Why I am withdrawing from the DSA Socialist Majority Caucus

[The Democratic Socialists of America held their national convention in Atlanta August 2-4. I was a delegate and candidate for the DSA National Political Committee. I was also a member of the Socialist Majority Caucus although not on its slate of candidates, in part, I am sure, because other caucus members realized, as I did, that increasingly my views diverged from the approach the steering committee had decided on with the support of active caucus members.

[That approach was to become, in essence, a faction like the other main factions operating prior to the convention, one called Bread and Roses (formerly the Spring Caucus and prior to that Momentum), Build (which curiously claimed not to be a caucus), and the Collective Power Network. 

[There was also a North Star Caucus that operated as an ideological tendency rather than a faction because it did not seek to place a slate of its own members on the National Political Committee. In my view the difference between a tendency and a faction is that the latter seeks to place its own people on leadership bodies, which tends to transform the group into a disciplined fighting organization, a faction.

[Simultaneously with publishing this, I'm also informing the caucus through its internal mailing list that I am withdrawing from the grouping.]

DSA members in the Socialist Majority Caucus and I'm sure others who read carefully  my campaign leaflet for our recent DSA convention cannot possibly have failed to understand that I was criticizing the way this and other caucuses wound up functioning:

    Finally, I am running against factionalism. We need to channel our discussions and collaboration through structures and spaces which are open to everyone in the DSA.
    Members have a right to form caucuses, but caucuses carry a price. Separate discussion lists, private zoom calls, by-invitation-only conventions, “whipping the votes” through one-sided phone conversations, these practices undermine the cohesion of the DSA and can even compromise the integrity of the organization.

What I wanted and understood to be an aspect of the Socialist Majority project originally was the idea embodied in the "this caucus is not a caucus" proposal for its name, a formation that, yes, favored a range of ideas we have in common, but especially what I thought was a common view on the right way to function in the "big tent," multi-tendency organization we are all for.

And that way is to combat the fragmentation into caucuses for essentially no good reason. And having ongoing caucuses now seems to me to be unjustified at this stage of the organization.

Even for a convention, factions should not be formed on the basis of affinity, agreement with general principles, friendships and associations developed through collaboration on common projects, followers of particular individuals, electioneering for leadership posts, etc., but --if necessary under certain circumstances-- on concrete differences over what the organization should be doing and how it should function.

The difference that justified a caucus in my view was precisely that we should not be functioning with these permanent factions but that they should be dissolved into the general organization, not by some sort of prohibition, but by convincing comrades not to function in this way. In addition, I think I made a mistake in supporting Single Transferable Vote (STV) election for the NPC, a type of proportional representation, which very strongly encourages factional functioning merely for electioneering.

I now think we simply should have let delegates vote for 16 people and, subject to our gender and people of color demographic requirements, let the raw number of votes for each determine the winners.

I really found extremely off-putting and essentially undemocratic the way caucuses tried to game the STV system by urging delegates not to vote their best judgement, but asking different comrades rank the candidates in various sequences on the basis of some formula or calculation. I think this sort of "tactical" voting undermines individual and collective integrity. We end up voting for a faction and not candidates. If that's the way it is going to be then it should be proposed, honestly, openly and transparently, that voting be for slates.

I realize I have an extremely distinct outlook. I may be the only one in this caucus or among the delegates who in the past was centrally involved in the leadership of a leading socialist organization that I helped destroy through undemocratic practices, trumped-up disciplinary expulsions, and all sorts of underhanded maneuvers and manipulations.

Nothing going on in the DSA today resembles what happened decades ago in the Socialist Workers Party, but at any rate, I think certain lessons are applicable.

Sill, I've decided not to try to start a discussion to convince comrades in this caucus to dissolve now.

I've realized from discussions in my local and at the convention that younger comrades find my views on these issues almost completely inaccessible if not downright incomprehensible. A discussion would be a fruitless exercise.

Better to concentrate on the practical work. And practical collaboration is now the best way to try to get away from the fragmentation of the DSA into rival factions.

On the results of the DSA convention: exhilarating but a little frustrating

This is what the future looks like: a convention of millennials committed to transforming the United States.

