Between just trying to just absorb more theory, browsing the DSA vs. PSL vs. Local Org vs. Whatever struggle sessions, and listening to some recent KushVlogs from Christman (call me a lib, I know), I see a recurring theme of the lack of a cohesive, united leftist movement in America. To my (probably incorrect) mind, this seems like a non-insignificant hurdle to actually gaining real leftist power in the US and has made me curious to see what kind of path people see through this uncertainty. To me, it almost feels like a collapse/balkanization of America might be the strongest possibility but I'm just throwing ideas at a wall.
We have to chase the power we have instead of the power we want. The one thing that absolutely, positively, must occur is withdrawal of labor. Now that might be a tautology because you're asking how do we get power, and if we get power by striking, then the question is how do we organize massive strikes. If I could answer that I wouldn't be here right now. But maybe I can help anyways. We want to organize every min wage worker because that's the power we want to have. But that's unrealistic. Instead of going after the McDonald's worker we should be going after the people who supply McDonald's. Those are harder jobs to replace right now. And you best believe capitals is working 24/7 in order to fix that. The reason there's this big push for 5G and self-driving cars is because someone somewhere has figured out that if we can fuck with the supply lines through labor disputes, then that's power for us. We can't convince a Tesla semi-truck to strike. When they don't need labor to transport goods that's another piece of power we lose. So we can't waste time trying to unionize 18 year olds at Taco Bell. It sounds shitty, it sounds anti-left because we all think everyone should be unionized. But, again, we need to chase the power we have not the power we want.
If we can get the people, who the wealthy vitally need, to strike, then we win. As we've seen with the pandemic, a lot of people do not need to go to work in order for the wealthy to make money. Those are the people, unfortunately, we need to ignore. Because if those people withdraw their labor, the wealthy can live without them. They'll be fired and the businesses shuttered. The wealthy can't operate without airports, logistics, imports/exports, and stuff like that. They can live all day without video game developers or people who drive Uber.
You can argue that unionizing anyone is a point for us and against them. I tend to agree. But what I'm saying is don't go after anyone first, go after specific groups first. Then if the cashier at Walmart wants to join later, they can. The only real path we have is where those people needed most can withdraw their labor and make demands. Otherwise, what demands can we make? Give us healthcare or all the things you desperately need will arrive on time tomorrow?
The issue then becomes, as I said before, how to make that happen. How do we unite the truck drivers, the airport workers, the importers/exporters, the shipyard people, etc all under one set of specific goals/demands? I don't know that answer. But I know that's where the party is going be. Whatever leftist party forms must coalesce around existing power and not our ideal of where our power should be. This is why electoralism is dead for us right now. And any gains by the DSA don't matter (not trying to shit on their work) because having 200 DSA people in government still doesn't provide any way to create demands. If they refuse to do their job, then oh well. They can't threaten with a labor strike either because we don't have those people organized. It all comes back to getting the right people under one roof. Then all the wannabe leftist politicians and wonks can move to support the labor movement and form a party out of that.