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Democrats Have a Growing Socialist Problem

Democrats Have a Growing Socialist Problem

“Resistance Rising”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T73DVZg824&feature=youtu.be

During the 2008 election, Democrats foamed at the mouth if you suggested Obama was a socialist. Then the 2016 election happened and with it the candidacy of Bernie Sanders.

The mask was finally off as nearly half the Democratic Party rallied around an admitted socialist. Things would never be the same.

This weekend, the DSA or “Democratic Socialists of America” held a conference, in Chicago of course, and their agenda is just as radical as you can imagine.

Osita Nwanevu writes at Slate:

Can the Growing Democratic Socialists of America Build a New, Coherent Left Wing?

Nearly 1,000 socialists from around the country have gathered in Chicago for the Democratic Socialists of America’s biannual conference. They come just as the organization’s reached a milestone: There are now more than 25,000 official DSA members, a threefold increase from a year ago—after Bernie Sanders’ campaign demonstrated that a large mainstream constituency is willing to vote for a self-described socialist and before Trump’s surprise victory in November, which has heightened angst over the state of the Democratic Party and liberalism more broadly. Defenders of the Democratic mainstream routinely point out that unlike the DSA, the Democrats have a base of tens of millions of voters and ballot access. But the DSA isn’t a political party, although some would like to change that. What it is, precisely, and what it ought to become are up for discussion here in Chicago.

There aren’t hard numbers about the DSA’s membership overall, but a picture of what their rank and file looks like emerged with the conference’s first events on Thursday evening. Most of the attendees seem to be under the age of 35 with a smaller but large contingent of old-timers who’ve been with the organization for many years…

This is where things get interesting. Emphasis is mine:

But officially, the DSA does, in fact, define a threshold. Its 2016 “Resistance Rising” strategy document identifies its ultimate goal as the “radical democratization of all areas of life, not least of which is the economy.” Politically, this entails reforms like national referenda, proportional representation, and the abolition of the Senate. Economically, it entails the abolition of capitalism. “Under capitalism we are supposed to take for granted that a small, largely unaccountable group of corporate executives should make all fundamental decisions about the management of a company comprised of thousands of people,” Resistance Rising reads. “This group has the power to determine how most of us spend the lion’s share of our waking hours, as well as the right to fire anyone for basically any reason, no matter how arbitrary. Under democratic socialism, this authoritarian system would be replaced with economic democracy.”

If replacing capitalism with “economic democracy” doesn’t sound like the stuff of nightmares to you, you might be a progressive. Their radicalism isn’t limited to domestic policy either, as Professor Jacobson pointed out in his recent post: Democratic Socialists of America conference endorses anti-Israel Boycott

Democrats are already struggling with the the perception that they’re out of touch with average Americans. How this helps them as a party isn’t clear but the ranks of the far left are growing.

Dave Weigel of the Washington Post at the Chicago Tribune:

The socialist movement is getting younger and turning into a left-wing force

The DSA went from 8,000 members in 2015, the year its delegates endorsed Sanders for president, to about 25,000 in 2017, with chapters or branches in 49 states. Its platform calls for a worker-owned economy and the end of traditional capitalism.

“You are the antidote to total isolation of living under capitalism,” said Maria Svart, the national director of DSA, as the convention began. “It’s the job of organizers to build institutions that will be capable of absorbing masses of people and keeping them in motion.”

Make no mistake, this wing of the Democratic Party will have one or more contenders running in the Dem primary of 2020. They would turn the United States into an Occupy Wall Street camp.

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Comments

CaliforniaJimbo | August 8, 2017 at 1:16 pm

How soon is it until the “Old Guard” (Pelosi, Feinstein, etc. als) lose Control of the Democratic Party and a younger more radical Antifa centered leader takes over ?
Does any reasonable adult feel the ends justify the means by violent protest to stifle free speech (I guess if you work for Google, you know unreasonable adults thrive there ).
Socialism doesn’t work. It breaks both the economy and the spirit of the populace.
We have a generation of millennial who thinks that government owes them their food, their drink and their means.
Tough love is now abuse. Soon 23 year old children will sue their parents for support.

Ok rant over. Be strong stay free.

They would turn the United States into an Occupy Wall Street camp.

If only. You could leave an Occupy Wall Street camp, and even within it you could live your own life if you chose, modulo the occasional rape or mugging. They would turn it into Cuba or Cambodia.

