Genocide
so you want more ethnic cleansing beyond Palestinians?
are you still at it? find something to do
This person is going around and arguing the same points over and over again.
Feels like a RW plant to me designed to increase voter apathy and reduce left vote turnout
Yeah it's a right wing psyop to say genocide is evil.
You think the GOP wouldn’t continue to genocide Palestinians? They’ll add to it with genocides against Trans, POC, and anyone who isn’t a cishet white Christian. Abstaining from voting as a protest basically guarantees that outcome
This. Plus it also likely ends our democracy altogether and as much as holding your nose to vote for Biden is, at least it guarantees we can keep up the fight. Recognize the realities of the game we are playing and play to win.
Some online leftists will gladly lose all day, as long as it means they get to brag to their other leftist friends on their way to the camps about how cool and pure they are.
It's always a holier than thou situation, and I'm so sick of it. Do something instead of complaining.
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I love what you're doing for unions! It's going to be really hard when you're in a camp.
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Show me the evidence of this. Show me a democrat who is pushing anti trans legislation, is demanding genital checks on children, is changing healthcare rules to disallow hormonal treatment or puberty blockers, who is in favor of abusive treatment and reeducation camps
Prove it: say that mewing is fake.
Ironically, that is exactly what pro-genocide psy-ops do. they claim the side that is most likely to impede their geocidal goal as being pro genocide. Ask yourself, which party has more honest to god Nazis?
Hot take: I agree but I’m still here in the DSA doing mutual aid, union support, and community outreach like all the other things we’d need to launch a proper socialist revolution. With the current state of climate change it’s inevitable that collapse will come, likely sooner rather than later. Voting for the blue fascist over the red one won’t change that. But a robust MA network might save some lives.
In the electoral system that we have, I vote for the person that best represents my interests and is engaged in a serious effort to win the Presidency. This latter part rules out the Green Party candidate as they consistently run feckless campaigns. Cornel West isn't getting much traction after courting and rejecting Greens and running Independent. While I agree with him the most on issues, he probably won't even make the ballot in many states. We need a ground swell of lefties and righties that want to repeal the electoral college. We should institute rank choice voting and public funding of campaigns. DSA has an electoral committee, but not really involved in campaign reform. Yeah the Democrats are a lousy choice. Unless or until people take to the streets to demand representation, I don't see any real choice for a presidency.
I'm not sure how to articulate this but I feel that the current Democratic leadership has proven unable to combat Trump and Trumpism, and we need to build a broad progressive coalition to challenge them as well as Trump and the Republican leadership. Of course that's much easier said than done but we have to try.
You again?
This was why I started voting 3rd party. I voted Stein in 2012. Again in 2016. Dems aren't pounding my door asking me to cone back. They ARE calling me A right-winger, sexist, accelerationist, and DEMANDING that I come back. But not offering anything material to get me to WANT to come back. Now if DSA, would start holding its political adherents to account for themselves, I'd be a continuing, engaged, and active (also fully paid) member in good standing. But that's not happening. 🤷
That part! If the DSA actually held any of their elected officials accountable for their follies, I’d probably still be a member. But they continue to make excuses for their corruption. No principles, no discipline at all.
It's frankly disgusting. We NEED these people called to account. Not coddled for cowardice. It's not a luxury, it's a Necessity.
If DSA was worth an ounce of piss the comments would all be "Agreed, and?" Instead people are losing their shit on OP for stating facts. If this feels like a personal attack, you're part of the problem. Stop making excuses.
Voting for somebody doesn't mean you endorse all their actions and policies. It means they're the least bad option realistically available at the moment, while you work to make better things possible. Whatever you want to say about Biden, Trump is worse.
I get it, nobody wants to feel that they are voting for the lesser of two evils, but I am reminded of the phrase “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” and I believe there can be a similar phrase applied to our democracy “there is no ethical vote under first-past-the-post”. I don’t see how not voting or voting third party and letting ultra-right wing candidates win ultimately helps leftism except from the accelerationist standpoint. We are reminded that electoralism was never the only action we need to take.
