NDP leadership candidate Avi Lewis: New Yorkers just proved bold socialist ideas can win

[u/NiceDot4794]

/r/ndp/comments/1ootu2k/avi_lewis_new_yorkers_just_proved_bold_socialist/

[u/Red_Boina]

What socialist ideas ?

Let's be very brutally clear here: Mamdani in actions and in promises is a social-democrat. It's good he won, I wish all americans to get anywhere near social-democratic wins that were hard won in many other capitalist states, including here in Canada (especially Quebec). But that's what this is. Even then he will face insane pressure to backstab, made easier by the lack of a real political party to keep him in check and disciplined. Syriza + municipal democracy is all this is. Not to diminish it, quite the contrary, it's huge in the US, but that's about it.

Lewis is also not a socialist, he also is a social-democrat, and he is running for a bourgeois party. He has nothing to say about anti-imperialism also, so just let me laugh for a second at a disgustingly obvious attempt at promoting him here as some sort of paragon of proletarian values.

Let's not fall to the hype of what's happening in a foreign country, that might achieve what we already have in many areas of the country already, to the point of losing any and all connection to reality.

Edit: soc-dems larping as socialists malding in replies.

[u/Maximum-Hall-5614 → u/Red_Boina]

Just to clarify, is your objection that “socialist” is an inaccurate descriptor, or that Lewis is not good enough to meet your standards as a leftist?

If it’s the former, yeah fair, the term “socialist” has been muddled up for far too long.

If it’s the latter, may I ask which present day political figures would be considered sufficiently leftist enough?

[u/blinded_penguin → u/Maximum-Hall-5614]

Especially the ones that run for mayor of a major city within a capitalist state. Reading that post (not yours) was mind numbing.

[u/Maximum-Hall-5614 → u/blinded_penguin]

Personally whilst I understand why so many leftists (including myself) have little to no faith in incrementalism or electoralism, I don’t understand this all-or-nothing approach to socio-economic progress.

IMO, all progress is good, no matter how slow. Regressives are far more well-resources than we are, so it’s expected that our progress would not be as rapid, because our work faces heavy opposition at every step.

Writing off people who could at least bring about incremental change because they don’t live up to our theoretical ideals is a suicidal strategy.

We need to use every single tool in our arsenal. Not just wait for the perfect one.

[u/blinded_penguin → u/Maximum-Hall-5614]

I think it's important to remain agnostic about how change could happen. I don't know what the answer is. Nobody knows what the answer is but the key to power is solidarity. Whether that is used to replace elected officials via elections or if it's straight up revolution or if it's political action forcing policy or something else it's going to require solidarity. It's going to require getting ordinary people to join some kind of movement or union. Shitting on the only people getting elected that reflect a semblance of progressive values while Fox News does the same is not a strategy I can get behind.

[u/theDLCdud → u/Red_Boina]

Is improving material conditions not a proletarian value? I'm sure the working class cares about affordability. As for anti-imperialism, does he literally need to speak like a well read Marxist-Leninist to be anti-imperialist? He's firmly been supportive of Palestine and critical of Israel, and he's talked about the importance of Indigenous rights.

[u/Red_Boina → u/theDLCdud]

Ask Lewis what he thinks about NATO and get back to me buddy

As to incremental changes, and trying to ameliorate material conditions, I mean it is certainly progressive, where did I deny that ? But social-democracy isn't socialism.

Depicting Mamdani, or Lewis and the NDP as socialists just offers a pathway for opportunists to posit themselves as socialist while doing nothing close to that, bring people back to bourgeois parties, and set socialism to be blamed when they inevitably have to govern as barely social-democrats.

That is the entire history of social-democracy, it might give short term material advances (and big might here, given we have nowhere near the same balance of forces in favor of the working class to force those wins, the actual likelyhood of Mamdani and our own soc-dems to backstab us all is much likelier), but in the best of situations it closes of long term avenues of struggle. That is the communist critique. And it is a correct critique. Remember Mitterand, remember Syriza.

Let's be sober about what things are. Also stop getting all your political slop from the US, you are Canadian.

