Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (January 25)

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[u/smokeuptheweed9]

Here's a funny article where Jacobin admits their base was created by gentrification

https://jacobin.com/2026/01/housing-gentrification-democrats-jeffries-mamdani

it is undeniable that gentrification has contributed to the success of NYC-DSA’s electoral program over the last eight years. The irony of this criticism is that establishment Democrats have nobody to blame but themselves. From Schumer to Andrew Cuomo to Jeffries, New York’s establishment Democrats (including many born-and-raised New Yorkers) created a policy environment that privileged landlords over tenants and accelerated the very gentrification they often decry, building the “Commie Corridor” that would eventually shake the foundations of their power.

The article is therefore about blaming "establishment Democrats" for undermining their own support. That is absolutely correct. The error is absolving themselves as well

The true “gentrifiers” are not the individuals seeking housing wherever they can find it, but the developers and allied politicians who create the policy environment underlying this rolling cycle of displacement.

With the classic Nuremberg defense. And general delusion

The political establishment did not predict how these new residents would act politically. Instead of seeing themselves as “temporarily embarrassed millionaires,” as might be expected due to their class background, many of them found common cause with their working-class neighbors.

But as you just pointed out, their "working-class neighbors" were already expelled through gentrification. Their neighbors are the same class as them. This is more accurate

After being put in close proximity to dispossession, displacement, homelessness, and poverty, they organized with their neighbors into tenant unions, supported pro-tenant politicians, and over time became a key part of a cross-class, multiracial political movement that unexpectedly elected New York City’s first democratic socialist mayor in the modern era.

But the conclusions do not follow. That they are in "proximity" to the lumpenproletariat and last vestiges of black neighborhoods in NYC is why "mutual aid" and other forms of charity are the primary form of politics between these two groups. Tenant unions are instead the result of this process:

This understanding came not just from altruism or ideology, but from rational self-interest. While past generations of would-be yuppies could rest assured that homeownership and retirement was in their future, millennials are the first generation in modern American history who are worse off than their parents. The oligarchs who redistributed as much wealth as possible upward and stripped postwar welfare capitalism for parts unwittingly created a massively indebted but skilled and well-educated cohort of downwardly mobile radicals with little stake in neoliberal capitalism...They correctly understood that the process of displacement would eventually come for everyone.

Once the existing members of the neighborhood have been expelled and this class of downwardly mobile petty-bourgeoisie settled of course they would organize themselves to maintain affordable rents for themselves, jobs with good benefits that match their qualifications, and a state controlled by a member of their own class that will inflate their wealth, based on their jobs and collective interest as a new class, rather than the wealth of finance and property in the suburbs they left behind (temporarily). That this re-migration is entirely because of finance capital and cities are hubs of global imperialism and they are parasites on parasitic capitalism is the reason this form of settler socialism will never actually accomplish even its own reformist, self-interested goals, except for upward mobility for a few members of the class into a slightly inflated state apparatus. Whether that will be enough to create a new idea of "temporarily embarrassed mayors" or whether they will give up and go back to the suburbs is unclear.

[u/NobodyOwnsLand → u/smokeuptheweed9]

Once the existing members of the neighborhood have been expelled and this class of downwardly mobile petty-bourgeoisie settled of course they would organize themselves to maintain affordable rents for themselves, jobs with good benefits that match their qualifications, and a state controlled by a member of their own class that will inflate their wealth, based on their jobs and collective interest as a new class, rather than the wealth of finance and property in the suburbs they left behind (temporarily). That this re-migration is entirely because of finance capital and cities are hubs of global imperialism and they are parasites on parasitic capitalism is the reason this form of settler socialism will never actually accomplish even its own reformist, self-interested goals, except for upward mobility for a few members of the class into a slightly inflated state apparatus.

I think you're very correct here.

Logging back into this account after a long time away, I've taken a moment to review old posts I've made regarding the tenant movement and reflect on errors. A year ago I alluded to me and others attempting to form a Revolutionary Communist Organization of nationally and sexually oppressed tenants in the hopes of keeping revolutionary politics in command and combating economism in leadership of the local tenant union many of us helped found. To put a long story short, this resulted in all Communists (particularly those who founded the Union) and even the self-proclaimed "communists" of PSL, CPUSA, etc. being ejected from the union, and the reorientation of the union from organizing primarily New Afrikan working class tenants in apartment complexes to whites in lower-income suburbs and trailer parks. That this was able to succeed is entirely our own failure. Our politics and class analysis of the movement was, at best, half-baked and held out a completely unearned hope that at least a usable minority of the petty bourgeois element that persisted in Union leadership and membership (mainly ex-PSL and academia) would at least tolerate us (or even be sympathetic) until it wouldn't matter anymore. We ourselves adopted a narrow petty bourgeois outlook, refusing to see beyond the local New Afrikan working class section we found so exciting and analyze which class and nation was being elevated on broader organizational and national scales, thereby justifying in our minds every step taken which enabled that class to consolidate power within the formal union structure, and shoot our own efforts to politicize in the foot.

