It's not that avoiding elections altogether is necessarily the correct approach, but this is just one more example of AOC and her co-thinkers doing electoral politics wrong. We desperately need more independent socialist candidates with a sober, correct understanding of the fact that if they win seats they're fighting on the enemy's turf and shouldn't join any coalitions with libs or liquidate themselves under a liberal or popular-frontist banner. By operating within the same party, AOC and friends have repeatedly had to bend the knee to Pelosi and the neoliberal clique.
Who the fuck is we? We're not anybody. We are an undifferentiated mass of political consumers. We have no shape or political will and no ability to express that will even if it did exist. This chart might as well be a ranking list for people's fantasy football leagues, it doesn't mean anything for you and me and we have no way to impact it.
Not only should we disregard whatever the hell AOC and other entryists are doing, but we also crucially stop acting like passive consumers of politics and actually learn to participate in politics and build a power base for the working class, starting from the local scale and working up from there. Even if you're stuck at home and mostly socially atomized, you can still spread Marxist agitprop through social media to plant seeds in the minds of liberal workers who might radicalize a few years from now. If you're in an org, make sure that org can publish editorials on a consistent basis. A century ago it was standard for Marxist groups to publish their own newspapers and pamphlets, and some still literally do this in addition to maintaining their own websites with archives of their public material. Putting up leaflets is also a good tactic for raising a Marxist banner, making passersby aware that your org exists in their community. Joining an org while also belonging to a trade union allows you to "sink roots" into the working class, linking up union rank-and-file with a potentially revolutionary movement and potential revolutionary party. Once we're organized enough at the local level and have community support from local workers, we can start running independent working-class candidates, using a strategy similar to that of Kshama Sawant in Seattle (minus the counterproductive cheerleading for Dem entryism, of course).
We are an undifferentiated mass of political consumers. We have no shape or political will and no ability to express that will even if it did exist.
The point of my lengthy response was to point towards actions and a path socialists can take right now to start working on solving this problem. You said we're currently too disorganized to make a difference, which is correct. The solution is to start organizing and attracting workers towards a Marxist banner in a disciplined and principled fashion, including taking the steps I outlined, so that at a later time we will have the power to make a difference. Like earlier generations of Marxists we should plant the seeds of trees whose fruit and shade we might not live to enjoy, but which our descendants will.
It's not that avoiding elections altogether is necessarily the correct approach, but this is just one more example of AOC and her co-thinkers doing electoral politics wrong. We desperately need more independent socialist candidates with a sober, correct understanding of the fact that if they win seats they're fighting on the enemy's turf and shouldn't join any coalitions with libs or liquidate themselves under a liberal or popular-frontist banner. By operating within the same party, AOC and friends have repeatedly had to bend the knee to Pelosi and the neoliberal clique.
Who the fuck is we? We're not anybody. We are an undifferentiated mass of political consumers. We have no shape or political will and no ability to express that will even if it did exist. This chart might as well be a ranking list for people's fantasy football leagues, it doesn't mean anything for you and me and we have no way to impact it.
By "we", I mean the US working class, and the fledgling socialist movements and organizations that can grow and eventually be in a position to lead working-class struggle without sabotage or intervention from Democrats or other NGO/petty-bourgie/class-collaborationist element. The potential to building an independent workers' party, capable of running independent socialist candidates who fight exclusively for the working class and cannot be bought out by capitalists, exists. Everyone on this website reading this can and should be seeking ways to organize independent working-class coalitions, and to operate only on a united-front basis with misled succdem and entryist groups (e.g. Sunrise, DSA) rather than a popular-frontist one, including in our own communities.
Not only should we disregard whatever the hell AOC and other entryists are doing, but we also crucially stop acting like passive consumers of politics and actually learn to participate in politics and build a power base for the working class, starting from the local scale and working up from there. Even if you're stuck at home and mostly socially atomized, you can still spread Marxist agitprop through social media to plant seeds in the minds of liberal workers who might radicalize a few years from now. If you're in an org, make sure that org can publish editorials on a consistent basis. A century ago it was standard for Marxist groups to publish their own newspapers and pamphlets, and some still literally do this in addition to maintaining their own websites with archives of their public material. Putting up leaflets is also a good tactic for raising a Marxist banner, making passersby aware that your org exists in their community. Joining an org while also belonging to a trade union allows you to "sink roots" into the working class, linking up union rank-and-file with a potentially revolutionary movement and potential revolutionary party. Once we're organized enough at the local level and have community support from local workers, we can start running independent working-class candidates, using a strategy similar to that of Kshama Sawant in Seattle (minus the counterproductive cheerleading for Dem entryism, of course).
This is good. Everything else is bad. I have spoken
The point of my lengthy response was to point towards actions and a path socialists can take right now to start working on solving this problem. You said we're currently too disorganized to make a difference, which is correct. The solution is to start organizing and attracting workers towards a Marxist banner in a disciplined and principled fashion, including taking the steps I outlined, so that at a later time we will have the power to make a difference. Like earlier generations of Marxists we should plant the seeds of trees whose fruit and shade we might not live to enjoy, but which our descendants will.
Yes, you're right