In the upcoming 2024 US presidential election, one of two things is going to happen. Either Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will win and we will have a Democratic administration in 2025 or Donald Trump and JD Vance are going to win and we’ll have a Republican administration in 2025. Despite the cope some people pretend to believe in, any serious person knows this, especially only a couple of weeks from the election when no other candidates are polling at any significant number.
I’m going to hold back on any insults I want to give to leftists who think it’d be better for the progressive vision for Donald Trump to win. Instead, I want to throw out reality completely and take one of the third-party tickets seriously. Let’s talk about the socialists on the ballot: Claudia de la Cruz and Karina Garcia from the Party for Socialism and Liberation. A compliment I’ll give them is that their logo went with Claudia Karina instead of Cruz Garcia. This serves to separate them from politics as normal, personalizing them by running off their first names, and their first names rhyme.
With that compliment out of the way, let’s get going.
1 - Visuals
Scrolling through their campaign website and their social media, one of the things that strikes me in a somewhat petty way is that their visuals, their graphics, their logo are all… bad. The thing that everyone knows but no one really likes to admit is that political campaigns are endeavors of theatre. You are writing, performing, building sets, nights out, looking for moments, sound bites, clips, sharing graphics that people want to have and share themselves. Anytime you start cirituqing aesthetics, there are going to be people rolling their eyes. It’s somewhat uncomfortable to think about because we all want to imagine that policy is the end all be all, that people are voting and moving based on, as leftists would say, their material conditions. But that isn’t the full story. So then to run a serious campaign and be taken seriously by the public in any country, you do actually have to put a lot of care behind your visuals.
I’m giving this critique and offering a bit of advice here because I would like for there to be an actually serious left in my country that can run and win elections.
Take a look at this poster they put up on their campaign twitter account. I kind of actually like the gungy folded pamphlet poster vibe you’ve got with the guideline creases running through the middle. But. It doesn’t extent all the way to the top of the graphic so you lose some of that authenticity. That line is also present on the far left of the poster, likely place for PSL to put something. That addition takes away from the aesthetic. It doesn’t look like a fold line because you wouldn’t fold it there. It also does not extend all the way up. It looks haphazard and turns it from an aesthetic choice to looking, well, dirty. Another issue comes in with the kerning, or the spacing out of the letters. While it’s a little annoying that the S in Washington is a lot closer to the A than the H that doesn’t particularly matter especially when you get to the mess of the INGTON. The G and the O are bleeding into each other. That’s not the only spacing thing that’s off. The Washington DC and the white box with Official write-in status all look like that want to be left aligned. But they feel off. If you zoom in, that’s because they aren’t all aligned with each other. They’re slightly off. Speaking of slightly off and bleeding, they placed their picture box on top of the comma. They bleed together and it doesn’t look good. It isn’t a margins thing because beneath the photo extends further to the right, so someone could have gone in and moved that box just a couple of pixels. Speaking of the photo, it does not look good.
I won’t go that detailed on all of their things but this is sort of consistent. Maybe it’s an attempt to go for a sort of messy punk rock aesthetic but nothing in politics is punk rock.
Look at this poster declaring that they’re an official write-in for Kentucky. Completely different vibe though you could maybe say the hand-drawn stars are of that same punk rock aim. The kerning issue continues here. I think maybe they need to pick a different font that is going to do the letter spacing on its own. But this isn’t a poster. This is a pinterest board.
In announcing a brief campaign tour, they posted this graphic which gives off “Hi, I’m Olivia Rodrigo, come listen to Guts.” What’s with the overlapping website thing in the bottom right corner? That doesn’t make you look punk. It makes you look… like you made a mistake.
Here’s their announcement graphic for New York. It has the same dirty fold effect over top of it on a photoshopped image that is clearly not meant to be a poster. It’s meant to look like she has a large poster ad up in Times Square but because of the crease folds effect, you lose the illusion completely. Why not keep that contained to the bit that’s meant to look like a poster? They managed that with the little red stars.
