Being in DSA is often an exercise in defining ourselves through negation, of correcting misconceptions in the most annoying way possible.
Actually, DSA isn’t super centralized. Actually, DSA isn’t focused only on electoral work. Actually, DSA isn’t a political party. Actually, DSA isn’t a dating service.
So what is DSA? And, beyond that, what do we want to be?
First, we’re a new organization. In 2015, DSA had a couple dozen chapters; that number has now grown to nearly 200. Chapters that had just a handful of active members now have hundreds. While we have a history of reformist praxis (“The left wing of the possible,” with a vision to move the Democratic Party left), we’re now home to social democrats as well as Marxist-Leninists, Maoists, a surprising number of anarchists and a huge swath of members actively developing their politics into something in between. Yet, the structure of the organization has not changed. We have added staff — most notably regional staff organizers — but the NPC is still 16 members, and they still carry a heavy load of responsibility and decision-making power. Four years ago, each NPC member represented roughly 400 members. Today, that number is 3,500. We have wildly outgrown our structure, and radically restructuring DSA is vital for our continued growth.
I see three broad directions in front of us: (1) the Centralized Party model in which power and responsibility is vested in a small National Political Committee that sets and executes a unified plan for the organization, generally in line with majoritarian decisions made by elected representatives at the National Convention; (2) the Advocacy Non-Profit model in which membership generates strategy and staff is tasked with facilitating and directing tactics in line with a defined theory of organizing; and (3) a Decentralized Network model where strategy is generated and carried out at the local level while the National Organization serves to connect that work and multiply its impact. I see these three competing visions as the biggest source of conflict at this year’s National Convention. While we can and should be many things at once, we have limited resources and an urgent need to be an organized opposition to neoliberalism in certain areas of the country and outright fascism in others. As we discuss the pros and cons of these models, we should be careful not to pull a new structure out of the sky, but to instead build on what we are and what we do well.
Currently, the NPC has broad authority and a laundry list of responsibilities ranging from preparing the budget to drafting political statements. The NPC oversees staff — which is on track to be three times larger than in 2017 — approves new chapters, appoints members of some national working groups, carries out convention resolutions, and the list goes on. Staff carries out administrative functions but the National Director also articulates DSA’s politics to national media. Staff has limited capacity, which leads to decisions about what work should be prioritized and what can be delayed. At the national level and in chapters, distinctions between “administrative work” and “political work” do not mean much. Administrative work, and decisions about how to prioritize that work, is political. At the same time, chapters manage our own finances, communications and campaigns to the point that many chapters operate as independent organizations that just happen to send their dues money to an office in New York. In practice, we are straddling the fence between a well-resourced, centralized National Organization and a decentralized network of chapters, without the benefits of either.
At its best, DSA is on the edge of being something with a “mass” character, meaning an organization or party that is not separate from people’s everyday lives, but is the glue that holds people and entire communities together as they seek to change the world collectively.
DSA is unique because of our distribution across every part of the country and our commitment to organizing at the local level, partially by necessity. DSA is also well-positioned to be a broad-based organization. We have an open and inclusive membership structure, free of vetting interviews, loyalty tests, required reading or steep dues (although we can always do more to make DSA more welcoming to poor comrades!) Anecdotally, DSA is good at radicalizing disaffected Democrats and issue-focused progressives. DSA is good at being a “landing pad” for fledgling leftists, or radicals left in the rubble of failed movements and organizations (think Occupy and perhaps ISO). Lastly, with uneven results, DSA chapters are good at creating welcoming communities. At its best, DSA is on the edge of being something with a “mass” character, meaning an organization or party that is not separate from people’s everyday lives, but is the glue that holds people and entire communities together as they seek to change the world collectively. With these strengths in mind, how do we create a structure that allows not just for growth in membership, but growth in engagement and capacity? Our task is to become a political project that is integrated into the everyday lives of a large number of people in every part of the country.
We must create opportunities for greater levels of engagement that allow for debate, synthesis and collective work among members from every corner of the country.
If we are committed to building socialism everywhere in the United States, we must develop strategies that are inclusive of a wide enough range of tactics to be as viable in San Francisco or Philadelphia as in Birmingham or Phoenix. However, if we are only building strategy through the NPC or even through convention, voices from urban centers will continue to drown out ideas and insight from areas with lower membership density and a less friendly political climate.
