Strategy for american socialists

I'm not an american, but I follow american politics pretty closely. It's becoming increasingly clear that socialist and social democratic policies are actually very popular, and that socialist and "progressive" candidates can win against mainstream democrats despite not having nearly as much money or the democratic establishment machinery behind them. There is a huge potential for a strong new left-wing movement.

If you're "just" a social democrat, the strategy seems obvious. Run candidates who support single payer healthcare, free higher education, higher minimum wage, don't accept money from corporations, etc. within the democratic party, work with groups like the Democrat Cops of America, Justice Democrats and Our Revolution, and attempt a hostile take over of the democratic party. This is already being done and it seems to be working pretty well. It wouldn't at all surprise me if they succeeded in pushing the democratic party mainstream to the left and got them to go back to New Deal style politics.

But if you want to go beyond social democracy, to socialism, it's more complicated. What strategy should parties like the PSL, WWP, and maybe the left wing of the Democrat Cops of America have? Obviously, the popularity of single payer healthcare and free higher education should be capitalized upon, but, for example, what kind of attitude should the socialist left have towards candidates like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez?

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We need to make the transition from social democracy to democratic socialism, anything more radical (ie revolutionary) will likely alienate too many people. I think this can be accomplished in much the same way that the socdems are accomplishing their goals. We should align with the socdems to drive the neoliberals from the Democratic Party, then we should proceed to drive the socdems out in much the same way. I think a big part of this will also involve taking control of organizations that act as voting blocs, mobilizing voters but remaining independent from any one party. Democrat Cops of America and what’s left of America’s unions are the most obvious examples of these, and so we should try to drive the socdems out of them asap. Once that’s done we use these orgs to mobilize votes for demosoc candidates to drive the socdems out of the democrats just like the neoliberals before them.

Do you really think this is possible? The democratic party has never been a workers party, despite many attempts to push it left. As I said, I think it's possible to push the democrats left just enough to get them to support some social democratic policies, but not more than that. (Although, that is just my gut feeling, so I could be wrong.)

I think this is wishful thinking. The Sanders wing is clearly more popular than the centrist leadership, but popularity isn't enough, you need power. Universal healthcare will require going to war with health insurers and pharmaceutical companies which is a lot more challenging than saying "Medicare for All is good". For all his faults FDR was a ruthless political operator. I seriously doubt anyone in the Sanders wing has the ability to do FDR's 100 days part 2. More likely they'll find themselves with a narrow majority in a hollowed out placeholder government that is fundamentally incapable of doing anything beyond writing checks for parasitic banks and corporations, Syriza 2.0.
Develop an anti-war movement. Mainstream socdems rarely mention the colossal military empire and secret wars we have so it's fertile ground for an actual alternative to mainstream party politics. Furthermore there has been a collapse in legitimacy in almost every institution, including the mainstream press, over the last 8-10 years, and people want an alternative that doesn't feed them excuses and obfuscatory PR speak.

Yeah most of them still in the dream of someone like FDR will budge to the popular pressure.
No, they will never budge
Mao-"if you don't fight reactionaries, they won't go away"
Dem part need something similar to Rep party to happen, working class people taking over power.
Sadly, this needs to completely rethink 20th century American lef-wing politics. Without the leadership of proletariat, no real change will happen. The Dem left base are moving towards this boiling point, but not yet.
Tbh, Dem needs another big election shock to shake up the bourgeoise wing

what we need to do is declare the republicans a terrorist organization and kick them out of congress so it's only democrats and a socialist party

I think our only option, failing the total collapse of the American state (which would be great) would be taking over the Democratic Party. No third party has any hope of securing power.

We all know that the DNC is run by jews. Is this something we may have a common ground with poltards on? They are assholes, but they hate the establishment as much as I do. So i guess there's that, which is frustratingly interesting.

Engles already pointed out in "the condition of working class in england", Chartism and Socialism should unite.

