thundermoose

Derp, thanks! Not sure if that was autocorrect or just me being a bad speller.

It seems like you think that all of America is similar to NYC, during a mayoral race against a famously shitty incumbent. Otherwise, idk why you would post that image.

If you ran a candidate for the Democratic Socialist party in every mayoral race in America, I would bet hard cash that better than 90% of them would lose. They wouldn't lose because of their ideas or policies, they'd lose because they picked a party name that will terminate thought for >60% of the voting population.

Maybe after another 2 decades of slowly getting Democratic Socialists into office you could move that needle. In that time, the facists are going to burn all of this down, so I really don't see any** advantage in sticking with the name. We need these policies now and idc how we get them.

You're giving way too much credit to like, 60% of the country. A wide majority of voters do not respond logically, they respond emotionally. NYC is a tiny fraction of the voting population, and assuming that the messaging used there will work in most of the rest of the country is silly.

Gotta meet people where they are man, and purity doesn't sell as well as familiarity. Disregarding reality handicaps a movement.

It's really not, and you can look at Trump as the perfect example. He came out and said all the awful shit that Nazis and Klan members believed but rebranded it as MAGA. Socialists could do the same thing, so easily. Just pick a new phrase/word and keep almost everything other tenet the same. Call it "Liberty Forever" and talk about how mandatory profit sharing "guarantees your right to work and access to a free market." It would be so fucking effective.

Messaging is important.

That's a nice sentiment, but it would have to overcome 100+ years of indoctrination that socialism==bad on top of the avalanche of attacks from the powers that be. Those attacks are going to come regardless, so insisting on playing hard mode by using the word socialist isn't likely to result in good outcomes.

I'd rather see the tenets of socialism win by another name, frankly. The outcome is a lot more important than the word.

No argument there, but messaging is important to be effective. Most US voters are going to reflexively balk at the word "socialist" and will stop listening to anything else being said. It's unfortunate, but it's reality.

I think they'd actually agree with the tenets of socialism if they could get past the reflex though. For example, if "owning the means of production" were packaged as, "a fair share" they'd be more likely to listen. Silly, but you have to meet people where they are to be effective.

Mamdani talking about issues everyone but the rich would agree with is great, and I'm happy to see the upswell of support for it. I still think he'd lose in most other places in the US though, the word "socialist" just carries too much of a stigma outside the major metro areas.

Very true. Most Americans don't know actually what socialism is, it's just a synonym for "bad." I don't think anyone that describes themselves as one is going to do well with most US electorates, even though the tenets of socialism line up pretty well with their actual beliefs.

The DNC is corrupt and sucks, but they're right to fear this association. If they embraced the socialist messaging today at the party level, they'd likely lose every election outside of the major metro areas and become even more irrelevant than they already are.

This does not appear to be true. There was a bit of budget fuckery, and the state was certainly impacted by tariffs/deportation/bullshit caused by Trump, but there doesn't appear to be anything to back up this tweet.

Not a mod, but this violates rule #3 and should probably be removed:

Posts should use high-quality sources, and posts about an article should have the same headline as that article. You may edit your post if the source changes the headline.

There's a jillion real things to post about here. No need to spread misinformation just because it sounds like something you'd want to be true.

I missed a zero and thought it was 142k at first. Even still, it feels like $100mil should help more people than that. Kinda wild how expensive healthcare is :(

Employees have to pay for basically everything in the US, so salaries have to be a lot higher here. School, childcare, healthcare, retirement, you name it. Also, all those things are more expensive here because they're provided by companies that need to make a profit. It sucks.

Listed salaries are almost always what the employee pays, not what it costs the company. In the US, this includes the payroll tax, and cost of "benefits," like healthcare and unemployment insurance, and is referred to as the burdened rate. This is separate from the income tax the employee has to pay to the government, mind you.

The burdened rate for most employees at the companies I've worked for in the US is like 20-50% higher than the salary paid. Not sure exactly how it works in France, but I do know there's a pretty complex payroll tax companies have to pay. I think it's something like 40% at the salary you quoted.