Recent socialist wins in US elections – how it began: Part I
[NOTE: This is the first part of a planned 2-part series.]
Last Tuesday was not the first time socialists have won elections in the US, but until recently most of those elections occurred close to a hundred years ago (see this). And for the most part the candidates ran as Socialists, not Democrats, and fit the mold of more conventional socialism as well.
More recently, Bernie Sanders ran as an Independent, beginning in the 1970s (first for mayor of Burlington, then for US Congress, than as US senator from Vermont), even though he is “self-described democratic socialist.”
The most recent pattern goes even further, because as far as I can tell all the DSA candidates who won last Tuesday (and Mamdani before them), and those of a few years ago (such as AOC), ran not as Socialists or Independents but as Democrats. They are also even more radical than the ones who came before. The approach is to choose a low-turnout primary election in a deep blue city and field an extremely radical candidate who will run as a Democrat and who is often chosen for physical attractiveness and youth. Often, although not always, the candidates themselves and/or their parents have apparent 3-world immigrant roots. The idea is to challenge the old guard and win, often with a tiny percentage of the voters, the win being possible because the turnout is so low.
I watched a video after the New York primaries the other day, and although I no longer can find that video it featured interviews with people in the districts where the DSA radicals won. They were flabbergasted and distressed, but all but one of them said they hadn’t voted. Unfortunately, the interviewer didn’t ask them why they had failed to vote, and so we can only speculate. But it was clear that they hadn’t quite realized what was going on until it was too late. They were all Democrats, by the way, and even moderately leftist. But they did not like these candidates.
Another thing that wasn’t asked of them was whether they would be willing to vote for these candidates’ Republican opponents in the general election. But I bet their answer would be “no” if they were to be honest.
As best I can recall, this sort of approach to fielding very radical candidates began with the Soros-backed DAs in blue areas. They slipped in somewhat under the radar in a similar way. Soros (and others; I doubt he was alone in this) had the rather brilliant idea of targeting low-turnout primaries for DA in places where the Democrat nominee invariably wins, and so the key to a victory was gaming the primary vote. As best I can tell, this tactic began in 2015 (the linked article was written in August 2016):
While America’s political kingmakers inject their millions into high-profile presidential and congressional contests, Democratic mega-donor George Soros has directed his wealth into an under-the-radar 2016 campaign to advance one of the progressive movement’s core goals — reshaping the American justice system.
The billionaire financier has channeled more than $3 million into seven local district-attorney campaigns in six states over the past year — a sum that exceeds the total spent on the 2016 presidential campaign by all but a handful of rival super-donors.
His money has supported African-American and Hispanic candidates for these powerful local roles, all of whom ran on platforms sharing major goals of Soros’, like reducing racial disparities in sentencing and directing some drug offenders to diversion programs instead of to trial. It is by far the most tangible action in a progressive push to find, prepare and finance criminal justice reform-oriented candidates for jobs that have been held by longtime incumbents and serve as pipelines to the federal courts — and it has inspired fury among opponents angry about the outside influence in local elections.
Prior to that, as far as I know, most DA candidates were at least somewhat tough on crime, or campaigned that way. It was part of the concept of a DA: these were head prosecutors, after all. Voters weren’t especially energized and probably had no idea that this time was very very different. In fact, one difference was that – according to the article – prior to the 2015 push, 85% of DA candidates ran unopposed. Some of these Soros prosecutors ended being booted and some are still in place, but I wager that all of them have harmed their communities.
This Soros push was very well-researched and well-orchestrated. The people running the show are not at all dumb:
Prosecutorial discretion gives district attorneys a huge say in the charges and sentences that defendants face. But reform efforts have not traditionally focused on harnessing that power.
“They are often a very invisible part of the criminal justice system and the political system,” said Brenda Carter, director of the Reflective Democracy Campaign, an arm of the progressive Women Donors Network. “Many people can’t name their district attorney. It’s not an office people think about a lot.
Ripe for the picking, obviously.
More:
… “I think people are waking up to the untapped potential for intervention in these seats to really change the day-to-day realities of criminal justice,” Carter said. “It’s been really gratifying for us to see the research taken up and run with by different groups around the country.”
Armed with that knowledge, progressive groups including Color of Change began researching potentially interesting district attorney races around the country, multiple sources said. (The organization declined to comment.)
“It’s hard to find this information!” exclaimed Steele, the Emerge America president. “You can’t just Google ‘hot DA races.’ So part of the issue is identifying what potential races there are.”
They certainly succeeded in doing so.
That same approach was used in 2018 for one of the very first carefully-chosen DSA candidates for a federal position: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Young (29 at the time), energetic, and telegenic, she managed a primary victory in New York’s 14th Congressional district that was shocking, defeating Joe Crowley, a powerful (10-term) US House member who was the Democratic Caucus chair. This set the template for subsequent victories over Democratic establishment figures, one that expanded and which we see occurring today, especially in New York.