Pardon me, they’re democratic socialists. They’d turn it into Cuba or Cambodia with elections. Like that makes a difference.

    Tom Servo in reply to Milhouse. | August 8, 2017 at 3:17 pm

    to be topical, they’d turn the country into Venezuela.

    Maduro just showed how easy it is to do away with an elected legislature. What are the peasants going to do about it, when Maduro’s army and militias have all the guns?

      iconotastic in reply to Tom Servo. | August 8, 2017 at 4:13 pm

      Which is why Chavez and Maduro confiscated private firearms. Of course the justification for the confiscation was high murder rates, which continued to rise despite multiple rounds of confiscation. Shockingly, criminal gangs managed to keep getting firearms despite the ban.

      Let’s not get lost in the economics: these corrupt, arrogant ignoramuses would turn it in to a fascist state, replete with genocide. Never fails.

Redistributive change with a 30% profit margin.

I wonder if the alternative is capable of self-moderating, responsible behavior, or if we are destined to follow the groundhog over his progressive path.

Interesting set of delusions there.

… a small, largely unaccountable group …

But it is accountable. It’s accountable to the market; the economy.

Economics is one of our few real ties to reality. It’s certainly more real than, say, a vote.

Even the Marxists know that. Marx himself was, of course, an economist, and not an entirely incompetent one, either.

    4fun in reply to tom swift. | August 8, 2017 at 7:31 pm

    You are assuming they actually mean any of the bs they put out. They are after Total Power, then money.
    If you get in the way then they have a grave or more likely a ditch ready for your body.

      tom swift in reply to 4fun. | August 9, 2017 at 12:20 am

      Depends on which actors you’re talking about.

      The Bernie Babies probably believe all that stuff. For that matter, Bernie probably does, too.

      The Dem establishment? Not a word of it. Their world runs on money. Somebody else’s money, and lots of it. Which is why they are determined to steer the Party clear of Bernie.

Sure. They’ve got nowhere else to go.

I love people who are divorced from reality.

In order to justify the dictatorial repression of freedom, in this case economic freedom, these people have to convince themselves that 1) corporate executives are independent autocrats and 2) that workers have no other choice than to work for a given corporation. This is a total delusion. A business executive only has as much power as the shareholders workers grant him, or her. CEOs, like the Captains of pirate ships of old are “elected” by those who own the ship. If the Captain fails to command efficiently, then he does not remain the captain very long. And, the crew [aka the workers] have as much say in that as do the shareholders. Then, of course, there is the idea that workers are not free to leave a corporation. In the vast majority of cases, a worker is free to jump ship at any time, usually with two weeks notice or less. Not only can that worker go to a company more to his or her liking, but that worker is free to jump into the entrepreneurial pool as well. In other words, the worker can become an executive over night. How much more economic freedom can anyone want.

The thing to understand about socialists is that, though they preach freedom, what they actually want is dictatorial control over society and the other people in it. They wish to FORCE their preconceived worldview upon the rest of the world, the desires of others being irrelevant. Socialists wrap slavery in a cloak of freedom and expect the rest of society to be so stupid that they believe them.

“It’s the job of organizers to build institutions that will be capable of absorbing masses of people and keeping them in motion.”

AKA “gulags”

…as well as the right to fire anyone for basically any reason, no matter how arbitrary.

So, does this mean the DSA disagrees with Google’s right to fire one of it’s employees for offending SJWs? Let ‘economic democracy’ work it’s magic instead.

BTW, I’m not sure which is a bigger fantasy: economic democracy, or rainbow colored unicorns.

They are going to have a bullet catching problem when the shiite hits the fan!

These people are not socialists, either the international or national type, they are doctrinaire communists. This really makes no real difference as they are to be marginalized and driven from the public square as they are not American.

The reply to every one of their debate speeches:
Venezuela.

    Semper Why in reply to Matt_SE. | August 9, 2017 at 11:57 am

    Didn’t you hear? Venezuela isn’t socialism. Socialism hasn’t been tried yet. Socialism comes after global capitalism*. Everything that claims to be socialism so far wasn’t really socialism. I know this because the Twitter account of @_socialism said so.

    So all of those articles claiming that Venezuela had finally devised “socialism that works” are to be quietly swept into the memory hole.

    *- possibly, socialism comes after they find the True Scottsman

The democrats passed “socialist” two decades ago.

MaxWebXperienZ | August 9, 2017 at 12:58 pm

Socialists motto: Let’s all share the wealth and gimmee some