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DSA North Star Caucus blog

12 Theses on The Election

1/7/2019

3 Comments

 
by Leo Casey

1) How should the left approach the 2020 elections? Here are my thoughts. The paramount objective must be the defeat of Trump & the retaking of the Senate from GOP. This is the ‘prize’ on which we must keep our eyes. 

2) If we do not win this ‘prize,’ the elections will be catastrophic for American democracy, those targeted by Trump’s authoritarian populism & the left. But much of the discussion on left twitter and facebook takes place within a political vacuum, as if context was irrelevant. 

3) There will be a vigorous campaign over which presidential candidate would be the best standard bearer in that all important battle. But the very breadth of the current field means that there are many authentic progressives who are credible prospects.

4) Rather than rush to anoint a particular candidate as the one and only prospect, it makes much more sense for the left, at this early point in the campaign for an election two years down the road, to be focused on promoting issues that it wants the Democratic Party and whomever is the candidate to embrace. 

5) Alexandra Ocasio Cortez’s ability to put the #GreenNewDeal on the agenda before she was even sworn in illustrates what the democratic left can – and should be – doing to advance an agenda that will address critical issues such as climate change and economic inequality & set the stage for 2020.
6) By contrast, the rush to focus on a particular candidate plays into narrow conception of elections, focused on personalities to the exclusion of program. And insofar as it takes the form of insisting that the personality can only be a self-avowed democratic socialist, it becomes an exercise in sectarian purity. 

7) Nothing would be more damaging to the development of democratic socialism as a political force that can seriously contest for political power in the US than the loss of 2020 elections, with the sense that democratic socialists harmed Trump’s opponent and sat on the sidelines in a critical struggle. 

8) Insofar as some on the left feel that it is absolutely essential to weigh in behind a particular candidate, it is critical that this intervention take a positive form, providing reasons to support their preferred choice, and not a negative campaign against others. 

9) Negative campaigns against progressive candidates are worse than a zero sum game: they damage both the target and the intended beneficiary. If a candidate wins by such means, it becomes all that more difficult to unify the supporters of others for the critical general election. 

10) The consequence of negative campaigns among progressives, based on dubious logic that they are competing for same votes, is that pro-business ‘moderates’ would be advantaged in campaign to win the nomination. 

11) Attacks on Elizabeth Warren in the name of support for Bernie Sanders, such as that conducted by Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara, are illustrative of precisely what those of the left should NOT be doing. Such tactics will hurt both Warren and Sanders, to the benefit of those to their right. 

12) Above all else, a left approach to the 2020 elections must never lose sight of the ‘prize’: the defeat of Trump, the GOP and the racist, authoritarian populism they have brought into the mainstream of American politics. 
3 Comments
Phil
1/8/2019 12:26:30 am

Why is this on a DSA website instead of ShareBlue or ThinkProgress? This kind of 'any blue will do' junk is literally exactly the same kind of narrow minded thinking that the Neoliberal sell outs like Neera Tanden cry about constantly.

Since you obviously have given precisely zero thought to what brought Trump to power, lets start with that. The absolutely awful policies that Clinton and Obama pursued while in office like NAFTA, ending welfare, TARP, HAMP, and a million others have been just as destructive to the working class as republican policies. Inflation adjusted wages have flat lined since 1980 and democrats only real policy solution was telling the unemployed to go back to school and become a coder.

Obama did a horrible job handling the recession and Clinton gave every indication that she was going to keep on going with more of the same. Trump, if anything, has made things worse. Yet you seem to think that it would be better to put one of the "many authentic progressives who are credible prospects." in charge so they can do some minor fixes around the edges that will not help anyone besides the already rich. By the end of their first term I would be expecting literally Hitler to win the presidency.

Trump is a bad President. He has a lot of bad Ideas, but he is also very bad at accomplishing any of them. There is one potential candidate that I know will push for the level of change we need and one that might. If either of them don't win the primary it would be much better to let Trump win again rather than create a backlash against a crap dem and end up with worse than Trump.

