Is it wrong to support social democrats in their electoral pursuits, though? Outside of leftist circles, nobody was really talking about things like M4A or labor rights before Bernie and AOC became household names.
I'm not suggesting we invest a ton of energy into any of these politicians, nor am I suggesting we avoid criticizing them on their bad takes - especially when it comes to foreign policy. I just think that until a viable leftist alternative exists, it is still worth offering token support in order to amplify the issues that matter to us.
In a vacuum I think it's fine. Bernie especially helped expand the political imagination in the US a great deal (it helps that his rhetoric was often implicitly steeped in terms of class war). There's definitely a case to be made that AOC and reformists like her are an actual path to the "harm reduction" the pro-Biden camp has been pitching - I tend not to be super dogmatic about tactics, and I do think there's some room for demsoc reformism.
That said, anecdotally speaking, I have witnessed the frustration organizers on the ground feel when they try to do work outside of the electoral sphere - in actual practice, in nominally socialist orgs with limited resources, I've gotten the sense that electoralism can genuinely funnel resources away from more other types of efforts, and back into the Democratic party. So it's a tricky question, and I certainly don't have the answers!
Is it wrong to support social democrats in their electoral pursuits, though? Outside of leftist circles, nobody was really talking about things like M4A or labor rights before Bernie and AOC became household names.
I'm not suggesting we invest a ton of energy into any of these politicians, nor am I suggesting we avoid criticizing them on their bad takes - especially when it comes to foreign policy. I just think that until a viable leftist alternative exists, it is still worth offering token support in order to amplify the issues that matter to us.
In a vacuum I think it's fine. Bernie especially helped expand the political imagination in the US a great deal (it helps that his rhetoric was often implicitly steeped in terms of class war). There's definitely a case to be made that AOC and reformists like her are an actual path to the "harm reduction" the pro-Biden camp has been pitching - I tend not to be super dogmatic about tactics, and I do think there's some room for demsoc reformism.
That said, anecdotally speaking, I have witnessed the frustration organizers on the ground feel when they try to do work outside of the electoral sphere - in actual practice, in nominally socialist orgs with limited resources, I've gotten the sense that electoralism can genuinely funnel resources away from more other types of efforts, and back into the Democratic party. So it's a tricky question, and I certainly don't have the answers!