AOC was not alone, either. She was part of the “Squad,” who all entered Congress that year, the others being Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. All women, all relatively young and energetic as well. The group has since expanded. Not all were or had been DSA-sponsored (Omar and Pressley were not), but they almost undoubtedly are supporters of the same or similar principles, and:
At least three Squad members provided fundraising and volunteer assistance during the other members’ campaigns.
It was AOC who gave the group the moniker “the Squad,” which has stuck.
I believe that it was with AOC that I first became aware of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) designation and realized that it had become a force with which Democrats would need to contend. It’s no accident some of this is happening in New York, either – as have the recent DSA victories of even more radical candidates. New York is the DSA’s headquarters.
And the earlier history of the DSA is the subject of a planned Part II.
Who could have seen a DA running to let as many criminals off as possible?
Well through scam, money or hogwash thats what is happening.
It won’t end well
The DSA has sponsored two candidates in deep red Tennessee.
There must be a way of advertising so as to make people who identify as democrats realize how ridiculous they look when they will choose literally ANYTHING called a democrat over literally anything that is not.
Neo: “I watched a video after the New York primaries the other day, and although I no longer can find that video … ”
My browser has a history function that lets me view (or scroll through a list of) past web sites in the order that I have visited them over (at least ) the last several days. It captures sites from different tabs, too. It may not be perfect but it has helped me to find a prior site, especially if I can recall the basic source (You Tube, L&L, etc.) and approx. time I was viewing it. Perhaps you have this function, too. Or have turned it off for reasons that suit you.
R2L:
I am a very heavy computer user. To find that video in the history would take a long time because I’d have to scroll through a ton of links. Probably over a thousand. I haven’t a clue what day I saw it or what time, except that it was after the primary. Nor do I know whether I saw it on my phone or on my computer. In addition, I don’t know whether I watched it at YouTube or on some other site. So looking for it is way too labor intensive.
Neo, I wonder if there’s a way to use one of the AI tools to help search for it.
I would appreciate some way to have it search my history.
An interesting thought, anyway.
There are at least a few people here who may have ideas on how to use AI. Especially Huxley & Rufus come to mind. .
…
(I do hope Rufus is well.
If he’s commented at all in the last few months, I simply missed it.)
Re: Searching history of links
On Windows 11 with Brave browser, I hit Ctrl-H (History) then enter a word into the Search history text box to avoid scrolling through everything.
Of course, that’s more complicated if one uses more than one computer or doesn’t have a good search term in mind.
I’m sure there are ways to automate AI to do such searches. (And Microsoft would love to help you.) But I’m still a long ways from giving AI permission to go prowling through my computer or search history.
For the marxists to win, they need people to vote for free stuff. As a general rule, most people figure it out by age fifteen or so. Everything has a cost, in one kind of currency or another. And the bill will come due, eventually, in one kind of currency or another.
When I was in college, though–where else would you meet this type?–I ran into people who would have this Big Idea. A massive cloud of wonderulness (some version of free stuff)would or should be descending upon the nation. Any asking how it was to be paid for, or any other technical question, was accused of hating ..somebody or something. I figured they’d get over it…..
But this has been reinforced by insisting the billionaires and the trillionaires are going to be forced to pay for it. Or anybody you don’t like; landlords who want the rent, say. What happens after that……you’re a greedy hater. It’s depressing to see that it still works.
Seems to me it’s the perfect vehicle/excuse for people to rationalize hating and despising—and destroying (and stealing from)—others…
(One can behave absolutely abysmally and feel ENTIRELY VIRTUOUS about it.)
RACIST adjacent(?)
HATERS of the world, unite!(?)
In Texas, we have scores of Hispanic liberal females running uncontested for judiciary positions.
They only care about race and laugh at the Constitution.
“…For the marxists to win, they need people to vote for free stuff….”
I don’t think that’s true. They just need aging Act Blue Democrats to pull the lever for the candidate with a (D), and in places that are solid blue, like most cities, that’s an easy win, if you’ve successfully gamed the primaries to get your candidate in place. They can run Socialists from now on, just as long as they call them Democrats. To win the primaries, they just have to mobilize a few thousand youngsters to vote for the Socialists that are running as if they were Democrats – which is fairly easy, low cost effort – with social media.
There are about 250 Democratic Socialists of America politicians in office right now, and most of them have been elected into office just in the past few years. This is their quiet phase. They don’t want anybody to emerge from their political slumber, not yet.
Woke CommieKKKrats invent new fake victims while trashing and killing real innocent victims.
That’s EVIL. (That’s much worse than wrong or “mistaken.”) There is a T-shirt or even bumper sticker slogan somewhere in my first thoughts.
