Based on my own experiences with DSA (limited as they were), this is a lot of high-ideals nonsense divorced from the actual material circumstances of our political horizon, such as:
-The functional reality of the nonprofit industrial complex within the larger eco-sphere of the Democratic Party. Without going too far down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, the fact is that the COINTEL-PRO project reoriented after 1968 and capital said "Rather than outright killing them, we pay them off!" Writers like Jon Jeter have profiled the way that the Black Lives Matter leadership hopelessly and permanently compromised themselves by taking big capital from outfits like the Ford Foundation; -The manifestation of the color line in DSA spaces. They are fundamentally unable to build viable connections with the Black community. In his recent interview with Jane McAlevey <https://jacobinmag.com/2021/05/amazon-bessemer-union-campaign-rwdsu-jane-mcalevey>, Doug Henwood has a pretty stunning exchange about DSA's strategy in Alabama unionizing Amazon: JM ...If you’re an organizer and there’s a ton of media attention coming, you’re hugely distracted by requests to talk to a worker. What does a worker in Alabama think about a bunch of Hollywood-liberal-types and Democrats saying they should have a union? What is important is to get very serious local endorsements for the campaign. DH: Like clergy and community group leaders? JM: They had the Democratic Socialists of America. JM: I do, too. But in Alabama — DH: — They’re not gonna cut much ice. JM: One of the flyers I looked at said, “Please come to our community meeting supporting the campaign.” A couple of socialist organizations were on it. Great, but you’re in Alabama trying to win a campaign. The local community that you need are ministers. There was a big issue made about the faith of the workers — there’s a lot of faith, they start the meeting with prayers. That’s great. So, if faith is important in the campaign, you need local faith leaders in the community. You need to talk to the workers and say, “Oh, whose church [do] you and your family attend?” You have to be charting and systematizing: “Oh, which church do you go to?” Then you’re also, with your research team, doing a power structure analysis parallel to this to figure out which institutions in the community have power. Then you’re gonna get the workers themselves to go to their minister and say, “We’re in this campaign. It’s getting kind of scary in there. It’d be really great if you could write a letter to me and all of us saying you stand with the workers and so does God.” How can one call themselves a historical materialist and ignore THAT? -The lack of organization that hinders DSA's ability to build a viable electoral strategy crossing state lines. From what I have seen, it is really just one of two scenarios: a-Some Sandernista activated by the last few electoral cycles runs and seeks the DSA endorsement in exchange for canvassers b-Some DSA member decides to run for office But that doesn't really have a concerted strategy for taking power within a certain electoral level. The Squad is nowhere near a New Deal coalition. You don't have a slate of DSA candidates concentrating to elect a bunch of legislators to a single chamber on the municipal, state, or federal level based around regional or electoral vote acquisition. Instead, their campaigns are basically celebrity gimmicks. -There are zero consequences or negative outcomes if a DSA candidate breaks with the DSA line once elected. I had a rather instructive exchange with a DSA leader in Providence recently. He pointed out that the Providence DSA passed some resolution condemning AOC for not following through on the Force the Vote pledge in the DSA platform. I responded by asking why she should care what DSA Providence says at all because her constituents are in NYC, not Providence, and not even a fraction of her constituents are DSA members. No response. That's demonstrative of the completely upside-down concept of power and accountability within DSA that nobody wants to seriously grapple with. Hell, considering the amount of death threats and sexist/racist death threats she gets daily, I can imagine that AOC might actually welcome "expulsion" from DSA in order to take off the heat! Ultimately DSA has been a lot of earnest, young, and politically-naive activists doing canvassing for Democratic primary candidates combined with a rather gigantic media PR blitz by Jacobin magazine and its impersonators without a lot of serious gains. If you go and read one of the very good books on the old CPUSA's relationship with the Black community (DG Kelley's Hammer and Hoe, Naison's Communists in Harlem During the Depression, Solomon's Cry Was Freedom), you'll see an inverted version of the developments and timeline that you've seen with DSA. It is extremely unfortunate because it does have a substantial amount of potential due to its membership. But until Sunkara et. al. get serious about actually make people accountable once elected and consequences for not following through on their platform, it has little chances of success. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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