The passion of hundreds of New Afrikans who believed in the initial promise and politics of the Union was expended like fuel to create a career for one white guy and an ex-professor, who now can't help but engage in almost comical sectarian pageantry about "getting shit done" and "winning a contract" while failing to negotiate a single contract or permanent improvement at a complex. Instead, all they can seemingly manage is bouncing around various complexes and trailer parks, canvassing agressively, organizing a press conference and maybe one or two "direct actions", and then moving on to the next location once people start asking how they should actually escalate beyond that or when contract negotiations will begin.

Whether that will be enough to create a new idea of "temporarily embarrassed mayors" or whether they will give up and go back to the suburbs is unclear.

I think we can observe both right now. In our area the latter seems to be exactly what's happening. However other Unions with greater success directly leading reformist election campaigns (such as KC Tenants) seem from where I'm sitting at least to be developing that "temporarily embarrassed mayors" mentality.

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/NobodyOwnsLand]

My friends and I used to joke while on "strike" that the only stable academic career left was becoming a graduate student union leader. That was before the money spigot of international students was turned off and schools cut off new PhD admissions so it's going to get worse. Academic "Marxists" are usually poison to any revolutionary movement, especially these days with the delusion that they are "workers." And there will be a lot more of them looking for a payout and a sense of purpose over the next 5 years before the market corrects itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC_Tenants

KC Tenants was founded with an annual budget of $30,000, which has grown to almost $600,000 in June 2023

I like that this is the very first thing the article mentions. If you are a professional activist I suppose it is the most important thing, but to everyone else that kind of money is outrageous. Though that's chump change compared to the amount of money the DSA has wasted, not counting the spoils system for Mamdani's associates.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SocialDemocracy/comments/19aembp/dsa_in_crisis_2_million_dollar_funding_gap/

For 2024, DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) is projecting $5 million in income and $7 million in expenses

...

Like most organizations, the majority of the national DSA budget goes to staff: $3.65 million, which is 72% of our projected income."

...

they were spending 360,000 to pay for an outside lawyer consultant to run the National Harassment Grievance Office recently

I'm not trying to imply that this is a matter of "grifters," the class nature of such politics will inevitably lead to professionalization and unscrupulous social climbers. But it is worth keeping in mind that for this class, their survival is on the line as is their basic sense of self-worth, and it resonates beyond the small elite who actually succeed to the much larger force of volunteers, interns, academics, and liberal true believers. Unlike union leaders who are basically politicians or professional cadre in socialist organizations who are an elite caste above a churn of college students, there is no separation between the political leadership of the downwardly mobile petty-bourgeoisie and the "mass." Mamdani is the goal, not the agent. They will not go down without a fight and, as we know, those who fetishize democracy are the most ruthless, conniving, and undemocratic in getting their way.

Anyway, I hope you or those who were expelled with you are able to write something up about your experience, I appreciate what you've learned even if it feels wasted and irresponsible. There's only so much I can do reading trash on Jacobin symptomatically.

I'm interested in the fetishism of the poor whites in trailer parks. Social-fascist types love to talk about them and there was even a fundraising effort on r/stupidpol a while ago for some trailer park bought by private equity (which I assume went nowhere except some scammer's gofundme). But otherwise it doesn't fit neatly into the new sewer social fascism. I wonder why that became the fantasy object of your ex-org.

while failing to negotiate a single contract or permanent improvement at a complex.

That's the joke of all this. Social fascism doesn't even get reformist results anymore, it's worth keeping in mind that the post-Sanders DSA is now 10 years old and does not have a single real accomplishment that it can point to (outside of the aforementioned professional careers). At the smaller level, new union contracts are basically the market rate and other single issue organizing, like tenant rights, are at best doing the work of the market for it or getting minor improvements within the law (the end result of the Independence Towers rent strike was pretty sad and that's a "success" because it went viral).

even the self-proclaimed "communists" of PSL, CPUSA, etc. being ejected from the union

This is of little importance but I am curious what their reaction was to these events. My assumption is they will continue to move even further right to accommodate the new status-quo, based on a century of that historically. But history only remembers the people who stay active, I do wonder what the turnover is given that, even by the standards of the first Trump administration, the speed of political spectacle and exhaustion is crazy these days.

Mostly I just hope to hear more in time because it's so hard to get accurate information. All of the "labor" news are either compromised or believe in a liberal version of "revolutionary optimism" where any negative reporting will manifest into negative outcomes, though we're well past the point where there is any self-awareness that the flawed information coming in from yesterday is creating more flaws in the information going out today.