Zᛟhrᚫn MᚫmPᛟxi not beating the LIB allegations

his defense squad have been awful quiet the last few weeks

I critically supported him. Shitting on Cuba and Venezuela is a red line, so I don’t critically support him anymore. Pretending like half of hexbear are secret demsocs is an unfair characterization though.
Edit: I critically supported him because I saw him as helping to develop class consciousness without YET crossing any red lines. Sure, I suspected he could disappoint in the future but I believe and still maintain it’s ok to hold cautious optimism (and be ready for disappointment) instead of just assuming we’ll get fucked over as if it’s a given.
Edit 2: My position is that there are some positions, though correct, are positions that a US politician simply cannot take in public. I don’t like it but I accept it. Talking positively about Stalin, for example. Zohran’s comments about Oct 7 were right on that edge, IMO. But shitting on Cuba, come on. Cuba is like one of the safest ones to support. And shitting on Maduro is actively harmful rn
- I critically supported him. Shitting on Cuba and Venezuela is a red line, so I don’t critically support him anymore.
  Yepppppp. He's literally just male AOC now. He has the exact same god damn positions.
  
  one succ congresswoman has no power, a succ mayor can materially improve the lives of his constituents. he might become Obama, it depends how much he straight up lied about trying to do, but if the rent freeze and stuff come through then he's still better than all of them. and my criteria here is him not even making the machine stop him but just preemptively giving up like obama didn't try to codify Roe despite campaigning on it.
  
  Successful socdem policy without laundering people leftwards by defending AES is actively harmful to socialism. It reduces the possibility of socialism occurring in the US and it reduces the support for socialism outside the US.
  It is social chauvinism and reinforces capitalism rather than weakening it. Does it improve lives? Yes. Does it help socialism? Absolutely the opposite. Obviously we can not and should not oppose good policy that will help workers (accelerationism) but we should loudly criticise him for this position as harmful to socialists.
  
  reinforcing capitalism is nearly every
  politician isn't it?
  he's not and never positioned himself as the revolution, but a rent freeze and city grocery stores are incredibly radical for american politics.
  
  Sure but I'm not going to do anything except give him shit and criticism now. Being good for a liberal is still being a liberal.
  
  of course. he was never the revolution and all this "fell for it" shit doesn't scan for me because we all knew he was a lib
  
  we all knew he was a lib
  I didn't. I've defended him.
  
  the democratic party is a big tent, from rent freezes and medicare for all to genocide and "reaching across the aisle" to people they called nazis a week ago.
- There absolutely were a set of Defenders who were fighting against criticism, claiming that he was actually great and principled and that the warning signs were strategic steps back or something of the sort. I agree that it wasn't very fruitful to just complain about him, but the apologetics were very frustrating and now obviously incorrect
  
  we're not 'just complaining' about him. We are admonishing and correcting our incorrect "comrades" here who repeatedly pursue failed tactics and dead end strategies, and pervert and distort marxism in their quest to do so. We wouldn't hammer on the succs this hard if people didn't double down with succ ideology and just stopped being this way
  Why is it so hard for the reformists and chauvinists to just admit they're wrong and move onto more principled methods and positions? Why do they have to cling to this shit so hard? Why do they put their backs to the opportunists who betray us, while placing their front to us? Don't they realize that makes them appear to us as our enemies?
  
  Oh I agree with you, there are many doing much better than just complaining about him, by writing useful critiques and suggesting better methods. I just mean that only complaining isn't useful. And so when a Mamdani-fan said to complainers 'your complaining is useless,' I agreed. But the apologetics when someone was doing good analyses and critiques was frustrating and now clearly incorrect.
  
  I was of the opinion after the first few struggle sessions that we were pretty much out of things to criticize for now and just had to hold out til more dropped or the campaign was done. He was either a shitlib or not, and people had already drawn their lines in the sand with the evidence on hand. Recently more compelling evidence has come out that shitlibness is confirmed so I think this is a convo worth having again.
  
  it's irrelevant what his "true power level" is. The entire strategy of using the DSA to endorse democrats and opportunists is a dead end failure. It's like saying "let's hold out to see this yeast's true rising power" while making your bread with just water and yeast. You're doing the process wrong, you're missing ingredients, the "true yeastiness" is irrelevant.
  
  I know his true power level is irrelevant, people that think it is were going to continue to do so though until the failure of the methods were made apparent.
  Using your bread example, you've pointed out that they are missing ingredients, they deny that is a relevant factor. You are essentially arguing with a brick wall at that point until the bread doesn't rise. The initial comment was made, and it is useful to remind them when the bread that should've rose has not, but before that they'll just say, "This bread will rise."
  With the bread not rising, some will reasonably realize they are using a failed recipe book. Should the fact there is evidence the recipe is failed before something that should be enough, yes? But if they were listening to that, they wouldn't be insisting it will rise at all. If they didn't know at all and were open to reason without having to watch it fail real time, the moment you said they were missing ingredients, they would have asked what you meant and would adjust what they believed, meaning the reiteration is unneeded because this group would already convert after the initial providing that trying to make bread this way failed every other time.
  
  No all they learn is that this one batch of yeast was flawed, not yeasty enough, and go back to try it again with a new batch of yeast. Forever.
  
  Then no need to argue with them at all because its pointless to try to make them a baker.
  