And let’s get the elephant in the room on a cruise, shipped out of here, the campaign logo, Claudia Karina with their names separated by 20 three stars 24 is uninspiring. It’s boring. It’s lame. The kerning issue is apparent and inconsistent. Does PSL not have a design person anywhere in the org? A communications team? A bunch of gays willing to tell you to drag that shit up?
2 - Ukraine
So the ticket is pretty awful on Ukraine. The call it a proxy war and push the idea that the US should not support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia’s invasion but instead push for a peace deal likely on Russia’s terms. One of the things that they do is concern troll over the “money” we send to Ukraine. Their press release decries that we could be using that money to help people here in the US but… no. It isn’t actual money we’re sending. We are sending that amount of money’s worth of old equipment that we already had lying around. You can’t provide healthcare to American citizens by handing them ammunition. This is simply a series of lies and a misunderstanding of how all of this works.
Of course, that’s because they’re simply lying. They blame NATO for Russia’s invasion despite the fact that Russia has a history of invading its neighbors in this century, and Putin has constantly changed his stated reasons for the invasion. Most of Russia’s stated reasons have nothing to do with NATO. But Claudia does not apparently care about the reality of what’s going on because she doesn’t care about Ukrainians. She doesn’t care about Russia invading and massacring its neighbors. The West is supporting Ukraine so obviously Russia is in the right seems to be as far as her analysis goes. This is because Claudia is not a serious person. She’s a tankie. That’s a good enough reason for me not to vote for her.
Claudia goes on to say that supporting Ukraine is bad and obviously not well-intended because a well-intended administration who cared about Ukraine would… declare war on Russia and put troops on the ground. Hm.
On February 15, Claudia decided to tweet out, “The Ukraine War, as many of us know, has nothing to do with anything more than the U.S. desire to continue to control the world.” This is a lie. The war is about Russia invading and massacring its neighbor in an attempt at an imperialist takeover. The campaigns twitter has decided that instead of getting a peace deal, like their website claims to want, the US should simply immediately abandon Ukraine leave them to fend off Russia on their own I guess because Cruz and Garcia clearly do not care about the Ukranian people.
To go on in their crusade against Ukraine, they tweeted out that in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, apparently we abandoned our communities in order to fund Ukraine. Because you know what helps with floods: old weapons.
3 - Palestine
One of the reasons you’ll see Claudia tossed around as a candidate people are taking seriously despite the fact that she has no shot at winning, her campaign’s graphics sort of suck, and it appears like she doesn’t know how things work or is fine lying, is that she’s supposedly really good on Palestine.
On October 7, following the attack on Israel which did not merely attack military targets, with plenty of civilians brutally murdered and kidnapped, Claudia posted, “There will be those supporting colonialism and Zionism who will demonize Palestine for asserting its right to take back what has been violently taken from them. For standing tall and fighting back after decades of humiliation, displacement, and brutal attacks by Israeli settlers.” I supposed it makes sense in Claudia’s world that nuance can’t exist, that you can’t support the Palestinian people without celebrating the slaughter of Israeli civilians.
On October 9th, they published a statement on their campaign website which has Claudia stating, “At a time when so-called progressives and liberal are falling over themselves to embrace Israel and condemn the resistance, we are not afraid to say: We stand with Palestine… Palestinians have a moral and legal right to resist.” Following October 7, a lot of people have gone on about the “right to resist” to defend what happened that day. Yes, oppressed people do have a right to resist. However, there is not a right to kill or kidnap civilians, the thing that the majority of people condemning the resistance were condemning. Of course, people who make statements like this are well aware of that. But as we’ve discovered, caring about nuance or civilian lives isn’t really within Cruz’s style. “Palestinian people deserve liberation, reparations, and self-determination. This does not give them or anyone the right to murder and abduct civilians. The actions of Hamas on October 7 does not justify further killings of civilians.” That’s the correct position, but Claudia and PSL are incapable of stating that because they are fine with violence.
That makes sense given the PSL were supportive of the Houthis and attempted to defend their attacks of random civilian ships, pretending they were targeted and careful despite the reporting that, well, no, they were attacking anyone and everyone, mostly civilians. Becuase the Houthis are not based anti-imperialists. They’re dangerous warmongers who took advantage of the death and despair in Palestine for a public relations measure.
