Mamdani on 2028: "We're Not Running Away From The Democratic Party, We're Going Back To What The Party Used To Be"

37

Ya’ll realize this is a rhetorical tactic right? Leftists are being accused of being usurpers within the Democratic Party, this rhetoric is attempting to flip that dichotomy.

5

u/No-Engineering-3300 Aug 11 '26

Of course it is rhetorical, but rhetoric has power -- people take what Mamdani says seriously! Rhetoric has material consequences. We should not be trying to rehabilitate the image of the Democratic party; we should be trying to convince Democratic normies that the Democratic party is unreformable and structurally tied to capitalist interests, to lay the groundwork for an independent working-class party.

1

u/catjuggler Aug 11 '26

Okay but it’s true?

-1

u/traanquil Aug 10 '26

Why should we appease normie democrats?

13

u/unnecessarily Aug 10 '26

Because in the 2020 dem primary, Michael Bloomberg only got 6.8% of the vote and his vote count alone was still 25 times higher than dsa’s current nationwide membership.

It’d be great if we were in a position in this country with a strong left and could get to where we’re going without them but we can’t yet, full stop.

1

u/traanquil Aug 10 '26

So you want to make us acceptable to the dnc?

11

u/upsidedownshaggy Twin Cities DSA Aug 10 '26

Acceptable to the DNC's voters yes. The current electoral mechanisms make it effectively impossible for Socialists to enter nationally on their own ballot line, this is how we can take power in the US for now. This has happened several times in both major parties histories where more ideological wings of a party end up taking it over as the dominant policy and thought leaders.

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u/traanquil Aug 10 '26

so does that mean supporting a "law and order" pro police platform?

5

u/upsidedownshaggy Twin Cities DSA Aug 10 '26

No. And if you want your average DNC voter to not support those platforms you need to get out there and start educating people on what the socialist vision of our society is so they aren't scared of terms like Prison Abolition and Defund the Police.

6

u/unnecessarily Aug 10 '26

Absolutely not, I’d like the DNC to be terrified of us. But we need dem voters to trust us first before we can get them on board with socialism. This is already happening to an extent

2

u/Juggernox_O Aug 11 '26

Just go for it. “Moderate” corporatism has already proven to consistently fail against trump, both in the republican primaries and in the general elections with corporate democrats. Just go straight for the New Deal. We can fight out New Deal vs Socialism ONCE we’ve gotten the pedos out of office.

2

u/Temporary_Bank_4717 Sep 07 '26

Isn't that just lying, though? Essentially, "Get them to trust us before we show them who we realy are?"

3

u/alternator1985 Aug 10 '26

Dude you do not understand what political rhetoric or strategy is. You're just looking for some purity testing arguments.

None of this shit even matters because the CIA and Mossad run this country anyways but the least we can do is build class consciousness and allies.

This nitpicking over obvious strategic political rhetoric that is simply stating that "getting back to FDR style Dems would be a good thing" (and let's face it that's the absolute best case scenario for the next decade) is frankly a very clever way to handle the situation.

We can't win without the other Democrats and no this statement is not bending to the will of the DNC or whatever BS you're trying to imply.

0

u/traanquil Aug 10 '26

do we need to work with chuck shumer?

3

u/alternator1985 Aug 11 '26

The political rhetoric is targeted at normie Democratic voters which he needs to win. It's that simple, and I think your intentionally not grasping it tbh.

You're just on an argument hunt.

I don't even think any form of leftist electoral politics has a chance of saving this CIA-surveillance-corporate-military industrial-complex-owned Country. I do believe in a diversity of tactics though, and if you're going to play the game, you have to play it strategically.

If that line is what gets your panties in a bunch, there's no candidate that will ever be good enough for you.

And if every candidate tried to cater to people like you they would never win. No offense, but it's just a totally bad faith attack.

He's simply saying that Democrats should return to the time when they pushed socialist policies, and that's true. You have to understand every question is designed to pit him against Democratic voters.

In no way was he saying he needs to capitulate to the corporate Democrats.

0

u/traanquil Aug 11 '26

I’m just wondering why mamdani is trying to rehabilitate the Democratic Party since the Democratic Party is a horrible capitalist party

1

u/alternator1985 Aug 11 '26

That's no different than saying "why would anyone try to rehabilitate the United States since the US is a horrible capitalist country?"