Our political culture is/has been drowning in socialist rhetoric for some time, but it’s still shocking that the socialists are finding a way to power through the Democratic party. And the Democrats feign shock (while rooting for their policies)– until what’s ultimately in store– the confiscation of wealth through special taxes. After all, it was the last Democrat candidate that was in favor of taxing unrealized capital gains which is just the beginning of wealth seizure.
Listen to the rhetoric around Musk– since government subsidies made him a trillionaire– it’s only right he give it back. The real dream of the Democrat socialists is just putting Musk in jail for imaginary crimes against “the children”.
This latest narrative– “affordability” is just a code word for government subsidies. How exactly are we going to make housing magically affordable since it’s the Democrat bureaucrats restricting zoning, adding regulations and code “enhancement” that continue to make houses more unaffordable.
@ Neo > “Last Tuesday was not the first time socialists have won elections in the US, but until recently most of those elections occurred close to a hundred years ago (see this).”
That is a fascinating site, thanks for the link.
We have had socialists in our governments far longer than I thought, given how the Cold War rhetoric implied that Americans were implacably opposed to any tinge of communist thought.
Or so the story goes.
My grandfather’s sister was a Communist, and left pamphlets at his house every time she visited, which he promptly threw away. Other than that, they got along fine.
No cancel culture back in those days, or cutting off family for having a different party line.
I don’t think that guarding against the Soros-style infiltration schemes would ever have occurred to anyone then, and I’m pretty sure Grandpa had no idea who Gramsci was.
(Neo’s hyperlinks don’t carry over to comments.)
https://depts.washington.edu/moves//SP_map-elected.shtml?ref=hellgatenyc.com
More from that interesting website. This is the “home” URL.
https://depts.washington.edu/moves//index.shtml
This was particularly appropriate to the subject of the recent DSA election victories.
That accesses a 35-page monograph.
https://depts.washington.edu/moves//pdf/Gregory_Remapping_the_American_Left_LABOR_May2020.pdf
Specifically:
Let’s hope the instability continues.
(That is as far as I’ve read so far; there may be other interesting observations.)
One point that I think is consistently missed in relating the American Left (aka DSA and CPUSA and possibly others) to European and other Communist / Socialist organizations is that national consistency and effective operations were far more difficult because the USA is so huge compared to any single country other than Russia, and the Soviets were never voted into power there.
Obviously they are overcoming that difficulty with modern technology and access to vast funding sources that did not exist in the prior century.
(Sorry about the formatting; that always happens when I copy from a PDF, and I’m too lazy to fix it tonight.)
When I lived in NYC, I didn’t vote. It was a PITA to register and vote. And I never knew who was running where for what. So I am not surprised that people didn’t vote. I like to think I would’ve gotten over my indifference by the time Mamdami was running. Probably, because 9/11 was a big wake up call for me, and I shifty from being an idiotic lefty to a conservative. (I had left NYC by then.) But without that wakeup call, if I were still living there, I might still be not voting, and letting the chips fall where they may.
Thomas Jefferson in his usual way, said (in a whole lot more words) rule of law is not a suicide pact.
Polls
2022 – Quinnipiac Poll: “Would you stay and fight or cut and run if America was attacked like Ukraine was attacked by Russia:
Democrats – 52% would cut and run
Republicans – 4 to 1 would stay and fight
2025 Gallup : “Pride in being an American”
Democrats – 35%
Republicans – 92%
2026 Elon University Poll – “If you could live anywhere would you leave the US”
Democrats – 55% would leave
Republicans – 10% would leave
Please leave. I hear Cuba, Nicaragua and North Korea have free health care.
For the last few years I have followed the work of Karlyn Borysenko who is an organizational psychologist that switched to independent journalism focused on the far Left. She regularly watches online meetings and presentations held by the far Left and sometimes goes undercover. She infiltrated a presentation by the Democratic Socialists of America on their recent victories.
Summary? They Did The Work(tm). Since at least a year ago they have been organizing, signing up new voters, making phone calls, the works. They did exactly what people should do if they want to win elections. They outplayed the opposition.
Aggie wrote: This is their quiet phase. They don’t want anybody to emerge from their political slumber, not yet.
And that is why they’ve been slowly winning over the last few decades.
It.might have started in austin with Jeff Freidman in the 70’s.
neo: And the earlier history of the DSA is the subject of a planned Part II.
I guess I’ll hold my fire except to say that the DSA was a 70s merger of the Michael Harrington’s “Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee” (Old Left) and an SDS splinter group “New American Movement” (New Left).
The DSA has been tiny for years but it has blown up recently.
Along the lines of AesopFan’s comment, an important takeaway is that the Left is always trying things. If something stops working, they try something else. That’s why we keep seeing new leftist flavors. “Occupy Wall St” had its heyday, then “Black Lives Matter”. Now it’s the DSA.