I don’t think the case was made here that DSA has embraced a populist strategy. Seems like populism is closer to what Dan Osborn and the Center for Working Class Politics and major union leadership would want them to do. And I also think it is weird to give Bernie a demerit for not increasing union density when he lost and the usual idea is that winning makes executive or legislative advances possible that will change the calculus of workers in deciding whether it is worth it to confront the boss (see Chibber). Respect these comrades but remain frustrated at the lack of alternatives offered and the selective political analysis.
You can't count Bernie's movement as a win and then hide behind his loss, which, as a defense of Geese magazine, you have to do. You have to assess success based on Bernie's own claims and the claim that he was a victory for left populism. We just follow that logic out. The reason why that is a demerit is what we are responding to, and pointing out that by this metric, Bernie Sanders did not achieve his goal inside or outside of the Presidency. We do not even imply it is Bernie's fault--we actually imply otherwise. You seem to be taking this argument out of the context of a response to Geese because you are trying to exclude the DSA from this analysis. Frankly, no, the case was made in the book that Jacobin magazine has taken a populist strategy, and it was asserted in the original critique of our book that the DSA is. We say in THIS piece that we aren't even sure we would call Mamdani or Sanders substantively populist at all points outside of the 99% versus 1% rhetoric, which is explicitly so. We definitely wouldn't necessarily include all the DSA in it. Remember I am in the DSA even if Daniel is not. Hardly something I would do if I thought it was purely a populist phenomenon.
We talk about alternatives in the book. It is an issue in the critique, so it would not come up in the response to the critique. It funny you tell us to see Chibber when we talk about that Chibber (and analytical marxism generally) confusing policy prescriptions that make workers feel safe in a capitalist context with workers' power and agency in general.
So, no, we don't make the case that the DSA is inherently populist; Geese did. We accepted their assertion and drew out the conclusions. The other issues you have seem to be expecting a response to a critique to make all the arguments of a book obvious in what is a narrow, limited response. Forgive me if I ask you to read the book before making general statements about what we believe here.
I intend to buy and read the book so I appreciate the distinction here and will pause until I have completed that homework. I am frustrated with what seems to me to be downplaying policy wins (Mamdani’s second house tax closing 10% of 12B seems pretty big to me!; Bernie occupying a key budget committee for all of Biden’s rescue and environmental legislation is swept away as “support”), but I gotta read the whole debate first.
Lastly, however, we didn't call balls and strikes for particular politicians who were STILL alive and in office because their legacies are unfinished, as we say here. That, however, applies to "wins" too.
Fair comrade--it's not nothing. And we don't know where Mamdani is going to go with it. But that's my point: we don't know. We limited ourselves to prior historical movements for a reason because we do know where they are going to go, but Geese's criticism was us was that we didn't look at "recent victories" and Daniel and I thought, "Do we even know which of these are going to end up victories"
Also, if you want the implications for what I am saying about Bernie clearer, I don't care that he was on key budget committees when he got almost no legislative victories during the period he was on the committees. That seems to be to be same flawed logic as counting electoral wins as victories without seeing what happens as a result of that election.
My point is he did get victories. He helped shape that legislation and many agreed at the time that his position combined with his advocacy was responsible for the overall relief number being much higher than the Obama years.
That is perhaps true for the acts for COVID, but even there the only thing explicitly with his name attached was $8.5 billion specifically dedicated to community health centers. In drafts of this, I mentioned that even, but I can't remember if Daniel and I ultimately included it. In the IRA, he got The $7 billion "Solar for All" Program and some medicare reforms on price negotiation. But a lot of his other issues were stripped out of the act. His biggest victories were in the Build Back Better Act, but that legislation failed. However, his individual actions failed legislatively more during the Biden years than during the Obama years. You could argue that this is due to his legislation being more ambitious, but that doesn't help the argument here.
I don't think those are nothing but massive victories for a socialist movement; they don't add up to.
I don’t think the case was made here that DSA has embraced a populist strategy. Seems like populism is closer to what Dan Osborn and the Center for Working Class Politics and major union leadership would want them to do. And I also think it is weird to give Bernie a demerit for not increasing union density when he lost and the usual idea is that winning makes executive or legislative advances possible that will change the calculus of workers in deciding whether it is worth it to confront the boss (see Chibber). Respect these comrades but remain frustrated at the lack of alternatives offered and the selective political analysis.
