I’m not going to watch a 7 minute video of some nerd ranting if anyone wants to post whatever Zohran actually did
he said a while ago that israel could exist as one state with equal rights, which I steelman as fundamentally not being israel at that point, like how a post-prison abolition society would still detain serial murderers somehow but in a way fundamentally unlike the current carceral system.
more recently he slipped on discouraging “globalize the [uprising]” because a bunch of zionists have made a protracted effort to get liberals to piss their pants about the scary brown word “intifada” even though the arabic language materials from the holocaust museum used to call it the “warsaw ghetto intifada”
mr empanada has no tolerance for either of these concessions.
They changed the word from “intifada” to “mukawama” , meaning “resistance”.
wonder what the M in “Hamas” stands for, L bozos
Frankly, I think puting some distance between himself and the phrase is probably just canny politics. Why die on the hill of flowery language (that you never used in the first place)? Now they can’t really repeat this ‘criticism’ without looking kinda silly.
I think its kinda telling that BadEmpanada is basing this prediction for how Zohran would be in office on a few recent media statements and not, say, the five years he was in the New York State Assembly. I also think there’s some distinction between Entryism to the Democratic party on a national level vs on a local level. Sure, AOC doesn’t use her national platform to challenge the powerful status quo. That’s a valid criticism. But this is a mayoral election - the goal here is different. It’s not about challenging power, so much as wielding it - using the local levers to give a concrete demonstration to people that yes, something better is possible.
Now they can’t really repeat this ‘criticism’ without looking kinda silly.
From your perspective perhaps, but this is a severe, severe misunderstanding of liberal rhetoric if you think Zohran put himself in a better position. They can still point to the hours of time he spent in interviews defending his position and easily claim – and if we’re being charitable to Zohran, there’s truth to this – that Zohran is basically just lying to try to get out of being interrogated on this issue, but his underlying beliefs about opposition to Israel’s government are identical. Basically all he succeeded in doing is helping his right opposition paint him as perfidious while looking like a coward to his leftist supporters. I give it a week before rightists say that he’s doing “taqiyya” and, cartoon Islamophobia aside, the most hopeful position is literally that those people are right!
“They can’t call him a jihadist now without looking ridiculous!!!”
i completely disagree tactically. never play defense. Zohran’s strength is that he offers positive things.
it’s also empanada’s second channel so really nobody should be watching it or taking it seriously but we came from the chapo subreddit so whatever.
i completely disagree tactically. never play defense
This only works when you have leverage. The only leverage he as is that he won the primary and could win the general. Bravado is downstream from acquiring power.
And what if people want to see someone standing for something with rigour? What many are claiming is that the “bravado” about really held positions is how you win. I don’t always agree with that, but here I do. And losing while maintaining your positions is more likely to move more people left. Giving in and then losing is disastrous for the left. It’s why it’s a strategic failure, I think, to have not held his position strongly
I think people want material change more than rhetoric. The part of his platform that matters is the whole thing outside of foreign policy. His platform would materially help Palestinians in NYC more than shouting “globalize the intifada” in Cuomo’s face would help them spiritually. It would be very entertaining for us but I don’t think that’s helpful. They’re going to keep bringing it up because the only reason to bring foreign policy into a mayoral race is to attack. If he refuses to back down and gets right back in their face, it makes it very easy to draw attention away from his platform and attack him. If he simply lets it roll off his back, addresses the questions as personal attacks, and refocuses on his platform, that will go further. He’s already won an primary without having to make it all about foreign policy. If he won on his platform before, he can do it again because that means those people are focused on something other than this.
However, neither confronting it or letting it be helped Corbyn so we might just be at the mercy of something more than rhetoric.
I just disagree entirely about it making anything more difficult at all to hold his position. It’s easy to relate it to material positions that he holds through small rhetorical tricks and then he will be doing both good through rhetoric and through his material policies. For New York his material policies are important, but everyone knows he’s more than that at this moment. And he’s giving that up too easily. Now his failure is a strategic loss instead of also being a possible strategic step forward. And his winning is less of a strategic win than if he’d told them to fuck off.
Het didn’t even have to say the word intifada, just ignore it as a stupid attack and reiterate that he supports 1 state of equal rights in historic Palestine/current Israel.
