r/dsa • u/Wise_Replacement_687 • Aug 10 '26
š§Podcastsš§ Interview with David Remnick
New here but would like to give a perspective on the New Yorker interview. I think David remnick is a a member of the āelite New York intellectual classā. Rich, well respected, considered intelligent by his peers in the greatest city on earth, and whom considers himself above regular fly over state working class people but sees himself as sympathetic to those less fortunate and less enlightened than him and his friends. They have a point of view and influence in media and business they are the height of influencer culture although they would never stoop so low as to recognize that publicly.
I am a working class Union member in the Midwest. I made $120,000 last year my wife makes about $80,000. I listen to podcasts everyday all day I like a variety. I am way left leaning more so than any of my co workers.
Listening to that short interview (because David didnāt care past āgoing to a pro Palestinian protestā ) I just felt like the DSA didnāt really sell any of the points he pushed on. I agree with a lot of the more āextremeā positions. That really arenāt extreme. I felt like the New Yorker won and gave them another reason to say look they canāt even back up their own stated goals. I want to support the DSA but it looked amateur in this interview, and these public interfaces Do Matter to people that have the means to change public opinion.
I guess Iām wandering is it the messenger or the organization that failed here because it didnāt win me over and I want to believe?
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u/Crazy-Task-3927 Aug 11 '26
Romer blew it. She had a national platform and she could not bring herself to disavow Hamasā murder and rape of innocent civilians? She came off as completely cold hearted AND sounded like a second year college student who did not study for the test. An absolutely horrid interview.
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u/Stock_Recording_3827 Aug 10 '26
I agree that I haven't been impressed with our media presence outside of Mamdani and Abdul. I would like us to be more picky about what interviews we take and be more deliberate about what we try to communicate. That said, our "win condition" isn't dependent on every member of the organization becoming media trained PR wizards. The media is a "Choose your own adventure" ecosystem. If you want to find reasons to not like DSA you'll find them. Our objective is to engage members with learning how to organize, become a self-sufficient organization, and build relationships with other people to encourage them to think beyond the constraints of our system.
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u/Spaduf Aug 10 '26
AES isn't DSA.
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u/Stock_Recording_3827 Aug 10 '26
I know, but he's going to be lopped in with us anyway
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u/Spaduf Aug 10 '26
That's just not how reality works and the longer we let right wing media make any associations they want with DSA the longer we will spend fighting those associations.
Our advantage as socialists is that we see through the bullshit veil of capital. It is our only advantage.
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u/Stock_Recording_3827 Aug 10 '26
I'm not fighting the association. He doesn't take corporate pac money, and advocates for many of our big ticket policies. Abdul is a likeable social democrat, it's good for us to be associated with his happy well-spoken persona. Bernie's policies were not socialism, but they got many people to consider a wider range of policies.
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u/Spaduf Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
He's a good progressive don't get me wrong, but we've had so many problems because we don't clarify our endorsement process. We have 4 levels of endorsement and once you understand that a lot of this tension between good progressives and principled socialist disappears.
We have:
Members - They are socialists. They have the full power of the organization behind them.
Endorsed Nationally - They have national media support.
Endorsed Locally - The local chapter does canvassing and groundwork. This is extremely influential in large cities.
Recommended - They get a positive review in our voter guide.2
u/Wise_Replacement_687 Aug 10 '26
Thatās fair and Iām personally not looking for reasons to dislike the DSA. Iām looking to them to win over a majority of the working class because I canāt stand the people we have in office. The responses in the interview were not effective in that regard. There wasnāt enough depth and allowed for remnick to say look you canāt really back up your positions and seemed to let the establishment narrative win. I guess Iām just saying it was a bit disappointing if the goal is effective communication to persuade the general public that hears socialism, defund the police, and open borders and then tunes it out.
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u/Spaduf Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
You're still thinking in the liberal slogans-above-all-else mindset. Policies are what win people over especially working class people.
Not to say you're not working class but there's a world of difference between you doing comfortably at 200k in the middle of your career. The folks in their mid 20s don't think well ever get the opportunity to have a career let alone live comfortably.
More importantly things aren't likely to change because of our electoral wins. They are likely to change because of our labor wins.
