With the membership approaching 100k, and with the structure of the organization being democratic and up for revision given a strong enough push from the internal caucuses, why are there still unaffiliated american socialists?
I think the predominate view on this website is that DSA is a monolithic organization that is simply full of radlibs and social democrats or democratic socialists, however the richness of the caucuses and the amount of local marxist caucuses which are attempting to reform the DSA is in my opinion largely ignored here.
The Democratic Socialists of America is *our* organization as socialists of america and if you critique it without affiliating yourself and without acting to change it, than what are you truly doing? It is definitely one of the twelve types of liberalism for you criticize in private but not to the collective itself. Problems you have with the DSA from your critical perspective should be brought up every month at your local general meeting. Critique from outside the organization, as if you were not a socialist, is not going to affect change.
tl;dr: as a chapo who didn’t join DSA for years bc of the stigma here calling them radlibs, i ask of you, why are you seriously not in the DSA. for if you don’t like it, then join and act in the oppositional caucuses; and if you do like it but just haven’t joined, then come on comrade follow suit.
edit: This struggle session has been quite bountiful I will say. We have learned that there are three instances in the DSA's constitution that allow for (1) the expulsion of members that are under the discipline of democratic-centralist organizations (2) local charters will be revoked if the majority of members become under the discipline of democratic-centralism and that (3) local youth charters will be revoked if majority of members become. dem-cent.
How does one join an opposition caucus and what do they do because the liberalism is painful
Well the first step is to join DSA national and then second step is to find your local and email them once your in national. then you’ll get added to the local’s comm network, and from there it is a matter of either founding or finding the local marxist caucus or democratic centralist caucus. you might even be pleasantly surprised to find that your local already is anti-liberal and anti-DSA national’s liberalism like i did.
I just spam post stalin memes on the discord and see who reacts.. Boom, caucus formed.
Better honeypot some pro Trot memes to cover your own ass
Our leadership is a combination of leftist literature professors and workers that have posters of Mao and Xi on their walls. There are a few radlibs, but they usually just hang back and show up to protests/do yoga meetups.
That is rad as hell. After the holidays are over and I have a somewhat normal work week again, ill consider joining. I have commitment issues but I thought about joining for a couple years now. I also might actually make new friends which after this pandemic feels desperately needed. All my IRL friends are huge libs. We don't ever really talk politics, I've tried to get them to go to BLM protests with me and they are less than interested
It's like getting a library card. Just because you have a library card, doesn't mean you approve of every book in there. It's just another resource.
Precisely!