Socialism doesn't freak out Democratic voters the way it freaks out other Americans.That's a problem

[Celerity]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/socialism-bernie-sanders-independents-general-election.html

For the past month, the centrist Democrats running against Sen. Bernie Sanders have begged Democratic voters not to nominate him. Former Vice President Joe Biden, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar have argued that putting a socialist atop the ticket would help President Donald Trump and hurt Democratic candidates down the ballot. These warnings are well-founded, but they haven’t worked. Sanders has won the popular vote in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada.

Why, despite the warnings, is Sanders still winning? One reason is that a lot of people like him and what he stands for. Another reason is that other candidates are splitting the votes of moderate Democrats, leaving him with a plurality on the left. But there’s a third reason: Socialism doesn’t freak out Democratic voters the way it freaks out other Americans. On this subject, Democrats are very different not just from Republicans, but also from independents, who represent about 40 percent of Americans and about 30 percent of the electorate. Socialism is a loser among independents, and this makes it a liability in a general election. But Democrats don’t feel an aversion to socialism. So perhaps they don’t see the extent of the political danger.

The detachment starts with Sanders voters. In a September poll taken by Data for Progress, 37 percent of them identified themselves not as progressives or liberals, but as socialists, democratic socialists, or communists. Nearly all of them endorsed democratic socialism. In a January NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, most Sanders voters endorsed socialism even without the word “democratic” in front of it. Only 4 percent of them opposed it. These people aren’t likely to buy the argument that nominating a socialist is an unnecessary risk. For them, electing a socialist is the ballgame.

But the problem goes beyond Sanders supporters. Rank-and-file Democrats, as a whole, are significantly more pro-socialist than independents are. And while Republicans, conversely, are more anti-socialist than independents are, the gap between Democrats and independents, on average, is about 10 points bigger than the gap between Republicans and independents.

snip



more background


Jacobin Magazine is one of the major driving forces behind the Sanderite movement. They, like the vast majority of the DSA (and many DSA members are actual communists, far beyond garden variety socialists), ARE actual socialists, not social democrats. They want state or socialised control of the means of production. Bernie plays semantic games by labelling as a democratic socialist, but then sort of semi-denies the core tenants of it, whilst leaving himself a lot of wiggle room. He presents himself as a bog standard social democrat but then tries to reinvent our basic language by applying a false definition to the term democratic socialism.

Here is a new (will not be published until April) book by two of the main authors at Jacobin, including Meagan Day, who was the driving force behind the Warren pregnancy controversy pushed hard by the RW (they got it from her first.)

They definitely do NOT see the end game as FDR-style government, they want an overall destruction of the entire capitalist system. Bernie needs to be put on the griddle and grilled hard, not let off the hook, until he dissociates himself from the actual socialists and communists who are some of principal drivers of support and intellectual energy behind his campaign. Divide et impera works, and IF we are serious about stopping his march to the nomination (and thus a probable crushing electoral defeat in the general, making even losing control of the House a distinct possibility), our other candidates need to start to fracture his base by making him denounce the ultra radicals, and if he refuses, to then expose him as a possible Trojan Horse who is trying to have his cake and eat it too.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Bigger than Bernie
How We Go from the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism

by Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht

https://www.versobooks.com/books/3167-big

The political ambitions of the movement behind Bernie Sanders have never been limited to winning the White House. Since Bernie first entered the presidential primaries in 2016, his supporters have worked to organize a revolution intended to encourage the active participation of millions of ordinary people in political life. That revolution is already underway, as evidenced by the massive growth of the Democratic Socialists of America, the teachers Bernie motivated to lead strikes across red and blue states, and the rising new generation of radicals in Congress—led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar—inspired by his example.

In Bigger than Bernie, activist writers Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht give us an intimate map of this emerging movement to remake American politics top to bottom, profiling the grassroots organizers who are building something bigger, and more ambitious, than the career of any one candidate. As participants themselves, Day and Uetricht provide a serious analysis of the prospects for long-term change, offering a strategy for making “political revolution” more than just a campaign slogan. They provide a road map for how to entrench democratic socialism in the halls of power and in our own lives.

Bigger than Bernie offers unmatched insights into the people behind the most unique campaign in modern American history and a clear-eyed sense of how the movement can sustain itself for the long haul.





more by Day and Uetricht


Why Bernie Sanders is just the beginning of an American turn to the left
The United States may be on the verge of a huge leftward shift. Here's what to expect

https://www.salon.com/2020/02/22/why-bernie-sanders-is-just-the-beginning-of-an-american-turn-to-the-left/

MICAH UETRICHT - MEAGAN DAY
FEBRUARY 22, 2020 3:00PM (UTC)

snip

Chris Maisano describes the democratic road as a strategy that pursues "election of a left government (likely over multiple contested elections) mandated to carry out a fundamental transformation of the political economy, coordinated with a movement from below to build new institutions and organizations of popular power in society."