  So what now, communist? Are we to be two immortals locked in an epic battle until Judgment Day and trumpets sound?
  Or you could give up
  
  his geopolitics can suck, he's running for mayor. It's disappointing and we certainly shouldn't lionize the guy but if he actually does a rent freeze he's automatically better than 99% of liberal politicians and that would be a material improvement in the lives of thousands of people. I don't see a mechanism where the effort that went into the campaign could cause a rent freeze in a more principled manner, at some point you're interacting with an elected official you might as well have one that promised to do it.
  
  no. this chauvinist apologism needs to end. he's calling for war. he's no better than any american politician, and if americans are willing to sell out the global south and kill them all for some rent freezes then I wish infinite high rents on American chauvinists.
  The primary contradiction is imperialism, not rent freezes. Until Americans figure this out they will keep betraying the global working class.
  
  i think it is difficult for someone barely surviving to concern themselves with issues that do not directly affect them. reactionary thought breeds in precarity. if you've got some realistic way to address both at once and help a similar amount of people with the same immediacy then you know some secret techniques i don't.
  fuck mamdani but fuck everybody else in his position more.
  
  except the most poor people aren't involved in politics. Electoral Politics is the realm of the middle class, the educated, the comfortable. Social Democrats don't appeal to the poorest, they appeal to the middle class.
  
  the proposed rent freeze applies to units owned by the city, who is living in those? who would benefit from a broader political movement putting pressure on landlords?
- I'll cosign everything you said here o7
- I critically supported him. Shitting on Cuba and Venezuela is a red line, so I don’t critically support him anymore. Pretending like half of hexbear are secret demsocs is an unfair characterization though.
  you are during election season. Then once that's over and the high tide of American chauvinism recedes it's more like 10% instead of 50%. The never ending cycle of westoidism
No they’ve been loud as shit telling us he’s paving the way for the democratic socialists of amerikkka to elect more democrats in New York
- yeah it's honestly amazing how shameless they are. L after L and they still arrogantly battle on, repeating the same disproven wrong arguments even as they are openly being proven wrong in that very moment
- i just want people to have their rent frozen and that's more than any serious electoral candidate has promised in years.
  
  That’s fine, so long as you accept he’s an anticommunist liberal Zionist. You can vote Biden if you don’t want Trump; you can vote Mamdani if you don’t want cuomo, just don’t pretend he’s anything more than what he is: a left imperialist
  
  i hate this comparison because biden didn't promise anything good. mamdani has, and he didn't run on not being cuomo he ran on positive things. this is a HUGE difference. he's got his foot so far in his mouth i'm expecting it to come out of his ass soon but he's categorically not the same as establishment democrats.
My take is that these kinds of unforced Ls 100% do deserve criticism, but on the other hand, his politics are way better than NYC mayors usually get (e.g. Eric Adams and the Cuomo family) and he might warm people to the left and the term "socialism". Electoralism will never be the solution and pretending otherwise is quite silly.
Basically just like we treat people like Bernie around here even though he has been making some serious Ls since at least the 1990s
- Except he won't if he won't actually claim socialists or at least shut the fuck up about them. I pray that he is lying, but this does not help us at all, it distances us from these ideas and concepts, and for what? A sniff at the ass crack of power? At least compromise your principles for something real.

HOW ARE PEOPLE SURPRISED

i'm surprised a mayoral candidate keeps saying stuff about geopolitics

he's running for mayor this doesn't actually matter, it's just punching himself in the balls for no reason.

That was actually my take at the time.
He was gonna Lib out, but lets be frank, would him fucking Tankie posting really help him win this campaign? Outside of us and some weird old Maoists left over from the anti-Vietnam era, every "leftist" in this country is Lib as fuck.
Critical support I guess.
- He didn't have to say this, it doesn't help his campaign at all. It wasn't even prompted. He said this because he believes it, because he's an American chauvinist social democrat.
  
  yeah i don't understand who this is for. it's not to help him win. he could and should just say nothing about geopolitics.
  
  Yeah, I guess at the end of the day it doesn't really matter.
  He's not even running for that influential of a position. IDK why everyone makes such a big deal about it either way. Rather he wins than Cuomo but that's damning with faint praise.
  
  He's not even running for that influential of a position. IDK why everyone makes such a big deal about it either way. Rather he wins than Cuomo but that's damning with faint praise.
  I agree with you. I just think many people think of him as a leftist leader, which is both wrong and harmful.
  
  People need to realize there will never be a leftist leader in the United SSnakes of Amerikkka. What would an Amerikkkan leftist leader even run on? More tasty treats for the labor aristocracy?
  
  "leftist leader" is a fuzzy term here. there are some in unions. the PSL has leadership. maybe one of them can sneak into congress (not that they'd accomplish anything other than a bully pulpit) if the stars align.
  
  A bully pulpit could be useful if it gets more people to get off their butts and organize
  
  if they actually would. it would be strange for an electoralist to turn around and use their office to advocate for actual dual power instead of more electoralism.
  
  We need electoralists that don't want the office to inflate their own egos or careers. Selfless people are in rare supply :/
- yeah he hasn't backed off of the busses, grocery stores, and rent freeze (yet?) so he's still the best serious candidate in untold decades. that's not praise, the bar is just under the hudson.

I’ve been saying this since the start, calling him out for liberal Zionism 27 days ago, posting the Jorge Ramos episode from weeks ago where he condemned them but didn’t use the word dictator. Seems like even the fencesitting was too far left.

Didn't you catch a temp ban over it, too?

Nah I think that was somebody else