Re: "Nero fiddles while Rome burns"

Marv wrote:

"*Recall*. If both committed to recall but, as happens more often than not
with socialists elected to office, they retreated under pressure by
interest groups from DSA policies such as universal medicare, a massive
expansion of public housing, free daycare and education, cuts to military
spending etc. - all to be paid for by sharply higher corporate and wealth
taxes - what recourse would the DSA have to recall them before their term
expired? Wouldn’t the normal practice still apply - that the DSA would
simply have to wait to withhold its endorsement and support when they ran
for re-election?"

So how would a recall work if bolted onto a conventional bourgeois
electoral system like the US has? If (shock, horror) a representative such
as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez were to disappoint the electorate or the DSA,
who would recall her? Her opponents might be able to get the necessary
signatures because they would have a powerful machinery to mobilize, and
they would probably start on election day. If the DSA were upset by her
actions, they would likely see recall as counterproductive because they
would see her as better than a more bourgeois alternative so would not
trigger the recall. They would worry that it would be painted as 'disarray
in the DSA' by opponents. How would a new representative be installed?
Would the DSA put up a non-elected replacement? Would there be a new
election, which the DSA would probably lose as they would be seen as flakey
and not dependable ("Well, we gave them a shot and look what happened ...")

I can see how recall works in a system like the Cuban one, but I can't see
how it would work in our various bourgeois systems. Note: In New Zealand we
have a Mixed Member Proportional system. If a list MP leaves parliament
they are replaced by the next person on that party list, so there is a
mechanism for those MPs but there are already people who complain about
them being "unelected" because the party machine decides its list, not the
voters.

Comradely,
John


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