yeah the way we talk to each other here shouldn’t be how we talk to the broader working class. moving the masses takes a lot of patience and meeting people where they’re at, making them feel heard and not dismissed, and easing them further along by at once finding points of agreement but also encouraging them to go further with their critique of the system.

EDIT: also our private convos with people in our lives trying to change their minds separate from a larger org recruitment strategy or concrete organizing ask only has so much value, don’t drive yourself crazy trying to shift every single persons thinking. like it can have some light value and plant some meaningful seeds, but just keep some perspective.

10000% agree and good ass post.

People may quibble with this but depending on where you live I think it’s also worth positioning yourself as being pro-Z but wary of the big D.

Ultimately we all have to accept how short Zohran may come up despite the optimism and momentum. To me, the biggest reason for that has to do with the historical hegemony of the Democratic Party in NY and their general antagonism to this very popular candidate. I don’t think his agenda is overly ambitious, nor should it be, but I think there will be a lot of rat fucking from his ostensible allies.

If you can’t change their mind about socialism, it may be worth laying the ground work for the argument to be had later that ultimately it was the party that held him back.

I am not suggesting you set up excuses in advance. It’s more about demonstrating that you can be a socialist AND be wary of the Democratic Party.

It’s not gonna be an easy needle to thread, but for any shortcoming in his admin, socialism will be blamed, not the party.

I think it’s worth pushing back on that now so we don’t look like the blind leading the blind if it/when it comes to that.

Vote for Z and vote PSL down ballot!

she said she had to deradicalize herself a bit from this site because she was having trouble interacting with normal people and not sounding like she was unhinged

Im doing the opposite. I’m sick of being hinged. Im blowing my hinges way off and telling my coworkers they’re possessed by Hitler

Oh, more American defaultism

No no use this to get them to go to an action or read a book with you

everyone i talk to is already woke (in the original sense of the word) to some degree. Since i’m not really able to shut up about it, as i have severe autism and basically can’t. People tend to either agree to some extent or not want to interact with me. Honestly though if you are using a term like social fascism in the prescense of the general public and outside of a theory specific context you are just ignorant of revolutionary theory. Building class consciousness needs to be a gradual process. Though, I guess in general being against electoralism is also ignoring revolutionary theory anyway so… Electoralism as far as i know has been pretty consistnetly been seen as a good way to build a base of support for a socialist movement to get the ball rolling.

you say “he’s just a social fascist” and scoff

wouldn’t it be more appropriate for that audience to point out he immediately capitulated to the IDF and NYPD goons, how Obama pulled the same kind of schtick, in fact with a more impressive activist record and far more restraint, even paling around with Electronic Intifada?

hearing the way Americans talk about the Palestine issue makes me ill. the majority of rhe discourse seems to be about what kind of burgers to eat. the tone around being “normal” and making sure to not offend your fellow burgerologists is resonant with your message OP I’m sure there will be much success for the north american pink tide

I myself struggle with the incredibly simple comment “Zohran wants to do socialism”. Because while the obvious and not incorrect response is to just outline what he wants to do and how that obviously is not socialism, just practical actions that help people. But there is a part of me that feels that by sticking to that, it leaves the potential to interpret, by silence, that socialism is still “bad”. So I am thinking about adding in there “socialism is a fundamental change in how people work and who owns what, and that is well beyond what a mayor can do”, to indicate that I don’t think socialism is bad even if it was something that was in a mayor’s power to implement.

“23 Things” is pretty good. I picked it off a library feature shelf a few years before I became an avowed socialist.

Chang kept saying “but I’m still a capitalist, I still think it’s the best system” and I couldn’t help but think “why?”.

As an aside, does anyone know more about the situation with pre-K child care in NYC? Zohran wants to establish child care for 6 weeks to 5 y.o. kids. Which as a parent I can say that’s amazing and I’m sure most parents across the political spectrum support. But is there anything in place now and Zohran is just expanding on it? Or are parents in NYC totally on their own now until their kids go into kindergarten?

The first thing you can tell people is to just read his website: https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform. I was talking to someone recently, and we were talking about grocery stores and how in many parts of the country there are like 3, and one of the three is trash. It’s almost like they keep that one around because it needs to exist for there to not be a “monopoly” on groceries. Which led to the person I’m talking to telling me about all the construction companies getting consolidated across the region (he was a former construction worker).

