Democratic (Party) Direction

im rooting for Julia Salazar (FKA Julia Carmel on twitter) next

I'm into the trend of objectively hot young relatively-far-left candidates getting run tbh (I also include Kaniela Ing in this). it never hurts!

lol

i know you guys like DSA and stuff but the one thing that makes me uneasy about these candidates is the self-ID ing as 'socialist'. i know ppl think there's a latent socialist majority out there but... idk seems risky to identify that way in america esp if the policies you're running on are not socialism but like, abolishing a govt agency that was didn't exist 15 years ago and having the same healthcare system as Canada. maybe im wrong idk

tbf many of them also support nationalizing industries and whatnot, it's just not a big part of the platform for obvious reasons.

getting people comfortable with socialism as a concept is part of the longer-term strategy of normalizing gulags

identifying with socialism is fine in my book, my hesitation is the -- I don't want to say "rampant," but the not infrequent sexual harassment issues that have come up

idk seems risky to identify that way in america

not really so much anymore, as practically demonstrated by Bernie almost winning

an unfortunate side effect of getting a huge influx of young men joining over an extremely short period of time. I don't consider it an institutional problem (more of an individual-chapter issue) but it's definitely been a jaor hindrance in some cities (xp)

*major hindrance

still makes me anxious

bernie almosta won

"socialism" absolutely not the effective scare tactic it once was and AOC normalizing it is going to be a bigger deal than I anticipated at first

I don't like to drop off the "democratic" in democratic socialism. It should be looked at fresh.

cmon now xp

nothing has been normalised

no normal is the new normal

this was two years ago

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/02/05/millennials-have-a-higher-opinion-of-socialism-than-of-capitalism/

millenials will have money soon enough

the choice is either move left or move right. best to move left, you're not going to beat the right at their own game.

xp that is easily disproven

i think it still has the potential to scare; not as much as race obv but i think it’s still p salient. you’re discounting away the counter-factual where BS won the primary and got slimed for being a socialist. we don’t know how effective that would’ve been. imo, very effective. and like i get calling yourself socialist if you’re doing socialism, but idk isn’t social democrat what these policies are called in most countries? and doesn’t have the baggage. i mean i get why some prefer socialist, has more muscle or something. the word ‘socialist’ kind of stuck out in ocasio’s ad, to me. but i think all the other elements of it were terrific and seem like an awesome model for the new direction of the Democratic (Party)

I would qualify pretty much everyone DSA is endorsing as a social democrat, but I don't think that term means anything to the vast majority of Americans. Embracing "socialist" as a label is a handy way to make clear you've got a different strategy and set of priorities, and I'm still not convinced it succeeds in scaring a significant portion of the population.

just seems like an added risk with no reward thing. ive unfollowed most Actual Socialists on twitter but i got the impression they hate nu-DSA

that ad is so good. the couple who made its phones must’ve been flying off the hook yesterday lol

I'm still not convinced it succeeds in scaring a significant portion of the population.

It got the NRA up in arms. (See what I did there?) And any candidate riling up the NRA is okay in my book.

just seems like an added risk with no reward thing. ive unfollowed most Actual Socialists on twitter but i got the impression they hate nu-DSA

― flopson, Thursday, June 28, 2018 2:17 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ah yes, nothing like a socialism purity test so that radical left politics REALLY takes off this time

re: the ad producers, they're DSA members who call themselves The Means of Production lol

ive unfollowed most Actual Socialists on twitter but i got the impression they hate nu-DSA

such is the left

millenials will have money soon enough

― under a mand'rin tsar (darraghmac), Thursday, June 28, 2018 12:09 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nope

getting people comfortable with socialism as a concept is part of the longer-term strategy of normalizing gulags

― Simon H., Thursday, June 28, 2018 11:57 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol gtfo

maybe the time to concern troll about this dumb bullshit is not 2 days after a candidate who identifies as a democratic socialist won a huge upset election idk!!!!!

let me concern troll when i please

"millenials will have money" - lol, no. millenials will, at rates well beyond their predecessors, never have steady careers, houses, or retirement plans

as i said the ‘S’ is imo the least essential and most incongruous part of the ad

hmmm, yes, how could she have been so foolish as to advertise her socialist platform as socialist, no doubt this was the cause of her predictable defeat by joe crowley. if only she had hidden this away she might have won in a landslide. better luck next time, alexandria!

they will call you a socialist anyway, might as well just be one at this point

otm

Four Dem Socialist candidates just won seats in PA. We helped two win seats in VA last November. My rural community just advanced an anti-ICE, anti-pipeline candidate in the congressional primary. Please stop wringing hands about this strategy not winning the heartland.

