I’ve worked with him for years both in DSA and on his campaigns and these topics have come up before, so it’s extra disappointing knowing that he doesn’t even personally believe this or the liberal Zionist shit he said about Palestine.
Like you just don’t have to answer those questions dawg, and they’ll have no relevance to you as a local politician (albeit a prominent one). Yeah, it’s the optics and the getting elected (which I still think would be an objectively a good thing) but why poison your project’s well when there are such easy ways to answer that by calling into question the American narrative? You are going to be attacked as a socialist no matter what you say man
It’s just validation that electoralism is pointless.
You can believe whatever going in, but as soon as you start to achieve meaningful success the system will force you to conform. “Change from within” is a fool’s errand.
It’s just validation that electoralism is pointless.
There is a difference between the DSA’s tactic of entryism into the Democratic Party as a method of reformism and participation in electoralism under the banner of a workers party practicing Democratic Centralism. They both might be participating in electoralism, but only the workers party is doing so to weaken support for the state and build support for a revolutionary movement.
I 100% agree and would like to see a DSA turn to democratic centralism once the internal contradictions of the org come to fruition. The most active cadre are Marxists by a significant majority, and a fair number of those either believe in democratic centralism or are not opposed to it if that’s the direction the org takes.
At that point in time I would say the stakes of entryism into the Dems would be much higher. At this point in time the stakes of participating in electoralism are more along the lines of socialists being granted the legitimacy that comes inherently to the American public when you are engaged in politics at a somewhat noticeable scale and don’t appear as just some fringe group. It’s not organizing in and of itself, but it’s certainly helpful that people know who you are and that other people out there believe the same things they do. Unfortunately, electoralism is culture to Americans and something they actually pay some attention to. It sucks that it’s a good way to reach people and let them know you exist
To be clear, I don’t believe in electoralism as an actual conduit for changing the system from within, but as a tool for visibility and radicalization.
Then shouldn’t we be running openly as communists and not hiding and obscuring our positions? Shouldn’t we not be tying our reputation to people we know for a fact will betray us and make us look bad, if all we are after is visibility? Isn’t associating socialism with these kinds of chauvinists actively damaging to our “optics”?
This isn’t what you were saying the other day. The other day you were making lesser evil and harm reduction arguments to pressure people to vote for him. So which is it? Visibility or changing the system?
First, I don’t know why you’re carrying beef you have with me over into another thread, I don’t even know who you are. Second, that’s a massive mischaracterization of the argument I was making.
The arguments I made to vote for him were never based around “we can fix the system!” sentiment like you seem to be implying, nor did I say electoralism is the answer. The arguments were always based in materialism and how voting could have an impact on it.
Yes, openly running as socialist is an important step. That’s why I think DSA is worth being part of at this moment in time. The internal debate on electoralism is the main ideological split, with one major chunk believing DSA should continue working alongside the Dems, another not believing DSA should engage in electoralism at all ever, and the second major chunk believing DSA should become an outright socialist party, or at least be a socialist party incubator so that when that when the heightening contradictions within the org reach a boiling point, a nucleation point exists and the party apparatus is ready to hit the ground running.
The things Zohran says he will provide are good, it is good that the title of “socialist” will be very publicly tacked on to rent being frozen for 4 years, free busses, childcare, etc., and the visibility of that is important as a point of radicalization for people who will soon have those improvements in material conditions threatened when vocal non-socialists inevitably try to take them away. There is, unfortunately, very little positive connotation with the term socialist in the popular American public forum. Give the average person an improvement in their material conditions that is intrinsically tied to the label socialist, and they will fight for it. Suddenly it becomes a lot easier for people to identify as socialist and to bring them into your movement when you are more tangible to them than a scary buzzword they’ve been propagandized about for 100 years.
One sentence to tell me you don’t understand it, and that’s ok.
In reality, one sentence can summarize the entire thing: liberal electoralism heightens contradictions and can radicalize the working class who, whether you like it or not, pay attention to it.
Keep right on misunderstanding what I’m saying if you want, your false sense of superiority across conversations we’ve had is based entirely on a mischaracterization of why I’ve said what I have. While you piss and moan that I’m doing things wrong, I’m busy reaching the working class in one of the places they actually are paying attention to with the opportunity to help direct their attention to the ones that actually matter.