Some 1,000 delegates and I'm not sure how many volunteers and other members met in Atlanta August 2-4 for the biannual convention of the Democratic Socialists of America.

On the daily radio show I co-host, I said that as a delegate I found the convention incredibly exhilarating although at times frustrating -- and, ironically, for the same reason.

The DSA has grown explosively over the past few years and is now more than ten times the size it was when the Bernie phenomenon first exploded in the summer of 2015. That growth shaped the convention.

For a life-long socialist who first read the Communist Manifesto in high school more than half a century ago, and after a few years of radical upsurge had to live through decades of retreats, it was just incredible seeing this completely new generation of fighters grappling with how to advance a movement now looked to by literally tens of millions of people in this country.

Especially because this is a totally new generation, overwhelmingly without experience in the socialist or any other movement not weighed down by the mistakes of 20th century socialism. But this freshness also showed in so much time consumed by procedural wrangling, instead of political discussion. Yet the way the DSA is today, that was inevitable.

The main contested issue at the convention as I saw it was between a layer of comrades that wanted to foster greater decentralization by taking financial resources away from the National Office and giving them to local organizations. I think the claim to help especially the smaller Locals is legitimate and many delegates su[ported them. But the main resolutions proposed went beyond that, promoting a dis-empowering of the DSA as a national organization. But a more cautious resolution on the same issue (also by an Atlanta delegate) was approved.

The decentralizers lost by around a 55 to 45 margin on their resolutions, although I did not keep a close tabs on the exact count, and the margin might have been a little bigger. But a more cautious resolution on the same question (by one of our Atlanta delegates, by the way) was approved.

Dues sharing may seem like a strange main issue. But there was overwhelming consensus at the convention on the practical tasks and priorities for the DSA, things like medicare for all, an ecosocialist green new deal, tenant justice, immigrant and refugee rights, and, of course, backing Bernie -- to name just a few causes that DSA'ers are involved with.

On the resolutions I felt most strongly about, the one I wrote on orienting to the Latinx community starting with a Spanish-language web site, received the highest vote (88%) on the "consent agenda," a list of resolutions with so much support in a pre-convention delegate poll that they are voted and ratified as a group at the beginning of the convention.

The second-highest vote on that "consent agenda" was for an immigration resolution calling for open borders, which I also supported even though I would have changed some of the wording.

Another resolution also approved on that list was a resolution I co-authored on immigration work. It said, in part, "The National Immigrant Rights Working Group shall approach immigrant rights organizations ... to help to organize national-scale mobilizations" against Trump's immigration policies, and indeed the steering committee of the working group has already met and started to aggressively implement this provision.

A third resolution from Atlanta approved on the consent agenda was by City of South Fulton councilman khalid, demanding presidential candidates support reparations for Black people.

I did run for the national leadership but was not elected, nor did I expect to be. As the convention drew closer I realized that I wanted to focus on how the way I view things is very different from most other comrades, and on explaining why.

So among other things I wrote extensive comments on the Open Borders resolution, dealing with imperialism and Latino identity even though those were side issues and I supported and voted for the resolution.

I explained my overall priorities for changes in the DSA in a piece I published here and as a campaign leaflet that was distributed at the convention. That stressed the DSA needed to focus on the Latinx and Black communities, not mainly as a question of organizational resources but a political orientation. I also insisted this meant focusing on the South, and the real situation on the ground in these and other Republican-dominated areas needed to be taken into account in our national projects.
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Language justice and the DSA's internal culture in relation to the Latinx community were central topics in a blog post also published on an internal forum. The piece explained why I was refusing to sign a "motherhood and apple pie" transparency pledge that was backed by almost all other NPC candidates. My explanation also had an extensive polemic against the factionalism that was being promoted by the way most caucuses were functioning (and still are).

This may seem like a Quixotic campaign. But my original motivation in running for the NPC was to make sure that the Spanish-language web site and immigration resolutions were implemented if approved.

With the overwhelming support they received and seeing a number of millennial Latinx comrades who are strongly involved in the fight for immigrant rights running, and some were sure to be on the incoming NPC, that was no longer a big issue. So I decided to switch to a propaganda campaign that I hope started to raise some issues I care deeply about and I think will be important for the DSA going forward.