"We applaud the democratic revolutions that have transformed the former Communist bloc"
I love the rising wave of neo-fascism in eastern europe - National DSA
(many DSA chapters are good and based ok, this post is dunking on the National DSA, not all chapters or the DSA on its entirety)
So most people will be satisfied with the bare minimum answer, which was given and has been given by orgs distancing themselves from the ussr and authoritarian communism or whataver for decades now. By the most popular politician in the country who's retoric was exactly what you say the dsa needs to focus on as a first step in building a mass movement. The point is that they chose to go above and beyond with anti-communist lies without even being asked to and in a question that has been asked and answered a million times with just political bullshit. Jumping at the chance of Propagating and regurgitating anti-communist talking points while pretending that thats a compromised answer you had to give and not something that represents actual core characteristics of larg parts of the org but also saying "this is open tent and its a conversation for later" isnt at all convincing. I attack it as something that shows the the anti-communist brainworms that are rotting big parts of the dsa and the american organized left, i dont consider this as pretending to be anti-communist and give that answer cause its the only prgamatic thing (again this isnt even true, could have been way better) but as actualy outlining what they think the basic beliefs of the org is and should be
Bernie focused almost entirely on domestic policies. When he did defend a socialist state even in the tamest possible way -- saying that Cuba had good healthcare and education -- he got roasted for a week in the middle of a tight primary race.
Their answer is basically what you'd hear in an 8th-grade history class; it's far from "above and beyond."
and the dsa at large isnt ?
and literally took zero hit in the polls around that time or lost noticable support due to that. Something that was 1000% more pushed in the media than if the DSA toned down the anticommunism in simmilar answers. Also did you read anywhere me saying that the dsa should have been positive about the ussr actualy ?
which is above and beyond when you literally arent asked to sing a joyfull memoriam for the fall of communism
It was a week and in the middle of a rapidly-changing primary -- polling isn't going to say anything useful about that. But we know that propaganda works, and that his Cuba comment earned him a ton of critical propaganda, and that his support was ultimately revealed to not be firmly entrenched.
How do you think they should answer the #1 anticommunist talking point, if not in the way they did?
This can be either demsoc believing this or power level hiding
"It doesn't discredit it cause first of all socialism doesn't mean the Soviet system . It has a huge history with dozens schools of thought with dem socialism being one that always critiqued the USSR, existed before it and had nothing to do with the way that system was set up and run. The reasons the Soviet system collapsed have nothing to do our socialist policy positions of freehealthcare, racial and economic justice, equality and democracy in the workplace, things that democratic socialism always stood for and attacked the USSR for not having by the way
If a completely different system in a completely different country and conditions collapsed for much different reasons would that mean that we should stop our struggle for those goals I mentioned"
That would be an improvement over the DSA's current answer, but it still doesn't make their approach bad. They're basically punting on a topic most people don't care about anyway.