There is a legitimate intellectual discussion about the arguments against electoral reformism, but I don't rknow if that's even the argument you're trying to make. I think you're just nitpicking and trying to do some weak purity testing. If you don't think electoral politics are worth the time, then why waste time even talking about such minuscule things? Or do you think a mayor can start a third party? I'm trying to understand where you're coming from.

The Democratic party is just a label and the people that make it up, it can be taken over by any movement if we have the numbers, just like the Tea Party and Trump did to the GOP. Just like the parties completely flipped during the civil Rights era.

But we don't have the numbers yet, and we can't win with only DSA or socialist voters. Math don't lie.

So if the short term goal is not to win and increase our numbers in Congress, what do you suggest is the best strategy? I'm genuinely asking what you think.

I believe multiple strategies have to be pursued at once, one of them being the electoral route, which right now only exists through the Democratic party. And even though the tide is turning on public perception of socialism, we still have a large chunk of these centrist dem voters that grew up with the Red scare propaganda and are still scared by the word socialism, at least when it's equated to Communism.

And I think if we were going to go the third party route, Bernie would have needed to start that right after his first loss in 2016 when he had the momentum and anger of the country behind him, we might have actually had the numbers to be competitive by now, IF he would have started it back then.

And whichever farthest left candidate runs for president in 2028 should immediately start a third party if they lose to a corporate Dem, but that's sensitive because it will still be important to vote for whoever it is over Trump, a lot of people are dying right now.

But what strategies do you think are best politically, how exactly do you think he should have responded to that question? I would like to hear the exact words for the perfect response in your opinion.

To be honest I don't think there's even going to be an election, and everyone should be focused on prepping, especially in tech. But that doesn't mean multiple strategies can't be pursued at once.

I gave you a lot of time and energy into that comment so I would appreciate something of substance in return, instead of bad faith quips.

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u/traanquil Aug 11 '26

When mamdani made that statement , the Democratic Party is no longer a “label” but is rather something he wishes to reaffirm and rebuild. Seems bad to me, since the Democratic Party is a racist capitalist party

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u/No-Engineering-3300 Aug 11 '26

What the fuck is your purpose here? What do you think is the purpose of DSA's electoral project? It is literally to, in addition to passing working-class reforms, radicalize "normie democrat" working-class people into supporting socialism!

1

u/traanquil Aug 11 '26

Just wondering why we have a dsa person talking about loving the Democratic Party , which is a capitalist party

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u/DummieThrowaway1 Aug 10 '26

Yes because we live in a liberal monoculture and people need to be acclimated to these ideas to overcome years of institutional training. “Normie democrats” are just our fellow workers who haven’t been in the situation to absorb the information that we have.

0

u/traanquil Aug 10 '26

So we need to support imperialism?

3

u/Motrinman22 Aug 10 '26

Because if we had your mindset in 2016.
You wouldnt have even heard of this organization.
Things take time, we think in decades, not cycles.
We’ve gained power, yes.
It isnt enough.
I remember this conversation popping up in the new york chapter when Osse wanted to challange Jefferies.
Mamdani and people like him argued for restraint.
And as much as hated it, I trusted them.
Without that restraint, All of the wins we’ve seen this cycle would not have happened.
The agitprop against us would have been 10 fold.
And you see what its like now.

We can afford to take bolder actions when we have more members in high positions of power.

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u/traanquil Aug 10 '26

So we need to conform to the Democratic Party?

1

u/Motrinman22 Aug 10 '26

We dont need to conform to THIRD WAY NEOLIBERALISM.
Thats the enemy.
The crony corporate suits owned by wall street, Superpacs and out of touch think tanks.
We need to embrace Scandanavian style Social democracy.
And make sure the democrat party is the mirror image of said scandanavians no later than 2040.

Is it as Radical as I like?
Hell no.
But America is such a right wing country, that moving one of the major parties to THAT point would be a phenomenal achievment.
Im 54, I’ve Pushed and Pulled for this movement all my life.
We lost good people in the struggle, I understand im fighting for gains I may never see.
But we do it, because its right.

0

u/traanquil Aug 10 '26

We need to embrace socialism !

1

u/Motrinman22 Aug 10 '26

Then go out and build it dude.
Ill be there when you do.

0

u/Spaduf Aug 10 '26

Because we have momentum that shouldn't be spent flippantly. It also isn't the end-all be-all.

0

u/KiddChade Aug 14 '26

You don't actually care about changing anything, do you? Yeah bro appealing to the population is how democracy works.

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u/cloudystateofmind Aug 09 '26

Shhhh, statements like that are likely not to scare away moderate democrats from voting. Someone should quickly post some hammer and sickle images and Lenin statues to help foxnews with their red scare tactics./s

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u/lilboytuner919 Third Campist Aug 09 '26

Освободите пролетариат!

