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Will talks to India Walton, the socialist candidate who won the Democratic primary for Mayor of Buffalo in June. They discuss the ongoing opposition to her campaign from the establishment incumbent she defeated in the primary and his corporate allies, how she plans to make Buffalo work for the city’s tenants and renters, and how she will address policing issues as the mayor of a large American city.

If you’d like to learn more about India’s campaign or donate, go to: https://www.indiawalton.com/

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Twinka Bo Binka

❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 unlock this episode for the Buffalo comrades…and those comrades’ hopeless parents

Marisa

GO BILLS 💙❤️

Heather L.

That’s my Mayor!!!!

Gregory

Yeah Buffalo the place that was curb stomping kaepernick.

nathan

buffalonian here. she’s gonna fucking win! West and East side r gonna pull thru now we just need some elmwood libs

Justin

Big developers in Buffalo (Glendale, Sinatra, Ellicott) are the scum of the fucking earth. Speaking from experience.

Aaron Christmas

"Socialist mayor pledges to defund police on drug kingpin EL CHAPO's podcast"

absoluteboi

thats an awesome headline

Matt Colston

It's hard because the violence from the police is so intense and there is no alternative to this. They've been waging a low grade war on the people for nearly a century. My family live in a South Carolina were the older black boomers voted for increased police forces despite what the police murdering and threw away their children in prison. I understand India's sentiment, but it's like negotiating with the South African police forces in the 90s after Apartheid. You have to but it's not from a position of strength because they will betray you whenever they get a chance.

Michael Kahovec

As a Rochester guy who’s been let down by the Bills my entire life until the past year, you know we BILLieve in India. Sending solidarity from your eastern neighbor

James

Excellent interview as usual. Let a hundred India Waltons bloom!

Kasz

Hell yeah, Joaquin Guzman aka Will Menaker

Gengeros

Electoralism in 2021? Our election systems aren't even legit, there is huge amount of actual fraud (not the Trump talking about fraud) that goes on in things like Democratic primaries where ballots are thrown out and computer systems are hacked. The powers that be will control who wins these elections. Look at Russia and the fraud committed against the Russian communist party. Hard pass on this.

SquatCobbler

The entire Buffalo government is just one giant cartel that serves the interests of those piece of shit developers.

Steven

Go Bills

triplehashbrown

Look at this fucking op. If you’re on the “left” but don’t want the Left to actually hold any power, then you’re beyond useless.

Kasz

When the domain of politics is just voting for most people, electoralism can be a vehicle for radicalization. There are no real downsides other than time and money, and the payoffs can be huge whether you win or lose. Why would you not contest the low hanging fruit?

gram

Hadn’t heard of her before, but she’s awesome. Great interview.

COM

I want to emphasize, as an elected member of Buffalo DSA's Steering Committee, that India's comments on policing - and the overall disconnect of "Abolish the Police Sloganeering" with working class people - is correct. We cannot make maximalist demands without first having, and winning, a strategy to power. Abolish the Police, as an organizing priority, is a terrible strategy and is a class politics so disconnected with the reality of any existing Left today. If we want to develop a genuine Left that can even begin to have that kind of influence, we need to put the horse before the cart - not just posture for a small segment of radicals, but working class people broadly.

Amber Baker

As will predicted the whole “cops are workers “ thing made me 🤮

Neal Kitterlin

Guess those boots need licking no matter who wins 🤷‍♂️

Gengeros

"Left" social democracy isn't the left, it is still capitalism. A mayor who calls herself a "socialist" isn't gonna change the system, the system changes you. She gets in and guess what? Capitalism remains, the cops funding increases, ICE deports more, inequlaity grows, etc.

Gengeros

Well isn't that the problem we got this society where sheeple think voting is what democracy is? What about the fact we have a unofficial de facto national strike with millions unemployed refusing to go back to their wage cuck jobs? What about occupy congress? What about mutual aid? What about sending guns to Maoist rebels in the third world? Maybe chapo can focus on that instead of funneling their energy into the democrat party.

gram

Correct.

Allie

they killed it against the dolphins

Greg

Well put! I still think they are class traitors and worse than scabs... but what I think doesn't really matter

TugNuggins

Police are workers lol

COM

True, don't read this as being pro-police by any means, but the question is how do we begin appealing to the real fears and concerns of working class people? That is, how do we develop a genuine class politics? We've had a record year of violence in Buffalo - of course largely a product of the desperate conditions that capitalism has developed. So how do we develop a positive program for working class needs as opposed to the dead end reaction/outrage of "activists"? India having policies for public police accountability oversight, having jobs programs, those are *real* stepping stones. In contrast, the online rhetoric from "the Left" around this has often been a joke, just radical posturing.

