Month: August 2024

In my last couple of posts, I charted out some of the deep tensions within DSA. I charted some of its issues with post-pandemic social anxiety and psychological safety a couple of weeks ago. And then last week, I analyzed its position with respect to progressive activism.

In that post, I presented DSA as an org for activists and enthusiasts rather than for a working-class base. And in that regard, DSA looks more like one node in a broader progressive activist network rather than a grassroots working-class movement.

But some people within DSA argue that the org is descending into a sectarian one. I took up this question a couple of years ago, where I denied this view.

But since the election of a new NPC that contains multiple democratic centralist factions, have things changed?

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DSA is an org that professes to organize the ‘multiracial working class.’ It presents itself as a site for the building of working-class power across lines of race, gender, sexuality, and other identity categories. Indeed, these things allegedly set DSA apart both from the sectarian left and the progressive NGO space.

The trouble is that just about everyone to the left of Joe Biden tells some version of that story. It seems like they all love the ‘multiracial working class’ now. This complicates how DSA uses this story to set itself apart.

At the end of the day, I think we can separate DSA from the sectarian left. I’ll say a bit more about that in a future post. For this one, I’ll point out that DSA’s use of the magic phrase looks the same to me as the one we find in the progressive NGO space.

Read on to find out why.

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