Very fitting title.
Zohran Sellout Mamdani, AOCIA, Bernie Sheep Dog Sanders, Drone King Obama, and Genocide Joe come to mind.
The Democratic Party is the pseudo-left, where the left goes to die, creating the new generation of gatekeepers and upholders of the status quo.
A bit of context, from the article, for the Hitler-Stalin Pact comparison:
The answer is to be found not in the armchair psychoanalysis of Jacobin, but in the class analysis of Marxism. The DSA speaks for privileged sections of the upper-middle class that are deeply opposed to a fundamental redistribution of wealth. It is not and has never been independent from the oligarchy and the state apparatus. Politically, it is a faction of the Democratic Party, a party of Wall Street and the military-intelligence agencies.
Indeed, a significant factor in the gushing of the DSA over Mamdani and his love fest with Trump is a feeling within these layers that Trump is not so bad after all. Dictatorship, fascism, genocide, mass deportation might just be ok if there is a little space for the upper-middle class pseudo-left.
There is precedent for this brand of “left” collaboration with the far right. In August 1939, Stalin’s Soviet Union signed the infamous Hitler-Stalin Pact, aligning with Nazi Germany in a temporary “non-aggression” agreement that disoriented millions of workers and helped pave the way for World War II. Today’s alliance between Mamdani and Trump flows from a similar logic. And within the DSA, and Jacobin in particular, there is a very strong influence of Stalinism.
As the WSWS wrote 10 years ago, following the experience of Syriza in Greece, answering the question, “What is the pseudo-left?”:
“The pseudo-left is anti-socialist, opposes class struggle, and denies the central role of the working class and the necessity of revolution in the progressive transformation of society. It counterposes supra-class populism to the independent political organization and mass mobilization of the working class against the capitalist system. The economic program of the pseudo-left is, in its essentials, pro-capitalist and nationalistic.”
Mamdani’s actions once again demonstrate that the use of the term “pseudo-left” is not an epithet or a throw-away phrase, but a political and class characterization. There is nothing “left” about these forces.
Mamdani met with Trump as he was threatening to execute leading members of the Democratic Party, overseeing Gestapo immigration raids in Charlotte, presiding over the Gaza genocide and preparing to direct the military to violently repress protests. These are vast crimes with the most far-reaching implications, crimes in which the DSA is implicated as enablers.
The events of the past several days must be a turning point for all those who genuinely oppose fascism and dictatorship and want to fight for socialism.
The answer is to be found not in the armchair psychoanalysis of Jacobin, but in the class analysis of Marxism. The DSA speaks for privileged sections of the upper-middle class that are deeply opposed to a fundamental redistribution of wealth. It is not and has never been independent from the oligarchy and the state apparatus. Politically, it is a faction of the Democratic Party, a party of Wall Street and the military-intelligence agencies.
Marxism is not just "a fundamental redistribution of wealth.
It is:
SponsorBlock:
- 19:02.500 - 20:38.500 Socialism versus Zohran Mamdani’s Socialism
Transcript:
18:59 end or the the hole you’re in? You think so? I mean, he says, "Well, I’m uh what does that mean that you’re a democratic
19:05 socialist?" Well, I just think there should be a better distribution of wealth is basically what he’s saying. And he’s misquing Dr. King to basically
19:12 confirm what Fox News says socialism is, which is just redistribution of wealth. When in fact,
19:18 socialism is about ownership. It’s about changing the ownership. It’s about
19:23 changing the sovereignty. And the only way you can do that is if you address the question of imperialism.
19:30 Because the way that capital is owned and constructed and structured in the USA is imperialist capital. It’s it’s
19:37 intertwined with the global imperialist system. And so he wants to take revenues from
19:44 that system and basically kind of just promise free [ __ ] to more people from
19:50 it. And that’s his whole selling point. The the only way you can be a socialist in America is if you’re an
19:56 anti-imperialist. Because if you’re saying we need to seize our means of production, we need
20:02 to have ownership of our production, we need to have sovereignty over production,
20:08 then what that means is we have to make it accountable to us and us only. We can’t we can’t make it relying upon
20:15 financial revenues that come from exploiting the rest of the world. We have to have and own our own [ __ ]
20:22 Yeah, very well said. A lot the social democrats, they just want to divide the
20:28 spoils of imperialism. They’re upset that they they’re not getting cut of the pie that we’re
20:33 stealing from Africa and the global south that they don’t benefit from our extraction from oil. And when you see[1]
Two independents come to mind when discussing democrats?
Who’s paying you?
Re-read, Bernie sheep dog Sanders is used to keep people in the Democratic Party. He is there to help gatekeep and crush independent working-class movements.
Who’s paying you?
This is a desperate and sad remark. We must do better than this.
We need to use our critical thinking muscles often, or else we fall into being apologetics and celebrity worshippers for politicians.
Dissenting views are vital for doing this.
We must always force politicians to do the bidding of the poor and working class; being cheerleaders hinders progress.
We must remember the basics:
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” – Frederick Douglass
Check out Kshama Sawant and Butch Ware for people that seem to show and keep to their word of fighting for the poor and working class.
Here ya go, so you can work out your brain a little:
Kshama’s Demands: https://www.kshamasawant.org/demands/
Butch’s Platform: https://www.butchware4gov.com/platform
This article is funny as hell man. Comparing Zohran meeting Trump to fucking Stalin wheeling and dealing with Hitler is about where I decided the hysterics were a bit too much for me. They make some valid, if emotionally charged, points but largely I think we are getting a little insane talking about a fucking mayor who wants to do some modest reform in NYC. Zohran is significant but he’s one dude with comparatively little power compared to the others we’re apparently putting him next to.
Edit: For the record there have been some historians who claim the time bought with that deal with the Nazis was the time that was necessary for the USSR to bolster it’s military to ultimately be able to squelch the Nazi threat. I’ll let you decide if you think a little temporary uncomfyness was worth the end result.
This article is kinda flawed as it runs with the assumption trump has a well thought out and concrete political ideology he follows.
Trump is a narcissist who literally just cares about his own power, his own wealth and ensuring he stays out of prison.
In a 1 on 1 meeting, he never stands any chance against a charismatic politician. We see it over and over again.
Given that, 75% of this article seems to be the author upset Mamdani is using the same trick to help get trump off his back.
The political consiquences of this are unknown. Could mandami be a snake, absolutely, is it possible that behind closed doors he said to trump “I don’t actually believe anything I said, go ahead and send ice in and do whatever you want”… can’t rule it out, wouldn’t be the first time we’ve been screwed (cough fetterman).
But at the same time… it’s also possible they just said a bunch of platitudes. He just stuck up some charm, redirected his ideas in a way that trump thought they were his own.
Point is trump is going to have impact, and getting trump to moderately like you, is a good thing and will make enacting your goals easier, even when your goals are directly going to go head to head against trump. Mandami has a lot of goals, and he cannot get them all passed unilaterally. When he actually changes his rhetoric, or doesn’t push for any of the things he said he would, that’s when we call him out. Talking with other leaders, is kind of what politicians are supposed to do.