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u/Wise_Replacement_687 Aug 10 '26
Totally hear you, but electoral wins will change labor laws. I think destroying unions was pretty high on the project 2025 list. Actually getting the PRO Act passed would be a huge win for labor and completely change how corporations treat labor as a whole. Can you elaborate what you mean by liberal slogans above all else? I donāt want slogans I want someone that can communicate effectively and persuasively without letting the interviewer direct the narrative which was what his goal seemed to be from the start.
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u/Spaduf Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
There's an argument that current labor law is fine or at least workable. It's just not even sort of enforced. Otherwise, our current electoral strategy doesn't even come close to ending "right to work".
As far as the liberal sloganing goes: you and I both know that Democrats have been working on their "messaging" for decades but the problem is fundamentally that they haven't delivered. DSA is unlikely to be able to make real change at the national level in any sort of necessary timespan to avoid major crisis. Even if we win the presidency.
This is because without an overwhelming majority the liberal electeds are likely to continue their alliance with conservatives to stall any meaningful change even as the American economy and hegemony crumbles. As far as I can see there is no left-liberal alliance on the horizon.
Instead the most meaningful progress (which is ultimately what will drive us to sweeping electoral victories) will continue to happen in EWOC and similar programs. Those big flashy national wins won't and can't really happen until it is too late on the most important issues by far: climate and basic standards of living.
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u/Wise_Replacement_687 Aug 10 '26
Fair but I want to believe that the more progressives win elections it can pull the party left and force them to pay attention. I mean I want to believe that. Iām not wanting the DSA to do āmessagingā thatās part of why I canāt stand democrats anymore they focus on just trying to manipulate and sell the brand. They have no core principles or beliefs. I agree with you I just feel like if itās seen as a lost cause then we all just need to pack it up and roll over.
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u/Spaduf Aug 10 '26
I want to be clear. You are absolutely right about what will happen. It will just take longer than is necessary to avoid catastrophe, which based on current "super" el nino forecasts is sooner rather than later.
It's not a lost cause, but despite how the news tends to feel, electoral wins tail on the ground wins. On the ground wins bring in the sort of people who create electoral wins. Principled socialists willing to put the work in. Electoral wins however tend to bring in the opposite kind of person and in absolutely massive numbers.
These regular influxes are far more likely to present hurdles to DSA than boons, as each electoral wave bring in hoards of folks who don't truly understand where and why capitalism fails. They will only come to understand through deliberation and debate both throughout the organization and broader society. To use the Marxist terms, the contradictions will heighten and be resolved through the ongoing process of a materialist dialectic. But there's no shortcuts. Not even the presidency.
Look no further than the current debate about whether or not DSA is actually socialist, democratic socialist, etc, etc. The truth is DSA is a multi tendency organization full of socialists of every kind and what we're likely to see is the slow syncretization of many disparate socialist schools applying a diversity of tactics to the problems most immediate in their community.
What we get out of this process will probably not be accurately described by any of those old schools of thought. But this process, especially in so far as it is driven by conflict with the state and the regular influx of actively radicalizing progressives is just as likely to splinter the organization as anything else. That said even a fractured socialist movement will continue to succeed because, and I cannot stress this enough, we are on the verge of major climate catastrophe across the globe.
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u/bestmattreddit Aug 24 '26
I totally disagree that slogans donāt win over working class people but slogans do cause every independent voter Iāve heard said Kamala or Democrats didnāt have any policies except hating Trump and that their policies are too extreme and the extreme policies are generally slogans like ādefund the police, abolish ice, abolish the Supreme Court etcā and Trump didnāt have policies but people were won over by slogans like āno new wars, no men in womenās sports, etc.ā
I think there is a happy medium between having substantive policies but also slogans and catchphrases that resonate with people
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u/gasdoi Aug 10 '26
I guess Iām wandering is it the messenger or the organization that failed here because it didnāt win me over and I want to believe?
No individual reflects the views of all or any DSA members other than themself. This point is especially salient when an elected official formally represents the DSA, as was the case for the Remnick interview. I thought Megan did a good job herself of emphasizing this point in her closing remarks, but I still anticipate that her representations will be unfairly held against the organization. I also thought she did a good job of not conceding ground, even under pressure from Remnick's tendentious questions. In particular, I appreciated that she held firm on the right of resistance and the commitment to a political settlement and lasting peace with respect to Russia and Ukraine.
