New York City may be part of a dying empire, but the USA is the dying empire. [..] The only reason DSA has gotten this far in the first place is that we are in an era of imperial decline, meaning the status quo will no longer be good enough. Normal methods of governance no longer suffice, not even from the standpoint of the elite.

The contemporary DSA is rife with arguments for and against supporting a hypothetical AOC run for president in 2028. The "inevitability" of AOC is often bandied about and I cannot say I am a fan -- we are many legislative sessions from that point and AOC has not had a flawless record on those. I consider it viable to run candidates that are outwardly identifying as Socialist/Communist, assuming that the goal is not victory for the candidate but victory for the party, and the party remaining the spearpoint of the people.

I do not believe that AOC, or the current incarnation of the DSA, fits that bill. The DSA is not (yet, perhaps) an electoral Communist organization. Even if it was, I would have some concerns about an electoral-first strategy (an extremely Kautskyist angle, if I may say so!).

In summary, to meet the minimum standard of "good governance," AOC would need to go well beyond liberal progressivism and embrace a radical socialism that she has thus far avoided.

I found this piece a good dismantling of some of the assumptions surrounding the electoralist, Kautskyist approach that favors Just Winning The Presidency as the be-all-end-all of American socialism. The goal is not the presidency, the goal is the world.

My argument, as laid out in both of the two relevant articles, is that a President AOC with DSA’s endorsement but no accountability to its program will not be willing or able to do what it takes to have a "successful" socialist Presidency, thus fatally discrediting the movement when she flounders. Hopefully the evidence already provided makes it clear which of the two futures is more likely.