Supporting liberal entryism is when you don’t support liberal entryism and you can simultaneously clearly see the contradictions inherent to it being dealt with within an organization in such a way that an actual socialist entity is starting to grow out of.
Supporting liberal entryism is when you don’t support liberal entryism but can see the writing on the wall.
the problem I see with this is that every capitulation to imperialism also has the socialist label openly tacked onto it when you run unaccountable Democrats, and that runs the risk of just siphoning the US working class into a “chauvinist social democracy = socialism” form of crude, underdeveloped class consciousness that throws global south proles under the bus. it also runs the risk of alienating portions of the US working class who have been directly impacted by imperialism (e.g. many immigrant workers), not to mention potential international allies of any future American socialist movement.
without a firm line or party apparatus holding these candidates accountable it seems that this kind of thing can just run amok without real consequence. and I’m frankly not sure how interested many DSA rank-and-file are in reigning in these types of chauvinist brainworms and concessions.
I agree with your concern, and I think it’s important that those contradictions within DSA are sorted out by the active membership which are largely marxists ideologically. They certainly have been coming to fruition more and more frequently as the direction DSA breaks more with its liberal/socdem membership and leans into more principled socialist stances.
I think the lib/socdem DSA served an important role in its time and place as a visible org with enough active socialists that it showed those disillusioned or nascent members of the American left that there was a place to go post-Bernie if you were thinking about taking these things even marginally more seriously. Turns out a lot of people took them very seriously, and that’s what brought us to the points of contradiction within DSA that we see today. It continues to serve that purpose, but as affinity for socialism grows in America in combination with the critical mass of Marxists already within DSA, I’m confident some kind of actual socialist party/org can grow out of DSA if it doesn’t grow into one itself.
I like PSL and the work they do and have some good friends who are part of the org. I just find that I think a more fruitful org is poised to grow out of DSA than already exists in PSL for a few reasons. Both definitely have their unique problems internally, but I see DSA changing to address them in a much more dynamic way
The rent freeze is very realistic. I don’t see a way it wouldn’t happen unless literally everything we know about him and his history is a lie. It’s a 9 person board that votes on rent raises, and the current balance is 5-4 in favor of raising rent, and one board member is directly appointed by the mayor at will. So that would immediately be 5-4 in favor of a rent freeze.
The rest would require some state/federal funding, but NY State politics at least have establishment dems who may normally oppose funding those programs in hot water, especially coming off a Mamdani win and huge performance in NYC districts.
I don’t understand why you would think that way unless you just don’t understand how the Rent Guidelines Board works. The rent has been frozen multiple times in the past 10 years.
The Rent Guidelines Board has members that serve terms and are supposed to be appointed to represent particular interests (tenants, landlords, though there’s really nothing stopping you from just appointing all tenant-friendly board members to nominally represent the landlords), all of them are appointed by the mayor, and 8/9 serve set terms in their positions. The last RGB member serves directly at the behest of the mayor with no term, ie they are directly appointed by the mayor and a new mayor will replace that board member when they are elected. The current voting balance of the board is 5 in favor of raising rent, 4 in favor of freezing rent. 1 of those 5 in favor of raising rent is the appointee with no term limit serving the will of the Eric Adams administration, who will be replaced when Zohran presumably takes office in January, changing the voting balance immediately to 5-4 in favor of freezing rent.
To most people who don’t understand how this system works, the rent freeze seems to be the most unrealistic policy, when in reality it is easily the most likely to occur. Not only that, it has the ability to extend beyond a Zohran mayoralty when the other board members are replaced with Zohran appointees
Oh how dare I try to point out your shifting hypocrisy. You are a mod and you act in bad faith, you push social chauvinism and when finally confronted with the fruits of your labor you shift and lie about what you were arguing for.
This is a small community it’s not that hard to remember names. It’s not some kind of super power
You brought up a mischaracterization of what I said in another post, one where I repeatedly told you that you could leave the post, disengage with me, or block me.
I didn’t bring up this argument with you, you did. I didn’t even remember you. I don’t know how you could possibly say I’m acting in bad faith. You’re allowed to disagree with me, but please stop being a debatebro and haranguing me about something you don’t care to understand or entertain.
