[Edited Message Follows]
[Reason: Editorial]

On Wed, Aug 19, 2026 at 01:20 PM, Anthony Teso wrote:

> 
> Recall provisions, the workers' wage, a binding mandate, and a fraction
> that meets and decides and can discipline its own members: none of these
> can be retrofitted. They are installed before, or they are not installed.

Tony, how would your proposal work in practice?

*The wage*. If AOC agreed in 2018 or Mamdani last year to set their salary at 
$51844, the median per capita income reported in the last US census in 2024 for 
New York City ( 
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcitynewyork/INC910224 ),
I assume they could not do so unilaterally on taking office. AOC presumably 
would need the support of the H of R and Mamdani of the NYC city council. Since 
the great majority of politicians are self-interested and beholden to the 
wealthy bourgeoisie, they would balk at the precedent. Would this not then be 
seen as an empty campaign gesture both inside and outside the DSA  and widely 
panned as such?

*Recall*. If both committed to recall but, as happens more often than not with 
socialists elected to office, they retreated under pressure by interest groups 
from DSA policies such as universal medicare, a massive expansion of public 
housing, free daycare and education, cuts to military spending etc. - all to be 
paid for by sharply higher corporate and wealth taxes - what recourse would the 
DSA have to recall them before their term expired? Wouldn’t the normal practice 
still apply - that the DSA would simply have to wait to withhold its 
endorsement and support when they ran for re-election?

*The fraction*. Always good that it would meet to discuss and decide, but it 
seems from the above that it would have no more power to act in relation to 
your two central demands than the general population has to discipline any 
politician between elections. If you are perhaps wanting to advance these 
demands in the fraction to demonstrate that they can’t be realized under 
capitalism and that a social revolution rather than reform is required, it 
would likely cause much consternation and would be less well received than if 
you considered and punctured such illusions straight out in your writing.


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