it may be hard for you to conceive of this but the DSA is a relatively large (by the standards of the US left) organisation which can direct its membership to participate in different political activities, and if they choose to direct them to do one thing, then they can’t actually do others as much. so the decision about what is prioritised does matter. this is called “political strategy”.
setting aside whether we can call DSA “revolutionaries” or adjacent to them or whatever, didn’t their ranks swell up quite a bit due to the Bernie campaign?
there are revolutionary socialists and communists within the DSA, i’m not trying to call them a revolutionary org, but there are factions within it that are struggling to make it more of one
yeah they swelled their ranks due to the Bernie campaign but that was more of a by-product, and as we’re seeing, a lot of those people basically want the org to be a Democrat-supporting NGO because their thinking didn’t evolve beyond “elect socialists as Democrats”. I don’t think Mamdani’s going to have the same kind of effect, either.
If the Actual Leftists within the org weren’t able to take advantage of that surge of membership and win the newcomers to their side that doesn’t speak very highly of said Actual Leftists or their tactics
Is there any evidence at all indicating that there was a revolutionary moment about to boil over in NYC, and that Mamdani’s candidacy interrupted and de-escalated this?
it may be hard for you to conceive of this but the DSA is a relatively large (by the standards of the US left) organisation which can direct its membership to participate in different political activities, and if they choose to direct them to do one thing, then they can’t actually do others as much. so the decision about what is prioritised does matter. this is called “political strategy”.
setting aside whether we can call DSA “revolutionaries” or adjacent to them or whatever, didn’t their ranks swell up quite a bit due to the Bernie campaign?
there are revolutionary socialists and communists within the DSA, i’m not trying to call them a revolutionary org, but there are factions within it that are struggling to make it more of one
yeah they swelled their ranks due to the Bernie campaign but that was more of a by-product, and as we’re seeing, a lot of those people basically want the org to be a Democrat-supporting NGO because their thinking didn’t evolve beyond “elect socialists as Democrats”. I don’t think Mamdani’s going to have the same kind of effect, either.
If the Actual Leftists within the org weren’t able to take advantage of that surge of membership and win the newcomers to their side that doesn’t speak very highly of said Actual Leftists or their tactics
Is there any evidence at all indicating that there was a revolutionary moment about to boil over in NYC, and that Mamdani’s candidacy interrupted and de-escalated this?