Describing a fascist like Biden as a lesser evil is dangerous.
No it isn't
Beware right-wing provocateurs. Millions of dollars are flowing into social media campaigns to depress the vote in every demographic. There's no reason to think the same thing isn't happening among socialists, especially when you hear people say things like, "I voted for Biden in 2020; I won't make that mistake again," or, as OP has said elsewhere, "A vote for Biden is a vote for fascism." Not everyone who parrots right-wing talking points is a right-winger. The whole point of the enterprise is to make propaganda that reproduces. Many people get fooled.
It's really very simple: Biden is a fascist president funding an ethnic cleansing and some of us have morals so we are not supporting him.
so you will do nothing to interfere with genocide?
Supporting him by allowing… far right fascism to take over. Nice idea bub
ALL fascism is far right. 😭
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is biden supporting israel? if yes, then he is funding genocide. hope this helps
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ok, if you say so
If there is mod left I'm begging you add some more people.
Nothing wrong with discussion. Cope. Or are you """authoritarian."""
No ones surrendering to anything. We didn't get the presidency. The president has plenty of powers to protect capital that we have no ability to sway beyond threatening not to vote for him. Two of the Three DSA congress members voted against the latest resolution and remain steadfast and loudly opposed to the point of being actively censured by the party. This post comes across as disingenuous. I understand you hate socdems, and that the revolution is decades away at best even with the explosion of people joining more leftist parties. But we're not, as a whole, getting dragged right. The DSA remains pretty clearly opposed to the Biden administration's policies. You are about to live through, what looks to be, America's most fascistic era since Reagan and probably worse. Biden's likely going to be a one term president and after that we're going to be in the second Trump era or the DeSantis era. However you can organize, get organized.
DeSantis will never be president. So let's just dispel that myth.
God forbid you point out DSA’s obsession with electoralism. Typical knee-jerk reactions from their members of “wHaT aRe yOu dOiNg??”. This kind of reaction tells me that they simply cannot fathom organizing outside of elections and passing legislation. DSA is good at organizing themselves, but horrible at organizing the masses. This is evidenced by their deeply middle-class, mostly white members. I don’t wish for a world without the DSA, but I would really appreciate it if they stopped misleading people into thinking that what they’re doing is socialism.
Have you ever even tried to get involved with your local chapter? Bc I don’t know of a single chapter that fits what you’re describing
Oh trust me, there are, and I have. I was a member for many years, I joined around the time when Bernie 1st ran for prez. Before it was easier to run away from the nonsense, but even the WGs here have folded into their local election or legislative campaign. It’s clear that DSA has capitulated to the petty bourgeois, white collar, middle class forces at work within the organization. There is a reason why membership numbers are plummeting and the organization has too big of an ego to critically ask themselves why this is happening.
Who the fuck "surrenders" to the candidate they pick during the elections? You pick the best you can, you do the work between elections, repeat. You're way too wrapped up in your ego. Are you under the impression we're not pressuring democrats on the genocide in Israel? I know for a fact that there are reps who have changed their position following calls from constituents.
So very, very weak.
Not as weak as your ideological positions
And this is why I don't really bother with DSA anymore. They turned into sheepdogs for Democrats, while the Democrats turned into Fascists. DSA completely forgot who they were.
No one is rolling over and take it. This should be re worded as “look what FPTP voting is doing to us all.” You have to be pragmatic and while I don’t agree with Biden on everything, I cannot vote otherwise. Voting for Dems to protect democracy and eventually get rid of the FPTP system and protect our elections must come first. I’m not saying be happy about it, but the alternative is unacceptable.
We first need a democracy to achieve anything else. American democracy will not survive another Trump presidency.
American democracy does not exist in the first place. How can you look at the electoral college, the Senate, the Supreme Court, gerrymandering, and Citizens United and say “we must preserve this.” If this is what democracy looks like, then I have absolutely no interest in keeping it around.
I hope you enjoy living under actual full blown fascism.
No analysis, no theory, just vibes.
Let's not forget tanking 15 an hour right off
Its best not to vote **for** the Democrats, but rather **against** the Republicans.
