So he effectively bypassed it. Actually the Weimar Republic proves my point quite nicely, since it’s politics were dominated by three parties: the KPD, SPD, and NSDAP. You’ll notice that two of those are workers parties, both of which successfully sought legislation to protect the interests of workers.
It was literally the largest political force of organized labour and workers in Germany, it was just less radical than the KPD.
You know why it’s not a coincidence? Because social democracy, despite not being anti capitalist, is still a genuine workers movement, and still a genuine expression of class struggle. You are assuming that working class consciousness emerges fully formed without undergoing development through struggle, but this isn’t the case. Lenin acknowledges that the working class on its own only achieves trade union and social democratic consciousness. As the contradictions heighten, and the vanguard does its work, only then does revolutionary consciousness develop. The fact that some porkies see social democracy as a way to prevent revolution does not preclude it from being an actual movement of the working class. You are assuming that anything less than a fully socialist movement is artificial, without recognizing that the workers in the US and West in general lack that level of class consciousness, but still retain some level. The result is social democracy.
Participating in bourgeois democracy
TLDR: the re-emergence of social democracy in the US is the result of a heightening of the class contradictions, not a 4D plot by porkies. Some porkies may be jumping on the bandwagon to save their own skins, but it’s pretty clear that it’s also a genuine movement of the working class.
I understand the point you're trying to make regarding the pragmatist approach to participating in bourgeois politics, but let's clear the air a bit regarding the SPD. The SPD was indeed a vehicle for proletarian consciousness before it was co-opted by bourgeois interest in the years leading up to WW1, but I believe that the best argument you can continue to make is:
1. Proletarians need to see their interests being represented within the bougeois political system
2. We have to use both methods, outside and inside the bourgeois political process to push proletarian agenda.
3. It's a matter of pragmatism and using all tools available to win, rather than arguing the true effectiveness of either.
speaking of, bourgoisie elections, let's adress the elephant in the room: the European Parlaiment elections.
is it worth voting at all? It's possibly the most bourgie shit there is; a supernational government, dominated by right wingers, whose only disctintion is liking/not liking brown people. So reform from inside is completely impossible.
I've heard some socdems argue that "DiEM25 is actually not bad" but they probably won't be able to run reprsesentatives in every constituent, and even if they did, they'd simply not be able to reach a position to have any sort of bargaining power.
So really, are there ANY arguements for participating?
Even after that, it still enjoyed mass support among the working class, had a presence in pretty much every major trade union, etc. The idea that centre left parties aren’t expressions of class struggle or don’t represent the will of the working class is wrong. It basically assumes that anything other than full class consciousness is an artificial, bourgeois controlled movement. I’m not endorsing social democracy at all here though, I’m just pointing out that I don’t buy the narrative of everything other than revolutionary socialism being a bourgeois psyop. I agree with the rest of your post though.
I don't know about that. The far right in a number of countries has successfully used electoral processes in the recent past to boost their own profile even though their chances for victory were very slim. The IRA fielded sympathisers for local elections in Ireland so they can canvass and collect cash for the cause door to door without attracting unwanted attention.
Bourgie elections can be extremely useful for building movements as long as the organisers realise that the goal isn't to elect candidates but to build organisation on the ground, and also have managed to correctly identify a specific issue to press that will land them in the middle of the current political context, and whether it's possible to tackle that issue through bourg parliaments or not is completely inconsequential.
it's ripe for accelerating its own contradictions by letting all the eurosceptics get elected
the only people who actually have changed anything serious for the better in the EU have been the pirate party, and they've only managed to do this because unlike in burgerland and china surveillance capitalism is developing fairly slowly in europe in comparison. if you can vote for one of their candidates that's useful because it throws additional logs under the feet of the people trying to force a silicon valley friendly context onto european governments.
the only reason for participation in eu elections is to try to hinder the whole institution by voting in eurosceptics or pirates. don't expect them to submit meaningful reform, just expect them to attack all manner of porky or eurofederalist shit in parliament for non-socialist reasons.