I saw an official account using Lenin “telling the Bolsheviks to vote for liberals” to justify voting democrat too :data-laughing:
I saw an official account using Lenin “telling the Bolsheviks to vote for liberals” to justify voting democrat too :data-laughing:
They're not even doing electorialism right. If they want to play the electoral game, it makes far more sense to be a regional party that exclusively focuses on a particular state or particular region within a state. Instead of wasting people's time and money on presidential candidates that are guaranteed to fail, why not focus on mayoral and state legislature races? You can not possibly hope to match the two parties in resources for national elections, but for regional elections, it's possible to eke out a win be funneling everything on a particular local election that's considered unimportant by the two parties. This was what happened to Seattle city council with Sawant.
"Bourgeois elections can be used as a platform to advocate for socialism" doesn't mean you have to run for president. There's never going to be a socialist president or a socialist governor or even a socialist mayor for major cities like NYC or LA. But a city councilperson or member of a state legislature is actually doable. A mayoral or city council election is as much of a platform, and unlike running for president or governor, the viability of a third party means people would be more invested in the outcome and thus, more receptive towards what you're advocating for.
NYC did have a DSA member as mayor, David Dinkins from 1990 to 1993. Although on top of his name that sounds fictional, he was a cop apologist and generally sucked. Even still the city council worked against him and set up Guiliani to become mayor.
There was also Thomas Van Lear, socialist mayor of Minneapolis 1917 to 1919. He spent his entire time in office trying to stop the cops from killing everyone in a labor union. Then he lost his re-election and became a liberal cheerleader for Woodrow Wilson.
you're right that any electoral victories gotta focus on the lower offices first. Getting to executive offices is pointless if there's no base of support.
The DSA is kind of doing that in Chicago. They had six people on city council, out of 50, but one guy got booted from DSA because he voted to approve the cop school our dumb ass mayor wants to build.
That's actually a good look from the Chicago DSA. Any American socialist party is screwed if it doesn't have the ability and willingness to expel representatives that go against the party line.
This may be news to you, but the Democratic party participates in municipal and state level elections, and using your voice in those elections and primaries can get socialist ideas and policies recognition