I've done electoral organizing in the past, and with a lot of progressive people tossing their hats into the ring for local races, I've been asked about who to support, so I've done some reflecting, and here's where I'm currently at.

First, some quotes from teachers who inform my thinking:

"Electoral politics is unlikely to be the mode where people relieve themselves of the constant crisis that comes from capitalism." - Ruth Wilson Gilmore

“In dialectics, we know evrth contains positive & negative attributes. Reforms can be used to advance Revolution or to forestall Revolution... when the negative dominates the positive... it becomes an obstacles on the road to freedom, it must give way to Revolution.” — Kwame Ture

“Elections in the US are meant, finally and above all, to demonstrate that an election took place — a central consideration for structures of authority that depend on the eclipse of democratic content by the ritual reanimation of supposedly democratic forms.” — Fred Moten

For local and federal electeds, what I have witnessed from progressive candidates, is that the best that they can do is to make legislation that's not harmful to people living inside the U.S.

I say "not harmful" bc reactionary/centrist/republican politicians will always make harmful legislation, so the best that progressive politicians can do is neutralize it.

For example, recently I was part of a grassroots effort to lobby progressive state electeds to pull a proposed bill from the floor that would expand prosecutorial power (which would lead to the building of more prisons).

It's definitely *possible* that they can make positive legislation, but realistically, most of the time the best that they can do is to counter harmful shit, or to undo and make redress for the harm that has already been done, like purging past marijuana-related convictions.

Depending on where you live and what's going on, etc. you can say, "well that's at least better than nothing," and that is true.

Governing is *hard*. If you're one person inside a giant system with interlocking structures that have been operating a certain way forever, and you only have so much energy and so many hours, there is only so much you can do.

But, looking at the situation, the negatives and positives as Kwame Ture might say, we have to ask, "is that enough?"

There are those who say that is not enough. We want redistribution of wealth and land back and reparations. Will these politicians deliver us that?

This is just inside the US border. More often than not, US progressive politicians are also folded into US exceptionalism/imperialism. The ones with immigrant/refugee background continue to reinforce the "American dream" narrative, that democracy in the U.S. is unique and special

USian progressives will talk about "fighting for immigration reforms" and "building a green economy" while continue to extract resources from the Global South, voting for sanctions, and funding wars that displace people and create refugees in the first place.

Electoral politics is primarily a numbers game. After all is said and done, it's very straightforward, you have to have x amount of votes to win. And again, depending on where you are, you have to figure out how to get the most amount of votes from your base.

What that means is the people who don't or can't vote will not be the primary audience for messaging – people who don't have citizenship status, incarcerated people, unhoused people, disabled people, etc.

Most of the time, progressive politicians' messaging is about building a fair, safe, and equitable society by reforming the police, more unconscious bias training, and solving crisis with compassion and innovation – crisis of homelessness, economic, opioid, healthcare, etc.

These messages are like catnip to liberals and progressives, whose main impulse is for more curiosity, empathy, and compassion in local and global politics. More virtuous humanitarianism and voting for the Right Person is the liberals' main solution.

They are, as Lenin said, attracted to "honeyed social-pacifist phrases" who "dream of an everlasting peace without the overthrow of the yoke and domination of capital."

I'll keep repeating that everything really depends on the situation on the ground. If a little progress can be made to stem the tide of shit legislation, that's better than nothing.

And I very much understand the desire to be in the system to change the system, to make changes from the inside. Especially for people who are running for high positions like mayor, that's definitely a lot of power and resources to do good with.

Imho it is possible for a person to do good inside the system, but that person has to have a very good critical analysis of how the system operates, and understand their role and contradictory position within it.

They should also have a very strong grassroots base of — for lack of better words — movement people, who will both fight for them AND hold them accountable.

Again, Fred Moten: "Democracy is the name that has been assigned to a dream as well as to certain already existing realities that are lived, by many people, as a nightmare."

"Thus US democracy is, on the one hand, what exists now as crisis management and, on the other hand, the acts, dispositions, improvisations, collectivities, and gestures that constitute and will have constituted the crisis." — Fred Moten