DSA Debate with Erik Engheim
Introduction
I don't usually comment on these but I'll make an exception. This is the full debate I had with Erik Engheim which was originally about the DSA. Somewhat predictably, it degenerated into completely irrelevant stuff, which is why I tried to exit it multiple times. Unfortunately, my interlocutor insisted on continuing to reply to me, so my responses after R3 are just sarcastic, snide comments with no substance behind them (don't read them, spare the time).
If you're interested on more of my ideas behind this argument, check out my article "Punching Left the Right Way". For some informational content about the DSA, check out Garry Kasparov's "Five Things to Know About the DSA". I also saw that my colleague "Hillbilly in Exile" is still discussing this with my interlocutor at the time of writing, you can go check that thread out
As a last point, it's a little insane I have to say this, but given that my opponent made some claims in that direction I suppose I have to:
I do not support violence against socialists. I'm also heavily opposed to Trump and the Far Right, as the content of my publication demonstrates.
Original Post
Americans on the left have to stop being afraid of the label democratic socialist. The hate mongering and hysteria around that label will like just help democratic socialists. Look at how much hate Trump got. Still he won. There is some truth to the fact that even bad publicity helps sell your message.
Leaning into democratic socialism is just going to give more people talking about you. And some are going to ask themselves: Is socialism really as bad as they say?
Once people are willing to explore the history of democratic socialism outside of the right-wing echo chamber they will learn that democratic socialism has a great and proud history of helping ordinary people.
My country Norway, was built by democratic socialists. It works. The problem isn't the track record but beating back the smears and propaganda pushed by not only the right but also liberals.
Reply
Legitimizing democratic socialism, and thereby the DSA opens the floodgates to a Tankie takeover of the Democratic Party. I understand that you like the parties associated with democratic socialism in Europe but the DSA is a wholly different beast.
Just to illustrate, Megan Romer, National Co-Chair of the DSA is also a "proud Red Star Caucus Member" (it's on her twitter account) . The Red Star Caucus is explicitly Marxist-Leninist and strives for a Vanguard party to organize the revolution.
https://redstarcaucus.org/points-of-unity/
They reject your view of democratic reform:
"A capitalist society will not be reformed into a socialist one, just as capitalism itself was not born through welcomed reforms to the former feudal order. Popular legislation and politicians with benevolent intentions can help create more favorable conditions for change, but these things alone cannot bring the revolutionary overhaul we seek: a complete upheaval of the present economic system that extracts value from the many for the private profit of the few."
The DSA is a tankie-laundering operation. Legitimizing it will bring only harm.
O1
The problem with your arguments is like any American or former East block person. You just have any experience with democratic socialism. So you read completely apocalyptic visions into the smallest things because you have no idea how this actually plays out in the real world. Look, the Norwegian labour part was way more radical than this. It was a communist party aiming for revolution. And even when they turned away from armed revolt the full transition to a socialist society and abolishment of capitalism was part of their party programs for 40 years while they actually had majority rule. Yet none of that turned Norway into Soviet Union.
Your tankie stuff is just not rationale. That isn’t how it works. All socialist parties will have all sorts of different people in them. Some more radical than others. That many are Marxists is just not that unusual. You talk as if I should be shocked and think “Oh my God I never thought they would be that crazy.” The problem is you have no idea what Nordic socialist parties are like or the people within them.
There isn’t really anything shocking to me about the DSA. When a party start getting actual representatives into parliament they always moderate themselves. For small parties without power radicalism is often the fire that helps them keep going. Once you start gaining real power people start getting a lot more pragmatic. This has played out again and again over dozens of countries and decades.
Look at Chinese market reforms. They realize they had to do it, as they had to deal with actual reality. Reality is a great teacher.
R1
I can reverse your whole shtick of "you just haven't had experience with democratic socialism" and say that you haven't had the experience with brutal Marxist-Leninist rule. Fine, we can both say that and it points to blindspots in our perspectives, but how about we focus on the actual arguments? You write as if the Eastern European experience was somehow not real, or as if it is not at all connected to the "real world". Just because something happens in your home country doesn't make it more real, tone it down a little.
Now, I understand that you see the Norwegian historical path as the only plausible one for the DSA, but I don't see why that should be the case. According to my very limited research, there were relevant factions in the party opposed to the Soviet model which eventually led to a split with the communist party. If you can point me to any such tendencies within the DSA, that would be interesting, but I have not heard a single person there actually draw a line saying that they don't support the Red Star Caucus or something (which isn't surprising given that the Co-Chair is a member of that caucus). I
Your argument on the party moderating is essentially built on a trust basis. Moderation isn't historical necessity, it might appear so now because of institutional checks in liberal democracies, but it definitely isn't carved in stone. In fact, I can point to a completely opposite example in the US, where the tea party won major seats and transformed the entire republican party, and I don't really see them moderating substantially. I for one, don't just advocate for a movement because I hope that they might moderate sometime in the future.
As for your last point, I don't know how China changing economic policy has anything to do with a movement moderating it's political views (embedded in their fundamental worldview) in the US .
Bonus: Hillbilly in Exile chimes in
Hi there, gentlemen, can an American chime in here about the American political scene? The problem with “once you start gaining real power people start getting a lot more pragmatic” is that it doesn't reflect the way things work on our side of the Atlantic. Maybe it works that way in a multi-party Nordic parliamentarian system where multiple parties often have to work within coalition governments. Our system is more binary / winner take all. So if the DSA actually managed to capture control of the Democratic Party apparatus, and then capture control of the White House and Congress, you wouldn't necessarily expect them to moderate after getting power, anymore than having power has moderated MAGA Republicans. Of course, the far more likely scenario is that the DSA ends up pushing the broader Democratic Party so far to the left that they cannot win, which in turn helps prolong MAGA rule in the US, and all that that entails. Either way, David is actually correct: the mainstream Dems had better put down this DSA’er revolt right quick.