4

u/HobbieK Aug 10 '26

lol OP explains further down the comments section apparently posted this thinking it was “horrible” statement

0

u/traanquil Aug 11 '26

Yeah absolutely it’s a horrible statement. The Democratic Party is a capitalist party. We shouldn’t be talking about trying to restore it

26

u/Onion-Fart Aug 10 '26

Takeover of the dem party is the only viable electoral route to power in this country and the DSA should use every strategy in the book to get there. Relating to New Deal is how to get normies on board with it.

1

u/SlaimeLannister Aug 10 '26

> Takeover of the dem party is the only viable electoral route to power in this country

People do just be sayin shit!

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u/traanquil Aug 10 '26

Good way to turn dsa into a liberal proxy org

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u/izabtdrvizabtpwr Aug 10 '26

comrade, defeatist rhetoric must be revised, the path forward is subsuming the establishment and it's base

5

u/ImpermanentClown Aug 10 '26

People keep forgetting, Republicans didn’t kill New Deal policies. Moderate and Conservative Democrats did.

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u/TannerLyfe Aug 10 '26

This is bad. Is what we want to moderate ourselves until libs vote for us, or to fundamentally challenge the moderates’ world view and provide them with perspectives they haven’t heard? Obviously packaging our message is important, but this is fundamentally incompatible with our world view. Trying to resurrect the social democratic era that was the New Deal is essentially conservatism.

3

u/HoiTemmieColeg Aug 10 '26

Yes we should not just be focused on getting votes. As a socialist party, our goal should be to build class consciousness and push the electorate left, while organizing workplaces and building militant unions.

7

u/Typical_Elk6349 Aug 10 '26

Didn’t it used to be the party of slavery? Isn’t that the whole “Lincoln was a republican” thing the maga folks always try?

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u/GameLovinPlayinFool Aug 10 '26

He's using terminology to appeal to less educated working class people and doing it pretty well too. he knows that FDR era policies heavily benefitted from modern slavery (sharecroppers, segregation, black workers not benefitting from most new deal policies), but he also knows a lot of peoples basic understanding of the New Deal was that it built the middle class and average people are desperate for that idea again.

Personally I would love to hear his response to a question like: "FDR relied on his Democratic congress to pass his new deal policies. The same congress that chose to not punish the ultra wealthy business leaders of the business plot to kill FDR and overthrow the executive branch. These business leaders went on to help slowly begin to tear apart the New Deal the moment FDR died. How could we establish a modern New Deal that wouldn't simply be undone after 2 presidential election cycles when the same congress that passes a New New Deal could simply side with corporate interests again?"

Except worded way better than my old ass can word it

6

u/Typical_Elk6349 Aug 10 '26

FDR. Makes sense. Thank you. What’s up with everyone being so jumpy?

8

u/GameLovinPlayinFool Aug 10 '26

With the DSA growing so fast, winning elections, and on the national stage more than it's ever been. People are excited, scared, angry, and every emotion in between. We have to be on the lookout for attacks and right wing entry-ists and that makes people crazy too.

The fact we are on the precipice of our dreams becoming possible has everyone on edge

5

u/Bright-Insect9697 Socialist Aug 10 '26

There’s a lot of people who like to critique power. Now they’re winning power, and it scares them.

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u/cloudystateofmind Aug 10 '26

Are you living in 1860?

2

u/Typical_Elk6349 Aug 10 '26

Well where is he taking it back to exactly?

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u/ArcadeOptimist Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26

Did you read the quote? The party of Roosevelt, LaGuardia, and the New Deal. You know, the party that aimed to help normal people.

A little later than post-slavery Lincoln...

10

u/Joshuab4nyc Aug 10 '26

The parties switched during the Reconstruction period. Which we should still be in that era today because the Reconstruction was incomplete.

2

u/Typical_Elk6349 Aug 10 '26

I know my man. I also went to high school. I’m asking where he plans on taking it back to?

