How the Denver DSA convinced the Local Democratic Party to endorse Socialism... - Polidicks

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/29/denver-dsa-democrats-socialism/ In A Remarkable display of grassroots power, the Denver chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, successfully convinced the Denver Democratic Party to endorse a key tenet of democratic socialism in their party platform. The party’s official platform now includes the following plank More DSA influence has begun in Democratic Party in their first successful conversion in local chapter.

Party platforms are rarely adhered to in the US though.

I'm excited to see a potential movement away the center-right by those who should be our leftists. Can only hope the far right politics of the Republicans will shift left as well. We're due for a mess otherwise, too polarized as things stand

The DSA is good folks. http://www.dsausa.org/

This an outright lie lol, at least if a politician adopts the platform openly then most promises tend to be kept. Although I don't really consider what a municipal party adopts to be worth much. Especially something like this which even Reagan said

president bernie soon

You say things are too polarised at the moment, but the rise of the far-left will only contribute further to that polarisation, by further widening the political divide. These lads aren’t social liberals, nor are they social democrats; they are democratic socialists; social democrats may want things like universal healthcare and free higher education, and social liberals may compromise on those matters somewhat, but democratic socialists want (and in this case, succeeded in pushing for) radical policies such as public ownership of the means of production. If polarisation in America is to go away, then people need to come closer together; not be divided further apart. Despite what many Americans here on Facepunch think, the Democrats do currently occupy a centre-left position, a combination of social liberalism and social democracy; which is good. But the Democrats need to reject these radical democratic socialist elements. Likewise, the Republicans need to reject the alt-right and hardcore conservatism, and embrace moderate stances such as liberal conservatism.

I legitimately wish he would lie a little bit and call himself something else that doesn't upset the right so much.

This is never going to fly, and for good reason: there isn't a single example of an actual first world socialist country. Asking the democratic party nationwide to embrace policies to the far left of anything in any of our allies in Europe, North America, or Asia is a recipe for political suicide. As soon as a potential candidate starts talking about how he wants to abolish capitalism in the US, all the republicans have to do is mention Venezuela or other failed socialist states over and over again, and bam, President Trump gets four more years. You're not going to convince most people in this country that fixing our problems requires throwing out private ownership of the means of production, especially since none of the successful first world countries have had to in order to achieve their much higher quality of living.

I kinda disagree for most of writing except last paragraph I didn't add. Especially Democratic Party is "center-left" is for now myth since ever since Bill Clinton (and depends with Barack Obama after his first term started) shift party more to Center (with most economical and militaristic policies are close to center-right). While it's true we need to reunite but if you ever look issues most Americans are focus right now economically not too much socially like Social liberalism cause more people alienated. And you also forget 'Medicare for All' issue that all Democratic Socialists and now some American Social Democrats want to be like any other Modern European country have right now.

There are multiple ways the democrats can lose 2020. Nominating a corporate shill or otherwise terrible candidate like Hillary is one of them. Nominating a candidate that says "it should be illegal to privately profit off of selling goods" is another, IMO. Note that not even Bernie Sanders has stated he wants to abolish capitalism entirely, nor did he run on fully socialistic economic policies during the 2016 primaries. Because that kind of radical economic perspective is on the fringe and does not represent the view of most Americans.

a lot of DSA folks i have seen are gisnt assholes who talk behind each other's backs and feed off of gossip like they'll die without it

True, Because he real uncorrupted Social Democrat who used Democratic Socialist word to pandering current younger generation that like Socialism.

It doesn't matter if someone is left, right, middle, top, or bottom. These labels are extremely imprecise anyways. We need to stop using labels and generalizations, and start being specific. What matters is if their policies are going to change things for the better, or change things for the worse. These labels are only causing us to needlessly disagree because we are artificially dividing ourselves into teams. Everybody wants a future with less suffering for humanity, so let's start talking about how to get there instead of which team we reckon oughtta win.

Labels are still needed because various ideas fall into categories. You can't avoid that. Though I do wish people would look into the details as well, I'll shill for Sweden's economic policy endlessly but also post about how much I hate Bernie, despite both being strongly socially democratic. And the reason for that is the details.

Also you forget unironically Apolitically people (likely like you) that ignore that not it doesn't matter what any [object/subject] should be politicized, It will get politicized anyway.

Lets hope it's not just platitudes and the change is reflected in policy. Tribalism is real and it sucks but it's absurd to deny that labels describing tendencies in policymaking are useful. Tribalism is chiefly an issue among those who are not informed about policy. (I'd like to think that I'm educated enough to think for myself on matters such as the pro-life/choice "issue", etc.) Most of the far-right policies being implemented in the US are heavily scrutinized by foreign onlookers. The push to the right by Republicans in the US in the past 30 years has forced the left to adopt a center of right position. Who can deny this? When people talk about neoliberalism they're talking about the shift towards laissez-faire economic policy. Too big to fail corps / monopolies being tolerated, free trade, raw uninhibited capitalism.