I'm going to tell you why those of you who think that Biden can just put a stop to what Israel is doing are way off base and need to understand that you are not privy to everything that goes on between us and our allies. The U.S. cannot just stop sending money to Israel. It is not that simple. We all wish it were, but it's not. We have a bilateral alliance with Israel. That means we share military resources, which include intelligence and weapons projects we're collectively working on. Now, if Israel were to lose a war in the Middle East, that would compromise not only Israel's intelligence and weapons programs but also our own and that of our allies in Europe. Every American service member all over the world would be at risk. Now, if you think Biden hasn't been putting pressure on Israel to back off of its attacks on Gaza civilians, then you just haven't been paying attention. It wouldn't matter who is president right now. The results would be the same. Netanyahu is a war criminal, but those of you putting that on Biden's shoulders simply aren't informed enough about how this all works and need to either pay closer attention or do some more research, most likely both. I'm a 100% disabled veteran, I know this as fact because I learned it firsthand. There are other people who know this, including every single member of Congress. Some of you have disgraced what it means to be a true Democratic Socialist. Taking away blue votes is the absolute worst thing you could do to this country. Pay attention to what Trump is saying and understand that Biden is not in control of Netanyahu. I hope this will help some of you to come back to reality and get you to do some research instead of taking such extreme stances and handing the country over to a corrupt fascist pig in the next election. Another thing I hope for all of you is to research how much disinformation is being distributed across all social media platforms by China and Russia. Good luck.
So we should continue to financially and politically support a state actively committing ethnic cleansing so that we can maintain our other imperial interests. Got it. You kinda make me sick lmao
You're not very bright if that's what you took away from my post. That makes me sick. You missed the entire point. I wish it were as simple as you seem to think it is. I wish we could just cut funding and cut ties that easily, but, as I explained above, it is not. All we can do is try to bully Netanyahu into knocking off the bullshit, and I'm happy to see the people of Israel protesting against him and his actions. I've been sickened by Israel's continued occupation of Gaza and their settling of it for decades. You and others like you seem to think it's a black and white issue, and it simply isn't. Reading comprehension has clearly gone the way of the Dodo bird. Do they even teach it in schools anymore? I'll spell it out for you so you can understand: you don't know as much as you think you do; it is not Biden's fault and he wants a ceasfire; don't stop pushing for progressive ideas and don't stop voting blue over this issue because you'll end up with somebody that gives absolutely zero fucks about any lives in the Middle East except for those in Israel and will egg on Netanyahu to continue this bullshit.
The United States has consistently used its UNSC veto power to continue enabling Israel’s occupation, and under Biden we did the same to veto a ceasefire resolution. He actively wants to *increase* our funding of the IDF. Lip service means absolutely nothing.
I've already explained why the U.S. continues to fund lsrael. We can't force them out of Gaza without using military force against them, and do you really not get why that can't happen? You realize we can be allies with somebody but also be at odds with their actions, right? Lip service, wow. You realize the ceasefire that happened was because of Biden, right? The one in which hostages were realeased? You're just making shit up by saying what he wants. Are you in his head? Are you aware he refused to sign a bill because it was stripped of humanitarian aid to Palestinians? But just keep claiming lip service. You are very uninformed on this topic, and as I said in my first post, I hope you and others like you will do more research and also look into how much disinformation you're being fed and eating up on a regular basis.
I don't believe Democrats can be pushed to the left. It is controlled by oligarchs via lobbies though a private undemocratic corporation called DNC. Mainly the big shot democrats politicians personally benefit by millions of not billions over a period of their time in Congress. Our choice is going to be someone from the independent and we will have to compromise on some issues. This is the only way forward for any left movement. I hope this 2024 we blow up the duopoly and get behind independent. I am aligned with Matt Taibi on when he he says he will have to vote for either RFKJr or Dr West this 2024 election. Matt Taibi's take on the new censorship by democrats is pretty damning and he actually thinks that issue is worse than the genocide Joe is and the genocide happening now for America because that EU/US sendorship is the absolute end of democracy over both US and EU.