{"id":340276,"date":"2025-12-12T09:20:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T09:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/critique-is-easy-whats-your-plan-for-power\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T09:20:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T09:20:25","slug":"critique-is-easy-whats-your-plan-for-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=340276","title":{"rendered":"Critique Is Easy. What\u2019s Your Plan for Power?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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In late November, I argued<\/a> that \u201cway too much leftist discourse is polarized into denunciations vs. defenses of Zohran [Mamdani]. A more useful & important debate is how to organize enough New Yorkers to win Zohran\u2019s agenda \u2014 and to counteract the inevitable pressures on him from capital and the political establishment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others disagreed. A few days later, the pro-Palestine group Within Our Lifetime (WOL) posted a public sign-on statement announcing<\/a> that Mamdani\u2019s decision to reappoint Jessica Tisch as New York Police Department commissioner \u201cbetrays his campaign promises and aligns him with the NYPD\u2019s legacy of policing, surveillance, and repression\u201d and \u201ceffectively endorses the NYPD\u2019s ongoing collaboration with the Israeli occupation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tisch deserves our critique. She\u2019s a pro-Israel billionaire heiress who, as Ross Barkan notes<\/a>, \u201csounds no different than a Long Island Republican when it comes to the topic of criminal justice.\u201d But before digging into the debate over her reappointment, it\u2019s useful to address an underlying strategic question: When and how should the Left criticize elected officials like Zohran?<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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On the general question of whether it\u2019s necessary for socialists to criticize left elected officials, history is full<\/a> of examples of movements demobilizing and subordinating themselves to their friends in power. It would be a tragedy if that happened in New York City. Given the constraints and pressure he is under and the overall weakness of working-class organization after fifty years of neoliberalism, Mayor Mamdani is bound to make many decisions the Left will disagree with; refusing on principle to ever voice criticisms or to take an independent stand would be a road to ruin for organizations like the New York City Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Left as a whole, demoralizing activists and undermining credibility with supporters.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s no shortage of leftists who are generally willing to disagree with or diverge from our new mayor and other left politicians. Many NYC-DSA leaders argued in favor<\/a> of the chapter endorsing New York City Council member Chi Osse<\/a>\u2019s bid to primary Hakeem Jeffries despite Mamdani\u2019s vocal opposition. Most currents of DSA supported a public statement<\/a> criticizing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s vote against an amendment blocking funding for Israel\u2019s Iron Dome. For my part, this week I wrote<\/a> on Twitter: \u201cInstead of asking for more donations, would love to see Zohran start asking supporters to join mass organizing fightbacks. Even the savviest governance and comms strategy can\u2019t get far without more people power on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

We can visualize the Left\u2019s approach on criticizing allied politicians as a spectrum with \u201copenness to criticizing Left electeds\u201d on one side and \u201cnever criticize Left electeds\u201d on the other. Apart from those who end up muting their voices because they join an administration (or become staff of an elected official), most US radicals today are quite far on the \u201copen to criticizing\u201d edge of the spectrum. But contrary to what some very online leftists seem to believe, there\u2019s far more to effective socialist strategy than a willingness to boldly champion our ideas and to loudly voice criticisms of electeds who fall short. If that\u2019s all it took, we\u2019d have reached socialism long ago.<\/p>\n