I’ve seen it happen in Europe but specially in Spain once and again since 2011. It’s not his actual intentions what you must be wary about, or whether he has sincere Dem allegiance or not. What you must worry is the fact that even as a classic defender of Democratic Socialism he simply won’t be able to do much, not in this day and age, an that has consequences.
As an example of one of his viral videos, he says legal systems for expropriating exist in NY, but that doesn’t matter much because he will either be blocked from his usage or the results will be reversed by the state. There are a lot of laws that sound revolutionary in liberal democracies, but he keeps talking as if the capitalist state is neutral and will simply let him use them liberally, maybe because he underestimates a local administration: it’s waaay more constrained than territorial ones. Here in Barcelona we had the main street activist for affordable housing Ada Colau as a mayor for 8 years, she tried haaard, not only didn’t she compensate the market’s tendency, it actually got so much worse.
This is a weird illusion that would vanish if they looked closely at other leftist projects’s “success” when ruling in liberal democracies, it’s the sad eagerness of democratic leftists to get harder-faster-stronger results in order to convince voters in a system that surely sometimes conceded, like in your FDR’s time, but nowadays simply makes sure that those results are tiny, never enough to keeping their voters encouraged, much less even dare compensate the tide of capitalism significantly.
Meanwhile, he’ll be drowned in fake news from all buyable media (which most of his voter base follow) and fake legal accusations that the state will push as far as they can. They don’t need him in jail, all they need is the thousands of “common sense” Dem casuals that vote for him to see him tarnished, put in the defensive, ugly, like another celebrity. I’ve seen relevant leftist politicians destroyed by fake accusations of covering their old ex who came up to be a pedophile. You’ll see him grow 10 years old for every 4 of governance in exchange for poor results.
But the worst effect this process has is demobilizing leftists on a wider sense. It happened with Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain, because liberal democracy is still the main hope/cope for most leftists and when their rare successes fail miserably it drags them down for a decade, plummeting all wide working class organizing, specially unions.
That’s why revolutionary communists sent their guys to liberal parliaments with reforms as a nice complement, but agitation as the main objective.
[I assume there’s a lot of rationalization in this “analysis”, I’m not that well read on marxism, please feel free to correct any overly opinionated take.]
Tsze-kung asked, saying, ‘What do you say of a man who is loved by all the people of his neighborhood?’
The Master replied, ‘We may not for that accord our approval of him.’
‘And what do you say of him who is hated by all the people of his neighborhood?’
The Master said, ‘We may not for that conclude that he is bad. It is better than either of these cases that the good in the neighborhood love him, and the bad hate him.’
I have no reason to believe anything in the godforsaken western world will improve in any of our lifetimes. The “western left” is an utterly useless morass of disorganized cults run by narcissistic liberal sex pests with no long-term strategic planning skills whatsoever.
believe anything in the godforsaken western world will improve in any of our lifetimes.
What keeps me optimistic is the whole “weeks and decades” quote that lives rent-free in my head.
I believe that when it happens.
It does. All though, some things will never change. They just rearrange.
That’s why revolutionary communists sent their guys to liberal parliaments with reforms as a nice complement, but agitation as the main objective.
Isn’t a major part of the idea here that pushing for popular things and getting stopped by the capitalist state has a class consciousness building effect? Like imagine if a substantial fraction of Mamdani supporters see his populist energy break against the sea wall of capitalist institutions and get even further radicalized. That’s not a bad thing.
Thays exactly correct. This part:
As an example of one of his viral videos, he says legal systems for expropriating exist in NY, but that doesn’t matter much because he will either be blocked from his usage or the results will be reversed by the state.
Is just that. You have to try those avenues for change and prove they don’t work, otherwise liberals will point to them and say you’re too radical. It’s harder to convince people you’re too radical when you tried to play by the rules and it got you nowhere. You have to exhaust every other option before a critical mass of people will get on board for revolutionary change.
As long as they don’t really compromise that can work, otherwise all the things they compromised on that will be bad for the population will be sold by the media as their ideas, while any good they make is likely to get drowned under all the negative propaganda.
Honestly I keep reading comments like these from cynical leftists but tbh they kind of fall flat in Mamdani’s case bc he’s said explicitly that the goal isn’t to elect leftists but to build a movement to establish socialism and that elections are only a method to build that movement.
i choose to believe that hexbear user who said they campaigned for him a few years ago wouldn’t have campaigned for a loser and i believe their assertion that he is even hiding his power level. why? idk why not fuck everything at least he hasn’t disappointed me so far like Bernie
Defeatism is rampant in so many circles now. People are incapable of seeing anything as a win, even if it is small. “If he looks like he will win, he won’t. If he does they will kill him. If they don’t they will deport him. If they don’t the something else bad will happen. And if all those things don’t happen and he truly wins then he won’t change anything anyway. And of it looks like he might then we will complain about him not being radical enough.” There simply is no winning for so many western leftists.
They don’t want to win. The sooner the western left is cast aside into the garbage the better.
If he’s an ML then he’s following the principles outlined in Left Wing Communism, regarding parliamentarianism. If he can leverage this in anyway to agitate for the prescription laid out by Lenin then that’s good. Who can say. Sure he’s out there saying the good shibboleths about sizing the means, but let’s just see what he does.
That’s really what everyone needs to do. Just stop yapping and wait to see what he does. Idk why i see so much debate on if he’s good or not, or whatever. Like its NYC im just surprised they didnt vote for the predator.
Most people are just too optimistic about his words, even though he didn’t act yet. Could be another disappointment or not. If he plays his game right, meaning, he doesn’t confine his government to the traditional bourgeois institutions and instead use his position to increase organization, agitation and propaganda, then we can see our cause advance.
However, it’s important that people in the left don’t put all their hopes in one guy. Don’t wait for him to bring any miracles, keep doing their work. If he doesn’t deliver, then pressure him into doing so.