The issue is that people aren't informed, and labels make it a lot easier to stay ill informed. I'll say this: You're 100% correct, and I agree with you. However, when we use imprecise labeling, we allow ill-informed people to continue to be ill-informed. They look at those words and they see different things than you see when you look at them. We need to be specific. Groups do not do wrong, individuals do wrong. Therefore, labeling groups and holding them collectively responsible (just because they supported people who turned out to be liars and charlatans) for the evil in this world is nothing but counter productive. This will only entrench them, when we need to instead highlight which individuals are doing what wrong (in our opinion), and work on trying to help them learn why electing these people is only hurting our country.

Wouldn't matter, they'll just find something else to hate about him. Remember how they tried to smear him for a paper he (poorly) wrote in college where he briefly mentions a woman going home and fantasizing about being raped? Or the house be bought with money from book sales/his wife selling a house she owned? Or the (D) that'll likely be next to his name when he runs again? Or that he had trouble holding down a steady job for much of his adult life? There's no end to their pettiness.

One small step for man, one giant leap towards F U L L C O M M U N I S M

Hardcore conservatives will always find something to hate about him, but Democrats full-on embracing socialism will kill the support of moderates, and galvanize less fervent Republicans into opposing them. I like Bernie a lot, I voted for him, but he ran on a platform of socialism-lite that only really invoked that word in the context of healthcare and social programs that exist in most capitalist societies. If Democrats actually decide that full-on capital-S Socialism is the platform they want to run on at a national level, they'll lose in 2020. There's no getting around it.

They're not getting around it anyway. The right will ALWAYS see the same healthcare systems that are shown to be better (though obviously still not perfect) than what we currently have as socialism, no matter how you rebrand it.

You hate ideas. You hate change. You would like another dose of the same poison that's been killing you in a slow, insidious manner. The Democrats in their current iteration are absolutely center-right, and have lost ground (and therefore an election) for their hypocritical anti-social stances. This line of thought - denouncing radicalism and polarization - is agressive, anti-intellectual and contributes nothing to discussion. This type of speech is actively censoring any action on the status-quo by virtue of smearing every radical proposition with a "partisan" or "extreme" label without rhyme or reason. Lack of accessible healthcare programs, student loan debt, housing crisis and police brutality, to only cite a few, are fostered by and maintained in part thanks to the apathy of a political left that really isn't one, and actively contribute to the social distress of millions throughout the states. Radical policies are sorely needed in many areas of american legislation, and will do nothing but improve the quality of life for everyone who isn't currently in a privileged position when they finally pull through. When the entire political compass of a country can be located in the upper-right corner, the brand of centrism you're defending is reactionnary by definition.

it's 2018. we're off socialism. skip it. go straight to communism

Hey man, you want a few shots of socialism before you start chugging the hard stuff.

DSA is more old school socialism though. Also I personally find most socialism/communism to skip the "What's an economics" part. Market Socialism/Worker co-ops in a market economy is the REAL shit that acknowledges realities and issues of the world. Also compatible with representative democracies and probably works better with them too than capitalist systems. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/343636055695556610/363898567653457922/2UN-6a2U.png

It's actually pretty funny that some oblivious and establishment Democrat politicians like Pelosi claims Democratic Party is "Big Tent Party". But only applies if they used to pandering Center-right and right-wing folk but not all people with different ideologies in whole political spectrum.

We believe the economy should be democratically owned and controlled in order to serve the needs of the many, not to make profits for the few. Gasp. The economy should benefit all instead of the few. What horror!

Yeah sure, the principle sounds noble, but the problem is always with the implementation. In this case, they are (and explicitly) making the case for public ownership of the means of production. That could mean governments owning all businesses, entrusting their management to ineffective bureaucracy. Or it could mean line workers owning businesses; entrusting boiler makers or shelf fillers to make business decisions which are normally reserved for qualified veterans in business. Or it could mean the public voting directly on economic policy, when there’s a reason why not even elected governments are allowed to set monetary policy (reserve banks do so independently from governments influence, because governments cannot be trusted to do it right). Now before anyone calls me a capitalist cuck or whatever, I am proud to admit that I am a member of a bank which is a co-op; by merely having a bank account with the bank, I am able to vote for the board of directors. The car insurance company I go with is also a co-op, and I likewise have a vote there. And that’s the thing; co-ops are compatible with market economics, and can compete with companies rather than replacing companies. I would much rather our society stick with the devil we do know, and make tweaks here and there to maximise benefits to society, as opposed as going with the devil which we do not know. Except we actually do know, given failures in the Soviet Union, Venezuela etc.

Or stereotypical Capitalistic fundamentalist. Oh, Good for you then.