O2
And your experience with communist totalitarianism is utterly irrelevant and actually an experience that blinds you to the truth. My experience with democratic socialism is far more relevant to the American context.
The US is the world’s oldest democracy. Norway has the second oldest constitution in the world. Our experience is far more relevant to American democracy than Soviet Russia, which was a completely backwards state when the Bolshevik revolution happened.
This chart is from 1920 when communists had taken power in Russia. Compare the GDP per capita of Norway, Russia and the US.
Norway is a fairly wealthy country, with high literacy rates and a long established democracy. Russia is a backwards illiterate brutal and poor society. And somehow your shtick is that the experiences of this society should be more relevant to America than the experiences of Norway. A society far more similar to the US historically and presently.
Democratic socialists have won elections in dozens of Western Democracies. It has all worked out fine. To suggest the US instead would follow a completely different path is just totally absurd and illogical.
Your life experience is not an advantage at all. It has given you a completely irrational hatred of anything socialist. Because you never experienced the successful versions of it but only the bad you refuse to believe there is a good path.
R3
Fine, we can make this all about me being irrational, illogical and the experiences of the entirety of eastern Europe being irrelevant. Why address arguments when you can just say random shit and belittle the other person?
You are either a tankie, or apologetic to them to the point where it is irrelevant. A Marxist-Leninist could say to your face "I despise social democratic reforms, I want revolution, I am a Marxist-Leninist" and you'll still pretend that he just wants the Nordic Model. You're actually so ideologically possessed by socialism that you'll excuse any behavior, any statement, literally anything if it calls itself socialist.
It is insane to me that your argument is that I'm blinded by the truth while you are the one who just runs away from all the arguments I have made in this debate to keep banging on about your great Norwegian socialist movement.
I won't even do you the favor of addressing your stupid little argument ("Look at chart, this chart means I'm correct"). I gave you a direct example of a party in the US being overtaken by radical ideologues in the last decade and you just ignored it, so why should I even consider your argument for a microsecond.
Actually no, you're correct, let's just let tankies co-opt every leftist movement, we'll get a socialist utopia in no time. Everyone will be like Norway.
O3
But you are totally irrational about this. You are trying to convince me that the experience of countries invaded by one of the most brutal regimes the world has seen, forced into communism at gunpoint is somehow a more relevant experience to democratic socialists freely elected in free democracies in modern Western states, when talking about the US.
The fact that you cannot distinguish between democratic elections and being bulldozed by tanks of an invader tells me that you are not rationale at all discussing this.
Really I think your experience with totalitarian communism has made you hate it so much that you cannot look at anything remotely related without having a hyper emotional response that makes it impossible for you to look at this with any kind of cold rationality.
The fact that you call me a tankie just goes to show you utterly insane you are. I am normal democratic socialist, in a country that has decades of experience with it. I am not saying anything radical here.
You are engaging in McCarthy style red scare tactics. Do you see communists lurking under your bed at night? There are very few people are tankies relative to mainstream democratic socialists.
You just use that as a smear because you got not actual rational counter arguments.
R4
Yes I'm an irrational McCarthy style red scare propagandist. I'm also hyper-emotional and paid by Big Business to spread anti-socialist talking points. I have no rational counter-arguments. You are correct, we should praise DSA and advocate for their takeover of the Democratic party because DSA=socialism and socialism=Norway and Norway=good. I surrender to your superior Norwegian intellect, you clearly know everything about every socialist movement everywhere.
O4
I understand your attempts at satire to blunt the criticism. But it doesn't change the fact that America has a long history of unhinged scaremongering about socialism. Claims of communist having taken over schools and universities go back to even the 1800s in America.
We had a madman here in Norway running around gunning down teenagers because they were socialists. Where had he gotten so unhinged and violent seeing socialist threats around every corner? Not from Norwegians. From primarily American right-winger online screaming their usual unhinged conspiracy theories about the dangers of socialism, Marxism etc.
So no, I have zero respect for people like you. You are part of a very ugly tradition that has gotten people persecuted, as well as gunned down. You scream about a party that doesn't have a single representative in US congress while a fascist movement is holding every branch if US government!
Get a fucking grip and let go of the past. You aren't somehow relieving a Bolshevik revolution at your doorstep other than in your vivid imagination.
R5
As I said, you are correct, we should just let tankies co-opt everything because Norway good and Norway socialism. If anyone disagrees with that, that person is complicit in mass-shootings.
O5
That is just in your paranoid mind, just as all other American right-winers for some 100 plus years. You have been doing this scaremongering for decades. All your dire warnings have failed to materialize. Give it a rest already.
You can disagree with me on whatever you like. But I have a right to call out scaremongering tactics that is part of a broader campaign to demonize democratic socialists and yes ultimately cause mass shootings.
I have watched this shit now since 2011. I saw how bad it was getting on the right. And my hunches were right then about where the right was going. We got MAGA. We got Gestapo thugs in the streets. And yet you are still stuck on 1917 Russia. When you really should worry about 1933 Germany. That is where the danger is now.
And you will walk right into dictatorship if you cannot wakeup but still live in this fantasy world where somehow the greatest threat to America is democratic socialists. It is utter absurdity. And no amount of lame sarcasm on your part is going to change that part. All you got is strawmen, and feigned pearl clutching because I call out your bullshit.
R6
I am paranoid. You have a RIGHT to call me out, it’s all a fantasy, gotcha. Are you done?