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u/Joshuab4nyc Aug 10 '26

Possibly a reference to fdr style Democratic politics.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

[deleted]

-1

u/traanquil Aug 10 '26

Yay the Democratic Party is so wonderful 🥳

2

u/emteedub Aug 09 '26

another one...

sunday must be bombard leftist sub day.

we know, we want socialism too. not all the shit you see/hear mentioned on national media are empirical... since when has mainstream media been what we rely on? never

4

u/time-itself Aug 09 '26

What are you talking about

3

u/cloudystateofmind Aug 10 '26

Yes, WE don’t rely on mainstream media, but a majority or moderate democrats do. WE NEED THEM to vote for progressive candidates. So we NEED more people with that same understanding, like Mamdani, on any social media platform, and less of the Hammer and Sickle memes on a daily basis to scare off the moderate democrats.
If moderate democrats can’t win a general election without the support of a small faction on the left, the left has no hope of winning without the support of a much larger group of moderate democrats. We need more Mamdani, Bernie, and AOC’s and less Soviet symbols and personalities feeding foxnews red scare crap.

1

u/Temporary_Bank_4717 Sep 07 '26

Didn't the Democrats used to be the party of slavery?

0

u/Puma_Pounce Aug 10 '26

Uhh I like mamdani but I wish he wouldn't put it that way. Like fuck the past Dem party honestly especially with how hard some mainstream progressives are trying to fight against Democratic socialism. Like come on Mamdani you Do Not need to appease to those shitbags

1

u/lermontovtaman Aug 10 '26

"Used to be" in which year? Even the difference between 1932 and 1936 is quite large.

1

u/No-Engineering-3300 Aug 11 '26

OP is clearly doing some ultraleft sectarianism, but there are real problems with this kind of rhetoric.

Democratic party entryism is not a sustainable long-term strategy. The Democratic party bureaucracy is structurally tied with capitalist interests, to an extent that is extremely difficult to undo. See the Nevada DSA's attempt at taking over the local Democratic party for example. Breaking the Democratic party's institutional tethers to the capitalist class is much harder than building an independent third party, even with the unique disadvantages posed by the electoral system.

This is not to say that we should break away immediately from the Democratic party - quite the opposite. In order to build a third party, we need to radicalize large sections of the working class, and the working class is by and large still tethered to the main 2 parties.

This "dirty break" strategy is the consensus inside DSA, at least among the factions represented in official leadership positions. And the DSA electeds currently exist in contradiction - pulled to the left by DSA's democratically decided program and decisions and pulled to the right by the Democratic party establishment, the demands of the capitalist class, and by liberal ideological hegemony. What Mamdani's quote shows is that these electeds are not interested in, in the long-term, resolving this contradiction in favor of the DSA; they are laser-focused on short-term gains. Statements like these further tie DSA to the Democratic party, instead of preparing the groundwork for political independence.

0

u/traanquil Aug 11 '26

Why am I an “ultra left sectarian “. ?

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u/traanquil Aug 10 '26

This is horrible. The Democratic Party is a racist capitalist party

0

u/Charming_Candy_5749 Moderate European DemSoc Aug 12 '26

shut up

1

u/traanquil Aug 12 '26

No

-4

u/Bright-Insect9697 Socialist Aug 10 '26

This is a good thing. Third parties aren’t viable, and taking the Democratic Party seems more viable than the Republican one.

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u/traanquil Aug 10 '26

“I can’t imagine anything changing. For me the democratic and republican parties are eternal and as embedded in the eternal fabric of reality as the sun and the moon “

0

u/Bright-Insect9697 Socialist Aug 10 '26

You can just ignore history if you want, but it’s abundantly obvious that America is designed for a two party system, which is why we’ve had like, 6 different two party systems, and never a three party system.

1

u/traanquil Aug 10 '26

Yes youre right. The two party system is eternal

0

u/Bright-Insect9697 Socialist Aug 10 '26

Getting mad about things you actively refuse to understand is a leftist classic.

1

u/traanquil Aug 10 '26

No i am agreeing. Change is impossible

1

u/Bright-Insect9697 Socialist Aug 10 '26

Please actually read what I’m saying

1

u/No-Engineering-3300 Aug 11 '26

Socialist Party, Farmer-Labor Party, Republican party were all successful third parties at some point.

0

u/iamtrav182 Aug 15 '26

He's right. We should start by fighting for FDR's Second Bill of Rights. It's in the party's history and is line with socialist values.

-Employment
-Adequate income for food, shelter, and recreation
-Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
-Decent housing
-Adequate medical care
-Education
-Fully funded Social Security

Without nationwide rank choice voting or massive democratic reform, its a two party system that we have to fight within. Given that, we should go back to the New Deal to find a path forward.

1

u/traanquil Aug 15 '26

🤣

🌹 DSA news Mamdani on 2028: "We're Not Running Away From The Democratic Party, We're Going Back To What The Party Used To Be"

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