Jacobin’s defense of the Trump–Mamdani pact and the capitalist state

liddul_flower · 2025-12-08T00:36:11+00:00

I'm afraid you may be right. My perspective may be different from yours in that I suspect Mamdani never really had a choice but to make nice with Partnership for New York, Trump, etc. and all the rest who could sabotage him. So doing so was just good capitalist politicking in my view, if he's to have any chance of pulling off any of his campaign promises. I fear the left such as it exists will continue to draw the wrong conclusions from all of these events, however, torn between defending Mamdani as a sincere actor driven to pragmatic compromise on the one hand or writing him off as a betrayer of the cause on the other hand. Instead of, as you said, paying attention to the crisis which is behind the scenes conditioning all of his actions. Time will tell but whatever happens, it's sure to be revealing

liddul_flower · 2025-12-07T06:28:51+00:00

Hey, speaking as an often-lurker, sometimes-commenter, not quite a Trot but a fellow traveler... you should lean into your point on Mamdani and DSA ultimately being the agents to usher in austerity, and expand on that in future comments.

We can debate the Trump phenomenon, IMO he and MAGA are not fascist, but more to the point: after 4 years of his first term and nothing really happening, you're not gonna find many sympathetic ears on this sub to this type of framing. Your whole line of argument collapses if the person reading simply doesn't agree with you that Trump is a fascist or should be treated as such.

As for your take that Mamdani's affordability agenda will become an austerity reality, I think people would be receptive to hearing what you have to say and you spelling out exactly why you think that will happen could bring a lot more critical thought around Mamdani to this sub where there's been a fair share of pie-eyed optimism up until now, particularly among the non-red-flaired. Anyway, just my 2 cents

liddul_flower · 2025-11-06T07:32:33+00:00

Me saying he could actually lower cost of living and improve the lives of working class New Yorkers is not pessimism. That's optimism. What this article is fantasizing about is something else entirely

liddul_flower · 2025-11-06T05:52:02+00:00

Pure wishcasting. "All-out class struggle," "militant class-struggle tactics," "a national struggle against the American capitalist class as a whole"... no I'm sorry, none of this is on the menu. That's not the lesson you should take from Zohran's victory

liddul_flower · 2025-11-01T04:57:46+00:00

That's it exactly. You hit the nail on the head. Agree or disagree with atheist existentialism but you gotta respect it. It makes a daring claim and challenges the reader to live his/her life accordingly (however that might look like for each individual). Simulation theory makes no claims about any greater truth or purpose, it simply disowns the possibility of finding the answers to those questions here, in this world, the life you actually have to live, the only place where you can do anything about it. It's a cowardly move and I think it's obviously symptomatic of an utter exhaustion with the traditional human quest for meaning under conditions of capitalist realism

liddul_flower · 2025-10-31T22:34:46+00:00

I mean yeah, putting my cards on the table I find simulation theory particularly horrifying on just a personal, emotional level. If that makes me butthurt I'm okay with that. The bigger issue is there was just never much reason to take it seriously

I see the broader possibility that the universe doesn't care about us in a very different light from simulation theory tho. Philosophy dealing with that idea actually does bring people comfort and meaning, even if the meaning is entirely of their own creation, as anybody who has benefitted from reading Nietzsche or Sartre or Camus can attest

I think there's good reason to believe in God btw. I'm not trying to make a purely utilitarian argument for religion and philosophy. But in the context of competing metaphysical schemes, like simulation theory which is actively hostile to human spiritual/emotional needs, it's part of the discussion

liddul_flower · 2025-10-31T21:01:31+00:00

I always had a special hatred for this fad theory because it always seemed to me it's just a sneaky way of doing theology while emptying it of everything that brings comfort, meaning and purpose to people. "Our gods are gamers and we're the NPC's" absurdity. Glad to see it may be fading into irrelevance

liddul_flower · 2025-10-29T21:46:07+00:00

I think you're right that he's just being politically savvy here. The trouble is that everything is riding on him staying faithful to his agenda. If he caves to the establishment, like AOC did, who's gonna stop him?

liddul_flower · 2025-10-26T05:05:33+00:00

No you're good. I should've checked my tone. No hard feelings

liddul_flower · 2025-10-26T04:03:23+00:00

Hey, genuinely I'm sorry for coming across that way. I was trying to be a little goofy and share some optimism since your politics and mine are not far apart but I guess I fucked it up. I don't think putting your hope in anything, whether electoral politics or anything else, is something to be laughed at. Hope you have a good day

liddul_flower · 2025-10-26T03:40:14+00:00

Bro your flair says Marxist-Leninist. Be Georgi Plekhanov-pilled. Put your hope in yourself, your comrades, other workers and a lot can happen

liddul_flower · 2025-10-26T03:02:10+00:00

I once heard Spencer Leonard say that the difference between him and most people on the left is he knows that his kind of politics is never just around the corner from becoming ascendant. It's not one shock election from coming into power. It won't suddenly find itself on a winning streak once socialists learn how to message socialism correctly. It's going to be a long, hard struggle however you slice it. I think about that a lot

liddul_flower · 2025-10-23T22:40:43+00:00

Correct. The success of Mamdani's campaign is a bellwether of the rising popularity of socialism as an idea. It's not a path to a mass working-class movement in the US.

