Not Us, Them
A few days ago, Elaine Godfrey of The Atlantic wrote a nice little piece on a pressing internal DSA conflict.
To elaborate more lucidly here, Godfrey wrote a piece detailing the projects of various Iowa DSA chapters and also included some less-than-guileful commentary from Berniecrats that vaguely share our goals. There are a few enclaves in DSA that are not fans of “Iowa DSA’s” praxis. Also, related, Iowa DSA is one single 310 mile long chapter. Pretty cool factoid right there.
Godfrey, somewhat accurately, simplifies the dissonance: “ One theory of growth is through a concerted effort around electoral work; the other is rooted in prioritizing local efforts and direct action. The dustup gets at another key question: Does the DSA want Sanders, specifically? Or do its members merely want socialism, with or without the movement’s most visible surrogate?” Yes, there is a conflict between reformism and class struggle. No, there is not equivalent validity to these two theories.
And also, pertinent to note, the last time Bernie could be deemed a socialist in the sensible denotation of that word was way back when he was a Trot. But considering our opponent’s steadfast commitment to rejecting historical precedent, I suppose asking for sensibility is gratuitous.
The first quasi-criticism I want to briefly address is Mr. Anonymous’s. “John from Metropolitan Area” decided on the unshakeable argumentative strategy of obviously lying. He claims “the majority of DSA” is frustrated with Iowa’s socialists and our refusal to merge with the Bernie campaign, a comically tenuous complaint seeing as a quarter of DSA’s national membership voted on whether or not to establish a subsidiary Bernie organization. Truly a hot take as buffoonish a hot take can be before the sheer ridiculousness plunges one into catatonia.
John is wrong. DSA is not a Bernie or Bust majority. I think it’s apparent that most of us aren’t Harringtonians impressed by a manufactured, opportunist mandate and want to actually disassemble capital.
New Orleans DSA’s Michael Esealuka was also quoted, with a distinctly more provoking grievance:
“People are more tuned into politics during presidential elections than at any other point in their lives,” Michael Esealuka, the 26-year-old co-chair of the New Orleans DSA chapter, told me. She respects that individual chapters can make their own decisions, she said, but not joining DSA for Bernie is the wrong one. “We have a rare opportunity to have an out-and-proud socialist front-runner. We need to be running with this opportunity.”
Politics is not when candidate ads run on Hulu. It’s not the Democratic debates or cutesy hashtags. And it’s definitely not the presidential elections.
When 60% of the electorate max vote for the president, nearly half of that being the American petty bourgeoisie, white supremacists, and gamers, it’s doubtlessly evident that the average American worker doesn’t not give a shit about the pageantry of capital’s dictatorship. Frankly, to assert otherwise is an unsympathetic admittance. SocDems remain adamant with their belief that the working class, too frail to liberate itself, can only fathom democracy via undemocratic structures.
Esealuka’s judgement is ultimately fatalistic. Berniecrats are skittish, still defeated by 2016, and for them and their willfully shuttered perspectives, 2020 is “socialism’s” denouement, Bernie being the tragic hero that was robbed the last time around. This is supposedly the one, pivotal chance to do socialism. Reformist factions should remember Marx (as explained by Marcuse): “The class is the actual social and economic unit, not the individual…The existent form of society accomplishes a universal order only by negating the individual.” Fervently wishing for the proletariat to rally behind an individual campaigning for an office they disdain, and expecting other socialists to agree with this plan, is outrageously abject.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/reason/ch02-4.htm
J. C. Mariategui explicates that, “the more intense and vigorous the process of unfolding of the capitalist economy itself, the more direct the path to socialism,” and furthermore, this process requires, “the spiritual and intellectual conditioning of the proletariat by means of class warfare.” I generally respect the DSA Bernie stans that have the tact to actually affirm their ideal of tactic diversity. I do not trust the allegiances of those that challenge Iowan DSAers fidelity as socialists while advocating for liberal electoralism.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/mariateg/works/1928/marxist-determinism.htm
Superficially, this disagreement relates to national versus regional authority, however, there is a more worrisome tension that underlies the acerbity of DSA’s SocDem cohort. It’s more than plausible that there will be revolutionary crises in the near future. The planet is dying and the hyperrich continue to yank wealth and resource upward. Regardless if Bernie wins or loses now, capital (which his platform does not directly address) will assuredly contradict, and decay, and spiral into strife. What if Bernie wins, and still does not have the support of Congress? What if Bernie wins the nomination, but loses to Trump? A little bit further down the dystopian timeline we reside, what if COINTELPRO is brought back with newfound technocratic ruthlessness? What if WWIII ignites?
How many in DSA will go the way of Kautsky, of Lassalle, of Gorbachev? Can we trust them?
You know my answer.