Disagree on Corbyn, he gave in immediately and constantly, trying to appease the Zionist cries for investigations instead of dismissing them. (He could’ve done a real check that there weren’t tons of real anti-Semitism without the rhetorical loss he gave immediately)
I think playing defense here would be defending “globalize the intifada”. It… isn’t really an actionable phrase. It has nothing to do with their platform.
I hate streamers holy shit, why does anyone watch them.
AMERICANS STOP THINKING DEMOCRATS WILL SAVE YOU CHALLENGE: DIFFICULTY IMPOSSIBLE
does anyone seriously think a mayor is going to affect the party’s foreign policy positions? i just want things to improve somewhat.
Like even Zohran has said explicitly that he doesn’t think his victory will bring socialism but rather at this stage of organization he things electoralism is an effective tool for consciousness-raising and movement-building
an effective tool for consciousness-raising and movement-building
While this is not wrong, I feel like it gives the wrong implications. Demonstrating how Liberals will immediately turn into fascists the second their “passive income” schemes are called into question raises consciousness. Drawing out genocidal billionaire freaks like Bill Ackman into conspiring openly on TWITTER about how to undermine an election raises consciousness. Having the President of the US threaten to deport the leading candidate in a mayoral election with no pushback from the liberal media because they’re too busy trying to extract a loyalty pledge for Israel raises consciousness.
All the Jacobin variety slop about how Zorhan represents a new dawn socialism in America is mostly cope. I don’t think it is helpful to make assumptions about what will happen if he is elected, optimistically or pessimistically though. What makes it worthwhile in my opinion is that it makes it clear who our enemies are. Even Sanders, the decrepit old bum, made these people show how much they completely despise working people. The mountains they moved to ensure universal healthcare would remain off the table completely. They’re normally able to hide it, but in moments like this they reveal themselves like vampires caught in the act. It’s a sight nobody can forget once they see it.
I don’t think we will win much of anything through elections, but periodic demonstrations that bourgeois democrats will kill any genuinely popular and beneficial reform movement is not a complete waste. It prevents them from getting away with the act that they give a shit. Every time it happens, it isolates them. Even figures like AOC and Sanders grow more isolated. At this moment, it’s hard to portray them as misleading the movement, because that would imply they are leading it. They are chained to the sinking ship. The only people who care about their opinions are people who reply to ActBlue robo-texts.
I genuinely don’t understand what you’re arguing against tbh
Just going off on a tangent, don’t mind me.
You’ll notice that basically everything he listed doesn’t involve the leftist candidate actually accomplishing anything except scaring liberals, and it’s really the liberals being ghouls that accomplishes the consciousness-raising.
Do you really believe that it doesn’t raise consciousness when socialists get huge microphones to speak to millions of people about how they’re not psychopaths actually, but believe in cool good shit like free transit or government-owned grocery stores?
You’ll notice that he has already begun to capitulate and to change what he advocates for, and as he gets more consumed by the Democratic Party, the rot will accelerate.
AOC started off calling Israel an Apartheid state, now see what her most recent policy insight was.
He did propose a policy for interfering with the funding and operation of “charities” that are supporting Israel from New York.
the democrats do not want him to be mayor of NYC.
He is himself a democrat and part of his recent turn came from recruiting DNC ghouls to his campaign. The dems are perfectly aware that they can usually capture radicals and won’t hesitate to when it’s obviously their best option.
democrats are not united behind that and many are still putting him/his policies on blast. “capture” is definitely something that can happen, but right now you’re jumping the gun without any policy evidence for that.
AOC being a shitthead is evidenced by her record, Mamdani does not yet have a record.
Your argument doesn’t make sense, because it logically implies that we can’t be critical of the ideology and approach of someone who has not yet been elected, as though nothing counts until they vote or take an executive action, as though what they are going to do has no connection with what we can observe during the campaign. What we can observe during this most recent turn of his campaign is bringing DNC ghouls onto his campaign and reversing his stance on an issue where he professed something close enough to the correct position and has now accepted the fundamentally Zionist and Islamophobic premises of his rightist critics.