FlawlessNirvana

"police are workers" will this is the second time you got steamrolled on this shit please start pushing back on your guests

FlawlessNirvana

run that shit back...small hometown landlords???

Tyler Pittman

"Cops are workers" "Small-time landlords" Fucking kill me.

nathan

india strted a land trust. she’s anti landlord calm down

Kinetics Video

I wish India all the best and her approach is quite certainly closer to what needs to be done than anything I'm going to come up with. I will say I'm getting a little leery of this "poor communities' lived experience with violent crime" line. There's truth to it I'm sure, but this is what conservatives say about practically every policy question, that their solutions reflect the down-home wisdom of ordinary folk. Poor people are as propagandized to hell about hero cops as anyone else if not more so. Conservative policing politics wins in poor areas for the same reasons other conservative policies win, most poor people don't vote and the few that do alternatives to conservativism are rarely pitched to them.

etienne

ppl who own the house they live in and that is in the process of falling apart because post-redlining. many such cases

Sean Earl Beard

She’s right. Some are bitter pills to swallow but she’s righr

Scot Forsythe

Kudos on getting this interview, Walton seems on point. As a former SEIU member I couldn’t’ stand the corporate Dem messaging that started to come out of leadership; just a bunch of dressed up cultural aesthetics concern trolling designed to drive a wedge between workers. She’s right that the rank and file are not universally represented by these captured mouthpieces.

Vesna Radivojevic

I’d like to see these holier than thou folks having to actually engage in local politics. Will did not get rolled, he asked a good question and got a good answer. India was forthright and admitted constraints she has to work with. I’m for defunding/abolishing, but I’m not running to be a mayor of a major city as a proud socialist. Calm your tits people

Eric Murphy

[sees name is Connor] ok folks, story checks out

Blake Patraw

police are workers too cool and nice 👍

Blake Patraw

she really thinks cops prevent violence, that's hilarious

Blake Patraw

other than that comment she seems pretty cool hopefully she changes things for the better in her city

Arielle Curtin

So good. Following this with keen interest. Thank you for amplifying Walton’s platform! 🤜🤛🏾

Daniel

This lady rocks, and re: the policing, she’s clearly on your/our side, but if you want to be mayor of a large city you just aren’t going to be viable to come in hot about abolishing the police. We can get there and it will take time to produce alternatives to cops and if you want to be serious about such a project, i think her approach is about as good as it gets for now. Sucks but this is the garbage society we’ve been dealt But if any radical commies on the internet have the charisma to convince a locality irl to skip all that and start getting revolutionary change asap, i would like to see it…

Daniel

Genuinely curious what type of pushback you would have liked to see? I think will is an excellent interviewer, but I don’t think he is the right messenger to deliver that pushback, nor would this be a productive setting for that to do much except validate you, the listener

Chris W

hoping this goes as planned. would love to see the beginnings of working class empowerment take root. best of luck!

Ross

Ok, so I should definitely start Stefan Diggs this week then

JP

I viscerally recoiled when she said cops were workers, and I don't think she should keep that line-- but her explanation of her actual policies towards policing was excellent

Daniel

Yeah that’s fair, cops are workers is real rough on the ears

Ryan Johnson

No, sorry, "abolish the police" and "abolish prisons" means exactly that. Just because you can't see the path to that doesn't make it any less necessary. You should be ashamed of yourself to even mildly associate yourself with leftism or socialism

COM

lol

Besand

Got me thinking about moving to Buffalo

Sami James

Take notice: THIS is how you talk to people about the left. THIS is how you talk to working class people.

Neal Kitterlin

Yeah , I get that police in some form are a necessary evil at this moment, and if she would have basically said only that I wouldn't have had a problem. She leaned too far into the some good cops narrative, though, which is really frustrating.

Ernest Ambrus

Just to be clear, staning for new deal democratic politics isn't ever a form of socialism, Walton sounds great. Your snark drone hit the wrong target.

Ernest Ambrus

" You should be ashamed of yourself to even mildly associate yourself with leftism or socialism" Hate to be that guy against milquetoast DSA politics that rehash FDR era populism but abolishing the police is another bourgeois fantasy. Look at that, two criticisms in one.

Cole Heideman

Making actual affordable housing for people in a really poor city is not nonsense.

Stay Joking

Great conversation! Best of luck to India Walton

Mr. Penis

musical festival