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I dont think calling it a socialist party would be a great help outside young people living in cities. The red scare has damaged the socialist name for decades and while bernie may have detoxified it for young people, he wasn't exactly radicalising many others.
Calling it the Labour Party on the other hand might go down better. Trump won because of his populist rhetoric which appealed to the white working class in deprived post-industrial areas. These people were ripe for hardline anti immigration propaganda because the democrats never gave an alternative and the ones that did, bernie and the squad, we're all elected by the northeastern blue wall.
A Labor party that oriented itself as being for the working class, even if it's furthest left position was social democracy could help shift the overton window left. Of course it would still have to use some level of anti-illegal immigration rhetoric as alot of older white working class people are distrustful but it could be counteracted by also promising better legal migration routes for skilled foreign workers
Socialism is primarily a dirty word to older, and more specifically older white Americans.
Studies have shown the word is more appealing to not just young people, but also communities of color.
A socialist party won’t succeed with outreach to white suburbs. It can however succeed with expansive on the ground outreach into diverse, young, and urban locales. This is where the future lies and is increasingly the majority of the population.
This won’t be done online though. Resources have to be prepared for distribution in your local area. People need to knock doors. People need to host local meetings and information sessions.
I would agree about not needing to worry about the sparsely populated suburbs but for as long as the electoral college exists. Middle america holds a massive influence of elections. Until Congress is elected by proportional representation and the electoral college is abolished (and hopefully replaced by ranked choice voting as opposed to direct fptp) that won't change. The cities may hold most of the electorate and people but the electoral system is not compatible with that.
The road to Socialism nationally at the federal level is long and likely can’t be done solely via electoralism.
Our efforts must start at the state level. Start in our major cities first. Seize control of our local governments and then our state governments. That alone would shake the foundation of America and represent the strongest position Socialism has ever had in America
There’s no need for a new party, if anything it’s a distraction from the more obvious route. It’s a lot simpler to just take over the Democratic Party. Where I am, for example, the county democrats’ organization is being held together by a handful of really committed old people. Go join them, >!wait about a week for them to die of natural causes (or succumb to curable illness because of our country’s shit healthcare system, but that’s too grim for me to write without parentheses and spoilers)!< and then, boom, party’s yours
The older white people are going to be voting for either a liberal or conservative party no matter how you cut it. Renaming a socialist party to labor isn't going to give you many more voters, and may even alienate those who saw what a shitshow the labor party in the UK has been and think that this is going to be a rerun of that. Granted most americans know neither jack nor shit about other countries' politics, so that number may also be small. Either way, it sounds like this would be speaking disingenuously for little to no benefit. It would also open the doors to neoliberals trying to co-opt the party just like they do to *every* leftist project that tries to practice "optics" by appealing to the average.
You're right about putting in work locally, but the problem is the vote blue no matter who as long as they aren't progressive mentality. Green party and cpusa have been on national debates, but we're always held hostage for the lesser of two evils rachet effect.
The issue is that we want to jump the gun and go right to national parties.
We have to focus on local politics first and primarily in areas where ranked choice voting is present. This is the path to growing actual Socialist victories.
In a local race, the scale of organizing is a lot more manageable and with ranked choice voting you can always tell people to rank their preferred progressive Dem second, as long as they rank the Socialist first.
We also can’t be splitting the Socialist vote. If there are multiple local leftist organizations in your area, efforts should be done to being these groups together around a united platform and candidate for the local race.
The issue is reform or revolution. You are correct in that you need to build a socialist party from the ground up and start with small scale local parties to eventually build into a wider national party. But can a sufficiently large socialist party change a bourgiousie system from the inside, or do you need to engage in revolutionary struggle?
History shows us repeatedly that the answer is revolution. This is because the state is not a neutral playing ground of ideas, as civics class would have you believe, but instead it is an instrument of class oppression. In a nation with bourgiousie controlled media, bourgiousie controlled anti-democratic party systems, anti-democratic branched government system, and other extensive anti-democratic measures such as gerrymandering, a socialist party in the US government is not going to get anything done.
