If we're going to wait for the political system to embrace ranked choice, we might as well wait for the Sun to become a red dwarf and swallow the Earth. If ranked choice is what's necessary for a third party to get off the ground, that is exactly the reason why we'll never live to see the day.
Getting politicians elected to bourgeois parliamentary bodies is not the only purpose of a political party. Only in the US with our utterly bankrupt political imagination do we think like this. If we determine a third party is necessary (it is) but we limit ourselves to thinking only in terms of electoral strategy, we will never escape this stalemate. This is the thinking which leads to the situation the Green Party finds itself in today. The Green Party mistakes the tactic of running in elections for a fully fledged strategy.
But a party serves other important functions. Functions that will prove essential whether or not electoral victory is ever achieved. As a membership organization, the party is capable of gauging the size of its support base. It is capable of synthesizing the needs and desires of its constituents into a coherent party line, turning around, and using that party line as the basis of further political education. It is capable of reliably disseminating news about the bleeding edge of the struggle - news that would otherwise be buried by the bourgeois institutions. It is capable of rapid mobilization. It is capable of reacting to unfolding events with a level of agility not found among disorganized masses of alienated people. It is capable of dialing the temperature up or down strategically, instead of being caught helplessly in the tides of spontaneous discontent. The party is the backbone of the workers movement. Call it a party like the MLs, call it a union like the IWW, call it an organization like the DSA, call it a federation like the Syndicalists. The labels don't matter. What matters is the strategic refinement of the worker's struggle into the sharpened tip of a spear. To focus the glowing rage of the proletariat like a magnifying glass focuses the Sun's rays into a scorching pinpoint.
Running elections is a tactic, not a strategy. We should view running elections the same way we view smashing the windows of gentrified boulevards. It is a means of growing the cracks which already exist within society, nothing more, nothing less.
This is all true, but on the tactic of running campaigns to get socialists in office, that tactic itself can be a detrimental failure if those campaigns are always doomed to fail from the start. Putting resources and time and effort into only running failed campaigns doesnt win you anything, plenty of political parties have proven that over the past decades and have faded into obscurity. Also people mean different things when they say third party, most just mean it in the sense of a third party ballot line, because people think that "whats wrong" is that we "dont have the right politicians in charge", so they elevate the tactic of elections to that of a strategy and it becomes the goal of what they think it will take for us to win.
The main org that has shown a real strategic undertaking in the matter of building the socialist movement has been DSA, theyve been the only ones to grow substantially and undertake multiple tactics all while balancing the need to grow with the need to push for a socialist movement. People can shout all they want but these tactics work and theres of course a ton more to do, but theres a reason DSA doesnt run its own candidates as everyone is often demanding. I dont think we're anywhere near that level, it would only eat up time and resources which we could instead be spending now to grow by focusing on work that matters much more like labor and housing organizing.
The current moment needs people to come together and work collectively on strategies that build up the socialist movement, definitely not focus on third party ballot lines as some sort of neat trick to prove some point.
If we're going to wait for the political system to embrace ranked choice, we might as well wait for the Sun to become a red dwarf and swallow the Earth. If ranked choice is what's necessary for a third party to get off the ground, that is exactly the reason why we'll never live to see the day.
Getting politicians elected to bourgeois parliamentary bodies is not the only purpose of a political party. Only in the US with our utterly bankrupt political imagination do we think like this. If we determine a third party is necessary (it is) but we limit ourselves to thinking only in terms of electoral strategy, we will never escape this stalemate. This is the thinking which leads to the situation the Green Party finds itself in today. The Green Party mistakes the tactic of running in elections for a fully fledged strategy.
But a party serves other important functions. Functions that will prove essential whether or not electoral victory is ever achieved. As a membership organization, the party is capable of gauging the size of its support base. It is capable of synthesizing the needs and desires of its constituents into a coherent party line, turning around, and using that party line as the basis of further political education. It is capable of reliably disseminating news about the bleeding edge of the struggle - news that would otherwise be buried by the bourgeois institutions. It is capable of rapid mobilization. It is capable of reacting to unfolding events with a level of agility not found among disorganized masses of alienated people. It is capable of dialing the temperature up or down strategically, instead of being caught helplessly in the tides of spontaneous discontent. The party is the backbone of the workers movement. Call it a party like the MLs, call it a union like the IWW, call it an organization like the DSA, call it a federation like the Syndicalists. The labels don't matter. What matters is the strategic refinement of the worker's struggle into the sharpened tip of a spear. To focus the glowing rage of the proletariat like a magnifying glass focuses the Sun's rays into a scorching pinpoint.
Running elections is a tactic, not a strategy. We should view running elections the same way we view smashing the windows of gentrified boulevards. It is a means of growing the cracks which already exist within society, nothing more, nothing less.
This is all true, but on the tactic of running campaigns to get socialists in office, that tactic itself can be a detrimental failure if those campaigns are always doomed to fail from the start. Putting resources and time and effort into only running failed campaigns doesnt win you anything, plenty of political parties have proven that over the past decades and have faded into obscurity. Also people mean different things when they say third party, most just mean it in the sense of a third party ballot line, because people think that "whats wrong" is that we "dont have the right politicians in charge", so they elevate the tactic of elections to that of a strategy and it becomes the goal of what they think it will take for us to win.
The main org that has shown a real strategic undertaking in the matter of building the socialist movement has been DSA, theyve been the only ones to grow substantially and undertake multiple tactics all while balancing the need to grow with the need to push for a socialist movement. People can shout all they want but these tactics work and theres of course a ton more to do, but theres a reason DSA doesnt run its own candidates as everyone is often demanding. I dont think we're anywhere near that level, it would only eat up time and resources which we could instead be spending now to grow by focusing on work that matters much more like labor and housing organizing.
The current moment needs people to come together and work collectively on strategies that build up the socialist movement, definitely not focus on third party ballot lines as some sort of neat trick to prove some point.
Good ass take. But what do you mean by "growing the cracks which already exist"?
Probably referring to exploiting the ever growing symptoms of capitalist contradictions (hellworld getting more hellworldish)