it doesnt mean that democratic socialists like Mamdani dont contribute anything to left-wing movements
Yeah, thats because they are definitively left wing movements in and of themselves. Someone doesnt have to be an ML communist to be left wing, and the small tent idea that the only true leftward movement is to be ML is plain stupid. Anything that is not a conservative political movement is a left/progressive movement. ML’s nor anybody else are the arbiters of what is or is not a progressive movement. The defining feature of what is progressive is being in favor of change, which can look like many different things. It’s about being proactionary vs reactionary.
That said, conservative political movements often change things drastically. Just look at the federal government right now. The difference is that those political movements’ arguments are rooted in conservatism, either to keep things the same or return to some imaginary point in the past. Donald Trump can do all kinds of crazy shit to fuck up the country, but he is still politically arguing in a conservative fashion, I.E. MAGA.
That is the defining feature of what is or is not a left wing movement. Failure to understand that, and failure to not see everyone who isnt ML as some kind of enemy is why nobody wants to work with MLs. Even if MLs claim they are open to working with anyone whos goals lean in a left direction, like in this video, they cant go two sentences further without making it clear that they arent interested in compromise or further learning. “Communist or bust, and if you dont agree then youre not a real progressive” is shit-tier political messaging to 99% of people. While it may not be literally said, everyone but MLs seem to realize that is exactly who MLs are. Its baked in to just about everything the way MLs communicate
The vast majority of people in this country dont want radical ML societal change, and it is unlikely to ever be palatable to even most progressive voters. The majority of progressives want the US to be like Sweden or Norway, not some idealization of communism that has never found fruition in the history of the world thus far. The closest anyone has gotten is China, only by virtue of not being pure ML and instead being market Leninists or whatever you want to call it. They certainly arent tossing capitalism out the window. And even with that, their economy is crashing out as we speak.
Its fair to say that none have found real success because the global system is a ruthless capitalist system more than its the fault of the merits of ML. But, I think most people intuitively understand that any ML society is doomed to fail in the wider global system, and the wider global system isnt going to change because there is no effective means of changing it, nor is every country ever going to be on board with changing it at once (as would be necessary to contribute to the success of any individual ML countries)
