I have only seen national DSA leadership oppose the idea or turn it into a personality contest with Jimmy Dore.
How is that democratic at all?! They are openly contradicting the democratically-decided party line…
What an absolutely shit organization.
Here's the quote:
2019 presents a unique opportunity for the Democratic Socialists for Medicare for All campaign: to be a key player in pushing HR 1384, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, to a vote in the House of Representatives. DSA is not alone in this work. National Nurses United, along with nearly 30 other national and local unions and progressive organizations are coordinating to take advantage of this moment. Since Bernie Sanders’ presidential run in 2016, single-payer advocates have been successfully turning Medicare for All into a litmus test for politicians. A floor vote in the House will force representatives to finally reveal whether they’re on the side of healthcare profiteers or the side of the working class.
This doesn't make me think it's a good idea, it just makes me think the DSA is also a bunch of libs.
EDIT: I take it back. Apparently the DSA plan was to actually have an organized movement that could exert pressure before they tried to force a vote. You know, so that they had actual leverage. Unlike the libs behind #ForcetheVote, that's actually a better plan.
Yeah, this makes me think less of DSA leadership, but it doesn't make me think any more of forcing a vote that is guaranteed not to pass. It's certainly nothing worth tearing anyone down over.
Like, we just had the House pass a bill on decriminalizing marijuana. That actually passed, and the benefits were marginal. It's not going to get us federally decriminalized marijuana anytime soon.
No, it makes me think less of the DSA for thinking that forcing a floor vote will do anything. That's the lib shit I'm talking about. The Spectacle won't create a socialist movement. The left has been doing the same "Oh, were going expose them and then everyone will know the truth" for decades and it doesn't work. Knowledge isn't power and the truth won't set you free.
I really don't understand this perspective.
If M4A was going to be voted on, it'd give socialists any opportunity to advocate for M4A in their lives.
Already, this fight for M4A has helped me engage politically with people in my life. My parents and a couple friends have been much more receptive to M4A since the pandemic started.
People need healthcare, regardless of the Congressional agenda. If you are only able to effectively organize based on whether or not something is going to get a vote in Congress, that's a reflection on you.
People want a concrete political project to support.
The conversation around M4A was much more lively in political organizations, unions, and in my personal life during the Democratic Primary. That is because there was a national political project advocating for M4A immediately.
And where is that concrete political project now? Where are the political organizations, unions, and presidential campaigns?
They don't exist and/or aren't organized and coordinated enough to do anything that would materially impact the world in this fight. And instead of starting there, with the unsexy work of building the foundation necessary to have the fight, the people so invested in pushing this have adopted a Field of Dreams strategy wherein "If we struggle, they will come," despite decades of evidence that jumping to the end and having the fight before you have the proverbial army doesn't work.
The purpose of organizing to turn unorganized mass discontent into organized political action. The demand for M4A immediately has been wildly popular within the progressive base. But the progressive institutions are opposed to the tactic.
Organizers who are willing to listen to and learn from the people are working to provide this unorganized mass a political organization to advocate for their needs.
The Slack channel is up to 2,000 people in it after a couple days. It’s more active than any other political organizing space I am in right now.
Yes, of course, M4A is so widely popular with Americans and they are so organized in that effort that...wait, who won the Democratic primary? I can't remember, was it the guy whose campaign was centered around M4A?
Let me know when you get Joe Biden to join your Slack channel, because it ain't going to accomplish shit otherwise. It will be dead in a month when the posters and youtubers behind it abandon it a month from now and move on to something that gets better engagement
"The end goal of my organizing is to lead the Democratic Party"
Stop telling on yourself. It's embarrassing.
The channel, maybe. It depends on how people to continue to utilize it. I've made some pretty useful political connections in this channel I plan to keep.
Lmao, make up your fucking mind. Do you want to force M4A through the government or not? How infested are you with brainworms? You aren't going to organize anything close to a movement on that Slack. Now you are somehow planning on getting M4A passed without Joe Biden signing it. Amazing
Careerist Alert
I want to work with people who are struggling for the progressive issue of getting people health care during a pandemic.
