Democrats are all upset over Mamdani because he’s a Democratic Socialist? Why? I don’t get it. What’s wrong with being a Democratic Socialist. It seems like a good thing to me. I thought Democrats embraced socialism.
I thought Democrats embraced socialism
There is no time in the history of the US Democratic Party that they embraced socialism as a party.
Democratic Socialism
This is not actually the same as socialism. It’s confusing, I agree. The closest comparison is to “social democratic” parties in Europe, which offer expanded government programs but leave capitalism intact. The simplest definition of socialism is “when the workers own the means of production” (with “means of production” being things like factories, farms, etc. Any business, really). The Democratic Party has never pushed for that and Mamdani is not pushing for that now.
This is not actually the same as socialism. It’s confusing, I agree. The closest comparison is to “social democratic” parties in Europe
Democratic Socialism is not Social Democracy. Democratic Socialism advocates for real socialism through the existing democratic institutions, whereas Social Democracy only advocates for softer capitalism. Particularly, DemSoc’s view capitalism as fundamentally incompatible with democracy.
Now there’s plenty of things wrong with Democratic Socialism, but the main one is you’re playing by the rules written by the capitalists and are assuming the capitalists will follow those rules.
DSA’s national website is ambiguous. It says: " …democratic socialism, a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and society. " “A real voice in” is not the same as ownership of or control over.
However, DSA (both national and local ones) has a number of different movements within it. Some are social democratic, some are authoritarian socialist, some are libertarian socialist, and so on. In the context of Mamdani and Sanders, Democratic Socialism’s social democratic wing is probably the movement having the biggest impact so far. I do hope the libertarian socialst/anarchist movements within DSA ultimately come to influence it the most!
The DSA was founded by Marxists and has always been socialist. If you show up at a meeting and say ‘I don’t think we need to overthrow capitalism’ you will be laughed out of the room. I’ve seen it happen.
The libertarian wing of the DSA doesn’t caucus within DSA because they got completely shut down in either the 2017 or 2019 confrenece. Everyone else actually learned something from the failures of Occupy.
What goes forthe Social Democrat wing of DSA is the faction most connected to Labor unions in the DSA, namely Bread and Roses. The rest are either Trotskyite or ML. There are plenty of anarchists still but they don’t bother with any national caucus. Besides, its not like anarchists aren’t also reading from spooky “authoritarians” like Lenin and Mao. If you want to overthrow capitalism you should read up on the people who’ve actually done it.
Besides, its not like anarchists aren’t also reading from spooky “authoritarians” like Lenin and Mao.
…what? They may read them, but not sympathetically.
If you want to overthrow capitalism you should read up on the people who’ve actually done it.
Yeah, like the anarchists in Catalonia, the EZLN in Mexico, AANES/Rojava, and the original workers councils in Russia.
First everyone should be reading these works critically and not as absolute doctrine. Any ML who’s actually knows what “scientific socialism” means and isnt a tankie larper should know that.
Second, all except for the Catalonia examples are false.
- EZLN is literally a Maoist people’s army started by a Maoist cadre. The people they organized simply didn’t see overthrowing the entire Mexican government as worth it. If you knew anything about Mao you would’ve known that.
- Lenin and Mao were required readings for for the YPG according to western volunteers. Just look into Occalan their connection with the PKK and understand they were just softening their image to get US support.
- “original workers councils in Russia” AKA the Soviets. Yeah they didn’t read Mao or State and Revolution because they hadn’t been written yet! But to suggest they weren’t reading early Lenin is obvious baloney given that him and the Bolsheviks were their contemporaries.
EZLN did start out as a more authoritarian-influenced group (in the 80s, that was where USSR influence and support was going!) but they have since evolved away from that in major ways, especially after learning from/integrating with indigenous peoples after some initial contact with Mexican national forces. I am not as up on PKK/AANES history, but Ocalan’s major works are primarily influenced by Murray Bookchin, who was extremely anti-authoritarian.
The soviets eventually came to be dominated by the Bolsheviks, who were majorly influenced by Lenin, but they were formed and initially populated by several factions. It’s reductive to the point of absurdity to give Lenin the whole credit for the overthrow of capitalism in Russia (which was messy and complex), despite his outsized influence on the country from then on. Capitalism had only begun in Russia when serfdom was abolished in 1861 anyway, so the society that was overthrown was really one that failed during the transition.
Look, debate on these points in this thread is silly and I kinda regret being baited here. We need an easy intro to what socialism even is at this moment, for people like the OP, and we can talk strategy in another place. I’m glad we’re broadly on the same team! Let’s show others questioning society in this moment what we can offer.
I see. I like the idea of a mix of social programs and regulated capitalism and I feel like capitalism has run amok for far too long. I’m sure you all understand it better than I do.
We all start somewhere! My politics were more like yours a while back, but now I would disagree that it is possible to keep capitalism regulated. Since then, I have come to understand that the basic drives of capitalism, especially the one that forces every capitalist to increase the amount of profit they get and the rate of increase of their profit, would just make them throw money into politics and overcome any possible regulations.
Keep reading and you’ll get explanations of how capitalism works and you can decide for yourself whether regulation is possible or not.
To provide a simple historical example without getting into too much of the theory, consider the progression from The New Deal to where we are now. That was about as close as the US got to social democracy and that’s been all but destroyed over the following decades by capitalists. But yeah they should definitely read more if they want to understand the mechanisms in more detail.
Democrats aren’t socialist but there are socialists who are democrats. The majority of the party are beholden to big donors just like the Republicans and view anything even remotely socialist as not only a threat to their donors but a threat to their position in the party.
The democrats are melting down over Mamdani because he might cause a wave of socialists primarying them.