You can't count Bernie's movement as a win and then hide behind his loss, which, as a defense of Geese magazine, you have to do. You have to assess success based on Bernie's own claims and the claim that he was a victory for left populism. We just follow that logic out. The reason why that is a demerit is what we are responding to, and pointing out that by this metric, Bernie Sanders did not achieve his goal inside or outside of the Presidency. We do not even imply it is Bernie's fault--we actually imply otherwise. You seem to be taking this argument out of the context of a response to Geese because you are trying to exclude the DSA from this analysis. Frankly, no, the case was made in the book that Jacobin magazine has taken a populist strategy, and it was asserted in the original critique of our book that the DSA is. We say in THIS piece that we aren't even sure we would call Mamdani or Sanders substantively populist at all points outside of the 99% versus 1% rhetoric, which is explicitly so. We definitely wouldn't necessarily include all the DSA in it. Remember I am in the DSA even if Daniel is not. Hardly something I would do if I thought it was purely a populist phenomenon.
We talk about alternatives in the book. It is an issue in the critique, so it would not come up in the response to the critique. It funny you tell us to see Chibber when we talk about that Chibber (and analytical marxism generally) confusing policy prescriptions that make workers feel safe in a capitalist context with workers' power and agency in general.
So, no, we don't make the case that the DSA is inherently populist; Geese did. We accepted their assertion and drew out the conclusions. The other issues you have seem to be expecting a response to a critique to make all the arguments of a book obvious in what is a narrow, limited response. Forgive me if I ask you to read the book before making general statements about what we believe here.
I intend to buy and read the book so I appreciate the distinction here and will pause until I have completed that homework. I am frustrated with what seems to me to be downplaying policy wins (Mamdani’s second house tax closing 10% of 12B seems pretty big to me!; Bernie occupying a key budget committee for all of Biden’s rescue and environmental legislation is swept away as “support”), but I gotta read the whole debate first.
Lastly, however, we didn't call balls and strikes for particular politicians who were STILL alive and in office because their legacies are unfinished, as we say here. That, however, applies to "wins" too.
Mamdani is only mentioned as a launching point for people trying to revive left populism in the book. However, you are wrong about the tax numbers.. The highest estimate of amounts of revenue, assuming no capital flight put that tax at collecting $500 million in revenue. That's around 4.7% of the 12B dollar gap, not 10%. Here is my source for that: https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/05/mayor-zohran-mamdani-releases--124-7-billion-executive-budget-fo#:~:text=As%20part%20of%20the%20administration's,Fiscal%20Years%202026%20and%202027
Sorry I thought you said 10% in the piece, but 5% seems pretty big too! But that is subjective.
Fair comrade--it's not nothing. And we don't know where Mamdani is going to go with it. But that's my point: we don't know. We limited ourselves to prior historical movements for a reason because we do know where they are going to go, but Geese's criticism was us was that we didn't look at "recent victories" and Daniel and I thought, "Do we even know which of these are going to end up victories"
Also, if you want the implications for what I am saying about Bernie clearer, I don't care that he was on key budget committees when he got almost no legislative victories during the period he was on the committees. That seems to be to be same flawed logic as counting electoral wins as victories without seeing what happens as a result of that election.
My point is he did get victories. He helped shape that legislation and many agreed at the time that his position combined with his advocacy was responsible for the overall relief number being much higher than the Obama years.
That is perhaps true for the acts for COVID, but even there the only thing explicitly with his name attached was $8.5 billion specifically dedicated to community health centers. In drafts of this, I mentioned that even, but I can't remember if Daniel and I ultimately included it. In the IRA, he got The $7 billion "Solar for All" Program and some medicare reforms on price negotiation. But a lot of his other issues were stripped out of the act. His biggest victories were in the Build Back Better Act, but that legislation failed. However, his individual actions failed legislatively more during the Biden years than during the Obama years. You could argue that this is due to his legislation being more ambitious, but that doesn't help the argument here.
I don't think those are nothing but massive victories for a socialist movement; they don't add up to.
Good point. I gotta read this book. New job is just more intense.