He explicitly says he is not a communist. “Democratic socialists” are just effectively socdems no matter how much they say they don’t like capitalism or the billionaires (you could argue the focus on the billionaire over capital, and with that the lack of dissection of the reactionary masses that make up Americans, is in itself not scientific socialism - though I am not necessarily saying Mamdani is doing this currently). He sounds significantly better than a lot of american politicians but that’s because the bar is set so low. Unless marxist-leninsts take oppurtunity, for example using Mamdani’s political campaign (or even without), to organise both over and underground then this will amount to not much. Waiting for his campaign to bleed over to ML is a lost cause and idealism.
Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the spectacle of the backlash.
(As a thought exercise consider if he becomes wildly successful FDR-style and his local movement becomes national and eradicates poverty in the US; will this then help destroy American global hegemony or help further cement it? Why scandinavian countries despite having the some of the best HDI not a threat to imperialism? Why are concessions to workers in the imperial core not a threat to global south superexploitation?)
I have just discovered:
(1) racist backlash to video of Mamdani eating rice with his hands
(2) he highlighted USAID involvement in Cuba destablisation
Given (1) has clearly proven he is a man of the highest of cultures I give him my seal of approval.
Do you have the source on this?
Nothing major: should be searchable on his twitter profile (“usaid”) referencing the guardian article:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/04/usaid-latin-americans-cuba-rebellion-hiv-workshops
No, I meant a video or article of Mamdani saying this
Nah just the tweet.
He explicitly says he is not a communist. “Democratic socialists” are just effectively socdems no matter how much they say they don’t like capitalism or the billionaires (you could argue the focus on the billionaire over capital, and with that the lack of dissection of the reactionary masses that make up Americans, is in itself not scientific socialism - though I am not necessarily saying Mamdani is doing this currently). He sounds significantly better than a lot of american politicians but that’s because the bar is set so low. Unless marxist-leninsts take oppurtunity, for example using Mamdani’s political campaign (or even without), to organise both over and underground then this will amount to not much. Waiting for his campaign to bleed over to ML is a lost cause and idealism.
Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the spectacle of the backlash.
(As a thought exercise consider if he becomes wildly successful FDR-style and his local movement becomes national and eradicates poverty in the US; will this then help destroy American global hegemony or help further cement it? Why scandinavian countries despite having the some of the best HDI not a threat to imperialism? Why are concessions to workers in the imperial core not a threat to global south superexploitation?)
https://redsails.org/concessions/