Iirc Megan is Red Star the ML caucus and Ashik is (was?) from the Groundwork caucus, the extreme opportunist pseudo-Marxists who really only care about attaching DSA’s name to electoral victories. Let that color any interpretation of this interview.
I did not watch the interview but the answer is absolutely not. NYC DSA specifically and the organization more broadly do this all the time where they endorse candidates with little to no relationship to the organization to attach their name to an up and coming social democrat. Then, because the DSA lacks any actual proletarian power, the candidate is pressured or caves into bourgeois interests and burns DSA.
would love a summary of this if anyone watches
I’m just finishing it up. These two co-chairs are definitely left of Mamdani. It’s odd to watch. They’re constantly saying “we aren’t happy with that decision, we weren’t involved in that choice, our policies say this”. The host is asking all the hard questions we’d want about Tisch, Venezuela/Cuba, etc. Lots of talk about them trying to build out a party structure with an enforceable line. I think the answer to the title question, at the moment, is a pretty clear “no, the DSA cannot hold Mamdani accountable”.
a party structure with an enforceable line? sounds undemocratic and unsocialist. might as well stay pinned to the donkeys ass then.
Pin the tailist on the donkey
spoiler
Obviously Mamdani is not even a tailist in many respects because he takes a line to the right of popular opinion on several issues, but he’s a tailist sometimes.
DSA chairs:
DSA chair sounds like a cursed job NGL. They have basically no enforcement power over most of what the org does since chapters are so independent. You want DSA to be associated with social democracy well too bad the Liberation caucus just posted about how based shooting Israeli government officials is and is calling for a DSA red guard. You want a proper revolutionary party? Well too bad New York has decided one more elected will get the job done.
I’m starting to see the advantages of a Democratic Centralist party structure like PSL’s. I’m surprised there isn’t a more democratic centralist Dem Soc org. I don’t see the contradiction between a reformist path to socialism and democratic centralism, but maybe there is one I’m too ML to see. But I guess they’re trying to be a big tent socialist thing. It’s certainly got them numbers and some officials they can say they’ve elected, but that’s about it.
Maybe we should just turn the DSA into the US version of the International or whatever that USSR organization of different socialist parties was lol. Just split it up into a bunch of more local parties all over the US. I guess it would probably lose some of the power it still has, though.
I’m surprised there isn’t a more democratic centralist Dem Soc org
Missed the fun debacle like 2 months ago where NYCDSA tried this and enforcing a support Zohran no matter what line that was overwhelming rejected by its membership.
Maybe we should just turn the DSA into the US version of the International
In my head its essentially taking the role of the reactionary trade union in context of the evaporation unions with undermined US labor power and its complete non-existence in swathes of the country and the fact with the membership numbers it has and broad access and associations with different organizations and activists it can serve as an agitational space for MLs while also giving people experience working in democratic bodies and organizing. Now too much of this is in electoral work imo, but I digress. I’ve seen people call it or allude to it being a party and that take is kinda delusion if they’ve taken a minute looking at its current internal operations. If DSA is a party as is, the word has no meaning.
I do see either a split of the DSA happening at some point from either its left or right depending on how the national level power struggle goes, or a full folding into the dems in a particular lose scenario for the DSA’s left, however even that would server as either a split or fracturing as it would also likely hemorrhage most of those people, the difference being at that point they fracture into a bunch of micro-orgs instead of a coherent org/party.
Maybe we should just turn the DSA into the US version of the International or whatever that USSR organization of different socialist parties was lol.
Functionally this is how DSA actually works. Most members are uncaucused but the caucuses run things and are quite rigid with their discipline, functioning like small parties in their own right in much the same way there were multiple factions of the RSDLP.
The national politics of DSA have been notably left of Mamdani’s stance to the chagrin of many, notably those from the NYC branch who has many members that are trying to enforce a lockstep with him.
Edit: This is going to sound like a piss-take but DSA is one org I think would genuinely be more useful after a “party” split.
Edit: This is going to sound like a piss-take but DSA is one org I think would genuinely be more useful after a “party” split.
There’s so many fucking trots in it that it shouldn’t even be hard to split, lmao.
You’re monkey-pawing it
DSA splits, but it’s into one succdem org and one trot org.
Imagine: global revolution with amerikkkan characteristics, brings a tear to my eye.
Wait… I think that’s just napalm.
The co-chairs mention the Zohran campaign had some disconnect between NYC dsa and them (the co-chairs, of dsa national i think?) can anyone explain that?
NYC-DSA has a fairly different political makeup than a lot of the rest of the chapters and chapters are generally very independent from national (See AOC being dropped by national and NYC still endorsing her).
Effectively, there is the funny situation of NYC having little to reign Zohran in with, and national has little to reign NYC in with.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