There is a segment of the left that thinks to support an oppressed people means calling for them to take the blood of their enemies. But that’s not true. It’s possible to desire peace, aid, reparations, representation, self-determination, a ceasefire, without supporting sadism. To march for and agitate for peace, to annoy politicians, to boycott, all of that is worthy. This stupid “we support Hamas and October 7 and the Houthis” stuff is both morally bad and politically incoherent. That is not how you increase the popularity of a cause. You know what would be a legitimate better use of your time? Make a war film. Make protest music. Do that alongside the protests and the demands. But don’t waste it all on supporting bloodshed you fucking morons.
4 - Policies
Like PSL, they call their platform their program because they want to be edgy and different. What is on the platform of Claudia and Karina? Well, like the GOP’s 2024 platform, it’s a lot of platitudes and gestures at policy with very little detail about what it is and how they aim to achieve it. Is this because they aren’t serious and don’t care to convince anyone?
They suggest the 100 largest American corporations should be seized and nationalized in order to pay for things such as healthcare and infrastructure. In a way, this is a specific policy. How are you going to pay for this free healthcare, a thing that would definitely improve lives here in the states? Well, we’re going to simply seize these corporations and their assets. But, well, how. Is this a militaristic take over? Are you going to order the banks to turn over their accounts or are you first going to nationalize the banks so you can have direct control over their assets that way? What are you going to do about the properties these companies hold in other countries or the shares they hold in other companies? Will these be sold? What about the foundations and grants these companies support? Will those get taken over by the Claudia regime or will they be shuddered and seen as a waste of the people’s money?
They say this would serve as the foundation for reorganizing the country, but to achieve this you have to reorganize the country likely by enacting martial law and installing Claudia as a dictator. Oh, oops. Is that a straw woman or merely an accurate assumption of what would have to happen for a group unconcerned with convincing people to take forceful control of corporations and their assets?
They say that “quality healthcare, education through college and beyond, free childcare, decent housing, and a living wage with union representation would become constitutional rights.” I do mostly agree with the ideals of this. Apparently all hospitals and pharmaceuticals would get publically owned, somehow, don’t worry about it, and therefore offer care for free. What care? It doesn’t say. All of it? Does this include elective surgeries or say manufacturing and offering Ozempic to anyone who wants to use it for weight management? Are elective surgeries going to be paid for out of pocket or would they simply be outlawed? They don’t say.
They would like to cap rent at “no more than 10% of a person’s income.” There’s no indication as to what this means for mortgages or if everyone would be renting under their administration in their dream world that isn’t going to happen. Now here’s a question they don’t answer: what the hell does this mean? Does it mean you aren’t allowed to charge more than 10% of someone’s income no matter their income and you’re required to rent to whoever? Does it mean that you as a renter will be disallowed from budgeting in a way to allot 20 or 30 percent of your income for your living arrangements? Who gets to decide the rent levels of apartments and houses?
They would stop inflation by price freezing. That. Hm. Do you think perhaps they don’t understand what inflation is or why it happens?
They would like to abolish the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the Federal Reserve. How? Who knows. I have a few questions, of course. The thinking I normally see behind abolishing the senate is that it exists as an undemocratic body for representative democracy and our system of Congress should be more in line with the parliamentary configurations you see elsewhere. Okay. With abolishing SCOTUS rather than drastically reforming it or replacing it, are we throwing away the concept of judicial review?
They want to do criminal justice reform by aiming the justice system towards rehabilitation. Okay. What does that look like? Is this a form of involuntary separation with a focus on psychiatric care and re-education? At what point do you determine that someone has been rehabilitated? Is it classes completed? Community service served? Psychiatric evaluations passed? I do agree with a focus on rehabilitation over retribution. But how do you envision this?