For illustrative purposes, we can briefly take a critical look at the Medicare for All national priority. The broad strategy for Medicare for All is to build a mass movement to pressure lawmakers to enact federal single-payer legislation that meets five criteria. While the organizing guide mentions Medicaid expansion, there are no materials to support that work, nor an explanation for how that tactic ties into the larger strategy of passing federal legislation. Here in Nebraska, we were faced with the choice to engage in a Medicaid expansion ballot initiative campaign last year. We discussed our options at length and formed a Medicare for All working group in our chapter. But the billionaire-funded Medicaid expansion campaign was focused on urging Nebraskans not to let their hard-earned money go to other people’s healthcare. We would have been the smallest of minor partners in this effort, and it was unclear if passing the ballot initiative would effectively move the public toward supporting the idea of universal — much less single payer — healthcare. In the end, we did not run a campaign, and while the ballot initiative passed handily thanks in no small part to Warren Buffet’s funding, implementation was delayed by state lawmakers. It is now slated to take effect in late 2020. Meanwhile, our federal lawmakers are on the front lines defending private insurance and attacking Obamacare.
Nebraska’s political climate is not unique, but it is foreign to many of the comrades setting the specifics of DSA’s Medicare for All campaign and other national strategies. Part of our healthcare work should be pressuring lawmakers to support federal legislation, but the strategy and our national resources should not be focused entirely on this approach. The NPC and National Medicare for All campaign as they stand do not have the ability or capacity to research the local conditions of every DSA chapter, to hear what is working and what is falling short, to learn and adjust. If National facilitated discussion, collaboration and experimentation across regional differences to create a broader strategy of building a mass movement around health justice, we could give chapters latitude and support in determining effective tactics according to their local conditions and what’s working elsewhere. More importantly, a more holistic approach has the potential to capture all of the good work DSA chapters are doing for health justice. But this is only possible if every chapter has a voice.
We must collectively define shared strategies to build power while giving chapters, branches and individual members freedom to define their own tactics.
To continue having mass appeal and organizational flexibility, we have to maintain our multi-tendency character. This necessitates a culture shift that, in itself, requires us to effectively work across tendencies. I’ve seen comrades attempt to twist “multi-tendency” into a Leninist balloon animal of “freedom of discussion, unity of action,” where discussion happens online and majoritarian decisions made at convention set the agenda for the entire organization. Others say fuck it and pop the balloon in righteous “all power to the locals” rage, suggesting that National is wholly ineffective and unnecessary. A big tent should not be a 200-ring circus, with no cohesion or shared strategy. Yet, every comrade who is fighting for an end to capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and for our shared liberation must be able to live out their politics within DSA; we must all have a role to play without the expectation that we will eventually fall in line with a particular political tendency.
We must devise a structure that operates at a low financial cost so DSA remains focused on political militancy and is accessible to all.
To become a mass organization, we must keep dues low without sacrificing our political independence. As a professional fundraiser, my life all-too-often revolves around how direct asks can lead to more funding and how that can lead to bigger budgets and more staff. I am immersed in the world of engagement leading to regular giving leading to engagement, and advocate for a strong focus on monthly dues in DSA — alongside a no-questions-asked sponsored dues option. I also understand the difference between a staff-led non-profit and a member-led, socialist political project seeking to create a militant working-class movement. When we conflate the direct asks needed for fundraising with the direct asks needed for organizing, we begin treating people as resources to fund the National organization, instead of fully vested and equal members with varying levels of time and/or money to contribute. When “will you start paying monthly dues” is on equal footing with “will you run for co-chair of a working group” in our formal or informal ladders of engagement, we are developing members with financial means. When the idea of “asking people to do more” as an organizer is mixed in with “asking people to pay more,” you are either building leaders out of more financially secure members, or creating a requirement for poor members to make up for their lack of funds through other metrics of engagement or assessment.
This is why I find calls to focus on local dues drives to be so misguided. Fundraising isn’t organizing. It can compliment organizing, but in chapters with limited capacity, especially chapters in poor parts of the country, it must not replace it. The purpose of growing membership isn’t to increase our national budget, but to build our capacity to transform our communities and build a radically better world.