I do not expect this strategy will succeed. I don't expect health care will be guaranteed to people until there is a socialist revolution here.
I didn't expect the Bernie campaign would get him elected. I didn't expect the BLM protests to overthrow the police states across this country. I engaged with these struggle to meet progressive-minded people, and guide them towards political strategies which have been proven to work.
I don't get paid for this shit you fucking dweeb. I work full-time. If building political power is too "careerist" for you, stop positioning yourself as someone worth working with. Just admit Left-wing politics is a counter-culture for you.
Well then you should go work with some labor organizers, because you aren't going to meet anyone who can actually achieve anything on on that Slack, just more posters.
Lmao, yeah, because all of the social democratic countries that have actual universal healthcare had successful socialist revolutions. This is sentence is truly emblematic of the problems with this movement. You literally romaticize and dream of defeat before you have even started the task. Truly the mark of a rudderless "movement" of posters.
"Excuse me, dont't get mad at me that I'm networking on Slack instead of doing something useful."
Please, tell me more about how you romanticize the defeat of this movement, and tellme again which of us views this as a cultural engagement.
I am. Both before and after this issue.
There are literal union organizers on the Slack lol
I don't understand your desire to infantilize people trying to advocate for health care in a pandemic.
They had successful socialist revolutions within 500 miles of their borders. If Mexico and Canada become the next Soviet bloc, I'll revise my statement.
Coordinating with progressive-minded people is actually not useful. Again, this isn't a counter-culture.
Oh damn, y'all got the Burgerville guys?
I'm looking on a map, but I can't seem to find the socialist revolution that happened withing 500 miles of the 90% of Canadians that live withing 100 miles of the US border. Was there one in Greenland? I guess that would explain how Iceland has universal healthcare as well. Ireland and the UK are coming up a bit tricky to explain, though.
There it is, now you got it.
Condescending to workers is always the end-game for Liberals 🤡
Lol more bad faith argumentation from the #ForcetheVote crowd, who are unwilling to admit they have no power and no actual plan to build it.
Ah yes, I'm the one acting in bad faith lol
You have been a condescending prick this entire thread.
You hate the unruly masses desperately trying to get basic access to health care during a pandemic. That has been your response to every comment. You will just condescend to these people. They are just a "crowd" with "no actual plan."
It's crazy how the right-wing jobs against Bernie now get regurgitated uncritically. It is astounding to see.
You have literally been condescending to every person in this thread who dares point out how this strategy is empty liberalism, and you deserve nothing but condescendion in return.
No, I hate college educated liberals like you, who are more interested in pumping up their followers on Twitter and showing how revolutionary you are through the discourse than actually doing anything to actually build power. Because you just want to post on the fucking internet about how revolutionary you are and yell at anyone who dares point our the most obvious flaws in your "plans", material circumstances be damned! You and the libs like you couldn't organize a fucking bake sale. That's why you can't get the working class to buy into any of your horrible strategies: you are incapable of delivering even the meagerest of material victories for them, so instead you set your eyes on goals you openly tell them are unachievable, and expect them to show up with you and bask in beautiful defeat.
My first comment in this thread. I don't see anything particularly condescending here. I want to work with people who want to fight for health care during a pandemic.
Your response to me.
I can read. You have been a condescending prick from the beginning.
You are projecting a lot of weird hang-ups you have onto me. It's weird. Your rant here is embarrassing.
You're begging me to dox my political and labor work to demonstrate that normal people support an unequivocal demand for health care during a pandemic. I can't think of any other reason to say slanderous shit about me.
Your actual first condescending comment in the thread, wherein you purposely misrepresent the strategy that had been put forward, in which the plan to force the vote came at the end of the strategy after the power necessary to actually leverage it had been built, not jump right to the vote and hope that a movement would magically coalesce around it like a cargo cult.
Lol, no, I'm not the ultra here. I'm the one interested in building actual working class power and helping deliver real concrete gains for the working class. And I know from my life that takes a lot of dirty, boring, unsexy work that people like you aren't willing to do.