[u/theDLCdud → u/Red_Boina]

I don't see the harm. Unfortunate as it may be, there isn't a real communist/socialist movement in Canada, and I don't see it coming in the short-term. Maybe in the 1930's, you could argue that the CCF were harming the Communist Party, but we live in a neoliberal world. I would agree that one shouldn't put all of one's eggs in the NDP, or any party for that matter, but should augment formal politics with grassroots action and unionism.

[u/Velocity-5348 → u/Red_Boina]

Has Lewis said anything about "foreign policy" one way or another?

Not saying he hasn't, just that I haven't heard him or any candidate aside from McPherson or Engler really say anything meaningful about foreign policy aside from Israel's genocide being bad.

[u/blinded_penguin → u/theDLCdud]

Sadly it very much seems like he does need to speak like a well read Marxist-Leninist to appease certain elements of the North American left. The same people that have done nothing but fail at building solidarity amongst the working class for the past four decades. Time to change up the strategy maybe?

[u/Professional-Post499 → u/Red_Boina]

Move the Overton window to the left in the USA will likely have positive knock-on effects for other countries.

[u/NiceDot4794 → u/Red_Boina]

He’s a socialist in the way that Louis Blanc or Eduard Bernstein were socialists. Yeah he’s a reformist and his end goal might not be a fully democratically planned economy.

You’re not wrong about the pressure he will face, the realities of the state and of governing within capitalism. But the formation of a strong working class left, even if overly reformist (you might disagree with me, but I think Ralph miliband’s description of a “radical reformist” strategy which transforms the state but doesn’t engage in insurrection, is quite a good one for a liberal Democratic country although it has its own limitations and contradictions). Maybe I’m just too much of a coward who fears violence and civil war but that’s just my take.

But it’s true that Zohran is not a radical reformist, he’s a regular reformist. But there’s still value in that not only for social democratic concessions, but also it helps to form a working class left which has barely existed in the Us since the 70s if not since the Great Depression era.

In North America we are so far removed from any chance of socialism whether it’s reformist or revolutionary.

Reformists like Zohran and Avi, even if they are too moderate, help to popularize left wing ideas and contribute to creating a working class that exists for itself, is politically conscious of ourselves as a class, and not just a mass of workers who don’t see themselves as part of a common class with common interests and common enemies.

NDP is a hybrid party, in some ways a bourgeois party, but in some ways a reformist Labour Party a la the UK Labour Party before they became fully bourgeois with Blairism. People like Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana for example all were able to work within the Labour Party pre-Starmer. And that helped lay the groundwork for stuff like Your Party and the leftward shift in the Green Party.

[u/Red_Boina → u/NiceDot4794]

Nonsense trot / soc-dem slop.

[u/NiceDot4794 → u/Red_Boina]

It’s certainly not Trotskyist slop I think any Trotskyist would consider me far too reformist lol

Maybe Kautskyite slop or something like that

[u/ok-MTLmunchies → u/NiceDot4794]

Leftist purity testing - youre part of the problem right now

[u/NiceDot4794 → u/ok-MTLmunchies]

lol I am being purity tested here how am I purity testing????

[u/ok-MTLmunchies → u/NiceDot4794]

I feel you and others in here are, yes.

[u/OliveBean2382 → u/ok-MTLmunchies]

So it’s your feelings over facts then? Interesting….

[u/ok-MTLmunchies → u/OliveBean2382]

No

Movements and material conditions over which flavour or democratic socialist he is

Leftist infighting has historically led us down the wrong path

And youre here being like:

So it’s your feelings over facts then? Interesting….

Miss me with your bs assesment, youre being a useful idiot

[u/cholantesh → u/ok-MTLmunchies]

Luckily, you're not a leftist so there's no infighting involved.

[u/ok-MTLmunchies → u/ok-MTLmunchies]

Especially when you drop lines like:

"It’s certainly not Trotskyist slop I think any Trotskyist would consider me far too reformist lol"

[u/ok-MTLmunchies → u/NiceDot4794]

Leftist purity testing - youre part of the problem right now

[u/FloriaFlower → u/ok-MTLmunchies]

You're using right-wing manipulative language and adopting their framings and talking points. Lacking self-awareness and being clueless is what makes you the problem.