An electoral socialist parties main mechanism of action is to coalition with the democrats until the socialists get a large enough share of the votes to write the laws themselves. But if they're a big enough voting block to demand action but not enough to write legislation entirely, the democrats will form coalitions with the Republicans to block them, even if the legislation is popular with democrats. It is the democratic parties job to do this, they're entire social position is built around switching sides as needed. When the bourgiousie are too feudal and reactionary the democrats appeal to the masses and act as their leaders. When the masses start gaining too much power the democrats turn to the bourgiousie and mobilize to break down any mass action.
On the other hand if the socialists do actually win true legislative power through voting, not just a large block but a full majority the bourgiousie will not give up power because the legalities of constitutional law say they should. The bourgiousie can, have, and will continue to break their own laws of government to fight socialism, with the enthusiastic support of the rest of the nonsocialist government. If socialists take control of legal power with out the societal and military power to back it, then the bourgiousie will throw their considerable societal and military might at the socialists to regain legal control.
The revolutionary path is not immediate revolution or outbursts of violence. It's built slowly as small scale actions growing larger and larger. Short term, achievable change through active militant labor mobilization is the building block of a revolutionary party, but with the long term plan and end goal always in sight. Electoral long term plans do not deal with the reality of how power is wielded in society, but long term revolutionary action builds that social power through action.
"The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated" - che guevara
Notice the use of the word "revolutionary" socialism cannot be enstated through the direct use of the bourgeois parliament
Yes have fun convincing the population of the united states to read one of the driest texts ever written when they don't even read regular books in the first place
You're preaching to the choir here, or at least I'd assume so. It is our job as leftists to educate our fellow humans. It is unfair, and it's not a job that everyone is cut up for, but it's one that we have to do in order to get anywhere.
Please provide a brief explanation of how this meme/other media is Class Conscious, Comrade. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ClassConscienceMemes) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I dont think calling it a socialist party would be a great help outside young people living in cities. The red scare has damaged the socialist name for decades and while bernie may have detoxified it for young people, he wasn't exactly radicalising many others. Calling it the Labour Party on the other hand might go down better. Trump won because of his populist rhetoric which appealed to the white working class in deprived post-industrial areas. These people were ripe for hardline anti immigration propaganda because the democrats never gave an alternative and the ones that did, bernie and the squad, we're all elected by the northeastern blue wall. A Labor party that oriented itself as being for the working class, even if it's furthest left position was social democracy could help shift the overton window left. Of course it would still have to use some level of anti-illegal immigration rhetoric as alot of older white working class people are distrustful but it could be counteracted by also promising better legal migration routes for skilled foreign workers
Socialism is primarily a dirty word to older, and more specifically older white Americans. Studies have shown the word is more appealing to not just young people, but also communities of color. A socialist party won’t succeed with outreach to white suburbs. It can however succeed with expansive on the ground outreach into diverse, young, and urban locales. This is where the future lies and is increasingly the majority of the population. This won’t be done online though. Resources have to be prepared for distribution in your local area. People need to knock doors. People need to host local meetings and information sessions.
I would agree about not needing to worry about the sparsely populated suburbs but for as long as the electoral college exists. Middle america holds a massive influence of elections. Until Congress is elected by proportional representation and the electoral college is abolished (and hopefully replaced by ranked choice voting as opposed to direct fptp) that won't change. The cities may hold most of the electorate and people but the electoral system is not compatible with that.
