this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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electoralism
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Please don't what
Run for governor of California.
Mamdani has already convinced me leftists running in elections in the US is pointless at this current time. Soaks up energy that could be better spent elsewhere.
Running candidates is primarily a vehicle for propagandizing and building the party, not for actually winning. A PSL candidate (they run as Peace & Freedom Party in California) hasn't ever come close to winning.
I think it also helps the PFP maintain ballot access and build their registered voter rolls which might come in handy some day and is an important tool to have.
I think the CA PFP/PSL slate (Vote Socialist CA) is interesting primarily because of some of the lower offices that could potentially actually be won. The slate is also running candidates for State Superintendent of Education, Insurance Commissioner, and Controller, races that a lot of people don't pay attention to. Since CA has a non-partisan top two primary system, just getting second place in some of these smaller races gives them a good shot to win the general, as well as plenty of media coverage in the process.
And if any of these candidates were to win, they are all cadre members of the PSL and beholden to the party line.
Comparing the DSA and the PSL is pretty silly. They are completely different orgs with completely different objectives
It's not really comparable though. This is a campaign running for an actual socialist party, Mamdani is a Democrat with a DSA endorsement. Maybe there's an argument to be made about the problems with socialists actually winning executive offices under a bourgeois democracy, but that's a separate issue.
What energy is it soaking up, and where could it be better used?
Right. Anti-electoralists assume the energy spent on elections would go towards other types of organizing when in reality the people interested in elections doesn't overlap with people interested in other things.
I think of electoralism less as an either/or and more of a yes/and type of problem.
Running for election is pointless if getting elected is your only path. The PSL uses big elections to drive party registration and push their messaging.
Mamdani is a liberal though who ran on a cult of personality, not as part of a party
how did the guy with zero name recognition at the beginning of the primaries run on a cult of personality?
IDK man, how did AOC do it
Policy. They both won and will keep winning because people like socialist (socdem) policies. You can call either or both of them ineffective at getting policy done, or be skeptical of their intentions, but the reason they won is that they have a policy platform that actually addresses peoples concerns and living conditions.
Whose policies are those? They're not the DSA's policies. They're not any party's policies. There's not any coherent movement's policies.
They're their own policies attributed to themselves that they can flake out on or reverse at a whim.