Trump is doing a bit, he knows the fix is in to destroy Mamdani, but doesn’t want to take the heat for it. He’s making it look like he really likes Zohran, but he knows Zohran’s life is about to become a living hell. Trump and his millionaire and billionaire allies in New York are planning to discredit socialism as an ideology, by making it look publicly like he had no hand in meddling with Mamdani’s administration.
I don’t doubt that there’s going to be a big effort to discredit Mamdani, but why would Trump care if he looks clean? He’s never cared before about that kind of thing.
Because it has to look like socialism failed completely on its own, because of policy, or else it will create some sort of backlash. If socialism is seen to fail without public meddling from his admin then they can say, “well that’s socialism, it always fails,” the implication being on its own.
It also makes Mamdani look bad to certain crank liberals and certain crank radical leftists if Trump is seen approving of Mamdani. As a member of DSA I can’t overstate the effect of his win, we went from 80k to 85k members in one day.
Making socialism look bad to all those people in the middle to whose opinion of socialism and social democratic policies is starting to trend much more positive, has always been a top priority for the ruling capitalist class. If you’re seen fighting something that people think is good and practical, you look like a villain, which angers people into wanting to act.
Unfortunately a lot of those people in the middle are under the influence of illusions about capitalism. Maintaining those illusions is a multi-trillion dollar industry. Even when middle class people have positive opinions, they aren’t doing practical organizing. Basically they are more split on these issues than a lot of polling suggests. Keeping those people in a state where they will believe that the status quo is still better for them than the struggle for democratic socialism and liberation, is the ur-policy of the ruling class, and has been since FDR.
Maybe not. He doesnt have to, he has people doing it for him.
Also, theres no guarantee he will succeed. Lots of these social strategies deployed by his admin, like the reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, have backfired bigly.
But if we think about Trump as an individual divorced from like all of the backing of all the billionaires who openly or secretly back his agenda, then we are participating in exactly the kind of myopia that Trump elicits as the avatar and firebrand of much bigger interests. Just the example of project 2025, an agenda his admin has stuck pretty closely too, was developed by the Heritage foundation, a think tank that receives funding from wealthy super donors, mega corporations, christian conservative foundations, and on and on.
He doesnt have to play 5d chess, he just has to react to circumstances and varied interests, listen to people who advise him, and stay true to the actual basis of his power. Its not that hard to believe that a confirmed liar and manipulator to be a lying manipulator. If it has a certain theatrical flair, it just does that much more to confuse and mislead people.
Regular people play 5d chess all the time. It leads to mistakes, but Trump is accustomed to being immune to consequences. Don’t underestimate an enemy that presents a historic, urgent and deadly threat to like billions of people all over the world. You can believe he is personally dumb. That doesnt contradict the fact that this is a stunt, and that the stunt has an objective that it is working toward.
I’m not giving him credit. I’m accounting for the fact that people backing his admin this time are educated, serious, strategic, and tactical. This tactic probably got cooked up long before he even won. Trump initiated this meeting, and he behaved a certain way. If anything he over sold his position.
Even if Trump is a colossal moron, which I won’t deny out of hand, he is a populist, so it makes sense for him to try and blur the line between himself, a right-populist, and Mamdani, a left-populist. Trump will destroy Zohran’s admin and keep dressing like him for the bit.
My money’s on this. But: tldr; if city workers know he’s trying to do good, and find out old money is fucking with him, his support will strengthen in a way we’ve not seen in a long time.
So, having worked for the city years ago, I also know it’s a system full of people he was directly talking to with affordability. They’re on-board with him, if he starts delivering the goods in a public way. Ways to get good food for cheap for everyone, raising wages, getting a cap on crime and helping the homeless. That’s all people want.
With that in mind, if it is revealed that even a couple of billionaires is working to trash those efforts in a coordinated manner, suddenly the people of NYC have both a guy trying to do right by them, and a powerful enemy to rally against. There aren’t enough cops to deal with people dropping bricks off rooftops, every street becomes a potential ‘interaction’… think a version of “the warriors”, but it’s regular folks vs the recognized billionaires. Heh, one can dream, anyway.
What’ll happen, ultimately? I dunno. But the ingredients for something special are in place.
