Sunday Nov. 9th, eight Senate Democrats voted with Republicans to end the shutdown.
Despite the outrageous cruelty Trump wielded during the shutdown, including stopping food assistance to millions of Americans, Democrats had been both justified and moral in standing their ground. They were fighting to keep healthcare costs from doubling, tripling and even quadrupling for 24 million Americans.
Last Tuesday, voters made it crystal clear that the fight for healthcare was resonating. Across the country, voters turned out for Democrats, and even Trump acknowledged that the shutdown negatively affected Republicans. It seemed like Democrats finally had leverage.
But instead of wielding this leverage and forcing Republicans to support healthcare, Senate Democrats folded. They caved to Republicans’ cruelty, with nothing but a promise that the Senate will vote on extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies—which we all know the Republican majority will reject, if they keep their promise at all. (Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has already stated that he won’t allow this vote in the House.)
We don’t know why Democrats caved. Maybe they truly are naive enough to believe that ending the shutdown would end Republicans’ assault on the most vulnerable. Or maybe they capitulated to elite pressure from a coalition of hotel chains, casinos, and convention bureaus, who urged them to end the shutdown before the most “economically important” travel week of the year. Or maybe they just utterly lack conviction.
What we do know is that establishment Democrats won’t save us. They have consistently failed to protect us from anything, because they stand for nothing. They are too comfortable collecting their checks from donors and corporations, while ignoring the people they claim to represent. It is time, instead, for working class power—a party for the working class that believes our government can and should care for its citizens.
The Seattle Democratic Socialists of America believe that food, housing, and healthcare are human rights. We believe in putting people over profits. And we know that we, the people, are worth fighting for.
Stand for something. Join DSA today.
Fell for it again award 🏅
It’ll be different next time bro, trust
Says the org that insists upon running it’s candidates as Democrats.
Ah the infantile left com position rears its head again.
Would you have us make a 3rd party and systematically lose every election because the way our voting system works?
Or perhaps part of the job of the socialist movement is to engage with the bourgeois structures where they exist today to build the power necessary to do away with them. To change the minds of the masses you have to go where they are at and part of that is engaging with the political structures they are engaged with.
Also there is a difference between running candidates on the Democrat line and not caucusing with Dems once in and running as actually Dems. There are wide ranging beliefs on this in the DSA and it is one of the hottest debates the org is currently working through nationally.
What a laughably dismissive comment
Ah the counter-revolutionary opportunist position rears its head again.
“Would you have us make a 3rd party and systematically lose every election because the way our voting system works?”
Yes. Even if you feel like dogmatically applying Lenin’s strategies from 100 years ago, you’re still doing it wrong. Endorsing a legitimate labor party is far different than endorsing a democrat that pinky promises to be more left. And even if you were applying that strategy, you’d still be ignoring the knowledge we have today of this strategy repeatedly and consistently not working.
“Or perhaps part of the job of the socialist movement is to engage with the bourgeois structures where they exist today to build the power necessary to do away with them.”
No. There is no peaceful reformist path to socialism and even if there was, you’re not going to build power in the organization that has proven repeatedly to stifle anyone who will not adopt it’s line (ie the rigging of the democratic primary against Bernie Sanders)
“What a laughably dismissive comment”
Yeah, because your lot have shown 0 reason to feel any other way.
Yes. Even if you feel like dogmatically applying Lenin’s strategies from 100 years ago, you’re still doing it wrong. Endorsing a legitimate labor party is far different than endorsing a democrat that pinky promises to be more left. And even if you were applying that strategy, you’d still be ignoring the knowledge we have today of this strategy repeatedly and consistently not working.
Where I did I say we are running Democrats? That’s not what I’m advocating for I’m calling for running on their line and NOT caucusing with the Dems. We can walk and chew gum here. The whole point would be to have people who are adherent our party line and caucus to push the labor party line positions. There is simply no other path with class consciousness at the levels it is today. If you make a 3rd party today the forces of capital will just use the powers that be the silence them and the average person will have no idea your movement ever even existed.
No. There is no peaceful reformist path to socialism and even if there was, you’re not going to build power in the organization that has proven repeatedly to stifle anyone who will not adopt it’s line (ie the rigging of the democratic primary against Bernie Sanders)
That’s why DSA is not trying to build power in the Democratic party. We build power within our organization so we can develop candidates who will not get subsumed into the system and can stand on their own against the Democratic platform that everyone hates. Unless you want to violently suppressed by the state (even more than leftists already are in the US) you must engage with the necessary evils. Lenin understood this far better having to do this shit under Tsarist Russia than any of us in the west today.
Yeah, because your lot have shown 0 reason to feel any other way.
I don’t see you suggesting anything new in this front. What are your suggestions for building that party out of nothing and getting support? What is your solution for organizing the incoherent masses into a unified vision of the future? I could go on but your arguments are the same old stupid ass “we have to do revolution now compromise is reformist!!” takes - people much smarter than me have already sufficiently torn your dumbass apart. Feel free to go read their critiques and educate yourself.
Let me know when you get that revolution cooking on your own in anarchist world or whatever the fuck you self identify as!
This isn’t a revolution now stance, this is a “You are literally not challenging power in any way” stance.
Democratic party entryism is a death cult for you. You guys just gobble that shit up. Ignore every other country that managed to make a 3rd party, ignore every other possible strategy. America is just soo exceptional! We’ve tried 1 strategy for almost 100 years and refuse to try anything else! That’s the only strategy that’ll work here! Trust me, it’ll work this time!
Still waiting on any substantive suggestions as alternatives. I’ll keep waiting. At least I am operating with a plan, organizing towards a future and we are actually seeing wins that our pushing our lines forward in real substantive ways. What are you doing? Yelling online about how stupid the people doing actual work are?
“There is nothing to be done” - Vladimir Liberal
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Centrist democrats have spines. They use them to protect their donors from the poors.
time to cull these cucks from the ranks of the government full stop
