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
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chapotraphouse
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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.