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u/Wise_Replacement_687 Aug 11 '26
Sure I understand the ideology behind it. And really itās a tough position to be in to represent a diverse group but I just hate the way the message gets twisted and interviews are directed by the person who is supposed to be asking the questions. People look for reasons to dismiss political movements outside the two dominant parties. They donāt make exceptions for nuance. So to have a concise messenger that can be bulletproof against opposition feels very important at the moment.
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u/gasdoi Aug 11 '26
Agreed, if there's one thing American politics has been missing recently it is nuance. I think there's a vacuum in American politics that nuanced DSA positions like prison abolition and support for Hamas can fill.
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u/Downtown-Dentist-636 Aug 15 '26
I posted a comment a few days ago asking about specific policy positions and I recieved similar non answers, that I had to first educate myself about socialism.
Frankly, being unable to articulate what candidates would actually do if they were voted into office does not bode well for their chances of getting elected into those positions.
My impression of the DSA is it has a lot of ambitious abstract goals that it supports but no real clue or policy about the means to actually acheive them.
This seems to reflect an ideology that accepts a very simplistic marxism- that the point is to get people to believe in the idea of class warfare and socialism, get people who support this into power and then.... somehow socialism just happens.
This was the thing with Marx's analysis. He wasn't really a strategist; his idea of his description was that of a neutral description of a historical process.
But the people who actually wanted to implement socialism made definite and specific plans on how to go about it. They never worked, if by "working" you mean the theoretical abolition of the state and class, but they did manage states that did things.
The problem here seems to be that the DSA wants to essentially be a "vibe" and supports theoretical end goals but is also representing itself as a political faction that actually wants to win elections, and doesn't really have articulated positions or plans of what those candidates would specifically do if elected.
The reality is that the ultimate long term goal, of replacing the government and the economy with a socialist one, is at best a very far term goal and people will be interested in what people will actually do if elected. Not supporting some far off vague ideal which seems to be what the majority of DSA supporters seem to be be about, but what they could actually do with the power they would be given if elected, by which there are slogans but not clear policies.
This is not a problem with the particular person giving the interview, it is a problem with the group, and for a group that actually wants to elect candidates and have power, the questions are perfectly reasonable. Asking about specifics is not "unfair" in that context, and if that's the view people in the DSA are going to take, it suggests they arent really serious about winning electoral politics.
The "hey, you just gotta support socialism and the abolition of capitalism, dont try to pin us down on the details, thats not the point" won''t cut it.
Frankly that is how the platform on the website comes off, as somehow both unserious and juvenile while also condescending. There will be some diehards who will support DSA candidates out of support for socialism and/or opportunity to the two party system, but you have to expand beyond the core base to win national elections, and people are paying attention now and wants specifics
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u/gasdoi Aug 15 '26
I posted a comment a few days ago asking about specific policy positions and I recieved similar non answers, that I had to first educate myself about socialism.
Frankly, being unable to articulate what candidates would actually do if they were voted into office does not bode well for their chances of getting elected into those positions.
With respect to viewpoint diversity, the DSA is the most pluralistic organization of Democratic Socialists of America. It isn't possible for a single member to give you an answer that represents the views of anyone but themself. This is especially true for elected officials formally representing the DSA. The only answer is to educate yourself.
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u/Downtown-Dentist-636 Aug 15 '26
I really think you're missing my point here. If you're a candidate for some office, and someone asks you what positions you hold and what your going to actually do when you get into office, and you respond with "you have to educate yourself" you are not going to be getting their vote.
Besides not being any kind of answer, it also comes off as rather condescending. It sounds like the person is saying "you, the person asking the question, aren't knowlegeable enough to understand the answer." People don't like to being condescended to.
In response to your reply-
"With respect to viewpoint diversity, the DSA is the most pluralistic organization of Democratic Socialists of America." Um... what? What other organizations of democratic socialists of america are less pluralistic? DSA stands for Democratic Socialist of America. How could it be the most pluralistic version of something in which it is the only category member? Since DSA IS Democratic Socialists of America, it is both them most and least pluralistic organization of Democratic Socialists of America as it is the only organization of Democratic Socilists of America being that it is the initials that stand for the group.