I think it was Richard Wolf that I first heard this from, but eventually I said something to the effect of: People always say that capitalism thrives on competition. Competition drives innovation; innovation increases productivity; increased productivity means greater abundance for all of us. But when two people compete, what usually is the outcome? Someone has to win, and someone has to lose. Capitalism breeds winners and losers, and everyone likes to win, and no one likes to lose. What do winners do when they’re winning? They keep trying to win. The way you do that is by buying out the competition; that way they never really have to compete, and so they never have to lose. So instead of innovation, you just get fat and bloated companies that have no reason to do anything new or innovative.

In my town, through subsidies the federal government provided, they were able to provide me and my family with a considerable amount of produce, eggs, and dairy 2x a month for 5 months for only $350. That’s gone now, and I know several older people, as well as families living on limited income, who really benefited from that program. Local farmers benefited as well, because the town sourced all its food from those local farmers.

All these “government-run grocery stores” do is precisely what my town’s CSA program did: deliver people food at a very low cost. You could imagine a situation where these government-run grocery stores set the baseline for other local chains and ensure that people in areas that are under-serviced by the private grocery chains have access to food in their area. There is no way to “buyout” a government-run grocery store; the only way you can get close to a buyout is by forcing the government to close them. That’s what happened to our CSA. It was thriving when the funding was pulled.

Occasionally you have to dance around the subject; it’s not fun but you have to get your foot in the door somehow.

My thought is - he identifies himself as a demsoc, and is a member of DSA - a big tent organization that includes many strains of socialism, from anarchists to trots to socdems.

But his policies are definitely not “socialist” - he isn’t able to reorganize the economy in that broad sense with the powers of mayor. However, just look at his policies, and consider that if someone offered policies that will explicitly help you out with your most dire issues (your rent, your groceries, perhaps more local issues), don’t be afraid because they might call themselves a socialist. It means, at worst, that they just want to improve your life somewhat.

I think people understand very well that mainstream politicians on both sides of the aisle are beholden to the billionaires, and hopefully they begin make the association that socialists are the outsider group that is not.

Any advice for any of the common criticisms you see against socialism and how to speak against them as a normie?

It’s tough because I always have to stop myself from using jargon or going into tangents on history.

I was kind of hoping the counter propaganda community would help with that but it hasn’t been used a lot.

Not really the point of the post but I genuinely think that if you (royal), as a leftist, have a problem with Zohran you are missing the forest for the trees. Dude’s running arguably what is the most successful left-wing campaign the US has had in awhile and while his opponent is generating AI slop to use as attack ads, he’s going out and connecting with real working class voters at the gay club, at the airport, at the park, so on and so forth. I said it before and I’ll say it again, not supporting him is really stupid as an American leftist when you look at how his mayoral victory in the largest city in the country may shape national politics.

i stepped back from here a bit for the same reason as AcidSmiley (really miss seeing you around)

i have had trouble restraining myself when topics come up around imperialism. starting with my parents. my mom it took time and patience just to give her broad overviews of some basic Blowback style topics

i’ve found the easiest approach for normies (at work, acquaintances, anyone you chat with and they are familiar with you) is just broad economic concepts. through this I’ve learned that the average American would go hard for market socialism/cooperative economy. nobody defends the bougoise anymore since they have gone mask off and shown their asses. everyone i have engaged with seems to think they are just criminals and corrupt, but often think the capitalists of the past actually “built stuff”, which is a tough one to crack

I’ve also found I have to often have to just sell socialist concepts from a very selfish position. remind people that a secure, well cared for and egalitarian society = you can be chill, unbothered, and unstressed and just grill

selling socialism as stability is a solid one. no more business cycles, lay offs, etc. in real life most people don’t think they are one idea away from becoming billionaires. that’s been closed off forever. lottery, maybe.

otherwise with more personal relationships I have pretended to be earlier in my ideological development and take them on a journey with me. it’s more organic and not deceptive because i just replicate my own previous development and can excitedly explain new concepts that I just “discovered” and work them through it. this has worked best for taking someone who was flirting with fascism to the left and it took a solid year of work

but yeah just be confident and assertive and patient. people are desperate for answers and don’t use any red scare trigger words until they are ready to handle it