Category: DSA (Page 2 of 7)

I wanted to check in with a quick post laying out a few reactions to the 2023 DSA Convention. This isn’t meant to substitute for a more in-depth analysis of the Resolutions passed and the changes to the NPC. But I’m laying it out as an overview of the big picture.

1. By electing a ‘left’ NPC majority of 10-6 (with ‘left’ in quotes because it’s a contested term in DSA, to put it mildly), delegates signaled dissatisfaction with the 2021-2023 NPC. Particularly with the Socialist Majority and GND/Groundwork coalitions.

2. Delegates offered some clarity around key debates, e.g., BDS Working Group and Palestinian liberation, but they did so via compromise rather than by settling the issues for one side or another. This shows, I think, political maturity.

3. Finally, I think that by funding all current priority campaigns (Electoral, GND, Housing, International, Labor, M4A) and adding yet another priority campaign, i.e., trans liberation and reproductive rights, delegates punted on important political debates about prioritizing work. The org simply doesn’t have the money and capacity to run all these campaigns, so the NPC will ultimately have to decide which of these to prioritize. More importantly, the Convention locked in the current ‘issue’ strategy rather than switching to a more advisable ‘class’ strategy.

I suspect readers already know which campaigns I think we should prioritize: Housing, International, and Labor.

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If nothing else, we know DSA has lots of internal faction fights and rivalries. Many of these are expressed through the caucus system, which I’ve written about a number of times.

But we see another rivalry between more national-focused, centralizing factions and rival views those factions often call ‘anarchism.’ I use quotes for ‘anarchism’ because the view they discuss doesn’t appear, at least to me, to trace all that well to any historical or contemporary anarchist views. It seems to me more of a shorthand for a ‘let’s not do anything’ view.

To get a bit more specific, I think lots of people in DSA see a kind of anti-politics that comes from the anti-globalization movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s. And they see a strain of the same kind of politics coming from Occupy Wall Street and related movements. We can trace critique of that to Jacobin and, even earlier, to its founder, Bhaskar Sunkara. See, for example, this article and this response to it.

Let’s briefly address these issues. What’s going on here?

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I know, I know. I’ve been writing a lot about DSA lately. But the 2023 DSA Convention draws near. And after writing about broader issues of DSA strategy, I wanted to say a word about the Convention proposals.

As I’m sure many readers know, we have lots of them still in play. Rather than try to address all of them, I’ll focus on ones I clearly support or oppose. To narrow things down a bit further, I’ll focus mostly on Resolutions rather than Constitutional or Bylaws Amendments. I’ll provide brief arguments for where I stand on each proposal I discuss, though readers should certainly reach out if they’d like more detail.

And, of course, comments always welcome!

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