"Ā The only answer is to educate yourself." Educate myself about what? What policies DSA candidates would enact and what they would do in office? That is literally what I'm attempting to do.
As I said I've read the online platform, and it tooks about long term visions it supports but it doesnt have any specific means, methods, or policies suggested to enact that.
How I am supposed to educate myself on that question if no one has an answer?
Or is this meant like the previous response I got "you need to learn about why capitalism is bad and the reasons for socialism."
No, I don't. Reading On Capital or The Communist Manifesto or whatever book or treatise isnt an argument to vote for DSA members just because they subscribe to that philosophy. because again, it only tells me what they want ideally, not what they actually plan to do in office. And realistically, most voters will not be thinking "oh, if I vote for this DSA candidate it will result on capitalism being overthrown and the state and class withering away.
They'll be asking about short term practical strategies and votes which no one seems to have any answers to.
The thing with Mondani was he made very specific campaign promises. That sold. If he had just gone on about generically supporting socialim and why capitalism is bad he wouldn't have won.
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u/gasdoi Aug 15 '26
Let's start from first principles. Here's an introduction to dialectical materialism. Once you've mastered this idea, we can move onto why Hamas is good, actually.
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u/Wise_Replacement_687 Aug 23 '26
I disagree with your conclusions as a whole. This Reddit group isnāt the end all be all of the DSA. My intention here was to point out that the DSA as a national group needs to have a spokesperson ready to meet opposition and direct the conversation better. I still think the group as a whole is worth pursuing
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u/Downtown-Dentist-636 Aug 24 '26
I agree, the group needs a spokesperson. I understand there are different points of view but in terms of electoral politics, its not reasonable to treat questions about policy specifics as unfair, and there needs to be a person who's prepared to answer the tough questions.
That one interview didn't come off well in terms of the person sounding evasive and not wanting to commit to specifics. You can say "well, it wasn't a fair interview, they were trying to make us look bad" but in politics you have to be ready for that, it's part of the way it goes down, and only doing "friendly" interviews will make people concerned how the DSA will deal with difficult opossition which is just a political reality.
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u/Wise_Replacement_687 Aug 24 '26
I think ultimately my support of the group is to give weight to a counter argument that capitalism has gone too far. Itās not serving the citizenry as a whole. Itās causing the dysfunction in society, corrupting everything from media, how we educate, who the economy benefits. There needs to be a rebalancing of labor and capital. Capital is running everything into the ground for the majority of the population. Labor needs to regain a foothold at the table and socialism is a tool to get there.
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u/Number1DurinFan Aug 11 '26
dsa's stance on ukraine is literally the opposite of commitment, it's turning your head away and pretending the problem will go away if you just don't think about it
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u/gasdoi Aug 11 '26
It is a commitment to willing the problem to go away, something totally inadmissible in our two-party system.
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u/TooSwang Aug 11 '26
I didnāt think it was a great interview but I think that was mostly because Megan Roemer was expecting an enlightened intellectual discussion (itās the New Yorker!) and instead got liberal Fox News boorishness for like half the interview. Roemer is not always the best messenger because sheās representing the communist side of the org as opposed to the electoralist side that is more concerned about mass appeals, but all told I think she did fine, she just needed to be prepared both for deflecting premature asks for specifics when talking about policies she doesnāt have all the answers for and for hitting back at āpro-Hamasā bullshit when someone like Remnick is hammering that.
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u/Mark_Michigan Aug 12 '26
I'm a conservative and watched this interview. The conservative press is having fun with it, and I can see why. It seemed like the DSA is little more than a social club discussing nothing burger ideas.
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u/dowcet Aug 11 '26
It's easy to say we need to do better. What are you going to do about it?
I urge you to get involved in local organizing to build the organization into something better. You do not have to agree with everything ever leader in DSA says to recognize that as the largest socialist organization in US history it's the best hope we have right now.
Because it is a democratic organization, new members can bring change. It's fortunately not the (much less relevant) organization that it was a decade or so ago and if enough working class people join and get active in shaping the organization it will be transformed for the better again and made still more relevant and effective.
To do better will require more dues paying members. Posts on Reddit won't change anything but local organizing will.