Stop arguing with communists. Turn around. Go confront this chauvinist piece of shit that you supposedly know personally.
You personally vouched for him, he’s making you look like a fucking idiot. Are you going to do anything about it or just take out your anger with more left punching?
Again you are just completely mischaracterizing what I’ve said. Stop arguing with communists? YOU replied to me. I’m not punching left at all. I’m not even disagreeing with you about criticisms about Zohran, his campaign, or electoralism as a way to changing the system. You’ve already made your mind up that I disagree with you, there’s literally nothing I can do about that.
But you’ve mischaracterized what I said repeatedly, you obviously did not read what I replied to you on the other thread that has you so upset originally, and now you have forced that engagement to continue here. It is impossible to discuss these things with you when you clearly weren’t willing to engage with me civilly, even after I’ve politely asked you to leave me alone, block me, or disengage with me on a separate post. I’ve never had this problem with literally anybody else. You not having the same outlook, methods, or predictions I do does not mean I’m acting in bad faith, lying, or being chauvinist.
Stop haranguing me, leave me alone. Block me or disengage with me.
Then it’s even more crucial to not capitulate like this. Radicalize people by saying Israeli colonialism didn’t start on 10/7/2023, be straight up about the embargo and the aggression against Venezuela happening literally TODAY. To the rest of us who don’t know him personally, it’s giving liberal Zionist imperialist socdem.
That’s absolutely what it’s giving off. It’s pathetic capitulation for zero tangible benefit. If I had to guess it’s putting the cart of governing before the horse. Just zero need to say that unless I guess you are worried people won’t work with you after you were elected to achieve your agenda? But at that point, what was even the purpose?
Questions I wish I could ask him. It’s really hard to square the positive experience you’ve had with him to the half dozen instances of public backtracking/accepting of a traditional imperialist narrative.
Unfortunate he’s out of my orbit now. Maybe a few years ago I might, but a few years ago he wasn’t doing this. Really disappointing but potentially radicalizing for those who haven’t already been
Exactly. It’s much better to lose while principled then win while selling out. One of these days we will win while principled, and that’s when you know shit is on.
The Bolsheviks were able to be principled about opposing war AND supporting the local workers and peasantry because Russia was losing a devastating world war. The conditions for American socialists to do the same likely won’t be present until such a situation arises.
I have been pretty amicable to the DSA and Mamdani as an idea, but my off-ramp was like 2-3 “gaffs” ago. I don’t think you people doing this kind of thing is as dire as others make it out to be. I do not think the current day US is anywhere close to 1903 Russia or 1848 Europe or even 1830s Europe. So whatever entryism or class collaboration you’re going to do, at least be ready for stuff like this. I’m going to assume the DSA hasn’t placed a giant ACME piano above Mamdani’s head? So if he wins in a month and then lies about rent control, then what? If you’re going to do reformism, you eventually should have a plan to enforce reforms.
When/if these other NY seats become available and this is tried again, have a plan to destroy these people if they suddenly become dishonest in the 11th hour. If people in the DSA aren’t okay with that idea, then it’s time for new members or a different org.
I agree the situation isn’t that dire historically speaking, but you’d still like to see some more spine when the stakes are pretty low, all things considered. The election looks like a wrap already, so just stick to your guns even if it costs a percent or two. I think the main political calculus there is holding a strong enough lead that it stops Cuomo or Sliwa from dropping out because they see a realistic chance of consolidating the anti-Mamdani vote while he’s weak.
That being said, DSA’s most important role at this point imo is being a highly visible org (but yes, imperfect) that is a tool to help deprogram decades of American anti-socialist propaganda. Given the direction things are going internally with Marxist, it could be an incubator for an actual socialist party some time in the future after overcoming the internal contradictions that divide it right now.
It seems clear to me that he tries not to answer it in the actual podcast, and that he also doesn’t have a way to dance around the subject. He clearly attempts to avoid the topic, but the guy he’s talking to isn’t your run-of-the-mill podcast host chud; he’s a journalist with decades of experience. The guy does not let up, and then the topic is shifted. I get the sense the other co-host (the journalist’s daughter) has more of a soft spot for Mamdani since she doesn’t interject at all during this exchange and then tries to transition out of the awkward conversation, and seems to be (not that I listened all that hard) to want to give him the opportunity to distinguish himself from typical Democrats. The excange starts with her saying this:
Jorge Ramos (17:40):
You have the same […][so] ideology is not that important?