Name for me a single politician who has acted in office further left than they advertised themselves as. If you can find some mayor of a mid-sized town in Maine for whom that is true, compare that data point to the near-universal trend of Democrats speaking like they are at least 10 degrees to the left of everything they actually do in office, and sometimes much further.
it’s not “nothing counts until they vote”, if Mamdani started backpedalling on everything before the general that would add up. the current question is a point of rhetoric, not even a solid policy, people need to be realistic in assessing that
Where’s the line, in his current situation? What if he just backpedals on one policy? “It’s just one concession, and he had to in order to win. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good?” What about all that he conceivably could do but avoids, e.g. New York City is the finance capitol of the world and he seems to think they don’t present that much of a specific problem.
What about all that he conceivably could do but avoids
what do you think these things are
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It was easy to tell AOC was full of shit when she eulogized McCain despite not being a politician up until that point nor running in the same legislative body and party as McCain.
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Corbyn had it in him to form a new party even if it was due to him getting kicked out of Labour.
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I feel like it’s worth zooming in on something he says about these people wanting power, wealth, fame, etc. There is specifically a trend in the DSA whose primary base is in NYC that believes power and fame are essentially the same - that AOC being a household name is equivalent to power for the DSA - so these people they helped to elect simply holding prestigious titles conveys power to the DSA in their worldview no matter what the elected person does.
I don’t know if AOC agrees with that position or if she just personally likes the wealth and power. My guess is Zohran comes out of the tradition but will more or less carry out the same program of caving to the Democrats to maintain his position.
As long as this idea remains the dominant trend in leftist politics in the US we will always falter.
Difference being he’s trying to be a mayor, not a Congressional Representative. He’ll have actual power to make New Yorkers’ lives better by virtue of his executive authority, something AOC lacks.
I’m sorry but I think this is fundamentally incorrect. The capitalist state is not designed for us to wield. Every single aspect of government will be holding back every single thing he proposes (assuming he even wins the election which is not a given like so many assume). The state and federal governments, the courts, and the city bureaucracy will obstruct and hinder him every step of the way and unlike historical reformers he is not the valve holding back a mass movement that is baying for the blood of the rich. He can’t even stick to his guns about the intifada, how’s he going to overcome a judge that says “fuck you you can’t do that”?
Right but he’ll (optimistically) implement things that are then rolled back by the superstructure. It requires the manifestation and alignment of capitalist power, unlike anything AOC has ever attempted (if she even has).
Argument could be made the Dems tried all this under Biden and the “capitalist superstructure” was the Parliamentarian. The difference will (optimistically) be in the character of his response.
You can apply this to anything we do including labor action. Yet we have both strikes that aren’t shutdown immediately and union victories in new industries. They’re not gods, they’re not omniscient.
I agree with you and I think the party is the key for enabling and perpetuating this capitulation.
Look at how they have always been the more media savvy party, look at the career track of the Obama’s post presidency.
It’s not that we need to by cynical and assume that we can never trust a leadership, we simply cannot ever trust this party. We must build a party whose job is not only to cultivate and promote political talent, but also to hold them accountable to an ideological program. As much as I am dissapointed witb AOC and expecting to be dissapointed with Zohran. We were always foolish to assume or expect anyone could make a push upward with the load stone of the Democratic Party dragging them down. People cannot be an island and especially if they are expected to fight political conflicts along class lines.
This is not to excuse their actions but to understand why they capitulate. Again, not to be cynical, but people often are self interested and waging class war is fucking dangerous, no matter what the terrain is, soft or hard.
When the party presents every incentive to capitulate then eventually people fold because the stakes are very very high and pressure gets to everyone eventually. When you are backed by an organized party with an ideological line, it can steels one’s resolve and help keep everyone honest.
Is he actually a Democrat, as in he donates to Democrats or helps other, more right-wing, Democrats win? Or is he a “Democrat in Name Only?”
We shouldn’t care about using the ballot line that gives us the best chance of winning as long as that’s the extent of what we’re doing with it.
Sure mayor Pete, but the posture must be one that prioritizes antagonism over collaboration.
I would posit it is better to advocate positions that are radical and populist enough as to demonstrate the inefficacy and malice of the party when they completely stymie any attempt to enact these policies and even reach across the aisle to do so. Omar and Talib are the best examples of this.
Better to be ineffective in legislation but effective in making your enemies reveal their true colors than to get your name on a few things and forget who has the knife to your back.
