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On Tue, Jul 31, 2018 at 9:56 AM, Tristan Sloughter via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > > On Mon, Jul 30, 2018, at 8:23 PM, Mark Lause wrote: > > What would be a lot more productive is trying to figure out what the > > hell we need to do to influence events in the concrete. > Agreed! And I don't see how voting for candidates when we still haven't > been able to build and influence events hurts this. It is why I do agree > on endorsements and canvassing for Democrats to be wrong, we shouldn't > be working to build their party. > > This is part of my larger project on socialist and elections that I need to write up. I think it's an argument *for* canvassing for Democrats in that if we leave people (including ourselves) of just being in the position to vote for the "lesser evil" at election time then we end up in the same place. But canvassing allows you to organize people, which is what allows you to be in a different situation potentially at the next election cycle. An NYC DSA comrade described canvassing with a liberal group for Cynthia Nixon and how people would basically say that, "Look I'll vote for her but I want something better than the Democrats." Being able to say (as we now can that the NYC DSA has endorsed): "Vote for her in this election and join us to organize for something better", that sets up a potential virtuous cycle. John R's proposal as I understand it to organize people based on a precondition that they pledge to never vote for Democrats means that this cycle never gets off the ground. And to Tristan, it's only "working to build their party" if we're doing it within their structures. When NYC DSA intervenes in a race, it keeps its own data, messaging, etc so if it had not endorsed Nixon, it would've required people to "build the Democratic Party" to work for her election. Now comrades can do so in a way that empowers the DSA as an organization and builds up its structures and connections for the future. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
