This is great! Can’t wait for him to no be able to do anything due to gridlock from the NYC democratic party machine and have to capitulate constantly, and then the massive Centrist Lib media apparatus will blame every problem plaguing NYC (even if the problems predated his mayoralship) which will give the Dem establishment more ammunition to blame all their woes on the progressive wing of the party and sell disenfranchised urban poor voters on establishment Dems.
Really a big fucking win for us. Letting the city sink under and establishment Dem was totally not the smarter fucking move.
Also if anyone calls me a doomer for this take I’ll be recording your usernames and asking you how you feel about this post in a year from now.
Is he doing socialist organizing? Or is this just an electoral campaign?
Electoralism is fine as a tactic in a larger strategy, but if the entire strategy is just electoralism it’s doomed to fail. There has to be a larger revolutionary project at work.
The only way we get to that project is through organizing, and delivering concrete wins for people so they trust us. I will judge Mamdani on whether he delivers on his promises. I understand being skeptical, but DSA and Future Mayor Mamdani are putting in the work of organizing, showing people that a better world is possible.
But is he doing socialist organizing?
Election campaigns can be a tactic, like I said, but if that’s the extent of his organizing then it can’t accomplish anything else other than temporary electoral wins.
This is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, delivering concrete wins purely through electoralism alone is absolutely impossible. If he doesn’t have a larger strategy, other tactics to fall back on besides getting elected, then he’s just going to run headfirst into the obstacles outlined in the OP.
Is there any strategy outside getting elected?
The rent freeze on subsidized housing is something that Mamdani can deliver day one. No possibility of interference from the reactionaries. As others in this thread have pointed out, Mamdani and DSA strategy also builds class consciousness.
I get where you are coming from, but I think that delivering these wins is itself the strategy. Just keep fighting, and we’ll get there.
Electoral strategy builds electoral consciousness. It seems to me that voters can’t imagine doing anything other than voting - that’s a serious problem!
A rent freeze would rule tho
NYC-DSA has seen a massive increase in members during his campaign. His campaign has created more socialists that have joined a political party. For socialists in the current environment, I think that’s one of the best outcomes of electoralism.
DSA isn’t exactly a political party though as much as I wish it were. That said, I think it’s still good people are joining. There are a lot of political lessons people will never learn unless they actually get involved in organizing work.
if you want DSA to be a political party one way for that to happen is to have the chapters in places like NYC get really big.
maybe there’s a path where dems continue to be geriatric losers, PSL forms a vanguard, and major DSA chapters get a few normie wins like this one and they can legitimize the vanguard instead of repeating the mistakes of the SPD.
If DSA becomes something akin to say the Sunrise Movement where members are just volunteers and staff run the whole thing then it’s not going to legitimize any sort of future vanguard. This is a real risk because frankly most people joining DSA have more familiarity volunteering and running liberal non profits than they have experience with the real participatory democracy of a vanguard party. So yes it’s great if DSA can attract more members. However that’s not sufficient for it to be a meaningfully stepping stone towards socialism.
You are correct. I’m definitely speaking to my personal ambitions lol. DSA is in a stage where they’re trying to figure out what a successful socialist party in America looks like.
Is there a strategy to turn the DSA into a real Party outside the Democrats? Because unless there’s a plan to form a real Party they’re just sheepdogging.
I won’t bore you with all the details, but yes. The details are currently what’s being worked on, but there is a consensus among DSA leaders outside of the “right” caucuses that DSA needs to begin experimenting with operating as a fully independent political party where possible. I could write a longer post if you’re interested, but it would be mostly internal politics stuff.
Sorry, let me clarify.
Is Mamdani pursuing such a strategy?
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The problem is that DSA and Zohran are not actually organizing for anything other than getting Zohran elected. They do not work hand in hand nor are they likely to once he’s in office. This is pretty much a universal issue across all of DSA high profile elected officials. That often means DSA is used as a pool of eager volunteers for a campaign but nothing more. It also means that when the pressure to capitulate is particularly acute, DSA elected officials have a history of betraying some of DSA’s core values. AOC and Jamal Bowman are key examples here but it happens at the local level too. This all unfortunately means that people are never brought into DSA because candidates aren’t proud and open about their membership. It also generates a lot of internal strife within DSA which causes a lot of good organizers to burn out and leave the organization. Neither of those things is good for the development of the socialist movement.
Just to be clear though this is meant as a constructive critique. It’s not unique to Zohran and it’s been a problem in DSA for years. They might resolve it but I’m not entirely sure they will or if Zohran’s win will help. That said, I still like DSA and Zohran. It’s pretty cool seeing a sex pest cretin humiliated by some social democratic muslim guy from queens. Even if this isn’t a stepping stone to socialism, I think it’s fine to celebrate. It’s kind of like watching cops pepper spray themselves or billionaires getting crushed in a wildly unsafe submarine. It just reminds you that the people with power are vulnerable and that’s always a good feeling.
yeah the DSA should be activating members for things even when elections aren’t on. maybe someone on his campaign staff is cool like that.
They need to do more than activate members though. They also need to engage members in the actual practice of running a party and making decisions together in a cordial and democratic way. People in the US generally have almost no experience doing anything like that which is unfortunate because it’s a necessary precondition for any kind of vanguard party.
Thing is, DSA had like 7,000 members throughout then 90s, 00s and early 10s. Since then elections that put socialism front and center have driven those numbers up above 70,000. I can say the chapter near me hasn’t spent any energy on elections this year, instead focusing on buying and forgiving medical debt and putting people on a picket line so local workers didn’t have to be there for 72 hours straight without any breaks. The fact that the primary was covered so widely and people were clapping for an avowed socialist is not nothing. But we should still temper our expectations.
I want to be clear, I think it’s totally okay for DSA to spend time on electoral campaigns. I even think it’s good actually even if some members still believe in the idea of voting their way to socialism. I just think they need to act more democratically and in a more coordinated fashion.