- cross-posted to:
- usa@midwest.social
- pravda_news@news.abolish.capital
- cross-posted to:
- usa@midwest.social
- pravda_news@news.abolish.capital
cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/6600
Mayor-elect of New York bows to “national security.” Will it last?
From Ken Klippenstein via This RSS Feed.
I never said otherwise. That again doesn’t mean it’s a good thing for socialist candidates to defect to liberal parties.
You’re pretty strongly implying that the reason he’s doing this is because he ran as a Democrat. I just don’t think that’s true.
I really don’t think I am. I’m literally just saying that he is compromised and that the fact he ran as a democrat is indicative of that. I said nothing about causality. You are replying to a comment chain where I said:
Painting that as “pretty strongly implying that the reason he’s doing this is because he ran as a Democrat” feels borderline disingenuous tbqh.
Interesting, I actually do think running as a Democrat is a way to become compromised. I think theParty gobbles up radicals and recuperates them into good little progressives willing to work within the system. AOC (for example) probably didn’t start out as a careerist climber piece of shit class traitor, that’s just how she’s been metabolized and shat out by the Party.
I just don’t think it matters either, a radical would behave the same way if they were working entirely within electoralism. He needed to train up cadres of militant supporters this whole time to defend him and his family from the NYPD, but he did not, and so now he’s going to capitulate because he did not prepare for militant struggle and he doesn’t want to die or see his family killed.
The specific party is less important than the political strategy; pure electoralism will produce the same result, no matter the party.
I also didn’t say that joining the Dems is not a way to become compromised. You’re assigning meaning to my words that isn’t there. I am not talking about a causal relationship. Whether one becomes compromised by joining the democrats or joins the democrats because they have become compromised doesn’t matter, and I would bet that both have happened in different instances. Either way the individual is compromised and wouldn’t be running as a democrat if that weren’t the case. And yes exactly, that’s one of many reasons why “pure electoralism” is not socialist praxis, by just running for election, he’s not being a socialist. That’s why, even though workers may receive some concessions which would absolutely be a good thing, this isn’t a socialist victory. That’s been basically my point all along. In this instance the fact he is running as a democrat makes it clear he’s not running as a socialist, but it’s not causal and not the only way to get this outcome.
Keep in mind I am talking about Zohran Mamdani, who is running with the Dems, and not making a broader point about running as a democrat.
Okay, but you are definitely saying all Democrats are compromised. My point is that it’s irrelevant. He would be behaving the same if he wasn’t compromised, because there’s a gun to his head and he doesn’t have any guns on his side. Trying to read the truth of his heart isn’t important to me, I’m more focused on the material conditions that are causing him to capitulate.
Well yes, any socialist who runs with the democrats is compromised, I don’t think that’s particularly controversial. As I say, the Dems won’t let you run on their ticket if you’re planning anything cool. I’m not talking about what’s in anyone’s heart because it’s totally irrelevant. If I had to speculate I would in fact say that I think Mamdani is probably entirely sincere in his political beliefs. I don’t think he’s a Bad Man who is doing what the cops say because of some internal moral failing. But his actions are compromising. A theoretical candidate who ran with DSA or as an independent or whatever who capitulated due to a gun to their head is also compromised. It’s the action that matters. All I am getting at is that if someone is running as a democrat it shouldn’t be surprising when they are compromised, because the democrats are a bourgeois political party. One of the reasons it exists is to stymie socialist efforts.
And what I’m getting at is it’s not actually the specific party that is the problem, it’s the material conditions of being occupied by the largest paramilitary in the world. It would be the same no matter what party he ran under, which tell me that being a Democrat isn’t actually noteworthy.
Until any socialist electeds, DSA or otherwise, engage with the non-electoral terrain they will always be forced into compromise by these material conditions.
Okay. Again, I’ve specified I am talking about this one particular situation and not more generally:
That I am not saying there’s anything particularly noteworthy about running as a democrat:
And indeed that there are other things a politician would need to do to defy the liberal ptb:
“Building a worker’s party” would (I think obviously) also entail building whatever organisations are required to make that worker’s party effective. That would include a paramilitary and historically it has.
At no point have I been saying that it’s anything other than material conditions. In fact my first comment said as much:
I also implicitly acknowledged the role of state violence in a later reply:
Now I realise I didn’t say it word for word but I thought that made it pretty clear that I know he’s capitulating due to the threat of violence. Mamdani is running as a democrat precisely because he is not being a good materialist and isn’t working in line with a material analysis, which is the same reason that he wasn’t prepared to deal with threats from the police. It is, as I have acknowledged repeatedly, a symptom of his circumstances, not the cause of his behaviour. The only way in which it is “noteworthy” that he was elected on a democratic ticket is that anyone running as a democrat definitely hasn’t done the work required to defy the NYPD. Just because anyone else who hadn’t done that work would also cave doesn’t mean the fact he ran as a democrat tells us nothing. It does. It’s a symptom of the same problem that leaves him vulnerable to the NYPD.