The NYC mayor’s race is the most watched political race in the US right now, by a large margin too (I guess the second most is Prop 50 in CA? Either way that one is way behind). After Tuesday, Zohran’s win will probably be the big story that normies IRL will be talking about here. “Socialism” will be a topic on top of everyone’s minds.
And I think everyone here - even if you have major issues with Zohran specifically or electoralism in general - should be ready to speak to it among the people in your life.
Opportunities like this don’t come around very often. Right now Americans are getting a ton of misinformation about what socialism is due to a demsoc running and very likely winning the job of mayor of the biggest city in the US. On top of that, this misinformation is transparently bad (“Zohran wants to sieze all the grocery stores in New York!”) that if you simply point to what’s actually being proposed, you will look pretty knowledgeable by comparison. This is all very low hanging fruit.
But you have to be prepared. Like literally, you should practice how you will respond to people who want to talk to you about Mamdani and socialism. The other day, AcidSmiley made a comment that I’ve been thinking about ever since: she said she had to deradicalize herself a bit from this site because she was having trouble interacting with normal people and not sounding like she was unhinged. I absolutely do this too. Whenever a topic tangential to socialism or imperialism comes up with people IRL, I end up overshooting. I scare people away even if they have a sense that I’m right. What I say sounds totally reasonable to us here, but to people who aren’t engaged with stuff it doesn’t matter how correct you are; if you can’t meet them where you are they will tune you out.
So for me, today and tonight I’m gonna skim through Ha-Joon Chang’s “23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism”. It’s not straight Marxist analysis but it’s written for the people I’ll be talking to. I’m also going to try and brush up on my knowledge of Zohran’s specific policies (like freezes on rent for rent controlled apartments, that seems to be one everyone brings up and I don’t feel I know enough about it).
For those of you who are strongly against Zohran or electoralism… do whatever you want ofc, but I’m just saying if a normie asks you about Zohran and you say “he’s just a social fascist” and scoff, then that will be a missed opportunity. People will have no idea what you are talking about and frankly probably won’t be interested in hearing more.
10000% agree and good ass post.
People may quibble with this but depending on where you live I think it’s also worth positioning yourself as being pro-Z but wary of the big D.
Ultimately we all have to accept how short Zohran may come up despite the optimism and momentum. To me, the biggest reason for that has to do with the historical hegemony of the Democratic Party in NY and their general antagonism to this very popular candidate. I don’t think his agenda is overly ambitious, nor should it be, but I think there will be a lot of rat fucking from his ostensible allies.
If you can’t change their mind about socialism, it may be worth laying the ground work for the argument to be had later that ultimately it was the party that held him back.
I am not suggesting you set up excuses in advance. It’s more about demonstrating that you can be a socialist AND be wary of the Democratic Party.
It’s not gonna be an easy needle to thread, but for any shortcoming in his admin, socialism will be blamed, not the party.
I think it’s worth pushing back on that now so we don’t look like the blind leading the blind if it/when it comes to that.
Vote for Z and vote PSL down ballot!