Mamdani (17:42):
I think It’s not been the first question that New Yorkers have asked me. But even more than that, I’ve often been asked us to what does it mean when I say that I’m a Democratic socialist.
Paola Ramos (17:51):
I think that’s important because Republicans and some Democrats weaponize that term so much. I mean, it’s completely misconstrued. So what’s the most simple way to address a Spanish speaking Latino New Yorker who may want to vote for you, but he’s so scared about that term.
Gotta love the mythical “spanish speaking Latino New Yorker” who hates Maduro and Cuba. It ain’t fucking Miami, there are different LatAm countries, different communities, etc. Hell a huge chunk of Spanish speaking New Yorkers are from a place with no democracy and occupation by a hostile government, it is called Puerto Rico
I think you’re onto something because this seems like bad training. Mamdani’s claim is that he’s really good on the everyday issues that affect the people of NY. The problem is he’s probably focused so much on that and nothing else. The journalists have picked up on it over his Israel/Palestine comments and the reaction. Now they can just lob this stuff at him and he can’t do anything. He might be someone who can be Rogan’d into the correct opinion if he spent time with his constituents and more knowledgeable people. Too late now though.
Maybe they should have flipped it around from the start. Go so hard and aggressive into foreign issues these journalists are saying you don’t care about NYC. Then spend the last month correcting them by doing nothing but talking about the city. Recency bias wins and forced the media to go where you wanted.
This is also the first episode of this podcast. I have no idea if these two have massive popularity that brings them a built in audience, that’s probably the case. That said, I don’t think I would be the launching episode of a new podcast if I was campaigning, that’s for sure.
The conspiracy worms in my brain could say something like: The Democrats likely paid this guy to push their opening episode in favor of this one specifically to grill Mamdani on this topic. They didn’t inform him that this was going to be asked specifically to scold and correct him.
I’ve worked with him for years both in DSA and on his campaigns and these topics have come up before, so it’s extra disappointing knowing that he doesn’t even personally believe this or the liberal Zionist shit he said about Palestine.
Like you just don’t have to answer those questions dawg, and they’ll have no relevance to you as a local politician (albeit a prominent one). Yeah, it’s the optics and the getting elected (which I still think would be an objectively a good thing) but why poison your project’s well when there are such easy ways to answer that by calling into question the American narrative? You are going to be attacked as a socialist no matter what you say man
It’s just validation that electoralism is pointless.
You can believe whatever going in, but as soon as you start to achieve meaningful success the system will force you to conform. “Change from within” is a fool’s errand.
There is a difference between the DSA’s tactic of entryism into the Democratic Party as a method of reformism and participation in electoralism under the banner of a workers party practicing Democratic Centralism. They both might be participating in electoralism, but only the workers party is doing so to weaken support for the state and build support for a revolutionary movement.
I 100% agree and would like to see a DSA turn to democratic centralism once the internal contradictions of the org come to fruition. The most active cadre are Marxists by a significant majority, and a fair number of those either believe in democratic centralism or are not opposed to it if that’s the direction the org takes.
At that point in time I would say the stakes of entryism into the Dems would be much higher. At this point in time the stakes of participating in electoralism are more along the lines of socialists being granted the legitimacy that comes inherently to the American public when you are engaged in politics at a somewhat noticeable scale and don’t appear as just some fringe group. It’s not organizing in and of itself, but it’s certainly helpful that people know who you are and that other people out there believe the same things they do. Unfortunately, electoralism is culture to Americans and something they actually pay some attention to. It sucks that it’s a good way to reach people and let them know you exist
To be clear, I don’t believe in electoralism as an actual conduit for changing the system from within, but as a tool for visibility and radicalization.
Then shouldn’t we be running openly as communists and not hiding and obscuring our positions? Shouldn’t we not be tying our reputation to people we know for a fact will betray us and make us look bad, if all we are after is visibility? Isn’t associating socialism with these kinds of chauvinists actively damaging to our “optics”?
