As a delegate that was elected to DSA’s national convention, practically everything about this article is a misrepresentation.
Classic Atlantic smear piece
Care to elaborate?
Sure but it will take me a minute. There’s a source I have to check that is at home and I can’t access on my phone.
The whole framing, that there are two main tendencies in DSA, the “mass politics” (moderate) and the “sectarian” left is exactly the wording and framing of the SMC caucus, the furthest right caucus in DSA. All they do is maneuver and fight national. They are extremely sectarian. There are many many good organizers in SMC, but their poor behavior at convention had the effect of moving the other major “mass” caucus, Groundwork, closer to the moderate elements of the left of the org such as Bread and Roses, probably the dead-center tendency focused on union power through Kim Moody’s Rank and File strategy.
Its true that the left tendency in DSA has held a majority since 2023, but that’s mostly unrelated to all these accusations. The org changed because it grew, not because Bernie ran as a Democrat in 2016. The fact is, the reason the left has a majority is because we are the most democratic tendency in the org. This is a deeply complex issue, flattened into a convenient conclusion.
MUG wants to abolish the constitution, because they want the people to write a new one. This is part of their “minimum program” to appeal to the masses, and its actually a pretty popular position and not just among one faction of DSA. in fact, the rest of us are critical of their minimum/maximum formula, but MUG is a very smart group that has steep membership criteria, facilitated by experienced and effective organizers.
Red Star is def the caucus I’m furthest from, but their unwavering loyalty to decolonizing struggles is admirable, and most representative of the org. They only accept seasoned and active organizers, and they have barely any inactive members. For someone with a poor political understanding, or an Axe to grind, they bear a resemblance to the online “tankies” who live rent free in this comm. But actually they are almost all chapter and national committee leaders, they launch effective campaigns and show up consistently to resist fascism and oppression.
There are many other tendencies within the left, such as Reform & Revolution, who are avowed revolutionary Marxists that have many positions that this comm would probably agree with. DSA’s real power comes from the diversity of our analysis, and our commitment to democratic reform and experimentation, and socialist principles.
A single member yelling out “fuck Michael Harrington” would be related to the death of DSA’s long history of Zionist sympathies. Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib was at convention and spoke to the delegation of 1200 deeply moved leaders of the american socialist movement. We passed the anti Zionist resolution, but there was still 44% of the delegates that voted against it. It is still controversial, all throughout the org. If the left majority isn’t successful at administering the Zionist contradiction within our org, then sentiment will swing the other way. We have to be careful to get it right, to stand by our principles and lead effectively.
DSA is like 50 leftist tendencies in a big coat. We fight, but we work with whoever shows up for the oppressed classes, and on that basis we work together. If that was the democrats, or the representatives who use the democratic socialist label to cover their opportunism, then we would work with them. We are the ones doing the work of progress, and its messy as hell and it shouldn’t work, but we are actually growing power for the working class. Our positions are extremely popular. I’ll update with some sources, but I was actually in the big room at convention, whereas the author was not.
I appreciate you sharing your experience. But it does seem to me that for a party to be effective there does need to be some vague consensus on a broad political strategy. From the outside it does seem like running candidates in democratic primaries has been the most successful activity the DSA engages in, so it’s kind of weird to have whole caucuses that fundamentally disagree with that strategy. Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if they were separate organizations? What’s the advantage of trying to do all of this different stuff under the DSA banner?
Also, I’m very surprised to hear that the ML factions (I assume that’s what you mean by left but people have a lot of different ideas about that) are the most democratic because my understanding is that their organizational structure is usually very undemocratic. It makes me wonder if their participation in DSA is just a ploy to seize control of the brand and turn it into another ML party. Of which we have several, and none of which have been particularly effective at anything. But I really know nothing about these internal caucuses and maybe they’re different from what I’ve seen in other orgs. But that’s essentially how the Bolsheviks came into power, so it certainly should raise questions.
Okay I found the source. From the article:
fighting anti-Zionist” organization that would endorse only candidates who supported the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement against Israel. (This would disqualify Sanders.) The resolution further called for any DSA member opposing BDS or affiliated with the liberal Jewish organization J Street to be expelled, along with anybody who believes that “Israel has a right to defend itself.”
