What's wrong with Democratic Socialism?
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!
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.
Swede here, if we compare the two political parties in the US to the Swedish political spectrum, the Republicans would be far to the right of even Sverigedemokraterna, the Democrats would be center-right.
What the US calls the left side of the political compass is nowhere near the actual left on a proper political compass.
The US badly needs a new voting system, the current one promotes stagnation and I can't see it ever having more than two realistic choices again.
I totally agree with you. I'd like to add that, as I understand it, Mamdani ended up the democratic candidate because of the voting method (ranked choice).
I think this is precisely why current political interests are so opposed to changing the first-past-the-post method for ranked choice voting. Let alone proportional representation.
It also shows how effective and necessary it is to change the voting system! Imo this is what the 'no kings' movement should focus on above all else
Yeah FPTP is increadibly harmfull to a democracy, it will effectively remove any small parties over time, it will also promote results manipulation like Jerrymandering.
Get rid of FPTP and smaller parties will pop up like crazy all over the US.
Compared to Germany, the republicans are far right like our AfD... Your ICE is the dream of the AfD.
And the democrats are more "economy-liberal" instead of actually liberal. Also, they contain much of the CDU (conservative) energy, a bit of green party energy and a bit of SPD (social democrats) energy....
I wish we could add a progressive party, labor party, and the like. The two party system is broken.
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
Yes 🐸
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 openly rabidly support it. The Democrats less openly rabidly 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.
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.
I mean, if all you do is vote on election day, you don't have better options.
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.
Mamdani is being excoriated because he doesn't support one particular donor class. I dare not mention who these people are for fear of being wiped off this platform. The Z word seems OK enough.
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.
Helping people is woke.
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
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.
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.
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.
Every transaction has two sides.
If a politician says we can't afford something, what that really means is they see they would be paying for it, not being paid for it.
In short, current admin is corrupt.
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
1 word: pluralities.
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:
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.
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.
Nothing.
From the perspective of Democrats mamdani risks actually bettering the status quo for the working class. They fear this because democrats primarily represent the interests of their rich donors who have a lot to lose if the working classes conditions are bettered. Not as many profits to be made if you have to pay your workers more and can't charge exorbitant rents. He is also upsetting the unconditional support for Israel that the Democratic party has settled upon.
From the socialist/communist perspective people like Mamdani are complicated. They can be good in that they often genuinely want to improve the conditions of the working class and often do but are limited by their decision to work within a system designed to oppress the working class. They can only do so much. Democratic socialism is just capitalism with a welfare state. Its great for the workers within the democratic socialist nation but this form of capitalism is only possible through exploitation of a working class abroad, typically in the global south.
He might like do a thing that helps the peasants... Or even hurt the parasite.
Who knows but when you end counter this many enemies on both sides, you know this bro is going the right way. NYC politics is a corruption galore though. He is about to finding out how impotent that can make him. Hope fully he can do something to kick off a wave across US.
People haven't gained the full class consciousness yet but post covid fuckeninng has shook the normie to the core and they asking questions that make daddy very uncomfortable
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
Look at the track record of nationalized industries. It's not good.
Ah yes, the famous failures of... libraries, fire stations, social security, medicare, USPS, and VA hospitals.
The Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force. Coast Guard. Police. Highway construction.
I define democratic socialism to be the policies that democratic socialists would put in place that we don't already have under systems we're not currently calling democractic socialism.
The main potential problem of democratic socialism is that it can fuel a sort of populist policies, where politicians promise all kinds of benefits to the voters. The politicians who promise and implement those things only get the benefits (votes and power) and never have to answer for the problems (e.g. inefficient and expensive structures that were perhaps not needed at all) they create. It's always the cleanup crew (the politicians who are responsible and implement austerity) who get the blame.
Like almost all things in this world, democratic socialism can also be great if it's implemented well. For instance, well-funded and well-planned public schools can be awesome for the whole society, both the poor, the rich, and everyone in between. But that requires skill, intelligence, hard work, all of which are scarce resources.