this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
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chapotraphouse
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https://x.com/HOTWisconsin/status/1952418431816351973
So yeah, bullshit. Nothing he said was alarming. And look at that fucking account lol
The only disturbing part of this is him standing next to Elizabeth Warren, which is bad enough, no need imply other shit
i mean praising the NYPD commisioner and shaking hands with those pigs is pretty alarming for me given that they're an occupying army who murder people constantly and beat the living shit out of anti-genocide protestors, but whatever. this impulse to justify the rightwards drift of DSA electeds no matter what has achieved so much in the past (look at AOC's stellar record for example), so what do i know.
idc about the account you can watch the video or google his comments yourself
What did you expect him to do, give him a wedgie? I don’t even think any real leftist with ambition would go to war with the NYPD before even becoming mayor.
my issue is more that there are obvious and inherent flaws with the idea of "get socialists elected as Democrats" that are manifesting before our eyes, as they have done many times before, and that all the organising it took to get him to this point will end up being a counter-productive waste as well as legitimising the right wing of the DSA. like yeah we shouldn't be aiming to put socialists in positions where they have to smile and shake hands with pigs.
Socialists and many on this site can’t come to a consensus on what to do with the the police, look at the opinions on this very website during BLM.
Here he said something that essentially boils down to let’s cut back on police by saying ‘we need to make police less involved with things’.
Do we have guns? Are we aligned with paramilitary groups? No, we’re not even fucking close, so I think holding back on antagonizing one of the most powerful state backed militant groups before even gaining power is a good idea whether you’re a Democrat, DSA, or Communist
so we need to get guns and build paramilitary organisations, then, before messing in electoralism or anything else. for that we need to avoid legitimising electoralism, because people are going to choose that over armed action, because it's far easier and feels safer. maybe what's been going on in LA to counter the ICE raids would be worth learning from, rather than focusing on electing people to positions where they have to work with the police who support ICE.
why would you expect someone to paint a crosshair on his face before building power and popular support that could protect him from the police. he's not mayor yet
a) are the DSA actually "building power that could protect him from the police"
b) he is already the most popular candidate in the race by far
c) the NYPD is not going to assassinate him get over yourself he's a Democrat not Fred Hampton
you sound a lot like the people who were saying "Starmer will move left once he's in power just watch" a year ago
a) they're trying to get a mayor in office, you might've heard of that
b) he hasn't delivered for the people, support to vote for someone is a lower bar than putting themselves in front of bullets
c) do you think this is related to not approaching them with as much hostility as you're condemning him for not using
you can't have your cake and eat it too. Mamdani can be bad because he's not doing a protracted people's war, but Mamdani didn't become bad because he won't spit in cop's faces while running in an election.
getting a politician elected to office in a bourgeois democracy is not "building power" in any way that matters for socialists. no, the fact that the NYPD haven't assassinated him isn't anything to do with what he's said or not said, they don't kill Democratic candidates because Democrats are not a threat to their role in society, as his statements and policies indicate. it's actually absurd that people think something like that would happen if he were more anti-police, rather than the Democrats just ejecting him from the candidacy via more brazenly anti-democratic means.
the plan isn't to get an ass in the mayor's seat and declare "socialism!" the plan is to establish institutions that help the people to build a material basis of support.
you're playacting the 'realist pessimist' but utterly naive about the stakes and program. just saying 'cops would never' doesn't make it so
DemSocs are still liberals. Mamdani wasnt going to be leading the vanguard. He's basically Bernie.
"wow a DemSoc won a significant election in the imperial core, hope he can serve his constituents as best he can within the electoral system, since it's pretty much the only option available. Otherwise we can hope that his failure to do so can give people the opportunity to develop politically in the same way that other electoral failures have been influential in my development"
"HAHA He's not leading a revolution! Check you all this liberal shit! YOU FELL FOR IT AGAIN IDIOT!!"
thanks comrade, I guess.....
that's just correct. Is getting capitalism to fund shit for the working class an improvement? absolutely. Revolution? No.