You’ve eloquently captured why I, a random chick who is on the other side of the world, is super excited by Mamdani’s win. It might not end up amounting to much, but there’s real cause for hope.
In my country (the UK), Labour (the largest party by far) keep pandering to the right in a manner that is just yielding more of the discursive battleground to the right wing bigotry of the Reform party, and it drives me mad to see them shoot themselves in the foot like this. It reminds me of how in the 2010 election, Labour presented themselves as pro-austerity, but not as severely as the Tories. By accepting the Tories’ premise that austerity was good and necessary for reducing the deficit (and that eliminating the deficit was necessary for the UK’s economic wellness), Labour simultaneously disappointed people who wanted an alternative to austerity, and weren’t appealing to people who were pro austerity (why vote for Tory-lite, when you can just vote Tory instead?). Now they’re doing the same with immigration rhetoric instead of investing in our systems. Most people aren’t actually pissed off at immigrants, but at the fact that it’s increasingly difficult for normal people to afford basic living costs. The best antidote to fascism are policies that speak to the way that people are suffering.
Mamdani’s campaign (and his subsequent victory) showed that he understands this, and it could set a precedent for places far beyond the US. I’m tentatively hopeful.
He will, with the people in the know, the only people he might actually care about: rich assholes of the capitalist ruling class. The rest of us are all just rubes and fools to be manipulated and dispensed with.
It is a strategic calculation, and whether it will work or not has yet to be seen. But Trump has enough power that negative consequences don’t quite stick to him, especially when negative perception is drawn to him. The fact that this is so out of character for him should be a sign of how serious this is.
Our job as socialists and progressives is to wipe that fucking smile off his stupid orange face
Socialism isn’t a set of static policies, it is the real struggle for the liberation of all people from the oppression of a few. That struggle has taken many different forms and character throughout history. It isn’t a set of policy goals we suddenly reach and then we are socialist. The struggle never ends, even when we reach that point, we will still struggle to make sure the liberation we win doesn’t harden into some soulless bureaucracy that develops and sustains power for itself.
It is possible to look at Mamdani’s history as an organizer, his historic win for mayor and say that he is someone who is struggling for socialism. We can be critically supportive of him, and unfortunately there already is much to be critical about. But there is also much to support.
But categorical objectivism, which you are espousing, is not socialist either. Identity is not static, socialism defies categorization since it represents a historically contingent dynamic relation between the masses of people, the means of production, political power, cultural development, and much more. Anything that delivers verifiable, material, sustained improvement in the lives of the growing mass of people is socialist.
Zohran isnt even mayor yet and he has grown our movement by a considerable amount.
If Mamdani is able to deliver on any of his promises that will be a kind of socialism. But in order to be successful he will need support from not just New Yorkers but from all of us in the struggle, all over the country and the world.
Distilling socialism into a set of policies rather than an active practical movement of the working class organizing for our best interests commits the same dehumanizing contextualizing as any soulless neoliberal. Stop thinking statically and start thinking dynamically so you can join our movement rather than sitting on the sidelines poo-pooing actual progress.
I’d ask you what in this gives you the impression that it’s an AI answer, but I don’t see there as being any point because the comment you’re replying to is patently obviously writing that themselves — you’re just not willing to meaningfully engage in a conversation.
I would really encourage you to go back and reread the comment you replied to, because I think that person wrote something that was quite thoughtful and insightful. If you disagree with their points, then that’s your prerogative, but maybe that could lead to some productive discussion.
I get why your instinct was to disregard the comment — there’s so much AI slop around nowadays clamouring for our attention that it’s easy to become guarded against the potential of wasting our time reading something that no-one even bothered to write. It’s an inevitable (and unfortunately often necessary) defense mechanism in our current information ecosystem. In this case though, I am confident that this is a false positive, and that the comment you’re replying to isn’t AI. I’m writing this because I would find it a shame if someone spent the time to write a thoughtful reply to you and you didn’t spend the time to actually try to hear what they’re saying.
Trump is doing a bit, he knows the fix is in to destroy Mamdani, but doesn’t want to take the heat for it. He’s making it look like he really likes Zohran, but he knows Zohran’s life is about to become a living hell. Trump and his millionaire and billionaire allies in New York are planning to discredit socialism as an ideology, by making it look publicly like he had no hand in meddling with Mamdani’s administration.
