Does a socialist/communist/anticapitalist stand a chance at winning public office and then subsequent governing without major obstruction in any municipal or state level elected position?

Submitted by PinkSwallowLove t3_yvduqn in RhodeIsland

Hear me out please!

Let me immediately clarify that I don’t mean gulags and political repression or any of that outdated 20th century stuff, I mean a forward looking candidate that favors building the foundations of a society that is commonly owned; policies like the construction of social housing (including for the middle class) to address the housing shortage and high housing costs, extensively equipping workers with the tools and training to establish self directed employee run collectives statewide, creating a statewide organization of mental health therapy collectives to address the mental health and drug addiction crises, fostering and building mutual aid networks to bolster people’s standard of living and economic security and to begin the transition towards a moneyless economy, establishing worker representation/councils on municipal/state committees (much like participatory budgeting), reworking the public transportation system routes and frequency and fully subsidizing it so that it is free to riders, leveraging moser 21st century decentralized economic planning (incorporating aspects of big data and such) in key areas where it makes sense in order to address shortages in peoples crucial needs (baby formula, affordable medication, prefabricated houses, chips, etc), 21st century manufacturing of sustainable clothes and textiles (hemp, linen, lyocell/tencel), seaweed farming, urban agriculture, vertical agriculture, cleaner aviation without fossil fuels, pedestrianizing more cities and making them more walkable. In essence, ensuring that everyone has a basic livelihood guaranteed so that they may then organize collectively if they so choose and change society by pursuing their calling without having to worry about economic insecurity or survival. Guaranteed survival so that people can thrive.

Is such a platform viable anywhere in Rhode Island currently? If not, do you predict that it may become viable in the coming decades? Or is this platform completely unviable irrespective of time?

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March_Latter t1_iwdvha2 wrote

No would be the shortest answer but i can elaborate.

The scenario you describe has no understanding of human beings or society as a whole. It makes illogical jumps into what an individual may want from the government and people in general.

Overall you could force 100 people to live this way but sooner or later errors and changes would occur and certain people would expect better treatment or better things due to their position in the group. In 100 people there will always be one leader available and seeing no other leader appears to be provided that person will lead a 10% group of followers into taking over the group and elevating the leader and his followers to the ruling class and casting the rest to various degrees of peasantry.

Even the long standing Hippie Communes have discovered that without changing out people regularly and a strict oversight from an outside council that they are overrun within a few years.

So while the thought process that creates this fantasy is meant for good, its really just a case of magical thinking.

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youjustlostthegameee t1_iwe35s6 wrote

Find out, just call yourself an independent and ditch the labels

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moreobviousthings t1_iwe58zi wrote

No shit. Call yourself a socialist, and certain people will turn away. Propose public policy that is workable and serves the public, and people will listen. It's about the policies and not about the labels.

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Moelarrycheeze t1_iwge16g wrote

No. Utopia sounds good in your imagination but the real world is more complicated, by a factor of around a thousand

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Ok_Maybe_Im_Drunk t1_iwoj8ts wrote

When OP has to start by saying "I don’t mean gulags and political repression," it's pretty clear his politics are evil.

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koidrieyez t1_iwe7l4u wrote

I'm sure several are in office right now just too soon to show themselves. Many of the things you mentioned have already been tried. The Hartford Projects (I'm sure that's not the current name) is one. It was built for young working families who could build up a nest egg to eventually buy their own home then another family could move in. Sounds great right? Well a judge ruled the state couldn't force people to work in order to live their. Soon the welfare class moved in and all the people who it was built for moved out.

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Proof-Variation7005 t1_iwe5bwb wrote

I think a politician who believed in those things would need to be incredibly self-aware about how much of it is impossible in the current world and willing to compromise on their vision a LOT to have a chance of not being laughed out of the race before they even made it onto a ballot

I like the utopia of Star Trek too, but it's easy to forget they needed a nuclear war and meeting an alien race to shift towards that utopia that's never really existed in human history.