They state, “With workers in charge, the rights of all people will finally be respected.” Where is the evidence for that? They follow it up by making demands of legal protections against bigotry, almost like an acknowledgment that “working class” is not a synonym for “compassionate and non-bigoted.” This is after implying that it’s bad Congress makes over $31,000. I know this is a popular talking point, but I do want to point out that, well, to work in Congress, you must afford living both in DC and in your home state. Your home district. I realize in their ideal system, how money works will be fundamentally changed but you would still have representatives and a parliamentary body, assumedly. If you’re not allowed to rent over 10% of income, does this mean to represent the people, you pay 5% on both properties or can you be charged 10% on each? Or do we just like to use populist rhetoric to complain about things without actually engaging in the why because populism doesn’t rely on facts, it relies on vague feelings of anger and resentment?
They would like to end corporate lobbying. Cool. Sort of. I do wonder if they direct corporate lobbying or if this also includes corporations trying to influence public opinions so that the people might influence legislation in their favor, in which case… this seems like a bad idea. They aren’t specific. That’s the problem with a lot of this.
They would like to ban all politicians from holding executive positions at any private company after leaving office so I suppose a one-term legislator would not then be allowed to go and start their own local lawnmowing company. I know that’s not what they have in mind, but they wrote any. They want publicly financed elections though they don’t specify how they would like them financed. What qualifies you to be on the ballot? Do you have to get so many signatures? Is the amount of public funds for a campaign decided before the election season or after the deadline to file at which point the funds are divided by the amount of people running? Will funds be allocated based on population or equal flat across the country for each and every race? If there are so many candidates who file to the point where the public financing would be negligible, do the candidates only get to run on name recognition?
They say they would like to lock up war criminals, Wall Street con men, and corrupt capitalists. How do we square that with our earlier focus on rehabilitation? How does one rehabilitate a war criminal? I agree that rehabilitation is better. I want to make that clear here. I agree with their desire that the criminal justice system focuses on rehabilitation. I do not believe in retributive justice. But when you are desiring to implement policies, you do have to explain these things. How do you rehabilitate a war criminal? With a capitalist, under their idea for the future, you can engage in education. It may or may not ever stick, but there is a path there.
There are some insinuations here about banking that I find a tad insidious but they don’t expand on their thinking enough for me to really dig into and I guess I’m trying to be charitable here. Though, to be fair, part of taking these two seriously as candidates would be reading too far into what they put out as official campaign media.
We have more anti-Ukraine sentiment here. Apparently helping the Ukranian people resist Russian invasion is being aggressive with Russia and threatening another war. It’s okay everyone, you can be an imperialist country so long as you’re not stereotypically western. Taiwan doesn’t want to be taken over by China? Well that’s too damn bad! They want it so according to Claudia and Karina, they get it.
They do the thing DSA does where they’re like “sanctions are bad and evil and harm civilians” - a take I can respect someone having - and then argue for sanctions against Israel because they don’t actually believe that and or they don’t care about Israeli civilians. With DSA it feels like simply not thinking through their positions. With PSL and Claudia-Karina’s statements around 10/7, it feels more like they just don’t care about Israeli civilians in any way shape or form.
I do agree that war is bad and peace is good. Most people would probably agree with that. It does not follow then that 1) Russia and China should get to do whatever the hell they want to their neighbors 2) that countries such as the US should not respond to human rights abuses or 3) that the US should destroy its intelligence apparatus. I understand the want to examine, reform, and restructure, but… even supposedly socialist countries rely on having intelligence agencies because that’s simply what you have to do in a multipolar world where people want to topple and invade you, no matter where you fall on the political specturm.
When the talk about anti-Black racism in our country, which I am glad they are unflinching about here, they speak positively of affirmative action as an amelioration for historic injustice which I agree with. They mention making Black maternal mortality rates a focus for a reformed healthcare system which is also a good thing that definitely deserves hardcore attention. They do seem to step back on their idea of criminal justice reform. Racist cops, they say, “should be given long prison sentences as an unmistakable signal that the era of impunity is over.” So. Here’s the thing. Yes, they should face justice. But to say, “We think in part the criminal justice system should be part of political theater” is not great. It also doesn’t inspire confidence in the idea that you actually believe in rehabilitation because this is a suggestion that the criminal justice system should function as retributive punishment and deterrence. It makes it seem as if you have no consistent beliefs or even an underlying theory of justice. You have an idea that “sometimes punishment is good for theatrical reasons or for the sake of punishment itself. At other times, justice for the sake of performance or punishment is an evil onto itself.” It’s uncomfortable to think about the idea that there are awful people out in the world who we should not cause harm to because we think they deserve. If retributive justice is bad, which it is, then it is always bad. If it isn’t, then everything starts to become arbitrary.
