• hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I didn't just say "Bernie got a bad break." I said he got bad breaks and the movement wasn't big enough to win anyways. His 2020 campaign was big enough that it had a real shot, but not so big that it couldn't be denied. The bigger you are, the less lucky you need to be.

      Whatever you call unions, they're a modest threat right now because so few people are in them. If they can gain enormous power even when they're illegal, then why are they so small right now? Union power has been on the decline for at least the last 70 years; over the same time there have been many significant electoral gains, and and the farthest-left presidential candidate since Debs just came within shouting distance of the White House. It makes no sense to read the former as promising and the latter as hopeless.

      unions for any flaws have an inherent power to them

      And the President of the United States doesn't have inherent power?

        • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Let me get this straight:

          • Despite only 5% of private sector employees being unionized, despite a decades-long trend of declining union power, and despite recent labor law changes that hurt unions, unionization is a far more promising path to socialism than
          • Electoralism, because despite Bernie coming damn close to winning the Democratic nomination, Nancy Pelosi would have just clapped him at the convention instead of letting that happen?

          These are bad takes.

          Chile

          The far more recent examples of leftist electoral success in Latin America are Chavez and Morales, and their projects are in their second decade and have survived numerous imperialist and reactionary attacks.

          The president is not inherently powerful

          Another take that's just awful on its face. I don't think we're going to get anywhere here.