Big Tent and Programmatic Unity Can Coexist in DSA

by Jack Suria Linares

Max Elbaum’s recent piece analyzing the political struggle within Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) illuminates the clear necessity for a coherent national strategy amongst the entire US Left that can keep us from falling into irrelevance. Elbaum focuses on the decision by DSA’s National Political Committee (NPC) to reject a demand by a minority within the organization to expel Congressmember Jamaal Bowman for his vote in support of US imperialist military funding for the Israeli government.

This internal debate spilled into the public discourse despite the fact that a supermajority of the organization, in terms of the 2021 convention delegates, opposed disciplining elected DSA representatives who disagree with specific content within DSA’s platform. The public debate created an illusion that the minority opinion had grounding, while those holding the supermajority opinion failed to publicly defend the democratically mandated position.

Elbaum’s piece correctly identifies some of the political strategic debates, particularly a re-litigation of disciplinary questions answered during the 2021 DSA National Convention. Still, readers are left with gaps in understanding the structural challenges that DSA faces as we seek to avoid the mistakes of the 20th-century US Left and build a 21st-century socialist organization. The core question facing DSA in this moment centers organization, not immediate political strategy:
Read more:  https://convergencemag.com/articles/big-tent-and-programmatic-unity-can-coexist-in-dsa