Eric Blanc offers a similar formulation. Eventually, after the Left has won significant gains at the ballot box and in civil society, the capitalist class will take the gloves off against socialists and do whatever it takes to destroy our movement. We'll need to fight back. The democratic road to socialism seeks not to elide this confrontation, but to make it possible. To replace capitalism with socialism, writes Blanc, " ( a ) socialists should fight to win a socialist universal suffrage electoral majority in government/parliament and ( b ) socialists must expect that serious anti-capitalist change will necessarily require extra-parliamentary mass action like a general strike and a revolution to defeat the inevitable sabotage and resistance of the ruling class."

Though socialists are likely to be met with capitalist resistance that at times will turn violent, "revolution" doesn't necessitate mass bloodshed — and though we believe in self-defense, we certainly do not advocate violent means. A future socialist government, the late Marxist thinker Ralph Miliband wrote, "has only one major resource, namely its popular support." To pull off a revolution in our circumstances, that popular support would need to be mobilized both inside and outside of government.

[Gravitycollapse]

1. As a subscriber to Jacobin, I have to laugh at this.

The panic from even hinting at a critique of capitalism or (gasp) a defense of socialism.

What year is it?

[Celerity]

5. I am profoundly opposed to the government expropriating the means of production, the same for some

ephemeral concept of social control of them as well. Socialism as espoused by Jacobin and a million dust-binned rags before it, is a failed and ruinous system that always ends in tears. Social democracy, as practised here in Sweden and the other Nordics, has a very vibrant (albeit highly regulated, which is where the US falls woefully short atm) capitalistic component that is absolutely and synergistically necessary for our expansive welfare states to exist.

[PETRUS]

6. This year:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPnv9ANXsAAXVJL?format=png&name=medium

[George II]

2. Excellent compilation of true facts, thanks!! By the way, Versobooks is the outlet that "sold"....

....Sanders' own books to his own campaign to give out free to everyone who "bought" an admission ticket to his own speaking events.

[empedocles]

3. Talking to people not much into politics - seems just two names are . . . _____,

trump and sanders.

[Qutzupalotl]

4. It doesn't help that Bernie describes himself with the wrong label.

That just adds to the confusion. He’s a social democrat, not a democratic socialist.

Just more we have to explain and memorize if he’s the nominee.

[uponit7771]

7. That's the problem, we need other Americans

[Moderateguy]

8. Not to Sander Supporters: Someone on here told me yesterday the Indiana is in play in the GE

[uponit7771]

9. jus wow, that's why I'm posting about swing state numbers seeing we haven't had a democratically

... elected republican president for the last 20 years we have to focus on swing states.

[Celerity]

10. In play for a new Trump golf course

hopefully they hire one of my fellow Brits, Ollie Nancarrow, to mow the grass

The Student Skipped Exam Revision To Mow Penis Into A Field For Donald Trump

https://www.ladbible.com/news/uk-the-student-skipped-exam-revision-to-mow-penis-into-a-field-20190604

[David__77]

11. I'm glad that people think about big issues.

I understand that there's lots of debate about the distinctions between "socialism," "capitalism," "social democracy," and "democratic socialism." Really I think a discussion of policy is more useful so that there's something material to discuss- seems more real to me, anyway.

[Ferryboat]

12. Seems like Russians creating Chaos.

Haven't heard of Jacobian magazine till now nor the group that seems to be behind it.

Will have to do a deep dive into this group to have a informed opinion.
But at this point I'm betting it's the Russians sowing discord.

[Celerity]

13. It has been around for almost 10 years, and is a socialist mag, but not part of Russian psy-ops

My point was to show that Bernie is obfuscating in one (or both) of two possible ways

1. He claims he is a democratic socialist, but then promotes bog standard social democrat boilerplate programmes and ties himself to us here in the Nordics, BUT we are NOT socialist nation states, so he is wilfully being dishonest

2. His intellectual backers are quite often REAL SOCIALISTS or even Communists, and he is not called out to disassociate himself from them, The second part of this is that he actually is lying about not wanting to institute state and /or socialised control of the means of production.



All that said, Jacobin is deffo not Russian run psy-ops, it is a real socialist academic magazine. I disagree with their political stances, but they are not sinister (other than some of their writers like to play dirty twitter games, but that sewer is swum n by many on all sides)

I simply want Sanders called out, and to be pinned down and admit what he actually believes and then if he truly means what he says, then he must dissacotie himself from the hardcore actual socialists and communist, and STOP playing these too-clever by half wordplays. If he is trying to soft-shoe in actual socialism (not this phony feel-good redefinition shit wherein dem socs magically become FDR) then he needs to be exposed.