Some recent critiques levied at DSA's organizational strategies peddle in an aesthetic-radicalism that risks distracting the working-class from organizing itself into a disciplined political force.
What practical advances have the BLM protests accomplished? Have laws changed? Have police budgets been cut? Have murderous cops been brought to justice?
They accomplished precious little because the people who have the power to do these things still suck. We're not going to get any lasting changes made so long as local Democrats are third-hand Mayo Petes and national Democrats are John Hickenlooper clones. Entryism has made real progress in replacing those people, which is a prerequisite to improving anything.
It's more likely to happen than a revolution for sure, and it's probably more likely to happen than an approach relying on organized labor, too.
Everything's a long shot, but we have some DSA-endorsed people in office already, and there are historical examples of legislation that's eased the burden on workers.
The goal is a worker's state. There's evidence that you can make real progress towards this by winning elections -- look at Venezuela and Bolivia. And seeing as it's totally unrealistic to expect a revolution any time soon, and only marginally more realistic to expect an unprecedented (in America) level of organized labor power that leads to a solution, the many problems with electoral politics seem by far the most manageable.
No historical legislation easing the burden on workers has made it easier to achieve socialism.
If you take the boot off people's necks -- even just a little bit -- you've done two things to get us closer to socialism. First, you show people political improvements are possible (this is huge in a country that's so pervasively cynical about politics). Second, you give people more time/money/protection for further political activity.
And all of that is on top of the immediate material gain of whatever the "take the boot off the neck" improvement is by itself.
Venezuela and Bolivia aren't worker's states, but they're making progress in that direction, and they've done so despite significant opposition. They're not perfectly analogous to the U.S. in 2021, but they're probably a closer comparison than Cuba in 1959 or Russia in 1917.
I'm not denying that there are problems with electoral politics. You bring up plenty of good points. But the bottom line is that the other paths to socialism are even less likely to come to fruition.
When have the ruling interests really been scared of the US left? It hasn’t been often.
You know when they were most scared of the left? Under FDR. They didn't organize the Business Plot against the Black Panthers; they just shot them.
Of come on, FDR did not strike fundamental fear into the capitalist class.
They planned a coup. They planned to dismiss any pretense of democratic government. That's far more serious than domestic repression (which predated the Business Plot and would have continued after).
I'm fine with non-electoral organizing and action. We should be pursuing every available avenue because no one knows for sure how to build socialism in the imperial core. What I oppose is dismissing the most visible and effective electoral strategy. It's not great, but it's a better bet than anything else.
And didn’t try to execute it as they could see he wasn’t a fundamental threat to their interests.
What stopped the coup was the guy they recruited to lead it -- Smedley Butler. He blew the whistle on the whole thing because he had developed strong anti-imperialist politics by that point in his life. It wasn't shelved, it got revealed.
And yes, plotting to forcibly overthrow the President of the United States of America is a far more serious reaction than persecuting anarchists in the 1920s or Maoists in the 1960s. It's the difference between going after the most powerful person in the country and going after fringe radicals.
Entryism into the Democratic Party
making an independent socialist political party
We've tried both -- it's basically the DSA/Bernie approach vs. the PSL approach. I don't see any argument that the PSL approach has produced more results by any metric.
The George Floyd protests burned down polices stations, radicalized whole swathes of the youth and had millions talking about abolishing and defunding the police, entryism on the otherhand led to the death of the Bernie movement and manifesting a chilling effect on the rest of the left
Entryism without the creation of a national third party is meaningless idealism, and third partyism is by definition fringe
Have laws changed? Have police budgets been cut? Have murderous cops been brought to justice?
Burning down a police station is meaningless if it doesn't lead to something like the above. Radicalization that doesn't produce any results isn't much to write home about either.
And it's odd to blame Bernie's defeat on entryism when his campaign existed largely because he chose entryism instead of a third-party candidacy.
Burning down a police station is meaningless if it doesn’t lead to something like the above.
Burning down that police station wasn't meaningless to the people who did it and the people who lived under its thumb, and entryism that doesn't produce any results isn’t much to write home about either, radicalization on the otherhand provides the reservoir of energy and manpower required for any mass movement to develop, as we witnessed last summer
And it’s odd to blame Bernie’s defeat on entryism
Bernie's success was in spite of his entryism not because of it, he tapped into something that had been building for decades, and his embrace of entryism over trusting that reservoir of radicalism led to predictable results
when his campaign existed largely because he chose entryism instead of a third-party candidacy.