We must develop structures and processes to root out oppressive behavior and foster a culture of safety and trust.
As my chapter’s suggested community agreements (which were probably stolen from another chapter’s community agreements) say, we live in a toxic soup of patriarchy, white supremacy and other systems of oppression. As socialists, we know these are structural issues that require structural solutions. Yet with every batch of new chapters comes whispers that a more established chapter has been mucked up by sexual harassment, racist class-reductionism and other forms of abuse. As the limitations of 2017’s Resolution 33 have shown, developing structures of accountability and restorative justice that go beyond liberal individualism is not easy. When members of our community and organization are abused, it is our collective responsibility to hold abusers accountable and make our spaces safer. If we want to build a mass movement, where DSA can be part of members’ everyday lives, we have to do better.
Chapters must have the freedom to become restorative spaces for their members.
DSA’s function as a source of community speaks to the need for active and healthy local chapters. Regular social events are one thing, socialist softball teams are another, providing a source of material resources is something else entirely. I think about members who move to a new city and find a social network of new friends and comrades waiting for them, of chapters providing childcare to comrades so they can have a night off and more energy for the struggle, of potlucks and clothing swaps. All of this is contingent on locals having room to breathe, self-organize, and practice mutually supportive self-care. I’m not interested in the debate about whether this is “prefigurative politics,” and whether that’s good or bad, because the reality is, life under patriarchy, white supremacy and capitalism sucks shit. If we want a mass movement that lasts, we need a structure that is not so rigid or demanding that it replicates the capitalist obsession with productivity. DSA should be a respite from the oppression and exploitation we experience.
Chapters must have the tools and resources they need to facilitate political education and engage directly in collective struggle.
When we look at growth of DSA’s core from 2014 to 2018, it is a story of collective political development, of DSA’s function as a radicalization engine. Many of us joined as “baby socialists” or Berniecrats or progressives, and have found a deeper understanding of our conditions as workers by talking to each other, reading together and learning by doing. This has happened in the big tent, where we are compelled to respect diversity of thought and believe that we have something to learn from everyone. There is no singular path, but people are often radicalized by understanding the theoretical frameworks (Marxism, among many others) that explain the contradictions of capitalism and our condition as oppressed and exploited people and by participating in collective action that creates material change to those conditions. Since we’re living in a time of heightened contradiction and great suffering, it’s a safe bet that when both of those requirements are met, we will experience collective political development. While political education can happen both individually and as part of national programs, I maintain that it’s best when it’s happening face to face in local chapters. Perhaps more importantly, (since it can’t be done by listening to podcasts or reading Luxemburg in bed) chapters have to be doing work that creates material change.
So, here’s where we’ve landed:
We must create opportunities for greater levels of engagement that allow for debate, synthesis and collective work among members from every corner of the country.
We must collectively define shared strategies to build power while giving chapters, branches and individual members freedom to define their own tactics.
We must devise a structure that operates at a low financial cost so DSA remains focused on political militancy and is accessible to all.
We must develop structures and processes to root out oppressive behavior and foster a culture of safety and trust.
Chapters must have the freedom to become restorative spaces for their members.
Chapters must have the tools and resources they need to facilitate political education and engage directly in collective struggle.
In short, DSA must become an inclusive, volunteer-driven, multi-tendency organization of vibrant chapters working toward a unified set of strategies using a wide range of tactics. When I look at the visions put forward by the ideological caucuses in DSA, none of them measure up. A centralized structure with a set number of campaigns and tactics does not provide the requisite freedom and support at the chapter level. Neither does a staff-heavy activist NGO model, with a prescribed mode of organizing and conception of members as reservoirs of funding and organizing power. And a decentralized network lacks the structures needed for meaningful participation, debate, and shared strategy across the organization.
I have some ideas about how we can restructure DSA, redistribute our resources and refocus the NPC to move toward these goals, and I have some questions. What would it look like for us to develop strategy from below? How can we create member-led structures for experimentation, collaboration and accountability? What do you want DSA to be?
Written by Erika P. To learn more about DSA Lincoln, follow them on Twitter. To learn more about Erika’s NPC candidacy, check out their slate’s website.