Reply
Duane Campbell link
1/10/2019 06:56:54 pm


In response. Your first statement is in fundamental error. If you look at the statement of principles of the North Star Network you find:

To defeat Trumpism and the Republicans, we must recognize that the Democratic Party’s decades-long acquiescence to neoliberal policies—austerity, privatization, deregulation and corporate-dominated globalization—has played a role in the rise of racist, far-right populism. The Democratic Party has been too passive as these neoliberal policies have led to the decimation of unions in the United States and to the socioeconomic devastation of large swaths of its working class. As democratic socialists, we believe that a clear, unequivocal break with neoliberal policies is needed to defeat Trumpism and the authoritarian politics of today’s Republican Party.

Trumpism, which targets Black people, Latinos, Muslims and immigrants, among other marginalized groups, is based on overt appeals to white racial resentment and prejudice. Moreover, Trumpism promotes misogyny, anti-LGBTQIA bigotry and ableism. To vanquish Trumpism, our efforts must have explicitly anti-racist politics at their core and openly oppose sexism, homophobia, queerphobia and transphobia. We can only build the working-class solidarity necessary for victory by uplifting and centering the voices of those who are under attack. We prioritize the fight against Trumpism not only because of its strategic importance, but also out of deep moral conviction—the struggles against racism and other forms of oppression are central to our vision of democratic socialism.

In this approach, we follow the political analysis and prescriptions laid out in the strategic document summary, Resistance Rising, adopted by the 2015 DSA Convention. It was this approach—which led to our role in the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign—that has brought unprecedented attention to democratic socialism and garnered DSA thousands of new members. We are now in a position to make democratic socialism into a potent force in U. S. politics, but only if we maintain the strategic approach that has brought us this far.

AS DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS, WE WORK WITH DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENTS AND ORGANIZATIONS SEEKING PROGRESSIVE CHANGE, AND WE SERVE AS THEIR VIGOROUS ADVOCATES AND PARTNERS.

2. Following the above, the remainder of your letter indicates that you have not read our positions.

3. I find it quite telling that you adopt a position that seems to indicate that you do not see the rise of Trump and the White Nationalist Right as a fundamental problem. This perspective is precisely what we oppose. I recommend this as a starting place for your consideration.
https://portside.org/2016-05-09/trump-racism-and-left-2016
editor.

Reply
Marc Pilisuk
1/11/2019 07:55:53 pm

From now until the primaries I think we should
express preferences, for Bernie I hope, but without being critical of other progressives I think if a mainstreamer like Biden or ORourke should win that would be very bad, but against the dangers of Trump I would work for any one one of them in the general election
I think we should focus on issues and on smoking out all candidates on key issues, some of which will distinguish them, These follow with the first three unlikely to see daylight without s popular push.

1) Green New Deal or something that sufficient to TRULY save the planet within 12 years;
2) NOT ACCEPT CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS FROM BIG BANKS, FOSSLE FUELS, WEAPONS CONTRACTORS OR GUNMAKERS;
3) INSIST UPON a DOD Audit and SHARP CUTS IN DOD FUNDING TO ALLOW MONEY FOR EVERYTHING ELSE.
4) RESTORATIVE JUSTICE BASED REFORMS TO REPLACE THE PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX;
4) SINGLE PAYER HEALTH PLAN
5) AFFORDABLE HOUSING
6) Education Debt Relief and support for free or low-cost education at all leveles;
7) STRENGTHEN EPA FOR A VIABLE ENVIRONMENT
8) UNIVERSAL, LIVABLE MINIMUM WAGE;
9) SUPPORT INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
10) KEEP MILITARY WEAPONS AWAY FROM AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES
11) END REVOLVING DOOR FROM GOVERNMENT TO CORPORATE LOBBYISTS
12) Women's right to chooses and to equal Pay
13 ) Equal rights for LGBTQ
14) Support for Public Media, Parks and the Arts
15) overturn Citizens’ United
16) Limit surveillance of civilians
17) REQUIRE PASSAGE OF FUNDI, IN ADVANCE,
FOR MILITARY ACTIONS, HEALTH CARE FOR VETERANS AND RECONSTRUCTION OF PROPERTY;
18) Increase loans for cooperative enterprises;
19) Add requirement in all corporate charters for Board representation by a consumer and by a worker.
20) Begin a compassionate and family friendly immigration policy.
21) prevent and rescind mergers of Financial institutions and media giants

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