I agree with this
Too early to say with Zohran, I give politicians three strikes before they’re out, he’s 1/3 he can still hit a homerun
AOC on the otherhand is a hindrance and a dud, I dumped her in Jan 2019 when she went after Illhan
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can we please watch and see what he actually does?
Homer Simpson’s Can’t someone else do it but for political and social revolution.
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There’s a lot of energy around his campaign, and a lot of hate being thrown his way. Socialists that think he’s going to transform nyc into a commune are both wrong and don’t exist. He’s running for mayor of the largest city in the country, not as a representative in the capitol. He can make actual changes that may flop or succeed, but those are actions that will effect millions and be seen by even more. Try not to make perfect the enemy of good here, socialist can get something positive out of this, and the reactions from anyone right of him should show that- there’s real fear there. Making rent affordable and transit free are achievable goals with demonstrable results. That’s good for us. It’s a good endorsement for our program. Hound his ass when he’s in office, but don’t over think this now. We’re living in an evil dying empire, take the w. His campaign has more potential than the current left has had in this country. Yeah Bernie sucks, he didn’t win. Yeah AOC sucks, you have a point. But the game is on, roll the fucking dice and don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, this is good PR and a beacon for those who may not have been reached before.
Try not to make perfect the enemy of good here
You did the meme
Yeah Bernie sucks, he didn’t win. Yeah AOC sucks, you have a point. But the game is on, roll the fucking dice
If you keep on losing no matter what you try, maybe it’s time to pick a different table instead of falling for the next DNC lib who says Hope and Change.
You did the meme
And that’s terrible
The other tables don’t exclude the socialist mayoral campaign for New York City. He’s used the DNC against their wishes, they went in for Cuomo and failed. And they’re now split in still supporting Cuomo, staying with Adams, or trying to influence Mamdani into their fold. As it stands his rhetoric is socialist and he’s won the primary and he’s at present not beholden to them. This is a strange instance where he essentially fell through the cracks for multiple reasons and succeeded, on the backs of a great volunteer campaign. I’d rather see where he can go on such a huge stage with a good platform than admonish him as if he’s simply a self-titled progressive advancing mediocre, soft-left campaign promises. We have so little to work on at this scale, I’d rather take the “bait” and be called a lib later than get off on another lecture about how this is once again not the path to follow.
And that’s terrible
Yes it is, because just like when the voteblues use it, all it can possibly serve to do is question-beg your position.
his rhetoric is socialist
So is Bernie’s half the time, and AOC has quoted Kropotkin. It doesn’t matter, it’s just empty words that dilute what socialism actually is in the absence of actual socialist positions like supporting the resistance against Israel or challenging the financiers whose global capitol is the city he is trying to become the mayor of.
We have so little to work on at this scale, I’d rather take the “bait” and be called a lib later than get off on another lecture about how this is once again not the path to follow.
This is the same whipped logic that people under the DNC use, being led along by shapes and colors endlessly failing to kick the football and refusing to accept that they need a different approach than hoping for a Democrat to bail them out, except here it’s communist shapes and colors instead of radlib ones.
Then we’re moving the color spectrum left! Obviously he should be harder on Israel. And obviously he can’t and win the race. I’m not looking for him to bail us out, but I am looking at larger appeal. The left has been crushed in this country for generations, the scale of this is useful for socialists to feel like they can do something and succeed and get in the minds of millions of people that things can be better. It’s not that complicated. Mamdani is not revolution, he’s not toppling the government, and yes, he’s not ending the genocide in Palestine. But he is getting people energized for something more. Bernie failed, I volunteered for him, and I wouldn’t again. But I don’t regret it. AOC was a flash in the pan who’s most revolutionary rhetoric came very early on. She should and could be doing better this whole time. Mamdani may fail, but a failed socialist mayor is better than a failed socialist mayoral campaign. If he pulls an AOC, we have yet another batch of volunteers who can be pulled further left by pointing out his capture by the DNC. If he succeeds in getting his campaign promises across, we have a victory on a long line of defeats to uphold, and millions of people’s lives having experienced it. I don’t believe his campaign is distracting people from trying to end the genocidal machine, the bombs are falling, they money is flowing, unless you
we have so much work to do. Mamdani is currently like a free space in bingo. Having a socialist in the spotlight is far better than not having one, it allows us an easier open to conversations with strangers than before, conversations than can turn far more radical. I can’t see how this campaign and possible stint in office don’t give us something more than we would have if this were just a normal election.Then we’re moving the color spectrum left!