The alternation from fascism to democracy and from democracy to fascism is an extension and intensification of the general crisis of the modern capitalist hegemony. The bourgeoisie rely on the relations of force built upon their militaristic and economic model to alternate between fascism and democracy. This alternates between giving the appearance of not being hostile to the proletariat, and using traditionalist culture wars that allow the bourgeoisie "authority" to arm blackshirts and put the workers movements back in their proper place.

Generally speaking, if you want to stop the next cycle of fascism give it a try. You'll maintain democracy for awhile for whatever it's worth. The moment the left becomes docile or passive the bourgeoisie are guaranteed to institute fascism and set back the workers movement 100 years. Then after a period, when the workers movement is impotent and back at ground zero. They'll allow it to grow for awhile having succeeded in blunting socialism before the next cycle of fascism.

Personally I like DemSocs, because they won't increase hostilities against China and Russia. They may throw a few strong words their way, but their compositional base is strongly noninterventionalist and non imperialist. The democrats and republicans will certainly increase hostilities against both China and Russia given a few years. If you want a cold war and fascism then throw them in the gutter. Either way, DemSocs won't achieve socialism, only revolution will spawn socialism.

bump

wow, better get ready for another 4 years of trump if they stoop that low

Launch all the nukes.

I think this sounds like a pretty good strategy. A key is to keep the pushing to the left, firm, consistent, and ever increasing.


To add my own two cents: I think anti-interventionism and anti-geopolitics needs to be at the heart of the movement. If I recall the Bernie/Hillary debates correctly, even the establishment commentators had to admit Bernies edge. Even they admit Bernie was wrecking Hillary non stop on question after question and the best she could say was "I WILL DO THAT AS WELL!" Then they said: "Now we're getting to the foreign policy section of the debate, this is Hillary's chance to shine, she was Secretary of state after all!" And then Hillary would just play a game of Carmen San Diego and just start listing all the countries she visited as SoS as if it was some kind of accomplishment. "Libya! Yemen! Iraq! Afghanistan! Jordan! Saudi Arabia! Israel! Oman! Qatar! Turkey! Quebec!….."

But Bernie even burned her good in the foreign policy segment with his (paraphrasing)"You madame said you take advice from our former Secretary of State and your good friend, Henry Kissinger! Well Henry Kissinger is no friend of mine!"

I think if he came prepared to do more of that from the jump he could of smashed her bad enough to get the nomination(not counting Super Delegate fuckery, which ultimately, they didn't even have to use). I actually think Trump going so hard on Jeb for Dubya getting us into Iraq and Jeb's unwillingness to distance himself from his brother is what ultimately what got him the nomination.

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I forgot to add that anti-interventionism is super popular even on Zig Forums of all places. Whether or not Trump is truly anti-interventionist is a different discussion, but I think this is a genuinely popular policy with a large segment of that crowd.

Liz Warren is too old and uncharismatic. They'll use Kamala Harris. Being a black woman will (in their estimation) be enough to get the people they couldn't with Hilldawg.

It's probably most advantageous to avoid the label "socialist" as self identifies. Why do this is because in the US the Republican party calls almost everything socialism so even if someone is against socialism they might not fully understand a policy is actually socialist for real being that the word lost all meaning. Socialism also has a huge negative stigma attached to it from decades of propoganda. It's easier to explain policy and give it a shiny new name than just label it with tainted words. Also various things the Founding Fathers said could be made to sound in support of socialism.

Workerism? People-First Politics? Something like that you mean?

Harris will be a disaster. Doesn't mean they won't use her but I suspect Kirsten Gillibrand.

Bernie Sanders policies with Donald Trump's rhetoric

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Standing up for the little guy is one that's already popular.

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Anyway, here's a good reddit thread in which this idea of "negative rights"=valid & good, "positive rights"=invalid & bad, gets BTFO: reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/8zl8pm/why_do_you_think_positive_rights_should_be_a_thing/

lol spooks

stirner is cancer