— elizabeth catte (@elizabethcatte) June 27, 2018

hmmm, yes, how could she have been so foolish as to advertise her socialist platform as socialist, no doubt this was the cause of her predictable defeat by joe crowley. if only she had hidden this away she might have won in a landslide. better luck next time, alexandria!

― This is a total Jeff Porcaro. (Doctor Casino), Thursday, June 28, 2018 3:37 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so the logic here is because she won everything she did was necessary to her win and replicable nationwide?

they will call you a socialist anyway, might as well just be one at this point

― global tetrahedron, Thursday, June 28, 2018 3:39 PM (forty-six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it’s more like ‘they will call you a socialist anyway, might as well not be one but call yourself one at this point’. if socialism is so good, why not run on it? if it’s good purely as branding on top of a non-socialist platform... i have a harder time believing that

fredson

k3v you’re DSA?

I do think the over the top attacks against Obama as a “socialist” neutralized the boogeyman to an extent unless your a hardcore Fox News person. Bernie not sounding like what people think of as a radical in his moments of national spotlight helped too. Democratic Socialist I think sometimes is less of a liability than the way the GOP can attack higher taxes.

not saying 'replicable nationwide,' but i'm not sure what we're supposed to take away from your report that flopford flopson was taken aback at seeing the word in her literature. clearly in her district it wasn't the kiss of death so perhaps there are other such districts? dunno why this has to be a one-size-fits-all or nothing. just to clarify - do you support her platform itself (by whatever name)?

xp I'm just playing with you but you should maybe chill. obviously messaging is context/district-dependent and not every democrat is going to want to brand herself as a socialist. this is basic stuff

I think whether or not you use the word "socialism" is a lot less important, as far as winning, than whether you are a good candidate and whether you clearly and unequivocally espouse bold policies that people support.

My understanding is that DSA requires you to embrace the label in order to back you. She took that gamble and won huge. Obviously it's not going to work in every single district, yet, but it definitely advances the normalization of socialism to have candidates like her embrace it. The whole concept that ANYTHING can be "good purely as branding on top of a non-x platform" is bullshit and should die.

like it's only consultants who are too shitty at marketing/advertising to even have real advertising jobs who think you can just slap "branding" on someone regardless of who they are and what they really stand for.

it sure worked for trump, man of the common working class people

My understanding is that DSA requires you to embrace the label in order to back you

this is correct

as for the weight of these words/labels - it's interesting. i wonder how much some of the reagan-era catechisms have just basically expired from lack of use outside the foxosphere. i remember when i was a liberal teen arguing politics with my dad (a classic reagan democrat - campaigned for eugene mccarthy in 1968 but jumped ship at some vague point in the 70s), he was like "ah, here we go again, the old tax and spend, tax and spend..." and it was apparent to me that "tax and spend liberals" was clearly A Thing to people of his generation, they'd really been sold on the idea that the democrats had tried taxing everybody and spending their money on things and it hadn't been any good and the idea was now in the dustbin of history.

but i can't remember the last time i heard "tax and spend." the wimpy weakness of the democrats on defending the welfare state, and the focus of so much politics on culture war stuff, may have kind of atrophied the pejorative vocabulary surrounding common-sense safety net stuff.

IDK if socialism is "good branding" or not, but it's certainly no longer the death sentence it once was. The Cold War is a distant memory, that's why conservatives have to resort to "OMG WE'LL BECOME VENEZUELA" and it just kind of falls flat on most people.

of course i love her platform, some policy quibbles aside (on JG im more on the UBI side, and even more on the SWF/citizen’s dividend side)

Hannity put OAC's whole platform up on the screen yesterday and it just looked dope

millenials will have money soon enough

― under a mand'rin tsar (darraghmac), Thursday, June 28, 2018 7:09 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

would that this were true