I truly hope he doesn't turn out the way I think he will turn out. I know we have a lot of people on here who love Mamdani, and I'm not trying to pick a fight. But goddamn, he's not beating the allegations these days.
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2025
98 points (96.2% liked)
chapotraphouse
14088 readers
918 users here now
Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.
No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
He definitionally can't beat the allegations until elected. It's an empirical question. We didn't sour on AOC and Bernie until they used their power and platform for sheep dogging, not before.
People who think appearing at a campaign event with other nominally left and, to a certain base, very popular politicians, is a betrayal to the working class and a hindrance to the revolution are maybe being ultras in my humble opinion. Hardcore failing the rule of "be normal."
The criticism on Hexbear of AOC and Bernie are valid. But I also think that tends to lead a lot of users here to assume that means that sentiment is broadly shared with left-leaning voters. There’s way more voters out there that think they represent a workable vision for a better future than voters that will stay home on election day because they seem them as tainted.
100%. People compliment me when I talk about committed COMMUNIST political education by saying I remind them of big name Dem-Sucs, Bernie and AOC included. In one sense I of course know that's incoherent, and in another sense it's almost an insult lmao, but to the largely ignorant and incoherent "leftist" or liberal who I'm trying to convince, it's their highest compliment. I smile and say thank you, and politely insist that I'm actually quite different and I'm happy to help them understand why.
It's part of being normal.
He has already won the nomination in a blue city; November will be just to make it official. Yet even though he is essentially the de facto mayor already, he has made significant slides to the right since winning, all to appease the dnc bosses. I'm not sure how old you were during Bernie's first presidential run, but that shit burned most of us on so-called "progressives". I guess you all will just have to experience it for yourselves.
half or more of the dem establishment are still trying to stop him, there was another socialist mayoral candidate who won a primary in Buffalo, NY who the party undermined and backed their shitbag guy who she beat.
let him break fucking campaign promises before dooming.
Not going to comment on policy positions, but he certainly has not won the race outright. He won the primary handily, but an independent Cuomo is still a threat to him especially if Adams drops out. Trump was literally offering Adams a federal position to do so and Cuomo is the media favorite. The establishments of capital are organizing to sink Mamdani in the general and he has to run to make it past the finish line, not victory lap.
I don't think it's a clear race yet with Cuomo and Silwa still trying to triangulate some kind of spoiler upset. Winning a broad election means appealing to a broad base. Democrats lie about how progressive they are all the time and then carry the status quo, it's about time the reverse happens. Either way, coming out into a general campaign with the idiocy of the average American and preaching about the merits of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is a recipe for losing no matter the underlying circumstances, whether you won the nomination of the blue party or not. I'm not going to deny that the strategy and messaging moderated going into the general, but isn't that exactly what you would do if you were a committed communist trying to get into a major political office to use its power to advance the workers struggle? Who cares if you have to lie and smile next to some ghouls if it let you do real good? Still though, the allegations are all tea leaf reading and speculation until proven. Awfully silly to start counting rotten eggs before they've even been laid.
And I was old enough, don't you worry. I'm on a 5 year old account after all. I just find doomers dooming to be tiring and will point out the unfalsifiable nature of the allegations until they're settled, because that's all we can do. Don't see the point in casting such venom on a hypothetical.
Is anyone around here sating that this is a betrayal to the working class and a hindrance to the revolution? I'm among the most Zohran-critical users here who haven't been banned and I've just been saying that all the compromises he's made are compromises all the same, regardless of how reasonable they are in the context of his campaign. Once he's mayor he'll keep making more compromises because he'll want to be re-elected.
Does that mean people shouldn't vote for him and work for the campaign? Absolutely not. But obviously people need to know the difference between an electoralist strategy and a revolutionary strategy, and understand that if they're pursuing a revolutionary strategy they can't be married to Zohran either (as much of an outlier as he is).
"Ultra" was a term coined to critique those that refused to work with electoral socialists on the mission towards revolution, ironically enough. Critique the viability of electoralism all you want, but some electoralists see that as a viable strategy to advance the militancy and political education of the working class in service to eventual revolution. Pitting electoralism and revolution against each other is misrepresenting their position.
"Once he's Mayor he'll keep making concessions..." Maybe. That's another empirical question that can't be predicted at this point. I don't see the point in continuing to bemoan the demon-rattification of him before he's even elected and thus insulated by statutory structures of the office. If I were a militant communist seeking to undermine the US government, I certainly wouldn't lead with that in my public campaign. I'd wait until I was in office to start actually pulling levers of power, and that seems almost so obvious it shouldn't need to be stated, unless for some reason you think the average USian is ready for that kind of messaging... In which case I'm going to call you an Ultra. This time in the sense of "advocating a strategy beyond the conditions of the current readiness of the working class."