Lmao, get over yourself. You are trying to run a influence op on the Democratic party. You don't do anything worth knowing about.
Stop trying to equate this with the idea that they support your or believe in your because of it.
I'm calling out people who are openly contradicting a political line the DSA decided on in 2019. This was not "after a campaign." The forced vote is clearly mentioned in the introduction, with no prerequisites. The only change is that DSA-affiliates can force a M4A vote now.
I'm not condescending here. I'm openly voicing my disdain for the unaccountability in DSA.
Somehow demanding that Congress provide people health care in a pandemic is contradictory with any other type of organizing?
How is this an influence op for Democrats? It is rejected by every Democrat besides Lee Carter.
Also, if you hate anything that may look like an "influence op for Democrats", I'm really curious what your involvement in the labor movement looks like. 90% of labor unions would be beyond the pale.
Meanwhile you post self-flagellating garbage like "[I'm] building actual working class power and helping deliver real concrete gains for the working class." You can do that while advocating people get health care during a pandemic.
You're absolutely right about everything in this discussion.
This entire situation has been so jarring.
I'm saying the exact same things DSA & the DSA-affiliates in Congress were saying six months ago. The only thing that has changed is that the DSA-affiliates have the political power to force a vote on M4A.
I'm getting major 2008 vibes these days, when DSA gave cover for Obama.
I didn't know they did that, seeing what's happening, that's not very promising.
I do want to make the nuance that a lot of people in DSA seem to be supporting this, and DSA before and after Bernie's 2016 run is a different organisation.
Anyway, I made my initial comment because I thought it was unfair that you got so much vitriol for simply defending an idea that I thought that was already accepted on the left.
Yeah, it's the DSA-affiliates in elected office, news outlets like Jacobin, and progressive think tanks have had a lot of influence setting the narrative.
The rank-and-file has either been supportive or misinformed. Most people were unaware that AOC & DSA have advocated a floor vote for years.
I appreciate it.
Almost everyone on this site is a comrade in one form or another. There's no reason to say such condescending things towards people you disagree with here. Make your critiques in a constructive manner instead of making personal attacks on people.
Sorry I called you what you are.
You weren't talking to me, I was just abhorred by the contempt you show for comrades you disagree with.
Here's a little bit of Mao for you, from "combat liberalism ":
"To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly. Is a fifth type [of liberalism]."
Great, no go yell and tweet that at all the people like OP who are calling everyone who disagree with their dumb strategy traitors to the working class. I was nice about it two weeks ago and explained why this is a bad strategy. I'm not being nice anymore to them, or to people like you who try to defend them when there is an actual event unfolding right now showing that their strategy is ineffective.
Because people wanted to get "Cheeto mussolini" out of the white house and voted on the basis of electability. The circumstances are different now.
This specific statement sounds like you have no believe whatsoever in the capacity of the US working class to be engaged in a struggle to improve their material conditions, and that is, in all earnesty, a form of liberalism.
No, I believe that the working class has the capacity to engage in struggle to improve their material conditions. What I don't believe is that people like you or the person I was responding to are in any way capable or organizing them to that end.
Ad hominem attacks, very nice.
Anything else, Ben?
Hey, hi, how do you propose getting people healthcare in the immediate future without any sort of congressional vote?
Hey, hi, how do you propose getting a vote to pass when the strongest tool you have is tweeting?
lib shit is sitting there and not exercising your influence. Forcing a vote lets the left see who's against med4all, and who needs to be primaried.
No it doesn't. We already fucking did this with all the cosponsors on the M4A bill. We just did it again with the House voting for $2K. It's not getting passed in the Senate and it takes 11 of 18 Blue Dogs to kill it in the House. In the time that you could have actually been working on something useful with power behind it, we will have instead put a bunch of effort into tearing each other apart over a meaningless gesture. When Nancy Pelosi votes for M4A because she can knowing it won't pass, what are you going to say when the libs say "Uh, actually, Pelosi is a progressive sweaty, she voted for M4A"?
Kamala harris was a m4a cosponsor too
Just wait, y'all. Kamala is gonna push Joe left on M4A. Any day now.
Good points.