"Um Actually, ☝️🤓, I've done the math and the PSL is fucked" and other bad takes.

The knee jerk reaction to immediately attack people for questioning it is incredibly revealing

Revealing of what?
- the nature of the uncritical supporters of PSL.
  I'll be clear, I am still a critical supporter of PSL, and obviously I have made my critiques known in this thread. I have seen PSL stans attack people all across left internet spaces for voicing criticism, and I've seen PSL leadership silence members for voicing criticism. There is a culture that rejects criticism in PSL, and it is anti-Marxist.
  As a personal anecdote, when I visited their main chapter branch library, in the essential reading section was Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky. Stalin wasn't anywhere to be found. This was like 12 years ago. I immediately had suspicion of them from that point on, and it was before I knew anything about their history as descendants of US trots. It was before I knew over three dozen people who left the org from chapters across the country because of their covering up and protecting of SAers and transphobes who were "doing a lot of important work." I know people from multiple different chapters who had this happen in their local chapters, several of which are the trans women who were the targets of the transphobia. Even without these anecdotes and good personal reasons to have doubt in PSL, I am still critically supportive, but trying to silence a conversation about the criticisms or disregarding it without reason seems like a problem.
  
  Stalin wasn't anywhere to be found.
  We read a lot of Stalin. Foundations of Leninism is a standard text in onboarding and candidacy.
  And to another comment you made in this thread about "paper members": PSL does not have paper members. Joining is an intensive process, with a year of political education and organizing training before one becomes a full member and need to pay dues. If you aren't engaged, we ask you to either recommit or leave the party.
  I know you aren't just bashing PSL senselessly, but I think a lot of what you're saying is very off-base regarding party strategy and tactics. If I had more time and wasn't on my phone, I'd try to explain a lot more of my specific disagreements. I think you characterization of the composition of membership and the investment of organizing hours are both completely off. On the second half of that, I'd guess no more than 25% of my branch's organizing time was spent on the campaign this year. It was an intensive month in the spring and a few months (less intensive) in the fall. In both of those periods we engaged in all of the other normal work we do, and most of the campaign work just tied into at as a rhetorical boost.
  
  Yeah if you have the time please do explain the disagreements and talk about what the other 75% of work your chapter is doing looks like, I'd love to know
  
  the other 75% of work your chapter is doing looks like
  If I were to break 2024 down into a few categories and highlights:
  We established a Liberation Center in a multiracial, immigrant-heavy working class community. This was our single biggest project of the year by far, but enabled almost all other work to be far more effective by acting as a) a home base for our organizing and b) a regularly staffed community center that hosted the general Palestine coalition and a number of community support groups (addiction support, first aid training, etc).
  Direct service. We did a school supply drive, multiple holiday community dinners and food distributions, and the biggest by far was natural disaster relief. My city was hit by a devastating series of tornadoes all at once that knocked out power for almost everyone on the privatized grid for weeks. We bulked up staffing to 12 hours a day to provide a safe place for people, tons of good distribution, all with a political education component about privatized electricity and the socialist solution to utilities and disasters. We also did some community clean ups, aid to an old African American museum in bad shape, etc.
  Palestine organizing. This took many, many forms. We lead a months long campaign against city council to get a ceasefire resolution (successful), the same against county council (unsuccessful), an ongoing BDS campaign against the county and its executive, tons of marches, fundraisers, and educational events.
  Black community organization work. This was defined by our relationship with a single community defense and support organization facing constant police and legal harassment. We provided the lawyer for an absolutely preposterous, targeted criminal case against the group's leader by a conspiracy of real estate, city councilors, and gas station owners pushing gentrification in one of the city's poor, Black neighborhoods. We've worked closely with them on many community support and direct service initiatives.
  Solidarity building. Despite a lot of tension between the Black and Palestinian communities locally, rooted in the class conflict between Pally bourgeoisie and exploited Black communities, we created extremely effective solidarity between the two above points. The Black org and Palestine coalition frequently collaborated and came to each other's defense, a relationship we were essential in.
  Many, many public educational events.
  Black August. This was focused mostly on the development of our cadre rather than outward facing, though there was a public campaign to historicize the Black struggle locally.
  University Palestine encampment. Our local university popped off fairly late and only lasted about two weeks before the school year ended, but we had at least one comrade on site 24/7. We provided about half of the tents and sleeping materials. We taught the students how to navigate cops and play the relationships between university and city police to their advantage. We had a number of comrades detained on day one in defense of the first few tents. We ran educational and political programming regularly. Our center acted as a storage and logistics hub off campus.
  Open mic series at the center. This was started in the fall, but we now run a monthly community open mic to have consistent politicized cultural programming.
  2025 strategizing. We've developed a set of goals for different units and the branch as a whole designed to escalate our tactical capabilities and deepen relationships with colonized and working people. We've laid out a series of important steps to check in throughout the year to track progress on these goals. One component of this in early stages is a serious of broad coalition and community organizing meetings to start the Trump administration off on an aggressive footing, and these are looking very promising, but it's super new.
  Labor organizing. A big minority of our members are in various unions and work to push more radical and socialist politics and militancy within them. We are in the early stages of unionizing [redacted], a major city employer. One comrade lead a unionizing drive at their nonprofit workplace but was unfortunately unsuccessful because of backstabbing compradors. Right now we're supporting local Teamsters on the Amazon picket lines around the region and have built some promising relationships.
  Some stuff I should not mention on a public forum but which will be a new phase of organizing for us in 25. I suspect when you see this start to happen with PSL branches around the country, it will shift your opinion on the party. But we gotta put in the work so we can deliver.
  There's plenty more small stuff but that's a good overview.
  
  I appreciate you taking the time to write this up, it seems like your chapter is doing a lot of promising work and I hope to see others around the country doing the same. If the chapter in my area was doing even half of these things I would be impressed, they are one of the larger chapters and don't seem to have the same drive.

I'm happy they were on my ballot, but it shouldn't be verboten to question how useful the campaign is.

In the three days after the election, the party received as many applications to join as it had members. That was the point, and at that it was incredibly successful.

- Lots of group onboarding processes that can bring together a large group of prospects and involve them in educational and organization opportunities for a few months while we formally onboard in small batches. It winnows out folks who aren't very serious and giving the ones who are much firmer footing when they get brought in.
- We changed nothing, other then the usual refining of tactics. It is the direct effect of the campaign as a method for raising awareness and engaging new members.
  
  Many branches refined their application process as a result of this, and the entire system for applications to join online was revamped. Party members were very clear that this can't be an opportunity that slips through the PSL's hands and in my experience we were far better about engaging on this than in the past.