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.
The only way the left is going to get big enough to do anything is by convincing more people to join us. That necessarily means relitigating questions that are old hat to you. It's the difference between "it's not my job to educate you" vs. "as revolutionaries, we don’t have the right to say we are tired of explaining." The goal isn't to find other leftists who already agree with you; the goal is to convince non-leftists to become leftists.
Bernie got ratfucked in 2016 and it didn't make his ideas irrelevant -- politicians for lower offices won (and keep winning) running on variations of his playbook, and Bernie himself came back with a much stronger campaign in 2020. He also did more to make the word "socialism" safe for mainstream political consumption than a generation of small, explicitly-leftist political groups. Writing off that entire branch of politics is a mistake.
I should make it clear that just because I'm sick of explaining the problems with Dem entryism doesn't mean I'm gonna stop if it's necessary to continue. Probably half of my comments on this site are variations of me doing just that, because I know some of y'all are actually listening and searching for any excuse not to have to deal with DSA's bullshit. I know that being a good Marxist requires explaining the obvious, ad nauseam.
What I absolutely will not abide, however, is spending any more time having to relitigate this question with opportunist leaders, with opportunists and careerists who will simply not fucking listen, especially if they're revisionist Marxists who should know better and will continue to drag the orgs they control away from revolutionary politics. I have firsthand experience dealing with this, being forced to develop a siege mentality with my co-thinkers against the majority of my own comrades, and I've never even been a DSA member.
I would much rather be making this case to people who might be on the fence, people who might have been Bernie or AOC supporters even less than a year ago but are now receptive to a more radical message, and eagerly searching for a more explicitly revolutionary approach. I want to make this case to the fresh layers, the quickly-radicalizing and advanced-consciousness layers of the working class, the sort of people who might actually listen.
Talking to them is necessary, if only because it's a good way of reaching the people they speak to.
And this edges dangerously close to "my school of leftist thought is definitely right, and all others are definitely wrong." No one for sure has all the right answers, because no one has yet built socialism in the imperial core.
Unless we're in the same org, I would rather just speak to rank-and-file members of other orgs directly if they're willing to listen, or give them leaflets if I get the chance. Senior and high-ranking leaders of opportunist orgs tend to be invested in continuing what they've been doing even if they took a wrong turn somewhere and refuse to self-correct. If I'm somehow still in the same org as such people, something has gone horribly wrong.
While you're correct that none of us can be completely sure our tendency is correct, given the experience of the past 5 or so years, especially the past year, it's easier than ever to write off the Dem-entryist strategy as counterproductive, a waste of comrades' scarce time, money, and energy that could be better spent on independent coalition-building/party-building or on any number of issue-specific campaigns and struggles where working-class people and community members are active.