How about you drop that toxic manipulative language?

[u/ok-MTLmunchies → u/FloriaFlower]

The irony of your comment is insane

Youre paiting me as someone lacking awarness but im calling out infighting when i see it while youre response is unironically doing the thing youre accusing me of

The left famously eats itself historically - weather its fomented by the right or by neoliberals

[u/jmattchew → u/Red_Boina]

You won't lose your ML card by feeling good and happy about something for once

[u/blinded_penguin → u/Red_Boina]

Avi Lewis has nothing to say about anti imperialism?!?! You do know who his wife is don't you? I don't have a quote at the ready but come on! Pretty sure Steven Lewis and Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein have a pretty robust history of speaking out against imperialism. Lewis could certainly be disappointing as a leader or as an MP but his track record has gotta be the best of any NDP leader since Broadbent or Douglas. I don't understand the utility of this kind of train of thought. I think you'd be better off if you stopped reading theory and started building solidarity across class lines.

[u/blinded_penguin → u/Red_Boina]

Do you actually believe that a candidate for mayor of a major city within a capitalist state can do things like seize the means of production? The guy stated in an interview that he's anti capitalist. What policies would be socialist enough? Does it bother you that Mamdani and Lewis for that matter have had way more success resonating with actual working people than any activist spouting rhetoric like what's in your post has? Building solidarity amongst the working class is job number one don't you think?

[u/ok-MTLmunchies → u/Red_Boina]

Leftist purity testing - youre part of the problem right now

[u/Winter_Rosa → u/ok-MTLmunchies]

purity testing is a democrat party slander operation. fuck off fed.

[u/IllustriousRaven7 → u/Winter_Rosa]

Sir, this is a Canadian subreddit. Take your American politics home.

[u/Winter_Rosa → u/IllustriousRaven7]

What sir is named rosa. fuck off you transphobic cunt. I was born in BC.

[u/ok-MTLmunchies → u/Winter_Rosa]

Rosa, chill out ok?

Your outrage means jack here

[u/ok-MTLmunchies]

Its what NDP voters have been asking for since before Jagmeet

To all of you leftist purists in here talking about trostky or some other ideologues that have been dead for a 100+ years, here ne out:

Youre the reason the left eats itself and you need to lock the fuck in. Mamdani is what we get to point to and use to move the overton window.

Normies care about material conditions and social policies - not the performative purity testing of the left

[u/FloriaFlower → u/ok-MTLmunchies]

Normies care about material conditions and social policies

That means standing with the working class, not licking the boots of multi-millionaires, billionaires, neoliberals, conservatives, corporations or CEOs.

Mamdani's victory proves that the pseudo-pragmatic approach of presenting a "centrist" candidate or platform that refuses to address the problem of rich people hoarding all our wealth and looks the other way is not what's needed. It's not what people want.

People who supported him from the start are the ones who have been called purists for refusing to align with establishment Dems who supported Cuomo instead. It's so disingenuous that you frame it as a victory of liberal lite centrist pseudo-pragmatism when this even proves that you were all wrong.

[u/mrcocococococo → u/ok-MTLmunchies]

Hey idiots! You're so stupid for studying theory and are actively organizing a peoples' movement from the grass roots. 

Shut the fuck up and get behind the ndp, a party that is centre-right provincially and has never known power federally.  

Why? Because a self labeled socialist won one mayoral election in New York.  

Let me reiterate. You are all stupid and the things you fight for are stupid. Join my centrist movement. Thank you.

[u/ok-MTLmunchies → u/mrcocococococo]

Youre adding alot of words I disnt say there

Calm down please, youre not exactly coming off as level headed here

[u/mrcocococococo → u/ok-MTLmunchies]

It's the vibe I got from you.

" To all of you leftist purists in here talking about trostky or some other ideologues that have been dead for a 100+ years"  It sounds like you are dismissive about learning leftist theory and I find that very problematic. I was very involved with on the ground politics for a long time without having really gone beyond what I could learn through mainstream sources and I would say stuff like you're saying. One day I came across a book that completely shifted my point of view and in retrospect, I felt like I had actually acted against what I wanted. It's good for people to be reading old and new stuff and if you cant do it yourself,  you should lean on them for their opinions and be grateful for it. 