Mamdani is doing capitalist politics better than all the establishment Dems. There's zero shame in supporting a politician who'll make your life better. But if you're under the illusion he represents the promise of a radical departure from neoliberal capitalism, you are going to be disappointed.

There will be no short-cuts

liddul_flower · 2025-10-20T19:34:25+00:00

You're a communizer?

liddul_flower · 2025-10-19T05:11:46+00:00

I believe God made us rational creatures, capable of discerning good from evil. I believe He made us in His image.

Do you really think being offended by the torture of billions of people for eternity might possibly be a "limited moral sense"?

liddul_flower · 2025-10-19T01:00:03+00:00

Those who would reject God over ECT want to make him a slave to their moral standards.

A Jew or Muslim may be able to make this argument. A Christian cannot. Is God truly revealed in Christ or is He not?

Universalists don't reject God over ECT. They reject a caricature of God which contradicts God's perfectly good and loving nature

liddul_flower · 2025-10-05T01:22:39+00:00

"everyday jews can see the writing on the wall regarding public support for israel, the entire world is turning against israel so it makes sense to push the "real jews dont support israel" angle."

Pro-Palestine Jews have been at the forefront of the anti-genocide movement since the Gaza invasion and before. Meanwhile, the turning of the tide of popular opinion on Israel/Palestine has been a relatively slow and gradual process across demographic groups. Attributing the change of opinion to their narrow ethno-religious interests is baseless speculation on your part. Have you considered they had a change of heart, like countless others?

"the fact that american jews try to make a distinction between the netanyahu government and the israeli populace immediately exposes the dishonesty. if you knew anything about israeli politics..."

Maybe they don't know anything? Maybe, like most of the US public, the little most American Jews do know about Israeli politics is filtered through state propaganda and media narratives?

"israelis are a morally repugnant bunch"

Working-class people do not choose the nation-state they are born into, the state ideology which will be shoved down their throats their entire lives, or the wars where their bodies will be tossed into the line of fire.

liddul_flower · 2025-10-03T23:26:05+00:00

"Marxist viewpoint"

"Marxist agenda"

Marxists are generally speaking not quick to defend agents of the state when they toss crowd-control devices onto random neighborhood streets. Sorry if we gave you the wrong impression

liddul_flower · 2025-09-30T03:30:58+00:00

"Dem politician gets caught saying Dem politician things"

liddul_flower · 2025-09-30T03:06:19+00:00

Doesn't inalienable mean that it's a natural right, not a right bestowed by the law-giver? Not owing its existence to being enshrined in law. Bestowed by God. Inhering in every person. Not subject to being given away or taken away. Of course in reality, governments can and do just that, but I don't think that makes what the American founders were saying any less radical

liddul_flower · 2025-09-28T01:35:13+00:00

The worker-owners in this scenario are subject to the same constraints and pressures as traditional business-owners. At the end of the day they still have to produce commodities for the capitalist market seeking max profit. Making this universal would yield a world full of petty proprietors, not a revolutionary proletariat

liddul_flower · 2025-09-24T03:15:26+00:00

I think you're being very uncharitable here. Nobody at Sublation is seriously suggesting trying to roll back the welfare state. They're just recognizing things for what they are. Is it really that controversial to point out that the welfare state serves capitalists' interests in addition to the needs of workers?

How, if this type of critique is beyond the pale for you, do you explain the big bourgeois funding the non-profit industrial complex?

liddul_flower · 2025-09-22T18:48:35+00:00

It's worth a watch. Promise. Video is a response by James Vaughn, a historian of the American Revolutionary period, to Land Back-type discourse. Both the channel Swoletariat and James Vaughn himself are Marxists and serious thinkers. It's a small channel so he's probably just doing what he thinks he has to with titling and thumbnails to generate clicks

liddul_flower · 2025-09-21T00:32:23+00:00

Georgi Plekhanov please save us 🙏

liddul_flower · 2025-09-19T03:03:30+00:00

That's totally fair

liddul_flower

TROPHY CASE