• mrbigcheese [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Ill say its somewhat disrespectful to dismiss the real work that thousands of comrades are putting in to win these races across the country. Youd have to be delusional to not understand the necessity of continuing to win these races on all levels of government in terms of a broader movement building strategy. If nyc-dsa loses these city council races next week that leads to killed momentum, burnout, bad pr, and demoralization. These races, especially the tougher ones, are important in building regional influence and power and can act as a hub for organizing efforts, as well as help develop independent working class politics. People arent doing this cause they think we're gonna turn the US socialist by electing politicians, its just a necessary reality that can't be ignored, and glossing over the huge benefits that come with it is just purposefully obtuse. Thanks for stopping by for my rant.

      • mrbigcheese [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I think this is a misread of tactics, strategy, and reasoning behind them. Yes, these elections are indispensable to building up the larger movement, which is the same for latin america, but there isnt really a large basis in DSA for believing that socialism will come about directly through just winning enough seats or something, I think everyone understands that these electoral systems completely negate any such strategy in the long term. Theres people that think elections serve different purposes, some people do want to take hold of certain aspects of state power, which i think is probably misguided. I think also theres lots of differences across the US though, and lots of varying conditions to what should or shouldnt be undertaken as strategy.

          • mrbigcheese [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            I'm involved with the communist caucuses in DSA and people definitely talk about revolution all the time, but lets be serious here Americans are incompetent and the left is barely just starting to get organized in some cohesive ways. We can barely organize a large meeting, what makes anyone think anything on the scale of civil war that happened in Russia and China would ever work here? Maybe if our hand is really forced at some point through some huge internal conflict in the US there would be no other choice, but our goal now has to be to organize the left and build up the movement in order to have some semblance of collective class power we can wield in some way and work to sabotage the empire from the inside. The US is sooner to break down and collapse in on itself than for some socialist movement to lead a revolution. Realistically we need to look at countries in latin america and what socialist parties there are doing today to really replicate some of their successes whos tactics and strategies can apply here too.

              • mrbigcheese [he/him]
                ·
                3 years ago

                I think its understandable that people wouldnt be able to know whats to come, none of us here know either, theres only tactics and strategies to be undertaken to build towards collective class power. How that ultimately plays out isnt really in our control, theres just too many variables to know what could happen. Id say for at least 5 years its pretty clear what we have to do though.