You're misunderstanding me. When I said "electoralist strategy" I meant the strategy of using bourgeois elections to elect socialists and achieve socialism. The tactic of using elections to serve the needs of a revolutionary organization is 100% valid as part of a revolutionary strategy. Don't confuse tactics and strategy, that's also a classic Ultra thing.
Well, is that not the confusion you're potentially making critiquing Mamdani's current tactics? I wouldn't presume to know his closely held political convictions, because unless you're an idiot and believe the stupid shit that you have to say to get elected, you're not going to get into office without moderating the message somewhere along the way. I suspect only his closest advisors and DSA peers know his actual political convictions. The rest is all hearsay or speculation of one kind or another, whether it be wishcasting or dooming.
My skepticism comes from certain unforced errors like how he's moderating his message now that there's less pressure on him than during the primary. Walking back "globalize the intifada" after it had already played out and hadn't hurt him in the primary, meeting with NYC business leaders that the pigs were happy with, and similar worrying things (and yes, as you said, this could all be a disguise, but I don't know how many times I'm gonna allow myself to get burned thinking that). Obviously his campaign staff know the situation better than I do, but it seems more like the local Dems are letting him win then will screw him once he's mayor, it in which case there is little reason to triangulate now.
If he had the backing of an organization that didn't have DSA's bad reputation I'd give him more of a benefit of the doubt.
Also, hold on, he's never claimed to be anything but a DemSoc. I don't see why I should make a headcanon that he's a secret Leninist. Again, that doesn't mean that getting him in power isn't helpful to the broader strategy, but it's also not central.
I don't think it's as sure a thing as you're painting it. Another commenter mentioned the Buffalo Mayor race where a DSA candidate won the Democratic primary and still got rat fucked out of the position by the party. Much of this maneuvering just as easily could be coalescing power from the Democratic establishment to avoid a repeat of that incident, and possibly even because they learned from it.
Continuing to see every sign as a negative one because of past pain is just dooming, though, and I genuinely don't see the point in clutching pearls over photo ops in the mean time. This is a historically different campaign in a lot of ways, and it's incredible that GENUINE socialist policy has made it this far in America's most important city. We don't have real precedent for this. Judging it a success or failure based on recent past seems to be a mismatch. I think we simply have to reserve judgement until after the fact. Dooming at this stage genuinely seems counterproductive as it only seems likely to demotivate people with no upside. Let's say you're right, and we realize that after he's in office and fails to impress (the only time we'll actually know whether the allegations are accurate or not). At that point, one can make a very legitimate critique of Mamdani without speculation, and one can say "See! Even the most socialist seeming of candidates will fail if they're not from a more principled Dem-Cent party!" But like, we don't have to doom between now and then to do that? Continuing to doom just seems to be riling up comrades on here for no reason and demotivating others from getting involved with an incredible experiment. Let's maybe just let it run it's course at this point?
so not supporting the democrats is doomerism now?
I'm tempted to read your comment as unproductive and pithy, but assuming some amount of good faith (which you seem to be denying your comrades who may reasonably disagree with you) I'll give it a decent response.
It's not very normal from a "be normal" standpoint in terms of electoralism as a strategy among genuine comrades. Of course the democratic party shouldn't be supported outright or unqualified, but some tendencies haven't given up on entryism and, no matter how fruitless you or I think that is, are pursuing it as a genuine strategy in an attempt to increase the platform and legitimacy of socialism in the US. Continuing to cast unfair characterizations on those efforts and the most visible example of such efforts BEFORE the person has even been elected is wrecker shit at worst and bordering on sectarianism, or doomerism at best and catastrophizing before having the empirical evidence required to make a decent judgement.
Turning Mamdani into an ongoing struggle session isn't going to to do shit except make comrades who are working within the DSA resentful of you for your ultra sounding ass throwing out comments from the peanut gallery without visibly putting in work yourself. You don't like Mamdani or his association with the democratic party outright, fine, whatever, we've all heard that by now. Continuing to point to every picture as a damning indictment of entryism before the candidate has even gotten into office is declaring defeat too early on purely epistemic grounds, though, and calling the experiment a failure before it's concluded. That doesn't seem particularly helpful to anyone to me. I notice you didn't engage with that point, the crux of that comment's argument, at all. So hopefully recentering that can help you stay on focus for more productive dialogue with your comrades.
i disagree with the core premise of entryism. it doesnt matter to me if Mamdani is super principled as an individual politician or whatever (i actually do like him), he is still part of the democratic party and I don't think electing dems is a good strategy to build socialism.
and also, the DSA does have factions that want to break with the dems, its not like an established line in the org. second, you have no idea what kind of work i've put in, i dont think its a fair critique on an anonymous forum. if i say something that's counter to real experience, sure call me out, but i would say from experience that this constant obsession with electing "good dems" leads to nowhere.
Well then, we don't even disagree. I don't have a dog in this fight, I just see how continuing to cast aspersions on comrades who ARE committed to this intervention could be seen as grating given the lack of epistemic justification. I think we owe those comrades critical support in the mean time, not snide derision.