They are also melting down because the main attack they used against Mamdani - calling him an antisemite when he’s really just an anti-zionist - had zero affect. This is huge because it’s been a tried and true tactic to use against socialists most famously in the UK against Corbyn.
the public is finally evolving past not knowing the difference between anti semitism and anti zionism
The DNC are just republican lite, madini upsets thier status quo, aka center right, so not even on the left. the voters may support DS, but the politicians dont at all, all that money that comes with being like the gop is too god to miss.
America is a capitalist nation. The Republicans openly support it. The Democrats less openly support it.
Socialism breaks the mold, it evens the playing field for everyone - people part of the establishment will always oppose it.
America is a capitalist nation. The Republicans
openlyrabidly support it. The Democrats lessopenlyrabidly support it.There’s nothing preventing capitalism from being socialist, except right-wing propaganda.
Capitalism is a (very powerful) financial tool for societies. It can help them prosper or it can be abused and turned to fascism.
The key is to keep the Capitalists out of government to prevent legislative capture by corporations.
Look at the Scandinavian countries to see successful social-democratic countries that have embraced capitalism without frogmarching into fascism like the US. Sure, they’re not without their problems, but I’d rather have their problems.
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Helping people who aren’t me is woke.
There again. What’s wrong with being woke?
Woke. Look up the definition. It means being aware, awake, tuned in to reality.
That can be unappealing to many people. Mostly ignorant, lazy, arrogant, selfish people who haven’t had the need to consider the existence of well-being of any other person but themselves and MAYBE their direct family in their entire lives.
Hope that clears things up!
It’s DEI or something
I thought Democrats embraced socialism.
Democrats, the party and politicians, no. Not even close. As much as Fox News would love you to believe that.
Democrats, the voters, much more so. The majority of people in the US are like you. When presented with actual socialist policies, they’re on board. But most people are also not engaged enough in politics to recognize that the Democratic party doesn’t actually believe in socialist policies, they just vote for “the left”. Or, they do recognize it, but feel that they have no better options.
Are you joking or seriously asking, I am not joking it is hard to tell genuinely.
Simply put, he’s not on their team and as mayor of New York it’s a good amount of power and if he wins there it’ll encourage more and suddenly they’ll have less chums in positions they like and won’t get what they want done
I’m serious and not very savvy when it comes to politics. I feel like the establishment is out of touch with regular people. I wouldn’t mind if more socialists got elected. I would have voted for Sanders. Also, it’s hard to tell just what the establishment actually wants half the time. I don’t know, it just seems like democrats should support more socialist ideas.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/324-the-abcs-of-socialism?_pos=2&_psq=socialism&_ss=e&_v=1.0 you might want to try this as a gentle introduction to socialism. It’s a big topic, but you can start here and then look for the next book that interests you if you like.
Cool, thanks
The establishment has always, and will always want, to get and keep more money and power. That’s it. When in doubt, no matter what the surface level issues are that they say they “support” (to get people to vote for them), always think back to how this or that tactic will get them more money and power.
For generations, Americans have been raised to believe that socialism and communism are the same thing, and that they’re not only bad policy, but actively un-American and evil.
Liberals hate progressive more than they hate the GOP. But this way Democrats keep saying every election is the most important election in our lifetime. They still expect the vote blue no matter who, so Democrats want nothing more than to have the progressive fall in line.
I hate it here. I want off this ride.
Democrats, democratic socialism and socialism are all different things. The Democratic party has different objectives from Democratic socialists. Perhaps it would be helpful to label Democrats as the “center moderate” party, democratic socialists as "left and the Republican party as “fascism”.
I guess I’m closer to the left then
The quick answer is that the Democratic Party isn’t socialist. Socialists work against the interests of capitalists and guess who the Democratic Party takes a lot of money from? The few socialists or democratic socialists that try to run through the Democratic party are fighting an uphill battle and are only doing so mostly because the two party system makes it impossible for 3rd parties to win in most cases.
This has always been the case, but what might cause this confusion is that the Democrats appeared to favor more socially oriented policies in the mid 20th century with The New Deal and The Great Society. But the thing to understand about that is:
- Despite creating some social spending programs, they kept capitalists in power.
- They never stopped doing the other part of capitalism: Imperialism.
- There was a lot of pressure from outside the government. Unions were stronger. The Great Depression was the greatest crisis capitalism had seen up until that point, and the success of communist revolutions in other countries could have shown the American working class a different path forward.
In the 90s, with the Soviet Union dissolved and the power of unions thoroughly gutted, the Democrats under Clinton did a realignment to the right. Clinton famously passed welfare “reform” (read: gutting it) calling it “an end to welfare as we know it.” Clinton entered us into NAFTA, a trade deal that helped facilitate corporations moving production to other countries to exploit cheaper labor. He passed the Crime Bill which is credited with being a huge contributor to mass incarceration. Etc.
Since then Democrats have looked a lot more like Clinton than FDR, and even FDR wasn’t a socialist. So yeah, the people who helped take things away from the working class aren’t super thrilled about someone who wants to take some of that stuff back for us.
1 word: pluralities.
Justice Democrats, progressives, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Mamdani are all outliers – the majority of the Democratic party (and especially the DNC) have dedicated their very souls to maintaining the status quo and maintaining their corporate funding – they are the “white moderate” that MLK was warning as being even more dangerous than KKK – we know the Republicans hate us while the Democrats will pat you on the back as they tell you their hands are tied and this isn’t the time and don’t rock the boat and they know what you want better than you do
Nothing.
Democracy and Capitalism are inextricably linked in American politics. ‘Democratic Capitalism’ is the predominant social and economic culture.
Changing the capitalism part is as revolting as changing the democracy part.
And that’s without trying to disambiguate Social Democracy from Democratic Socialism.