They defend abortion rights which is great, yes, good. Good job. Glad you’re not sexist. They do blame on the Democrats which is a choice. A dumb one but whatever. They call for some form of an Equal Rights Amendment which, again, yes, brilliant. See, I’m not just shitting on them. I am on the left. I like a lot of the general ideas of leftist parties. They understand that to fight sexism and abuses against women, we do have to engage with culture hardcore and constantly. Art, education, representation, all of these things matter and simply enacting populist economic ideals won’t fix or destroy sexism. Or racism. Or queerphobia. Unlike some members of the left, they seem to get that you have to be intersectional and truly deal with everything.
They would like to ban all LGBTQ discrimination. Ayyyy nice. Thanks buddy.
And then. We get to climate change at which point… it seems like they advocate for degrowth. Are we entering Malcolm Harris no bananas under socialism discourse? They are correct in pushing the idea that investing in green infrastructure would create millions of good paying jobs, and that’s a point that we need to hammer home more on the left. Radical infrastructure overhaul would likely last decades, require maintenance, and employ a lot of people. Not to mention, this would need plenty of green technology and manufacturing which, if done at home, would also highly increase the amount of jobs here. We could then be the leading inventor and manufacturer of green technology in the globe which would set us up well for the coming decades as an economic player. And despite how they posture about influencing the globe, I’m certain Claudia and Karina understand that a socialist country would have better odds if they stood at the forefront of the globe economically speaking. If that were the case and it managed to be sustained, it would also be a helluva a public relations job in favor of socialism. That would likely lead to the rise of other socialist parties, etc etc.
They promise to fight anti-LGBT Don’t Say Gay censorship in education bills. According to Pink News, they promise to repeal them. I’m for that. But here’s the thing, how? The president does not have that power. The executive can put guidelines and restrictions on education through the DoE but it can’t repeal state laws like that. It can fight them in court. It can lobby against them. I would welcome that. But repealing them is not in the president’s wheelhouse.
This lack of specificty or seeming engagement with how things work seems to be a consistent theme for the ticket. An article in the Guardian says, “De la Cruz and Garcia are engaging company. They speak passionately and animatedly, but both seem more comfortable talking about the ills of capitalism than presenting tangible plans for change.”
As that article notes, “De la Cruz and Garcia’s vision of the future would require the kind of mass uprising rarely seen in the modern-day west.” Or, as their political home, the Party for Socialism and Liberation puts it, “Capitalism cannot be voted out of power–it will take a revolution.” So how do they plan to enact their vision of the future? Violence.
Okay. So these two are not running to win. They’re running to get more attention to their ultimate cause of doing a massive glorious violence to bring about the rapture that is never going to happen and so they might be the military dictatorship that rises from the ashes.
5 - Destruction
On their website, they respond to the fact that a Trump presidency would be worse for American citizens and people outside of America by going, “But would he really? Aren’t the democrats the same as Trump? We know we have no chance at winning and we actually advocate for violently overthrowing the government, so maybe we’ll lead to Trump winning because there are exactly two outcomes of the election: a Democratic administration or a Republican administration, and we don’t like it when people point out that Republicans would be worse.”
So here. I’m going to respond to their claim that the two are the same. It’s a claim that people tried to use in my video on certain leftists pretending that caring about LGBT rights is selfish.
Trump would like a harsher trade war with China. Project 2025 presents a tax plan that would eliminate deductables while functionally raising taxes on the majority of Americans and lowering it for the richest Americans. Biden’s FTC and FCC enacted one click cancellation for subscriptions. His DOT made it easier to get full refunds for canceled flights from the airlines.
Trump would allow Russia to take Ukraine, not out of PSL’s pretend version of anti-imperialism but because he admires strongmen like Putin who warmonger and harm civilians.