The wording of the amendment is not to auto expel anyone who meets these criteria. The wording makes an exception that these members continue this activity “even after receiving fair and ample opportunity for education about the Palestine struggle for liberation.” Furthermore, to carry out an expulsion would require “a vote of 2/3 of all members of the National Political Committee.” This is the highest and most committed and busy deliberative body in the organization. In order for a member’s commitment to Zionist principles to even get to the level of considering expulsion would require that the member had not only flagrantly rejected any attempt to reform their position, but that a super-super majority of members on the NPC decided it was necessary to take a vote, and voted affirmatively for expulsion. The left does have a super majority on the NPC, but not a super-super majority. That’s a higher percentage of NPC members than delegates who voted for the resolution in the first place. You would have to willingly and flagrantly try to damage the credibility of DSA, and the Palestinian liberation movement to even be considered for expulsion around this issue.
The endorsement piece is trickier, I’ll admit. But the resolution was the culmination of years of debate on this issue, and is representative of the principles of the org
Firstly, Red Star is not opposed to electoralism, they are critical of it, reserving the the right to critically support a candidate, or even run candidates on this or that ballot line, depending on the objective conditions of where the race is held, and against whom. Red Star is ML, but in order to dismiss their campaign strategy, you have to be able to counter it with something better. If you read this you will find something much more worked out and coherent than the bad faith mid representations in the Atlantic.
Secondly, the left is not ML. MUG are not ML theyrf like neo-Kautskyists, R&R are Trotskyist and ideologically anti-ML, Libertarian Socialist caucus are more anarchist (though they accept many different forms of Libertarian Socialism, not just one interpretation of anarchist), Liberation is Maoist, which is ideologically ML adjacent but actually much different in character, Mountain Caucus are like Gramsci-ist, and so on.
Leninist groups, which includes Trots, MLs and Maoists all have different approaches to some of the same problems. All of these groups agree on a kind of organization called Democratic Centralism. If it is too centralized it is authoritarian, but if it is too democratic then it becomes slow, horizontalist, factional. Lenin often pushed for more democracy in the decades leading up to the civil war. He always gave space for factions and minority tendencies – until he and the Bolsheviks banned factions. And unlike a lot of conservative criticisms which dont really stick to Lenin, imo that one does.
But the fundamentals of Democratic centralism are sound. Its just like, the way a healthy organizing structure should operate. But DemCent was just recently unbanned from DSA, and we have yet to see how that change will affect the org. In every case, organizers of all tendencies are more concerned with Democratic Socialism than Centralism.
You can’t just boil it down to an oversimplification and call that understanding.
The dynamics of a socialist campaigns are completely different, because our objectives aren’t to win this or that election, it is to radically change the whole social order. We can lose an election but gain a ton of capacity and knowledge in the process, and it is still a win. But in order to accomplish that, we still need to run very compelling campaigns that try to win.
So basically, we have two factions in the DSA. One a pragmatic DemSocy who are compromisers. One an idealist who are probably better ideologically (ie. have better red lines vis à vis Israel). But aren’t very successful in being strategic within electoralism?
I don’t really agree that they’re all necessarily better. In terms of Palestine, sure (although I personally think it’s extremely poor strategy to exile people like AOC who still largely agree with you on the big stuff over minor disagreements like iron dome funding). But I don’t really understand why Marxist-Leninists who generally don’t believe in democratic governance are participating in the party, unless their goal is simply to coopt it and turn it into something else. In which case they should not be permitted to participate. But maybe I’m missing something?
But politics in majoritarian systems is about building a winning coalition. If you want to pursue electoralism, then that’s what needs to happen. You don’t need to like liberals but you are going to need to work with them when they outnumber you 100 to 1.
One of the main tactics of MLs is institutional capture…
Forever ago, The Daily Show had Colbert interview a bunch of inconsequential parties. As I recall, the American Prohibition Party treated him to root beer - and a rousing song called “I’d rather be right, than President.”
Some folks think the trolley problem is just a silly comic.
There are non paywall version?
Since it’s the Atlantic, I’m sure it’s bullshit instead of mentioning the real reasons (corporate democrats and media putting their thumbs on the scale whenever one gets in a position to potentially win).
Is this new?
Are you saying you’re getting this message with the archive link? It works fine for me. I’m confused how that would be possible…
Might be something to do with the network my laptop is on.
