Sure mayor Pete, but the posture must be one that prioritizes antagonism over collaboration.

I would posit it is better to advocate positions that are radical and populist enough as to demonstrate the inefficacy and malice of the party when they completely stymie any attempt to enact these policies and even reach across the aisle to do so. Omar and Talib are the best examples of this.

Better to be ineffective in legislation but effective in making your enemies reveal their true colors than to get your name on a few things and forget who has the knife to your back.

I agree with you and I think the party is the key for enabling and perpetuating this capitulation.

Look at how they have always been the more media savvy party, look at the career track of the Obama’s post presidency.

It’s not that we need to by cynical and assume that we can never trust a leadership, we simply cannot ever trust this party. We must build a party whose job is not only to cultivate and promote political talent, but also to hold them accountable to an ideological program. As much as I am dissapointed witb AOC and expecting to be dissapointed with Zohran. We were always foolish to assume or expect anyone could make a push upward with the load stone of the Democratic Party dragging them down. People cannot be an island and especially if they are expected to fight political conflicts along class lines.

This is not to excuse their actions but to understand why they capitulate. Again, not to be cynical, but people often are self interested and waging class war is fucking dangerous, no matter what the terrain is, soft or hard.

When the party presents every incentive to capitulate then eventually people fold because the stakes are very very high and pressure gets to everyone eventually. When you are backed by an organized party with an ideological line, it can steels one’s resolve and help keep everyone honest.

Don’t break my liberal heart Mr. Empanada

I am computer stupid and don’t have element

Don’t wanna say too much but I would like to help if I can

Are you on Bluesky? Find me on there @butlersghost.bsky.com I wanna connect w/ you

No no no what you do is you post this as bait for morons on and then take screenshots of the responses so we can laugh at them together

Comrade sharkfucker you are a fucking legend thank you for listening

I’m seeing it’s predating us and also a reference to a majestic IRL kitty so I’ll lower my hackles. I guess it’s kinda nice to see others using cat b-hole branding!

What is this and why is it copying my podcast

Thank you so much! It really means more to us than you can know

It has been exhausting to observe and I’ve been screaming at the screen every time I hear him have to answer another stupid fucking question about globalizing the Intifada.

I think this kind of third column deceptive political maneuvering will be necessary to a limited extent. I just think it’s important to have a goal in mind (undermining the Democratic Party) when undertaking such an operation because the unfortunate part about operating that way is you risk losing public credibility and being seen as duplicitous. Risks worth taking though as I said, especially depending on where you live.

I also see your point about him having to actually be mayor, I think it is very possible that his mayoral term ends up being a net negative for the disorganized left if his enemies are able to render him entirely uneffective.

I guess in my mind the reason why I am staking this particular hope on this particular guy has to do with two things:

1. The party is in an especially weak and compromised position at this moment. Even the Chuck Schumer seat may not have the same appeal as it did a decade ago and especially after all the friction he has experienced already from his ostensible allies.

2. And this is the big point, he is not technically allowed to run for president. It’s a stupid nativist xenophobic policy but it means he does not have the temptation of the White House as a next step.

Any sane person, with political ambitions, when offered the choice between navigating the fetid swamp of American third party politics or having a credible shot at winning the White House would choose the latter. There are numerous reasons why but a big one is that there is a lot lower chance of fading into obscurity if you go for the big job. Up until this point it has been career suicide for anyone in politics to seriously pursue forming or participating in a third party. Jill Stein is the high water mark for that career track. It may still be career suicide and he may just go more the Bernie route in congress or the senate but I think there is a better shot now more than ever.

I largely agree with what you are saying here. I’ve always felt that one of the biggest shortcomings of organizing in America is the actual process. The idea that your union needs to be granted sovereignty by the state is a huge organizing barrier and makes the labor movement kind of inherently beholden to state actors in some capacity. All of this serves to neuter the labor movement as an antagonistic force to the state. The organizing you are describing does not have the same issue necessarily.

Yeah I think you make a good point here. As much as I want a new party to form as soon as possible I also find myself thinking that it feels like there’s almost a necessary step in between to change people’s self conception in some really foundational ways before we have people who are ready to do the kind of work that will be necessary to build a revolutionary party. Maybe that’s idealism but American exceptionalism and settle colonialism are more the changes I’m getting at. All in on organizing your work place is never a bad choice of praxis!

This is so fucking bleak

The Democratic Party must be destroyed root and stem. I will bang this drum for the rest of my fucking life.

We have to recognize that the call is coming from inside the house. They could have throttled the RNC into submission after bush 2. The Republicans weren’t that much less radical then! They deliberately chose not to because they would rather be the lesser evil than do any good with the privileged position they occupy. At a certain point negligence becomes indistinguishable from culpability, especially when your whole thing is you are the only game in town.

I don’t think Zohran really made any major tactical mistakes up to this point. It remains to be seen what the fallout from this will be. The reality is that in NYC you can’t even get close to any position of power without being a Democrat. There are aberrations to this but the historically privileged position of the Democrats in NY specifically makes participation in the party pretty unavoidable in that region. They were and are a necessary vehicle for him in this mayoral race.

But with all that said: does anyone see this shit happening with a party that actually has his back? A party that actually operates like a disciplined party with political goals and values? not just a coterie of consultants and opportunists. The way the Dems have handled arguably the greatest political talent to join their ranks in over a decade should tell you everything you need to know. The average Democratic politician would rather see him dead than actually have any meaningful effect on the status quo.

I truly believe he needs to take whatever political capital and good will he has and invest it into another party ASAP. Whether it’s something new or the PSL or whatever, anything less will be a slow and suffocating death filled with illusory near-victories and nothing ever truly happening.

I don’t think the backlash from the rest of the party could get any worse anyway. They already see him as disloyal and some kind of outside force trying to upset this revolting political consensus they have worked so hard to construct. He cannot afford to keep all his eggs in one basket.

I’m just some fucking random person on the Internet but I think a lot of us have staked an uncomfortable amount of hope on this guy. I’m just hoping and praying he doesn’t go down easy and he recognizes the totality of who his adversaries are before it’s too late. He cannot afford to give these people one inch and it looks like he’s starting too and that makes me very nervous. Hoping for the best but unfortunately expecting the worst.

Zohran baby nooooooo!

The idea that we are still making new discoveries and expanding our understanding of 2-d geometry is so crazy to think about.

Thousands of years of monkey scratches and we still haven’t found all the rectangles and rhombuses and whatnot