Then why are you defending an article that advocates for third party entryism, did you not read past the first paragraph?
Burning down that police station was meaningless to the locals, too. It's just a building. They didn't dismantle the police department, they didn't put any serious restrictions on the police department, the police can still kill them with immunity. Burning down the station failed to produce any lasting, material change because the people who make laws still suck. They need to be removed, and realistically that means primarying them.
Then why are you defending an article that advocates for third party entryism
The strategy this DSA article is advocating is running DSA-backed Democrats in Democratic primaries. Whatever you call that, it's a more promising approach than whatever else we've tried.
Burning down that police station was meaningless to the locals, too. It’s just a building. They didn’t dismantle the police department,
Destroying a police headquarters isn't meaningful? Disrupting police organizational capability isn't meaningful? Destruction of police equipment isn't meaningful? You're operating in vague abstractions, when a community burns a police precinct that’s a signal that possibilities outside electoralism exists and that everyday people are willing to take to the street in defiance of state power, THAT'S MEANINGFUL
Rainbow coalition entryist bullshit on the otherhand is not meaningful, and that author is a dumbass for trying to sell this shit all over again, as if it was something never attempted, "take over the Democratic party from inside" definitely a bold NEW strategy that's never been tried before, genius
We saw it collapse last year, and it will collapse again and again, because the Democratic Party doesn't operate around collective politics, its operate on careerist individualism that is disciplined by the donor system and media access politics, you can replace all the dems with socdem DSA members and you still don't get anywhere. Institutions have inertia and momentum and only outside force can shift it to the left
Signals generated by material actions like burning down police stations and flipping cars can't be abstract in the same way campaign promises by elected DSA politicians are
Which wave of mass protests are you talking about here?
Mass protests don't collapse because people didn't "vote enough", their beaten down, dismantled, and subverted, but each new iteration results in larger protests, faster mobilization, and an expanded pool of experienced agitators, which requires the state to invest MORE resources, MORE manpower, and MORE media propaganda to suppress
Electoral mass movements on the otherhand all fall apart on their own terms, according to their own inertia, they aren't beaten down or dismantled, they're captured by the state and then used as a bludgeon against Mass protest movements, this is why they're an inherently inferior form of political organization
Mass protests don’t collapse because people didn’t “vote enough”
But they do collapse. What they accomplish boils down to what they can pressure elected officials to do. And the response of elected officials is at least partly a function of whether those officials come with the priors of AOC or the priors of Nancy Pelosi.
What practical advances have the BLM protests accomplished? Have laws changed? Have police budgets been cut? Have murderous cops been brought to justice?
They accomplished precious little because the people who have the power to do these things still suck. We're not going to get any lasting changes made so long as local Democrats are third-hand Mayo Petes and national Democrats are John Hickenlooper clones. Entryism has made real progress in replacing those people, which is a prerequisite to improving anything.
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It's more likely to happen than a revolution for sure, and it's probably more likely to happen than an approach relying on organized labor, too.
Everything's a long shot, but we have some DSA-endorsed people in office already, and there are historical examples of legislation that's eased the burden on workers.
deleted by creator
The goal is a worker's state. There's evidence that you can make real progress towards this by winning elections -- look at Venezuela and Bolivia. And seeing as it's totally unrealistic to expect a revolution any time soon, and only marginally more realistic to expect an unprecedented (in America) level of organized labor power that leads to a solution, the many problems with electoral politics seem by far the most manageable.
If you take the boot off people's necks -- even just a little bit -- you've done two things to get us closer to socialism. First, you show people political improvements are possible (this is huge in a country that's so pervasively cynical about politics). Second, you give people more time/money/protection for further political activity.
And all of that is on top of the immediate material gain of whatever the "take the boot off the neck" improvement is by itself.
deleted by creator
Venezuela and Bolivia aren't worker's states, but they're making progress in that direction, and they've done so despite significant opposition. They're not perfectly analogous to the U.S. in 2021, but they're probably a closer comparison than Cuba in 1959 or Russia in 1917.
I'm not denying that there are problems with electoral politics. You bring up plenty of good points. But the bottom line is that the other paths to socialism are even less likely to come to fruition.