I don’t doubt that there’s going to be a big effort to discredit Mamdani, but why would Trump care if he looks clean? He’s never cared before about that kind of thing.
Because it has to look like socialism failed completely on its own, because of policy, or else it will create some sort of backlash. If socialism is seen to fail without public meddling from his admin then they can say, “well that’s socialism, it always fails,” the implication being on its own.
It also makes Mamdani look bad to certain crank liberals and certain crank radical leftists if Trump is seen approving of Mamdani. As a member of DSA I can’t overstate the effect of his win, we went from 80k to 85k members in one day.
Making socialism look bad to all those people in the middle to whose opinion of socialism and social democratic policies is starting to trend much more positive, has always been a top priority for the ruling capitalist class. If you’re seen fighting something that people think is good and practical, you look like a villain, which angers people into wanting to act.
Unfortunately a lot of those people in the middle are under the influence of illusions about capitalism. Maintaining those illusions is a multi-trillion dollar industry. Even when middle class people have positive opinions, they aren’t doing practical organizing. Basically they are more split on these issues than a lot of polling suggests. Keeping those people in a state where they will believe that the status quo is still better for them than the struggle for democratic socialism and liberation, is the ur-policy of the ruling class, and has been since FDR.
He’s not playing 5D chess.
Maybe not. He doesnt have to, he has people doing it for him.
Also, theres no guarantee he will succeed. Lots of these social strategies deployed by his admin, like the reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, have backfired bigly.
But if we think about Trump as an individual divorced from like all of the backing of all the billionaires who openly or secretly back his agenda, then we are participating in exactly the kind of myopia that Trump elicits as the avatar and firebrand of much bigger interests. Just the example of project 2025, an agenda his admin has stuck pretty closely too, was developed by the Heritage foundation, a think tank that receives funding from wealthy super donors, mega corporations, christian conservative foundations, and on and on.
He doesnt have to play 5d chess, he just has to react to circumstances and varied interests, listen to people who advise him, and stay true to the actual basis of his power. Its not that hard to believe that a confirmed liar and manipulator to be a lying manipulator. If it has a certain theatrical flair, it just does that much more to confuse and mislead people.
Regular people play 5d chess all the time. It leads to mistakes, but Trump is accustomed to being immune to consequences. Don’t underestimate an enemy that presents a historic, urgent and deadly threat to like billions of people all over the world. You can believe he is personally dumb. That doesnt contradict the fact that this is a stunt, and that the stunt has an objective that it is working toward.
You are giving this slavering demented moron far too much credit.
Nothing has to look like anything. They just make up facts about whatever reality they want
I’m not giving him credit. I’m accounting for the fact that people backing his admin this time are educated, serious, strategic, and tactical. This tactic probably got cooked up long before he even won. Trump initiated this meeting, and he behaved a certain way. If anything he over sold his position.
Even if Trump is a colossal moron, which I won’t deny out of hand, he is a populist, so it makes sense for him to try and blur the line between himself, a right-populist, and Mamdani, a left-populist. Trump will destroy Zohran’s admin and keep dressing like him for the bit.
You think hes writing out all of their detailed plans, legislation or agendas?
My money’s on this. But: tldr; if city workers know he’s trying to do good, and find out old money is fucking with him, his support will strengthen in a way we’ve not seen in a long time.
So, having worked for the city years ago, I also know it’s a system full of people he was directly talking to with affordability. They’re on-board with him, if he starts delivering the goods in a public way. Ways to get good food for cheap for everyone, raising wages, getting a cap on crime and helping the homeless. That’s all people want.
With that in mind, if it is revealed that even a couple of billionaires is working to trash those efforts in a coordinated manner, suddenly the people of NYC have both a guy trying to do right by them, and a powerful enemy to rally against. There aren’t enough cops to deal with people dropping bricks off rooftops, every street becomes a potential ‘interaction’… think a version of “the warriors”, but it’s regular folks vs the recognized billionaires. Heh, one can dream, anyway.
What’ll happen, ultimately? I dunno. But the ingredients for something special are in place.