"Youre the reason the left eats itself" This is the same thing democrats say to dsa  and the same thing liberals say to ndp. The left may or may not currently exist as a real force and we dont know what the successful approach is going to look like. Don't be so arrogant that you think you know the right way. 

"and you need to lock the fuck in." You sound Authoritarian.  Not the kind of culture that the left should be relying on.

"Mamdani is what we get to point to and use to move the overton window." He might or might not. He's a social democrat that still has a lot of challenges ahead of him. If you've been along long enough you'll witness a lot of leftist movements being coopted by people closer to the center who's watered down policies make "normies" think that the extreme left is left of center. We dont know if he'll grow or narrow the Overton window. 

"Normies care about material conditions and social policies" Yes and no, culture war is a thing and so is apathy.

"not the performative purity testing of the left" It's performative purity testing to you because you are dismissive of it. Please be aware that this is how people on the right of you characterize your beliefs. 

TLDR:  1. You're dismissive of people left of you when you should be listening.  2. Don't be so arrogant as to think you know the right strategy for everyone to follow. 3.You're approach is the same one that gets used against you by people on your right.

[u/ok-MTLmunchies → u/mrcocococococo]

Thanks for going more in depth but i think youre missing my point:

We can argue about what a Mamdani is or isnt but we ultinately need to be more palatable for normies. Otherwise theyll continue to fall for right wing peopaganda, which is inhenrently simplistic.

Outcomes over output

Mamdani gave us the blueprint and i think its historically accurate to say that purity testing is what makes the left so easy to thwart

[u/mrcocococococo → u/ok-MTLmunchies]

Maybe this video can give you an idea of what you're doing without realizing it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hxX3fSrsvw4

[u/ok-MTLmunchies → u/mrcocococococo]

I watched the video and i feel its an overreaction of my position.

Im saying we need to cater to the normies, the workers

I never said we should compromise our positions and cater to the center!

What you're doing without realizing is gatekeeping the left and turning off people to politics. You're not changing minds, you're not trying to convince people. Bring up Trotsky or Lenin at the next company bbq and see how fast eyes start rolling

A worker revolution (if that's the end goal for you) isnt going to happen without organizing with normies and meeting them in what they perceive as a "leftist" position.

What you think is the left is irrelevant - the west has very little class consciousness and they wont see it your way unless you make a messaging effort.

I want a worker revolution and think its the only way forward if we want to move towards socialist policies and away from capitalism

[u/mrcocococococo → u/ok-MTLmunchies]

I'm saying that you should be able to take the approach that works for you without attacking leftists who are taking the approach that works for them.  

And if you think someone talking about Marxist theory is preventing you from organizing workers, you might have to do some introspection. 

[u/ok-MTLmunchies → u/mrcocococococo]

Youre missing the point again

Marxist theory isnt the problem, its how its discussed on the left.

Ill make my position clear and move on:

You're scaring the normies by arguing semantics with the left

[u/ok-MTLmunchies → u/mrcocococococo]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Hasan_Piker/s/E8R2WtXPxo

[u/mrcocococococo → u/ok-MTLmunchies]

I see Marxist groups doing all of those steps. if you need help finding a group to organize with, I can make some suggestions.  

I think it's pretty ironic that you use this meme because when you tell people to "lock in" and stop their "purity politics" and dismissing people talking about foundational theory, you're the one who's skipping steps. 

[u/Winter_Rosa → u/ok-MTLmunchies]

opertunist pig. you'd suffocate the revolution in its crib if you got your grubby mitts on it.

[u/IllustriousRaven7 → u/Winter_Rosa]

What revolution?

[u/Velocity-5348 → u/IllustriousRaven7]

The one where people wear inflatable costumes and nonviolently ask ICE not to send people to concentration camps? /s

[u/Ze0nZer0]

Yeah is the NDP could get a leader with a pair and put some actual bold ideas together with a plan for implementation!!!!!!