Why I Just Quit DSA
Why I Just Quit DSA
After over four decades as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, one of the group’s founding members is leaving in sorrow and anger.
This vibes anecdotally with my local chapter. In the face of overwhelming membership solidarity with Palestinian liberation, the social imperialist reactionaries are purging themselves.
But they remained united in one overarching shared aim—to take a well-meaning, not particularly well-organized, and essentially social democratic organization still committed in practice to the original DSA vision of creating “the left wing of the possible,” and reinvent it as the mass vanguard party of the proletariat that somehow they had never been able to pull off while operating under their own banners of deepest red.
Founding member of popular socialist group doesn't know definition of socialist.
Yup, that's America.
Amazing how this just hits pretty much every radlib talking point.
- "we need to work with the Democratic party"
- "the left wing of the possible" aka "pragmatism"
- "Marxists are evil dictators"
- Zionists
- "Israel has a right to defend itself"
- "Israel has a right to exist"
- "RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA, we have to support the Nazis in Ukraine!"
- Uyghur "genocide"
- "purity tests"
- believing the IOF's claims of Hamas's actions
Also, you don't have to read the article now, I just summed it up. Unless you really want to read about the radlib history of the DSA.
DSA’s National Political Committee did not agree with the two most prominent democratic socialists in American public life.
doesn't really seem like a huge dunk on the DSA tbh
knowing Israel@will retaliate- do you get that they don’t give a FUCK about Palestinian lives?????
damn silverman, what if the israeli military simply... didn't retaliate? is it really solely on the prisoners inside the concentration camp to break the cycle of violence, even as that violent cycle is being continuously engineered by the guards?
40 years and fuck-all to show for it, but the moment any energy comes into the org from the outside and you leave? Good riddance
Anti-zionism seems to be the easiest fucking way to purge these losers.
If you're sus about any wreckers or feds or neolibs in your org, ask whether they denounce israel and zionism. It will quickly out any of them.
dsa pmc settler karens can self-deport
Hot take: DSA national's statement is good because it condemns the killing of all civilians and still gets these people to show their asses. Seems like it may come in handy later.
DSA, meanwhile, thrived between 2016 and 2020—because it proved it could win victories in the here-and-now, give-and-take world of electoral politics
This sucks. Now don't get me wrong, DSA has been able to get on some city councils and do some good work. But their main victory, the representatives belonging to "the squad" have all capitulated to Democrats and are at this point no different than standard liberals. Ilhan Omar did call Eliot Abrams evil to his face so that was kinda cool though
But the one I’d like to highlight is from comedian, writer, and actor Sarah Silverman, posted on her Instagram account on October 8, after reading the National Political Committee’s initial response to the events of the previous day:
The DSA of which I was a proud lifetime member, has lost me forever…
Hold the fucking phone. Since fucking when was Sarah Silverman in the DSA?
buh-byeeeee
"Well I guess I'll join the Azov battalion then" - this loser
My revolution will end when I am put against the wall for being anti-revolutionary. This is good.
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Unknown numbers—hundreds, perhaps more—started joining in 2016, some of them former members of defunct Marxist-Leninist groups, others (in violation of DSA by-laws) still belonging to and carrying out the agendas of such groups.
(emphasis mine)
I remember being confused about this language in the sample new-chapter bylaws when I was trying to help form a chapter in my town! Our organizing committee really didn't care about this language and removed it from our original submission, but we were told it was required. I asked the others on the organizing committee about it and didn't get an explanation, just "oh well, it doesn't apply to any of us anyway, who cares," but now I finally get it. It also makes some of the tension on the forums make a little more sense.
Edit - so, as I continued reading, I was struck by something that seemed a little contradictory, but maybe I'm thinking about this the wrong way? He's celebrating all these tens of thousands of young people joining DSA just because it's big and has "socialist" in the name - not because they inherently care about DSA, but just because they liked what Bernie had to say politically and wanted to group up with other people with similar politics. He's also simultaneously bemoaning the large but mysterious number of multi-org people joining DSA because it's big and looks like a place to group up with other people with similar politics.
Am I just totally not understanding? I get that I'm oversimplifying a little bit here, but basically: he's mad that the second group is loud, active, growing in popularity, and doesn't share his politics?
It kinda comes across like the jealous, shitty partner who is mad about anybody giving you any kind of positive attention, especially your wonderful friend with the giant crush on you. What if you realize you have more in common with them and leave?!? They found you first, fair and square - you're in Isserman's DSA now, and it's not okay for other orgs to look at you or talk to you!
Edit 2: are other orgs like this? is this common? DSA is the only org I've been in. I've been wanting another, but my first experience sucked enough that joining another seems daunting.
This sentence in his bio also makes me 🤔
His next book on the history of the American Left, Reds: The Tragedy of American Communism, will be published by Basic Books in June 2024.
Worse was to come at DSA’s state and local levels. Connecticut DSA tweeted on October 8, “Yesterday, the Palestinian resistance launched an unprecedented anti-colonial struggle,” without providing any of the messy details as to what that “struggle” involved.
"the struggle" is when I need an extra shot in my cappuccino on monday cuz I have to to go to bat so hard for bloodsoaked zionist fascists. what you guys did - the whole "armed liberation against genocide" thing - that's just straight up uncivil
DSA, meanwhile, thrived between 2016 and 2020—because it proved it could win victories in the here-and-now, give-and-take world of electoral politics. And that, ironically, was intolerable to the entryists (who preferred to refer to themselves as “partyists”), because they didn’t want socialists to remain as a wing of, or even a loyal opposition within the Democratic Party. They wanted a break, in the not terribly distant future, from the intolerable compromises required to appeal to mainstream voters and to compromise with mainstream politicians. And they also believed that DSA members elected to public office were, first and foremost, obliged to follow the positions adopted by the organization, rather than their constituents or their own conscience, as if they were already subordinate to the dictates of an old-fashioned Marxist-Leninist central committee.
What's the point of supporting and fundraising for a candidate if they don't even have any obligations to you? Sounds like that strategy was remarkably bad at "winning victories in the here-and-now, give-and-take world of electoral politics."
Big "no, it's the children who are wrong" energy.
Zionists are no ally of mine in any capacity and deserve the same wall any other fascist does.
I expected this to be about something the DSA did wrong, but I was pleasantly surprised.
Zionist self-purging is excellent news
Good. Leave. Die.
Good riddance, you will not be missed genocide abetting scum
lmao what a crook
Guy who wants an organization that gets walked over, mad that his org gets ostensibly walked over.
This would've been fitting for the dunk tank.
Good riddance to this bozo
Isn't it interesting the way "the company you keep" is only directed left? DSA members were at a rally where allegedly a dark honoured joke was told on the subject of the Hamas attack; oh well, guess they're Hamas terrorists by proxy.
Meanwhile the author highlights amongst his lists of concerns and achievements that the company they keep (unlike someone hearing a joke at a rally, actively and materially support) the CIA, the Democrats, Ukrainian nazis, and the genocidal apartheid ethnostate of Israel. I dunno, sounds like a bad bunch of dudes to me.
Wait, y'all's chapters don't just fall apart on their own???
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