This is literally, at best, just an aesthetic change, but you are glossing over the part where having a disjunction between socialist rhetoric and actions is detrimental to socialism. Bernie calling himself a socialist isn’t actually helpful to us when he says “No, not like Cuba, like Denmark.” All he is doing is making socialist either mean “liar” or mean nothing at all.
Obviously he should be harder on Israel. And obviously he can’t and win the race.
Do you actually have evidence of this? People would have said the same thing about the Primary and then he won. Most Americans country-wide have a disfavorable view of Israel, and New York City is similar, just more polarized.
You’re just digging a hole for more people to be misled into being conciliatory socdems who steal valor from actual socialists while disparaging actually socialist positions. There are many countries where the socialist have been much more successful historically than in the US, but they were co-opted and now there are communist parties that are genuinely just nationalist liberals and similar, and their existence is a detriment to the actual left. If you monofocus on colors and shapes and dismiss issues of substance, you won’t be able to develop the pattern recognition to see that this is hurting us overall when people pretend to be socialists.
I’m just going to keep this in my pocket to hand out later
Haha alright, @ me then
I mean, I appreciate the optimism, I just think Democrats have proven themselves to be an irredeemable dead end
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BE really is our Diogenes
In a rich man’s house there is no place to spit but his empanada
Im only supporting mamdani because he and his wife are hot
stupid sexy Zohran
He’s not even in office for fucks sake
He is useful insofar as he provides evidence that internal change is impossible. He also might make life a little more bearable for the people of new york and that is good I think
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That sounds like setting yourself up for disappointment with extra steps.
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yeah honestly i don’t find it any different from people who become cops because they think they’re one of the good ones who will change the system. acknowledging any level of legitimacy of the illegal amerikkkan occupation and engaging within its systems in any fashion will never ever lead to revolution, and americans have their heads so far up their asses they really think that electing the right trendy people is “progress”
Strong agree tbh he’s giving off some Obama energy to me. People forget that he ran much further left than he turned out. I’m glad to be proven wrong though
That’s what I’ve been saying. You will not create meaningful change from the inside and electoralism is a fuck.
It’s
or Hitler.If electoralism was viable in Czarist Russia, it’s viable now
It’s a tool, it can work for us (Zohran) or against us (Bernie/Sander)
The marxist strategy for electoralist entryism, was to form our own working class parties and use the electoral pulpit to spread socialist ideas.
It never succeeded in actually electing candidates and turning any state based on bourgeios parliamentarism, into a socialist one, in any country.
Allende came closest to actually reform into socialism and look, what they did to him.
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He is apart of the DSA more than he’s apart of the DNC. The DSA is flawed, but it’s definitely an organization sitting in the ring, waiting for a chance to take power.
The Marxist Leninist strategy is to elect socdems to power WHO WE CAN OVERTHROW
We need soft liberals in power WHO HESITATE at the crucial moment the socialists strike, liberals who are allergic to exercising power and violence, who bend the knee to growing worker power and don’t realize the danger they’re in until it too late
That is when socialism explodes onto the national stage
In marxism electoralism is a strategy of maneuvers and positioning, not transformation or “evolution” like the old and new socdems claim
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Because German socialists capitulated to the SPD and not the other way around, which allowed liberals who were not allergic to violence to take power
The Germans mistook the SPD for a transformative workers party instead of something that had to be maneuvered into place and supplanted
Ironically the SPD flipped the script on the socialists and out-maneuvered them to their doom
There are always more factors at play than elections when big shake ups happen in any government. It’s like how democrats love taking credit for grassroots leftism just because they perceived themselves to be “the left” and can’t recognize that others are farther to the left than Bernie sanders.
They can only get away with it becuase the American left is fragmented and underground, it can’t emerge above ground to challenge the dems until it locks down the electoral game with a third party, the left can’t develop a third party if it’s most radical wing refuses to take electoralism seriously
Hard to take something seriously when it just changes the rules so we can’t win
The point isn’t always about winning, the point is to build an army and a base of support, stolen elections in that context makes our job easier
I can agree with that, and other points you made in this thread. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what my feelings on mamdani are because I can’t vote for him anyway.
