Why your Democratic Socialist utopia will fail without direct action.

If voting and town halls are your idea of democracy, think again.

There is a Democratic Socialist wave that is gaining momentum in the United States, heralded a decade ago by Bernie Sander's primary presidential bid and then the Squad and then renewed with the election of Zohran Mamdani and friends took place. It's an exciting time for democratic progress within the traditional sphere of politics but it's important to zoom out and take a look at the bigger picture.

Turbulence is the best word to characterize the given moment. We see different things happening on different scales. Whereas locally we may be seeing a blue progressive wave in pockets here and there due to the smart messaging on affordability, on the national level we are seeing some of the most concerning trends. Individuals are increasingly sovereign over nations [recall Musk shutting off StarLink over Ukraine or Thiel's Prospera in Honduras]. In addtion, the military industrial complex is increasingly unaccountable with a ballooning budget and the secrecy it maintains in sub-sectors like the C.I.A., N.S.A. or F.B.I.. In particular, we are seeing a diffusion of colonialism and imperialism. As control slips and the old levers are rusty, it must be re-exerted in its new forms. That form today would be through the surveillance state. In fact this is exactly what the new system is carrying out: the mass implementation, in an attempt to defend itself, of mass surveillance. "Citizens will be on their best behavior" said Larry Ellison, C.E.O. of the C.I.A.-founded cloudalist company Oracle.

I could take pages to delve into how all of these different phenomena are interlinked but that isn't what this piece is for. Ultimately, the point is the following: electoralism that we see on the local level will not be sufficient to fight off one of the most corrupt, inequal and totalitarian systems that is growing before our eyes. None of us can say exactly what strategy needs to be followed. It's easy for a politician or organizer to say "well if we can all focus on this one issue, then we can solve everything else". But that's not how diverse groups of human beings work. The strategy of political change is thankfully not up to any single one of us, but rather up to us all. Unfortunately though, that does not mean that it isn't being mishandled by those who come from neo-liberal backgrounds and want electoralism to be the main focus. In fact it shouldn't be.

Pure electoralism is the perfect tool in a neo-liberal framework to keep voters from exerting their control on the society they inhabit. By the time they hit the voting booths, most of the filtering and selection has been done by a system that favors its status quo: people are left between a handful of choices, most of which are bad and perhaps 1 of which is ok and sufficiently popular but not aggressive enough and maybe 1 other candidate who is the right one but is not popular enough. That isn't just what happens to be the case, it's a feature of the system to make you settle for less and then forget about it till the next election cycle comes. It's easy to say that this is a normal part of life, "compromise", but it isn't compromise if you lose 99% of the time and then when you vote you have to "compromise". Let's call it what it is, defeat.

So let's go back to one of the most successful political achievements in recent modern history: the Civil Rights movement. There were enormous popular pressures that were applied on politicians and perhaps in that sense it was "electoralism", but we should recall that that pressure was applied by direct actionists. Today, people mistakenly use it as a universal model of peaceful "civil disobedience". The Civil Rights movement was about sharing spaces equally regardless of race and therefore existing in racially segregated areas was the direct action itself. That is: it was directly addressing the problem. The idea to apply this to other political problems in the same exact way is stupid.

Here is an example: protesting the production and use of weapons by one's government in the streets is fine to do, but it also isn't directly addressing the problem. Every organizer knows that if one organizes the same rally 10 times, then the attendance slowly tapers off. The reality is that we are seeing populations being culled and indoctrinated by their governments to think that that is effective in any way. It was direct action for the Civil Rights movement not for the anti-war movement but that is what "they" want us to believe.

"They" want us to believe that simply protesting in the streets, with a "responsibly" obtained permit, is the daring and brave thing to do but it isn't really. What's brave is risking your own comfort in the interest of justice. Getting arrested for blocking the entrance of a weapons manufacturing company or blockading a port in the interest of blocking weapons shipments is direct action. It directly addresses the problem and if people will insist on a more peaceful future, then it will have to be an increasingly used tac-tic.

The profiteering of weapons manufacturers and Silicon Valley companies, if threatened, will be defended vigorously. AOC, Mamdani, Sanders etc. all united are not going to change that. The amount of lobbying that the industry does has compromised the very electoral system people supposedly have faith in. But just as an empire becomes increasingly violent in the throes of its existence, these corporations will follow suit.

M.L.K. was a leading figure of a direct actionist movement. He was the ingredient that helped to create a new mythos of a society where spaces and freedoms were equally distributed. When M.L.K. started undertaking wealth inequality, organizing the Poor People's Campaign, he was assassinated. And weapons manufacturers will kill for much less, let's not forget that two Boeing employees who mysteriously died of "suicide" in the same year. Even during the Black Lives Matter movement, weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin were tracking activists as was proven in the BlueLeaks files.

Electoralism, petitions etc. are tools, not conduits of change. The conduits of change is ourselves acting freely, not contorting ourselves into feeding the system what we can in the way that it wants. That becomes a game of probability and over-architecting. The fact is, this is a game of energy. Too often we overthink ourselves out of acting for fear of taking a mis-step, but that must cease. Critical thinking is paramount, but doing something daring is non-negotiable.

As a minor but not-so-minor tangent, unions have succumbed to many of the same ailments that electoral systems experience. Social movements have existed without union movements but not vice versa. The port workers of Italy would not have been successful in their direct actions without popular support. Unions can be the tip of the spear for social movements but should not be viewed as the crux of it all. Unions will follow with enough social pressure themselves.

Coupled to one another, an electoral and direct action movement can produce change. If an anti-war movement is to take place, then there must be a larger class consciousness amongst the electoral sectors of how the military industrial complex is destroying communal spaces. That will take a new mythology, one of individuals who do not pay attention to legalese, but know rather that death begets more death and that there are no other options other than to take direct action.

The mythology of "serving your country" by serving in the military must be killed off. In addition, any nationalist exceptionalism should also be killed off. Instead we need to thank people for their service whenever they act in service of true justice, which is so often mischaracterized. Blocking weapons shipments should be celebrated by all and not viewed as a "left-ist" or anarchical action or a stunt. The belief structures of individuals have to be re-oriented around more positive ones, such as acting to destroy the industrialization of death in all its forms. We must adjust the flows of belief so they are diverted from consumerism, ignorance, helplessness and death to empowerment, joy, resolve and justice. Electoralism coupled with direct action can destroy the patterns of harm while, as equally important, providing beneficial avnues. Human beings will always be flawed and utopias will always be straw-manned ideas. By recognizing that it is not about stopping something, but diverting it elsewhere, we can get a much clearer picture of the work to be done. When acting in the interest of justice, instead of societal success, becomes socially acceptable and admired, then the ball will roll downhill.