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Mortal-Cynical-42 t1_iwdsz98 wrote

First you have to educate people of the potential benefits, then people must feel like those benefits outweigh the changes & efforts it’ll take to instill them, then it’ll be an uphill battle against all the corporations that have dug their heels into the systems in place preventing all said progress. If ever “viable”, I see it stemming out of necessity due to some catastrophe large enough to disrupt the day-to-day paradigm of most people, not by sheer will, sadly

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Coincel_pro t1_iweleh2 wrote

Capitalism has a stranglehold on the nation, both major parties etc. Even within the democratic party if elements of what you like start to grow, the party themselves will do what they can to stamp it out. The 70-80+ yr old leadership has no problem telling the actual socialists in the party (very very few) to get fucked when they need to.

Case in point, DSA won most of the offices within the NV Dem party, the national party responded by yanking most of the money out of the state party coffers: https://theintercept.com/2021/03/08/nevada-democratic-party-dsa/ DSA itself then runs with stupid af takes on Ukraine etc that make them unlikely to broaden support further.

Sad part about it all is that centrist dems are still closer to GOP from the 90s than leftists and will still get called "radical communists / socialists". Fox News is (I think still) the most popular news network and shit like Tucker Carlson gets some of the highest ratings in TV. The channel is just a stream of propaganda against anything not part of the GOP. Hell the inspiration for the network started because the founder was pissed at how the media turned on Nixon. It's designed to poison the well and is remarkably good at it. You've got to fight crap like this before even getting a meaningful number of votes to just play a verrrrry delicate game of compromise and incremental adjustments are even going to begin.

Absent global catastrophe I don't think its possible here. However, you can organize and make a difference locally. Community aid and local collective aid / defense are feasible and achievable and more likely to actually help those around you than many other things.

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JKBone85 t1_iwg4up4 wrote

There’s a few generations in this country to which the terms communist or socialist conjure nightmarish visions, mostly due to years of conditioning to fear these systems. Until that “stigma” is gone, I don’t see it happening.

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degggendorf t1_iwl7wxm wrote

A bunch of these things are already happening.

> construction of social housing

McKee is doing that now: "...announce a historic investment of more than $80 million to create and preserve more than 875 homes across the state. Of these, over 800 will be affordable units."

> (including for the middle class)

That's happening too: "Middle Income Loan Program: a total of $20 million to finance innovative proposals that seek to develop housing affordable to households with incomes between 80% – 120% AMI. The program addresses the affordable housing needs of households who are increasingly caught in the gap between rising housing costs and ineligibility for other traditional state and federally financed affordable housing."

> extensively equipping workers with the tools and training to establish self directed employee run collectives statewide

Like state-run "how to make a union" workshops? Isn't that kind of like asking Amazon corporate to run union workshops to their floor/field workers? We wouldn't want that; unions need to be independent from management.

> creating a statewide organization of mental health therapy collectives to address the mental health and drug addiction crises

We have that. The state certifies mental health professionals, and pays for people to go to them.

>fostering and building mutual aid networks

If it's organized by the government, then isn't it by definition not mutual aid?

> reworking the public transportation system routes and frequency and fully subsidizing it so that it is free to riders

That's being trialed, all Newport busses were free all summer. There's also the permanent free and reduced fare program that covers seniors, veterans, low-income individuals, people with disabilities, and people who assist the disabled.

>establishing worker representation/councils on municipal/state committees

The state house is currently filled with worker-representatives. That's the whole idea. I am pretty sure our district reps aren't using their $16k stipend as their sole source of income.

> seaweed farming, urban agriculture, vertical agriculture

That's being done

> pedestrianizing more cities and making them more walkable

Isn't Providence doing pretty good, and constantly improving?

Overall, it kinda seems like you're ignorant of the things we're actually doing as a state and are feeling bad that we're not doing the things we're already doing. Simply educating yourself might make you feel more hopeful about our future? But I'm probably reading too far into your psyche now.

Either way, think of the branding. "I want to expand the RIPTA reduced fare program" is better than "I want communist transportation". The former is more descriptive and less offputting, while the latter is just unnecessarily vague and foreboding. So if your question is if is self-branded communist will be elected, then the answer is no. If you're actually asking if someone progressive who wants to expand and build upon the things we're already doing could get elected, then obviously yes. Even McKee is heeding the calls of the people to get more progressive.

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