You know when they were most scared of the left? Under FDR. They didn't organize the Business Plot against the Black Panthers; they just shot them.
deleted by creator
They planned a coup. They planned to dismiss any pretense of democratic government. That's far more serious than domestic repression (which predated the Business Plot and would have continued after).
I'm fine with non-electoral organizing and action. We should be pursuing every available avenue because no one knows for sure how to build socialism in the imperial core. What I oppose is dismissing the most visible and effective electoral strategy. It's not great, but it's a better bet than anything else.
deleted by creator
What stopped the coup was the guy they recruited to lead it -- Smedley Butler. He blew the whistle on the whole thing because he had developed strong anti-imperialist politics by that point in his life. It wasn't shelved, it got revealed.
And yes, plotting to forcibly overthrow the President of the United States of America is a far more serious reaction than persecuting anarchists in the 1920s or Maoists in the 1960s. It's the difference between going after the most powerful person in the country and going after fringe radicals.
We've tried both -- it's basically the DSA/Bernie approach vs. the PSL approach. I don't see any argument that the PSL approach has produced more results by any metric.
The George Floyd protests burned down polices stations, radicalized whole swathes of the youth and had millions talking about abolishing and defunding the police, entryism on the otherhand led to the death of the Bernie movement and manifesting a chilling effect on the rest of the left
Entryism without the creation of a national third party is meaningless idealism, and third partyism is by definition fringe
Burning down a police station is meaningless if it doesn't lead to something like the above. Radicalization that doesn't produce any results isn't much to write home about either.
And it's odd to blame Bernie's defeat on entryism when his campaign existed largely because he chose entryism instead of a third-party candidacy.
Burning down that police station wasn't meaningless to the people who did it and the people who lived under its thumb, and entryism that doesn't produce any results isn’t much to write home about either, radicalization on the otherhand provides the reservoir of energy and manpower required for any mass movement to develop, as we witnessed last summer
Bernie's success was in spite of his entryism not because of it, he tapped into something that had been building for decades, and his embrace of entryism over trusting that reservoir of radicalism led to predictable results
Then why are you defending an article that advocates for third party entryism, did you not read past the first paragraph?
Burning down that police station was meaningless to the locals, too. It's just a building. They didn't dismantle the police department, they didn't put any serious restrictions on the police department, the police can still kill them with immunity. Burning down the station failed to produce any lasting, material change because the people who make laws still suck. They need to be removed, and realistically that means primarying them.
The strategy this DSA article is advocating is running DSA-backed Democrats in Democratic primaries. Whatever you call that, it's a more promising approach than whatever else we've tried.
Destroying a police headquarters isn't meaningful? Disrupting police organizational capability isn't meaningful? Destruction of police equipment isn't meaningful? You're operating in vague abstractions, when a community burns a police precinct that’s a signal that possibilities outside electoralism exists and that everyday people are willing to take to the street in defiance of state power, THAT'S MEANINGFUL
Rainbow coalition entryist bullshit on the otherhand is not meaningful, and that author is a dumbass for trying to sell this shit all over again, as if it was something never attempted, "take over the Democratic party from inside" definitely a bold NEW strategy that's never been tried before, genius
We saw it collapse last year, and it will collapse again and again, because the Democratic Party doesn't operate around collective politics, its operate on careerist individualism that is disciplined by the donor system and media access politics, you can replace all the dems with socdem DSA members and you still don't get anywhere. Institutions have inertia and momentum and only outside force can shift it to the left
Vague abstractions are "signals" like this. Meaningful, material change is something like defunding the police.
Which wave of mass protests are you talking about here?
Signals generated by material actions like burning down police stations and flipping cars can't be abstract in the same way campaign promises by elected DSA politicians are
Mass protests don't collapse because people didn't "vote enough", their beaten down, dismantled, and subverted, but each new iteration results in larger protests, faster mobilization, and an expanded pool of experienced agitators, which requires the state to invest MORE resources, MORE manpower, and MORE media propaganda to suppress
Electoral mass movements on the otherhand all fall apart on their own terms, according to their own inertia, they aren't beaten down or dismantled, they're captured by the state and then used as a bludgeon against Mass protest movements, this is why they're an inherently inferior form of political organization
But they do collapse. What they accomplish boils down to what they can pressure elected officials to do. And the response of elected officials is at least partly a function of whether those officials come with the priors of AOC or the priors of Nancy Pelosi.