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  • The campaign strategy is a method of using the electoral hubbub for advertising that literally opens doors and gets politically unengaged people to think about politics. It's been pretty successful in peeling potential new members off of electoralism. They've basically doubled their membership as a direct result of the 2024 campaign.

    Knocking a door or handing out a flyer for a campaign with reasonable goals most people support is going to be a much more effective strategy than deploying a pop-up ad on the web or walking up to someone and saying "Do you have a minute to talk about our Lord and Savior, Josef Stalin?" which is the only thing average Americans will hear if you start trying to talk about politics outside of the educationally designated be all and end all of politics that is electoralism.

    • This is exactly how I understand the strategy as non member. People are primed to talk politics around the election cycle even if they are "not into politics". Its inescapable. I didn't know that about their membership growth, but I can believe it.

      • I don't think they've officially announced membership growth figures yet, but every local party I'm aware of has at least as many new people in their onboarding as they have existing members, plus more people wanting to join. All of those new interested people are there specifically because of the electoral campaign.

  • I do have to say that what a lot of people don't understand is that a lot of people in this country, I'd say the majority, do not pay attention to politics until major election years. They literally try to avoid it, including any discussions about it, and are scared of it making things awkward or weird. They avoid people handing them flyers in the street, the word union sounds scary and the word organizing or meetings sound exhausting, they make fun of overly political people talking to them, and they don't want to be fired by association for even talking to someone related to it. Outside of an election year where they're looking for information on who to vote for, they'll shut the door in your face for talking to them.

    Running for office gives an avenue to access people who become amenable to talking and thinking about politics during the election years. During that time, people are thinking of who they want to vote for. Most people know there's issues in our system and hate both parties, but don't know what the alternatives would be. I know our local PSL chapter has basically doubled in people attending the last couple meetings since the election. Without a reason, such as political campaign, a lot of people will avoid these interactions. I doubt they'd be effective if they ran ads saying don't vote for anyone, come to our local meetings or something.

  • Yeah, I don't see how this is dunk worthy. Assuming the numbers are accurate, that's $344k flushed down the drain for what exactly? How many homeless people did that $344k feed? Or building and maintaining community gardens? Or money that could've been given to Palestinian orgs? Where's the deliverables? And don't say awareness because if the party cared that much about awareness, they literally could just drop $100k at streamers' lap like Hasan to shill for the party or bought a bunch of ads. This $344k is essentially just a marketing campaign for the party if we're being honest.

    This is why electoralism is a dead end in the US. You have to waste an obscene amount of money only to lose because you'll never outspend your opponents. And as for "well, we're participating in the electoral process to show how the electoral process is a sham," the majority of USians already don't vote. They already know it's a sham, and they're just there begging for the right people to explain to them why it's a sham. The most extreme case is Indigenous people. 99%, yes that's right, 99% rightfully saw the presidential election as the sham election that it was and refuse to humiliate themselves by going through the motions to legitimize the illegitimate settler colonial entity. PSL fielding candidates is already pointless to the 99% of Indigenous people who tune out of the election and to the 1% who are an assortment of compradors and mentally colonized individuals who humiliate themselves by licking the boots of the two parties.

    • They already know it's a sham, and they're just there begging for the right people to explain to them why it's a sham.

      That's exactly what the campaign aimed to achieve.

85 comments