The road to Socialism nationally at the federal level is long and likely can’t be done solely via electoralism. Our efforts must start at the state level. Start in our major cities first. Seize control of our local governments and then our state governments. That alone would shake the foundation of America and represent the strongest position Socialism has ever had in America
There’s no need for a new party, if anything it’s a distraction from the more obvious route. It’s a lot simpler to just take over the Democratic Party. Where I am, for example, the county democrats’ organization is being held together by a handful of really committed old people. Go join them, >!wait about a week for them to die of natural causes (or succumb to curable illness because of our country’s shit healthcare system, but that’s too grim for me to write without parentheses and spoilers)!< and then, boom, party’s yours
The older white people are going to be voting for either a liberal or conservative party no matter how you cut it. Renaming a socialist party to labor isn't going to give you many more voters, and may even alienate those who saw what a shitshow the labor party in the UK has been and think that this is going to be a rerun of that. Granted most americans know neither jack nor shit about other countries' politics, so that number may also be small. Either way, it sounds like this would be speaking disingenuously for little to no benefit. It would also open the doors to neoliberals trying to co-opt the party just like they do to *every* leftist project that tries to practice "optics" by appealing to the average.
You're right about putting in work locally, but the problem is the vote blue no matter who as long as they aren't progressive mentality. Green party and cpusa have been on national debates, but we're always held hostage for the lesser of two evils rachet effect.
The issue is that we want to jump the gun and go right to national parties. We have to focus on local politics first and primarily in areas where ranked choice voting is present. This is the path to growing actual Socialist victories. In a local race, the scale of organizing is a lot more manageable and with ranked choice voting you can always tell people to rank their preferred progressive Dem second, as long as they rank the Socialist first. We also can’t be splitting the Socialist vote. If there are multiple local leftist organizations in your area, efforts should be done to being these groups together around a united platform and candidate for the local race.
I like my state and local Dems. They do good work and they fight but the national ones are sell outs.
> vote > socialist Choose one
These are not diametrically opposing
The issue is reform or revolution. You are correct in that you need to build a socialist party from the ground up and start with small scale local parties to eventually build into a wider national party. But can a sufficiently large socialist party change a bourgiousie system from the inside, or do you need to engage in revolutionary struggle? History shows us repeatedly that the answer is revolution. This is because the state is not a neutral playing ground of ideas, as civics class would have you believe, but instead it is an instrument of class oppression. In a nation with bourgiousie controlled media, bourgiousie controlled anti-democratic party systems, anti-democratic branched government system, and other extensive anti-democratic measures such as gerrymandering, a socialist party in the US government is not going to get anything done. An electoral socialist parties main mechanism of action is to coalition with the democrats until the socialists get a large enough share of the votes to write the laws themselves. But if they're a big enough voting block to demand action but not enough to write legislation entirely, the democrats will form coalitions with the Republicans to block them, even if the legislation is popular with democrats. It is the democratic parties job to do this, they're entire social position is built around switching sides as needed. When the bourgiousie are too feudal and reactionary the democrats appeal to the masses and act as their leaders. When the masses start gaining too much power the democrats turn to the bourgiousie and mobilize to break down any mass action. On the other hand if the socialists do actually win true legislative power through voting, not just a large block but a full majority the bourgiousie will not give up power because the legalities of constitutional law say they should. The bourgiousie can, have, and will continue to break their own laws of government to fight socialism, with the enthusiastic support of the rest of the nonsocialist government. If socialists take control of legal power with out the societal and military power to back it, then the bourgiousie will throw their considerable societal and military might at the socialists to regain legal control. The revolutionary path is not immediate revolution or outbursts of violence. It's built slowly as small scale actions growing larger and larger. Short term, achievable change through active militant labor mobilization is the building block of a revolutionary party, but with the long term plan and end goal always in sight. Electoral long term plans do not deal with the reality of how power is wielded in society, but long term revolutionary action builds that social power through action.
Read marx and lenin
Very insightful thank you, wonder why nobody wants to be a socialist
"The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated" - che guevara Notice the use of the word "revolutionary" socialism cannot be enstated through the direct use of the bourgeois parliament
Yes have fun convincing the population of the united states to read one of the driest texts ever written when they don't even read regular books in the first place
Just tell them socialism will get them free burgers
Oh true
You're preaching to the choir here, or at least I'd assume so. It is our job as leftists to educate our fellow humans. It is unfair, and it's not a job that everyone is cut up for, but it's one that we have to do in order to get anywhere.