Biden’s White House has been consistent in determining that bans on sex discrimination necessarily include bans on discriminating against people for being LGBT and they have threatened to withdraw federal dollars in support of this interpretation. Trump and conservatives do not support this. Trump judges have butchered the First Amendment in support of drag bans and conversion therapy. Project 2025 would like to make it illegal for trans people to exist in public or in art of any shape or form. The groups behind it have made it clear that they would like to eventually get rid of gay marriage and see a return of sodomy laws criminalizing gay existence. Republicans are in support of the Don’t Say Gay bills that Claudia and Karina have specifically come out against. Democrats do not support those censorship bills.
I do agree that there’s work to be done in regards to the American public and immigration, and that because this work has not been done, Democrats and general liberals have moved or embraced a rightward shift on immigration. Are they the same as Trump? No, not remotely. Trump has promised to use the Alien Enemies Act to carry out mass deportations. If you’re unaware, there is no due process right in regards to the AEA. All the president has to prove is that someone is from the place he wants to deport them to. Democrats are not advocating for mass deportation and the rounding up of the migrant population. Project 2025 would like to limit immigration and bring it as close to zero as possible. Both have talked about how they don’t want people who are anti-Israel or anti-Israeli war crimes to be allowed into the country.
Speaking of crimes, conservatives by and large support the use of the death penalty and find that we don’t use it often enough or quick enough. They do not support the decriminalization of drugs by and large. Many of them do support the criminalization of abortion, including some suggesting that it should be a crime to cross state lines in order to get an abortion in a state where it is legal. Project 2025 would like to ban all NSFW art and make its creation itself illegal. This is not a position you will find in Democrat circles. Trump is on record as saying he wished police officers weren’t so gentle with criminals and Republicans at large are supportive of immunity for cops and, apparently, the executive.
Despite what I said near the start of the video, we do have to take in the fact that there are only going to be two outcomes to the election, neither of which is a violent revolution where we get sociality dictator Claudia de La Cruz. We will either have a republican administration or a democratic administration. Claudia claims that electing democrats “in most cases won’t even result in different policies than if Trump were in office!” Guess what! That is a flat out lie. The president appoints federal judges. You know which justices are going to attack abortion rights, the right to privacy, defend conversion therapy, ban drag, claim discrimination against LGBT people is fine, deny to hear appeals for death row inmates, pretend you can’t hold the executive to account for any crimes, defend corporations at every turn, defend attacks on voting access, and pretend the suggested illegal use of the Alien Enemies Act wouldn’t be illegal? Conservative justices. Ones appointed by Trump. Despite what Briahna Joy Gray might tell you, the courts matter, especially since no, we aren’t going to turn around and dissolve the American government over the course of the next four years, and so we do have to actually care about the consequences of our actions.
A Trump victory would cause more harm to a greater number of people for exactly no trade offs. It will not result in socialism. Part of the reason it has no chance to result in socialism is that socialists like Claudia are not running smart campaigns or caring about convincing people. Sorry. You aren’t going to win a war, especially not at the current moment, especially not as fucking PSL. So you have to do the annoying work of convincing people. Lying isn’t how you do that. Simping for Russian imperialism doesn’t do that. Pretending it’s stupid to care about the differences between Republicans and Democrats isn’t going to do that. Supporting the deaths of civilians isn’t going to do that. Running a vanity presidential campaign with shitty graphics isn’t going to do that.
Here’s the thing about PSL: they’ve won a total of zero elections. That’s not simply because they’re a third party running for president on a largely empty and impossible platform. They have zero seats in congress. They have zero seats in state congresses. As far as I can tell, they have no local offices. PSL is incapable of convincing people that they are capable of governing.
Claudia and Karina acknowledge that they can’t win. They acknowledge that it will be a Harris or a Trump win. Despite this, they refuse to work within reality. This is because they have to lie because their entire thing is grifting off other people and pretending that the harm that will be caused by conservative rule doesn’t matter. Or heck, maybe it’d even be good because if more people are suffering, maybe they’ll embrace the violence PSL needs to happen in order for them to have their sweet baby revolution.
So when taking the Claudia Karina ticket seriously, I can only come to one conclusion: Not only can they not win, but they deserve to lose.
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