Former Leaders of SDS, Meet the Current Members of DSA
The authors of “An Open Letter to the New New Left From the Old New Left” failed to grasp several things about the Democratic Socialists of America.
Generic anti-Trumpism and leftward tut-tutting is not a winning campaign strategy. It is choosing ease over effort, convenience over organizing.
As the Trump administration abdicates its responsibility for mass testing and contact tracing, tens of thousands of Americans—disproportionately working-class and people of color—are dying.
Meanwhile, America’s young people—loaded with college debt, inadequate health insurance and bleak job prospects—confronts an increasingly dystopic future. The pandemic is, of course, not the only threat; climate change is poised to wreak unimaginable havoc. Young people rightly think that the free market has failed to provide solutions to both crises.
Inspired by Bernie Sanders, many millennials have turned to democratic socialism. In one of the most hopeful political developments in decades, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has seen its membership grow from 6,500 in 2014 to 66,000 today. (In These Times was founded by members of the New American Movement and the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, which merged in 1982 to form DSA.)
So it is disconcerting to read an open letter in The Nation, signed by 81 former leaders of Students for a Democratic Society, that condescends to tell DSA youth to “face facts.” Those facts being: “A common effort to unseat [Trump] is our high moral and political responsibility.” The signatories are “gravely concerned.” They worry that some Bernie supporters have refused to endorse Biden, “including the leadership of Democratic Socialists of America.”
Before being so quick with the pen, these members of the “Old New Left”—as they describe themselves—should have considered how DSA operates, what its members do and the considerations that inform its approach.
DSA is a democratic organization. At the most recent convention, delegates voted to only endorse candidates who openly identify as socialists, like Bernie Sanders.
But the group’s stance on 2020 does not mean DSA members will be sitting out the election. After Sanders suspended his campaign, DSA’s governing body, the 16-member National Political Committee (elected every two years by ranked-choice voting), issued this statement: “We fully agree with Sen. Sanders that taking on the reactionary, racist and nationalist right wing represented by Donald Trump is CONTINUE READING: Former Leaders of SDS, Meet the Current Members of DSA - In These Times