Can The Left Build Real Power Before It’s Too Late? w/ Yotam Marom | MR Live

Movements often become ineffective when members accept their powerlessness, leading to an 'ambivalence about power' and an 'allergy to leadership.' This results in groups avoiding hard strategic choices, fostering internal conflicts over external ones, and failing to build durable institutions. Occupy Wall Street, despite shifting public consciousness around class (the 99% vs. 1% frame), ultimately faltered due to its refusal to acknowledge or formalize leadership, preventing it from converting momentum into sustained power or clear concessions.

Yotam Marom discusses how Occupy's 'no leaders' stance, while initially a 'stroke of genius' for welcoming diverse participation, ultimately left no structure for accountability, training, or strategic decision-making, hindering its ability to 'win something and get concessions.'

Effective strategy requires organizations to confront difficult truths about their limitations, opponents, and internal dynamics. This often means making 'hard choices' to prioritize specific campaigns or resource allocations, even if it means 'giving up' on other efforts or disappointing members. Movements riddled with powerlessness avoid such conflict, leading to 'lists of stuff we want to do' rather than coherent, actionable strategies.

Marom recounts a story of a tenant organization (CAV) that, through internal conflict and an 'acknowledgement of loss,' made the brave decision to cut a failing campaign and reallocate resources, leading to future successes like endorsing Zohran Mamdani.

Identity politics can be a powerful contribution to movements by illuminating systemic oppression and empowering marginalized leaders. However, in movements feeling powerless, identity can be weaponized for internal 'bludgeoning,' creating litmus tests for participation and alienating potential allies. A winning, multi-racial working-class movement must include everyone, including white men, and foster an environment where people are challenged to grow rather than being made to feel unwelcome.

Marom shares personal experiences of both 'bludgeoning' and being 'bludgeoned' regarding identity, emphasizing that movements in 'contraction' use identity to exercise power internally, while healthy movements use it to understand systems and support leadership from marginalized groups.

While movements naturally provide a sense of connection and belonging, this cannot be their ultimate goal. When belonging becomes the primary focus, movements risk becoming insular, self-referential, and ineffective at achieving external change. True, lasting belonging and dignity are found in collective action that transforms society and wins tangible gains from opponents, requiring movements to be large, welcoming, and outward-focused.

Marom notes that people seek connection in movements, but 'movements that are only focused on themselves and each other and how it feels to be in the space... don't win because they're not really paying attention to what's outside themselves.'