This isn’t what you were saying the other day. The other day you were making lesser evil and harm reduction arguments to pressure people to vote for him. So which is it? Visibility or changing the system?
First, I don’t know why you’re carrying beef you have with me over into another thread, I don’t even know who you are. Second, that’s a massive mischaracterization of the argument I was making.
The arguments I made to vote for him were never based around “we can fix the system!” sentiment like you seem to be implying, nor did I say electoralism is the answer. The arguments were always based in materialism and how voting could have an impact on it.
Yes, openly running as socialist is an important step. That’s why I think DSA is worth being part of at this moment in time. The internal debate on electoralism is the main ideological split, with one major chunk believing DSA should continue working alongside the Dems, another not believing DSA should engage in electoralism at all ever, and the second major chunk believing DSA should become an outright socialist party, or at least be a socialist party incubator so that when that when the heightening contradictions within the org reach a boiling point, a nucleation point exists and the party apparatus is ready to hit the ground running.
The things Zohran says he will provide are good, it is good that the title of “socialist” will be very publicly tacked on to rent being frozen for 4 years, free busses, childcare, etc., and the visibility of that is important as a point of radicalization for people who will soon have those improvements in material conditions threatened when vocal non-socialists inevitably try to take them away. There is, unfortunately, very little positive connotation with the term socialist in the popular American public forum. Give the average person an improvement in their material conditions that is intrinsically tied to the label socialist, and they will fight for it. Suddenly it becomes a lot easier for people to identify as socialist and to bring them into your movement when you are more tangible to them than a scary buzzword they’ve been propagandized about for 100 years.
Many paragraphs to endorse liberal electoralism
One sentence to tell me you don’t understand it, and that’s ok.
In reality, one sentence can summarize the entire thing: liberal electoralism heightens contradictions and can radicalize the working class who, whether you like it or not, pay attention to it.
Keep right on misunderstanding what I’m saying if you want, your false sense of superiority across conversations we’ve had is based entirely on a mischaracterization of why I’ve said what I have. While you piss and moan that I’m doing things wrong, I’m busy reaching the working class in one of the places they actually are paying attention to with the opportunity to help direct their attention to the ones that actually matter.
You should just admit you support liberal entryism then.
Supporting liberal entryism is when you don’t support liberal entryism and you can simultaneously clearly see the contradictions inherent to it being dealt with within an organization in such a way that an actual socialist entity is starting to grow out of.
Supporting liberal entryism is when you don’t support liberal entryism but can see the writing on the wall.
the problem I see with this is that every capitulation to imperialism also has the socialist label openly tacked onto it when you run unaccountable Democrats, and that runs the risk of just siphoning the US working class into a “chauvinist social democracy = socialism” form of crude, underdeveloped class consciousness that throws global south proles under the bus. it also runs the risk of alienating portions of the US working class who have been directly impacted by imperialism (e.g. many immigrant workers), not to mention potential international allies of any future American socialist movement.
without a firm line or party apparatus holding these candidates accountable it seems that this kind of thing can just run amok without real consequence. and I’m frankly not sure how interested many DSA rank-and-file are in reigning in these types of chauvinist brainworms and concessions.
I agree with your concern, and I think it’s important that those contradictions within DSA are sorted out by the active membership which are largely marxists ideologically. They certainly have been coming to fruition more and more frequently as the direction DSA breaks more with its liberal/socdem membership and leans into more principled socialist stances.
I think the lib/socdem DSA served an important role in its time and place as a visible org with enough active socialists that it showed those disillusioned or nascent members of the American left that there was a place to go post-Bernie if you were thinking about taking these things even marginally more seriously. Turns out a lot of people took them very seriously, and that’s what brought us to the points of contradiction within DSA that we see today. It continues to serve that purpose, but as affinity for socialism grows in America in combination with the critical mass of Marxists already within DSA, I’m confident some kind of actual socialist party/org can grow out of DSA if it doesn’t grow into one itself.
Or you could all just leave the DSA right now and join an actual socialist party like the PSL.