You’ve eloquently captured why I, a random chick who is on the other side of the world, is super excited by Mamdani’s win. It might not end up amounting to much, but there’s real cause for hope.
In my country (the UK), Labour (the largest party by far) keep pandering to the right in a manner that is just yielding more of the discursive battleground to the right wing bigotry of the Reform party, and it drives me mad to see them shoot themselves in the foot like this. It reminds me of how in the 2010 election, Labour presented themselves as pro-austerity, but not as severely as the Tories. By accepting the Tories’ premise that austerity was good and necessary for reducing the deficit (and that eliminating the deficit was necessary for the UK’s economic wellness), Labour simultaneously disappointed people who wanted an alternative to austerity, and weren’t appealing to people who were pro austerity (why vote for Tory-lite, when you can just vote Tory instead?). Now they’re doing the same with immigration rhetoric instead of investing in our systems. Most people aren’t actually pissed off at immigrants, but at the fact that it’s increasingly difficult for normal people to afford basic living costs. The best antidote to fascism are policies that speak to the way that people are suffering.
Mamdani’s campaign (and his subsequent victory) showed that he understands this, and it could set a precedent for places far beyond the US. I’m tentatively hopeful.
Bingo
You would think Trump would want to take credit for that.
He will, with the people in the know, the only people he might actually care about: rich assholes of the capitalist ruling class. The rest of us are all just rubes and fools to be manipulated and dispensed with.
It is a strategic calculation, and whether it will work or not has yet to be seen. But Trump has enough power that negative consequences don’t quite stick to him, especially when negative perception is drawn to him. The fact that this is so out of character for him should be a sign of how serious this is.
Our job as socialists and progressives is to wipe that fucking smile off his stupid orange face
Mamdani doesn’t have one policy that is socialist. His policies are center right at best if you evaluate them on a non americanoid political scale.
Socialism isn’t a set of static policies, it is the real struggle for the liberation of all people from the oppression of a few. That struggle has taken many different forms and character throughout history. It isn’t a set of policy goals we suddenly reach and then we are socialist. The struggle never ends, even when we reach that point, we will still struggle to make sure the liberation we win doesn’t harden into some soulless bureaucracy that develops and sustains power for itself.
It is possible to look at Mamdani’s history as an organizer, his historic win for mayor and say that he is someone who is struggling for socialism. We can be critically supportive of him, and unfortunately there already is much to be critical about. But there is also much to support.
But categorical objectivism, which you are espousing, is not socialist either. Identity is not static, socialism defies categorization since it represents a historically contingent dynamic relation between the masses of people, the means of production, political power, cultural development, and much more. Anything that delivers verifiable, material, sustained improvement in the lives of the growing mass of people is socialist.
Zohran isnt even mayor yet and he has grown our movement by a considerable amount.
If Mamdani is able to deliver on any of his promises that will be a kind of socialism. But in order to be successful he will need support from not just New Yorkers but from all of us in the struggle, all over the country and the world.
Distilling socialism into a set of policies rather than an active practical movement of the working class organizing for our best interests commits the same dehumanizing contextualizing as any soulless neoliberal. Stop thinking statically and start thinking dynamically so you can join our movement rather than sitting on the sidelines poo-pooing actual progress.
Thanks ai for the generic answer
I’d ask you what in this gives you the impression that it’s an AI answer, but I don’t see there as being any point because the comment you’re replying to is patently obviously writing that themselves — you’re just not willing to meaningfully engage in a conversation.
I would really encourage you to go back and reread the comment you replied to, because I think that person wrote something that was quite thoughtful and insightful. If you disagree with their points, then that’s your prerogative, but maybe that could lead to some productive discussion.
I get why your instinct was to disregard the comment — there’s so much AI slop around nowadays clamouring for our attention that it’s easy to become guarded against the potential of wasting our time reading something that no-one even bothered to write. It’s an inevitable (and unfortunately often necessary) defense mechanism in our current information ecosystem. In this case though, I am confident that this is a false positive, and that the comment you’re replying to isn’t AI. I’m writing this because I would find it a shame if someone spent the time to write a thoughtful reply to you and you didn’t spend the time to actually try to hear what they’re saying.