He used the cops leaving as more ammo for his plan to replace them with social workers. He's unironically doing 4D political judo to twist Americans' brains into supporting leftist policies.
yeah this seems basically of a piece with past statements. running for mayor of a major american city on a platform of "fuck cops" (much as we would all get a kick out of it) is an excellent way to get one's ass murdered, forget about not getting elected
come on man you can't "trick people into supporting socialism". a significant part of New York's population supports socialism and hates zionism, which resulted in his victory. he's not tricking poor people into voting in their interests.
Isn't tricking people into supporting socialism something that Lenin said very specifically NOT to do? Lol
This is the critique from leninists, he isn't letting his alleged politics be in command - but since he isn't a leninist why would we expect this? The critique is valid of communists but he isn't a communist. Every Democrat and bourgeois candidate, mamdani included, says shit to get elected and usually backpedals a majority of it. He is doing what is expected but because he identifies as a democratic socialist it feels as if he should be held to a standard higher than he really deserves to be held to. I don't think it's fair to expect a liberal to be a communist, even if they think they are. What's more annoying on this forum for me is the Democratic socialist members here acting like he isn't a liberal, more so than the ML members acting like he should be a communist.
This is a good take. I recognize that he wasnt going to be a full on communist in terms of policies, but i think it is important to think of these things and name them here. How many people here proclaim to be principled communists, quote Lenin, but are aggressively going to bat for the dude? Like, insulting other people/engaging in personal attacks kinda aggressive? Perhaps I had the wrong impression thinking that more people here were a tiny bit more militant in their beliefs.
Its more about the people and their positions more than the man, to me. and it kinda feel like its a bad faith reading to assume that everyone is either saying he MUST be one or the other, end of conversation, but that seems to be the way most people are interpreting comments.
I said it in the last news struggle sesh on this topic but I do see a lot of people here with principled takes on the subject, which really makes the kinds of responses you are describing stand out to me. I think there is an underlying dialectic of bloom/doom (optimism/cynicism) mentality where some people just need to feel like the left is having a win and so get invested into being very hopeful and positive and that means that any critique which undermines that position is automatically "doomer." Whereas I think many here can have a materialist take outside of this dialectic like "he is exactly what the has always been, a radlib, and he is doing nothing unexpected. There is also no reason to desire his loss because everyone else is worse and it will be good to see what happens if he wins whether he does better or worse than expected"
The one user here who worked on the campaign and is super invested because of it is being extra which I get on some level because it's not just an abstract thing but a personal project that dozens of hours went into which affects the place he lives. There's a lot of reason to take it personally for him, but I think being rude and insulting out the gate isn't doing any favors or displaying a comradely debate style. I get clapping back when someone starts it tho
Why not? You can "trick" people to support any ideology. Fascists and liberals do this all the time.
Sure, but if he said "all cops are bastards, we need to get rid of them", he would lose the election.
as socialists we do not aim to convince people by misleading them about our aims and practices. if you try that then you'll end up disappointing and pushing them away.
i don't expect him to say "ACAB" or be a Maoist but there are ways to phrase that kind of sentiment that will command majority support and legitimise that way of thinking amongst a populace constantly browbeaten into not thinking that way. instead he's choosing to legitimise the role of police in a society which generally mistrusts and fears them. and he already won the election that actually matters. he didn't back down on anti-zionism before he won the primary and it worked, so why start backing down on issues and flirting with mainstream democrats now?
The general election is still pretty risky. If Cuomo and Adams suddenly merge their campaigns it could be Bernie 2020 all over again. So Mamdani is definitely trying to appeal to the liberal-leaning masses right now.
I think delivering successful socialist policies is the best way to win people over. I don't think it matters how you get there.
you can't deliver successful socialist policies through electoralism in the most violent, expansive capitalist state on earth. you can deliver social democracy, maybe, at the expense of the global south. electoral success in imperial capitalist society = inevitable compromise to the point of abandoning either internationalism or socialist domestic policy.
That's American exceptionalism, and it only applies if you are 100% honest in your politics on the campaign trail, which I'm saying you shouldn't be.
If you woke up tomorrow morning as mayor of NYC, or even president of the US, what would you do?
how is it american exceptionalism. it's literally a criticism Marxists have levelled against bourgeois democracy for over a hundred years. i'm not even american