I like PSL and the work they do and have some good friends who are part of the org. I just find that I think a more fruitful org is poised to grow out of DSA than already exists in PSL for a few reasons. Both definitely have their unique problems internally, but I see DSA changing to address them in a much more dynamic way
inb4 he wins and doesn’t do any of that
The rent freeze is very realistic. I don’t see a way it wouldn’t happen unless literally everything we know about him and his history is a lie. It’s a 9 person board that votes on rent raises, and the current balance is 5-4 in favor of raising rent, and one board member is directly appointed by the mayor at will. So that would immediately be 5-4 in favor of a rent freeze.
The rest would require some state/federal funding, but NY State politics at least have establishment dems who may normally oppose funding those programs in hot water, especially coming off a Mamdani win and huge performance in NYC districts.
Complete nonsense, capital has too much control for this to be true.
I don’t understand why you would think that way unless you just don’t understand how the Rent Guidelines Board works. The rent has been frozen multiple times in the past 10 years.
The Rent Guidelines Board has members that serve terms and are supposed to be appointed to represent particular interests (tenants, landlords, though there’s really nothing stopping you from just appointing all tenant-friendly board members to nominally represent the landlords), all of them are appointed by the mayor, and 8/9 serve set terms in their positions. The last RGB member serves directly at the behest of the mayor with no term, ie they are directly appointed by the mayor and a new mayor will replace that board member when they are elected. The current voting balance of the board is 5 in favor of raising rent, 4 in favor of freezing rent. 1 of those 5 in favor of raising rent is the appointee with no term limit serving the will of the Eric Adams administration, who will be replaced when Zohran presumably takes office in January, changing the voting balance immediately to 5-4 in favor of freezing rent.
To most people who don’t understand how this system works, the rent freeze seems to be the most unrealistic policy, when in reality it is easily the most likely to occur. Not only that, it has the ability to extend beyond a Zohran mayoralty when the other board members are replaced with Zohran appointees
Oh how dare I try to point out your shifting hypocrisy. You are a mod and you act in bad faith, you push social chauvinism and when finally confronted with the fruits of your labor you shift and lie about what you were arguing for.
This is a small community it’s not that hard to remember names. It’s not some kind of super power
Voting for democrats materialistly
You brought up a mischaracterization of what I said in another post, one where I repeatedly told you that you could leave the post, disengage with me, or block me.
I didn’t bring up this argument with you, you did. I didn’t even remember you. I don’t know how you could possibly say I’m acting in bad faith. You’re allowed to disagree with me, but please stop being a debatebro and haranguing me about something you don’t care to understand or entertain.
Stop arguing with communists. Turn around. Go confront this chauvinist piece of shit that you supposedly know personally.
You personally vouched for him, he’s making you look like a fucking idiot. Are you going to do anything about it or just take out your anger with more left punching?
Again you are just completely mischaracterizing what I’ve said. Stop arguing with communists? YOU replied to me. I’m not punching left at all. I’m not even disagreeing with you about criticisms about Zohran, his campaign, or electoralism as a way to changing the system. You’ve already made your mind up that I disagree with you, there’s literally nothing I can do about that.
But you’ve mischaracterized what I said repeatedly, you obviously did not read what I replied to you on the other thread that has you so upset originally, and now you have forced that engagement to continue here. It is impossible to discuss these things with you when you clearly weren’t willing to engage with me civilly, even after I’ve politely asked you to leave me alone, block me, or disengage with me on a separate post. I’ve never had this problem with literally anybody else. You not having the same outlook, methods, or predictions I do does not mean I’m acting in bad faith, lying, or being chauvinist.
Stop haranguing me, leave me alone. Block me or disengage with me.
Then it’s even more crucial to not capitulate like this. Radicalize people by saying Israeli colonialism didn’t start on 10/7/2023, be straight up about the embargo and the aggression against Venezuela happening literally TODAY. To the rest of us who don’t know him personally, it’s giving liberal Zionist imperialist socdem.
That’s absolutely what it’s giving off. It’s pathetic capitulation for zero tangible benefit. If I had to guess it’s putting the cart of governing before the horse. Just zero need to say that unless I guess you are worried people won’t work with you after you were elected to achieve your agenda? But at that point, what was even the purpose?
Questions I wish I could ask him. It’s really hard to square the positive experience you’ve had with him to the half dozen instances of public backtracking/accepting of a traditional imperialist narrative.
