Democratic (Party) Direction

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

i said after november 2016 and i still firmly believe that we've gotta fight for socialism _out loud_, that it's important to destigmatize the use of the term among the general public in the same way its already been destigmatized among the largest ever generation of young americans.

I also think that when you have a policy position that's outside the mainstream, just getting people to say it on TV is often a win even if they're critical of it. Like now "Abolish ICE" is national talk, a few weeks ago it was mostly a lefty hashtag.

oh man how could i forget the UBI/jobs guarantee thread. yes right okay. sorry, just checking - you can understand how your posts would look like concern trolling if you were actually a centrist uncomfortable with the substance of the platform.

I also think that when you have a policy position that's outside the mainstream, just getting people to say it on TV is often a win even if they're critical of it. Like now "Abolish ICE" is national talk, a few weeks ago it was mostly a lefty hashtag.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Thursday, June 28, 2018 4:02 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

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

― k3vin k., Thursday, June 28, 2018 3:51 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

im skeptical socialist had much value added even in NY14, but granting that, i guess what im wondering if the movement connects ppl running in contexts where it really hurt, but still run on that platform and have authentic stories that root them in their communities

ignore the stigma, even among the left, the word 'socialism' is mostly just the source of arguments and confusion. it's not worth the trouble.

You don't have to use "socialism," just the goodies that come with socialism (healthcare for all, living wage, etc).

Hannity put OAC's whole platform up on the screen yesterday and it just looked dope
― Simon H., Thursday, June 28, 2018 12:57 PM

I saw a fair amount of people who aren’t socialists basically say the same thing today re: that Hannity still

you a good dude flopson but you're trying a little too hard here with the nate silver routine. DSA was a huge factor in her victory. Get out of the dem consultant mindset, this wasn't a "branding" campaign from 10,000 feet it was an on the ground campaign.

You do if you want the DSA to back you and canvass for you. xps

btw, imho the most exciting/future-laden aspect of AOC's victory (aside from her own future career as a lawmaker) is what it signals to potential candidates, not in 'the heartland' or wherever, but in the countless other urban districts across the country whose "safe" democratic incumbents haven't really stirred themselves to update their platforms and tactics since the 1990s.... both at the congressional and statehouse level. would be really cool to see more such flips happen.

I told my dad I was voting for Bernie and he called me a communist and made a burka joke. I was so startled I could only respond with, "I don't think you know what these things are."

ignore the stigma, even among the left, the word 'socialism' is mostly just the source of arguments and confusion. it's not worth the trouble.

― iatee, Thursday, June 28, 2018 8:06 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i would have agreed with you ten years ago. not anymore.

there's a whole generation of people who don't know much about socialism or socialists but it's still stigmatized.

So, what Al said is much more effective.

Thoughts from smart organizer & writer John Matthew Smucker:

If your analysis of Ocasio's win is "the party's liberals won," you're missing the fundamental thing: the populist axis of identification and mobilization. This isn't just bolstering a "liberal base." It's opening a popular insurgency against a corroded political establishment. That's how it brings in new bases of people, previously beyond the reach of either the Party's establishment or its liberal wing.

Ocasio's populism is refreshingly different than Trump's lemon populism. Her populism actually punches up at power, at extreme concentrations of wealth, and at structural problems—instead of punching down at the most vulnerable. Her "we the people" is inclusive of all of us.

The inclusionary populism of candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jess King is the winning ticket for progressive forces—to be the driver of history in the decades ahead. The dangerous alternative is the reactionary forces that Trump represents holding onto the momentum and consolidating their hold on the helm. In a populist moment, the status quo will not hold. There's no going back to "normal" or to how things were before. We have a choice between two fundamentally different visions and directions for society: one whose "we" is inclusive, and one that scapegoats immigrants Muslims, and who knows who's next. Not to be overly dramatic, but the last time industrialized nations had such a stark choice was in the 1930s.

I also think that when you have a policy position that's outside the mainstream, just getting people to say it on TV is often a win even if they're critical of it. Like now "Abolish ICE" is national talk, a few weeks ago it was mostly a lefty hashtag.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Thursday, June 28, 2018 1:02 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Policy statements that fit into two or three words are amazingly powerful. "Medicare for all" also was a lefty hashtag that by summer of last year was a train all the likely Democratic presidential candidates were getting on. Constantly shouting slogans like this changes the world.

the sheer memetic brilliance of "Black lives matter" I think helped kick this off

Not to be overly dramatic, but the last time industrialized nations had such a stark choice was in the 1930s.

yeah, all due respect but that's overly dramatic

you a good dude flopson but you're trying a little too hard here with the nate silver routine. DSA was a huge factor in her victory. Get out of the dem consultant mindset, this wasn't a "branding" campaign from 10,000 feet it was an on the ground campaign.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Thursday, June 28, 2018 4:07 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

im sure they ran a great campaign im really just nitpicking about one word. i think the fact that even DSA candidates don’t foreground any socialist economic policies belies the riskiness. the thing about my socialism concern trolling is we can’t really argue about it beyond gut feelings given the evidence. i like the ‘inclusionary populism’ quoted by hoos, to me that is the lesson from her win

"inclusionary populism" is bad

the thing about my socialism concern trolling is we can’t really argue about it beyond gut feelings given the evidence.

precisely, which is why I just think this is a weird time to have this conversation. I definitely see where you are coming from and I don't think your concerns are ridiculous by any means, but what means do you have at your disposal to convince others here, particularly on this day. we're all just guessing man

it's way too many syllables, it sounds wonky, it's evasive xp

rename "socialism" to "legal weed"