Unfortunate he’s out of my orbit now. Maybe a few years ago I might, but a few years ago he wasn’t doing this. Really disappointing but potentially radicalizing for those who haven’t already been
Exactly. It’s much better to lose while principled then win while selling out. One of these days we will win while principled, and that’s when you know shit is on.
The Bolsheviks were able to be principled about opposing war AND supporting the local workers and peasantry because Russia was losing a devastating world war. The conditions for American socialists to do the same likely won’t be present until such a situation arises.
I have been pretty amicable to the DSA and Mamdani as an idea, but my off-ramp was like 2-3 “gaffs” ago. I don’t think you people doing this kind of thing is as dire as others make it out to be. I do not think the current day US is anywhere close to 1903 Russia or 1848 Europe or even 1830s Europe. So whatever entryism or class collaboration you’re going to do, at least be ready for stuff like this. I’m going to assume the DSA hasn’t placed a giant ACME piano above Mamdani’s head? So if he wins in a month and then lies about rent control, then what? If you’re going to do reformism, you eventually should have a plan to enforce reforms.
When/if these other NY seats become available and this is tried again, have a plan to destroy these people if they suddenly become dishonest in the 11th hour. If people in the DSA aren’t okay with that idea, then it’s time for new members or a different org.
Not a gaffe. It’s ideological commitment to liberalism
I agree the situation isn’t that dire historically speaking, but you’d still like to see some more spine when the stakes are pretty low, all things considered. The election looks like a wrap already, so just stick to your guns even if it costs a percent or two. I think the main political calculus there is holding a strong enough lead that it stops Cuomo or Sliwa from dropping out because they see a realistic chance of consolidating the anti-Mamdani vote while he’s weak.
That being said, DSA’s most important role at this point imo is being a highly visible org (but yes, imperfect) that is a tool to help deprogram decades of American anti-socialist propaganda. Given the direction things are going internally with Marxist, it could be an incubator for an actual socialist party some time in the future after overcoming the internal contradictions that divide it right now.
It seems clear to me that he tries not to answer it in the actual podcast, and that he also doesn’t have a way to dance around the subject. He clearly attempts to avoid the topic, but the guy he’s talking to isn’t your run-of-the-mill podcast host chud; he’s a journalist with decades of experience. The guy does not let up, and then the topic is shifted. I get the sense the other co-host (the journalist’s daughter) has more of a soft spot for Mamdani since she doesn’t interject at all during this exchange and then tries to transition out of the awkward conversation, and seems to be (not that I listened all that hard) to want to give him the opportunity to distinguish himself from typical Democrats. The excange starts with her saying this:
Gotta love the mythical “spanish speaking Latino New Yorker” who hates Maduro and Cuba. It ain’t fucking Miami, there are different LatAm countries, different communities, etc. Hell a huge chunk of Spanish speaking New Yorkers are from a place with no democracy and occupation by a hostile government, it is called Puerto Rico
I think you’re onto something because this seems like bad training. Mamdani’s claim is that he’s really good on the everyday issues that affect the people of NY. The problem is he’s probably focused so much on that and nothing else. The journalists have picked up on it over his Israel/Palestine comments and the reaction. Now they can just lob this stuff at him and he can’t do anything. He might be someone who can be Rogan’d into the correct opinion if he spent time with his constituents and more knowledgeable people. Too late now though.
Maybe they should have flipped it around from the start. Go so hard and aggressive into foreign issues these journalists are saying you don’t care about NYC. Then spend the last month correcting them by doing nothing but talking about the city. Recency bias wins and forced the media to go where you wanted.
This is also the first episode of this podcast. I have no idea if these two have massive popularity that brings them a built in audience, that’s probably the case. That said, I don’t think I would be the launching episode of a new podcast if I was campaigning, that’s for sure.
The conspiracy worms in my brain could say something like: The Democrats likely paid this guy to push their opening episode in favor of this one specifically to grill Mamdani on this topic. They didn’t inform him that this was going to be asked specifically to scold and correct him.
But that’s not the the likely scenario.
Unfortunately, he’s probably doing this out of love of the game (anticommunism)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Ramos_(news_anchor)