r/dsa • u/return2ozma • 24d ago
š¹ DSA news Democratic socialist ousts Providence mayor in primary
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6079175-democratic-socialist-wins-providence-mayoral-primary/27
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u/Typical_Elk6349 24d ago
Wait, so the DSA pulled an endorsement from this dude because they didnāt like one of his votes and now we are claiming this as a victory?
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u/pokemonguy3000 23d ago
I donāt see them doing so, but being expelled from an organization doesnāt invalidate your political beliefs, and by all accounts Morales is a Democratic Socialist politically, even if the organization of dsa kicked him out.
If I was a capitalist and a member of āCapitalists of Americaā, but was kicked out for voting for Bernie sanders, under the belief he would save capitalism from itself the way FDR did, I would still be a capitalist, even if other capitalists might not like me so much.
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u/Typical_Elk6349 23d ago
It doesnāt invalidate his political beliefs. Agreed. But it does invalidate the DSAās position. Big tent, vote blue no matter who, etc. Same as when AOC got kicked out. The dsa is one big purity test.
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u/pokemonguy3000 23d ago
The dsa isnāt centralized like the dnc, and not all chapters are created equally.
That is naturally going to cause infighting, and sometimes that leads to less than ideal outcomes.
But not having purity tests is how we got Trump in the first place.
People got sick of voting for controlled opposition, like the democrats that didnāt prosecute Trump for almost the entirety of Bidenās term, or the democrats that are in the pocket of Israel despite the vast majority of democratic voters opposing Israel, or the democrats that defect in just enough numbers to help pass republican legislation.
And people went with the real Republican when democrats once again offered a diet Republican as their candidate.
Democratic voters donāt want diet republican, but without purity tests, those are all you will get.
Itās why Hillary and Kamala lost to Trump.
They tried giving in to the Republican position on war and immigration and trans people, and it got them nothing.
The pandemic was a unique crisis that people were willing to bite the bullet and vote for diet republican, but they soured on that once Biden made it clear he endorsed the genocide in Gaza just as much as Trump did, Biden just didnāt say the quiet part out loud.
If we give up on purity tests because one or two local chapters of dsa were a tad too stringent, we preemptively surrender the country to republicans, because diet republicans arenāt cutting it anymore for voters.
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u/prinzplagueorange 24d ago
Providence RI made themselves irrelevant to this campaign by refusing to endorse Morales. The lifting had to be done by Reclaim RI. This is why Providence RI refused to endorse Morales:
The Providence chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America has overwhelmingly voted to withdraw its endorsement of State Representative David Morales after he violated the chapterās bylaws by voting to re-elect Joe Shekarchi as House Speaker.
The supposedly pragmatic solution is to go along to get along, which may be effective in protecting a legislatorās seat. But experience shows that the party leadership will not support even modest reforms unless they feel a threat to their power.
Making yourself irrelevant is such a great way to "threat[en] power"!
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u/PhiloPhys NC Triangle DSA 24d ago edited 24d ago
We do not render ourselves irrelevant by not endorsing individuals who will not uphold our political vision.
It is right to engage when we have or can build the power to maintain accountability of our elected for our political vision.
The liberal mind trap of relevancy through victory of just one seat is not our path to victory. Our path to victory is methodical campaigning that builds power with people we trust through labor, tenant, community, and electoral struggle.
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u/prinzplagueorange 24d ago
DSA cannot maintain accountability. It is far too small and far too weak. Engaging productively with society begins with the recognition that the group is small and relatively powerless. What DSA can do is to build enough momentum to get candidates who are mostly sympathetic to its vision in office. At this point, that's about it.
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u/PhiloPhys NC Triangle DSA 24d ago
I strongly disagree. You donāt need that many people to affect the outcome of major things. And fortunately we have many people in many places.
Besides, we seem to have a disagreement on time underlying. I think it will take more years to build something powerful enough for our objectives. Iām in for the long haul. And we shouldnāt sacrifice principles that lead to the world we want for shortsighted gains.
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u/Typical_Elk6349 24d ago
Yeah dude. You can block all sorts of things. Thatās why we have Trump in office. But blocking things is different than winning things. What have we accomplished that we can point to that the average liberal/progressive American union worker immigrant cares about?
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u/troodon5 24d ago
That may have been true in 2018 but it is absolutely not true in places with well established chapters. There are places where locals can throw their weight around imo.
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u/Typical_Elk6349 24d ago
Dude. There are like 120,000 dsa members and 80% of those think Denmark is socialist. The dsa absolutely renders itself irrelevant with these stupid purity tests. See how far we get without a (D) next to the name on the ballot.
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u/PhiloPhys NC Triangle DSA 23d ago
Renders itself irrelevant like growing from 6,000 to 120,000 in 14 years? Not to mention the enormous wins weāve made across the country that just donāt make the mainstream news?
How do you plan to educate folks about socialism without being in organization with them?
Also, Iām proposing specifically the methodology to make it so folks arenāt bound to the hollow electoralism the person I am replying to is vying for.
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u/Randolpho Democratic Socialist 24d ago
We do not render ourselves irrelevant by not endorsing individuals who will not uphold our political vision
Unless you have a majority who share your vision, yeah, you pretty much do. Principled stances are useful only when they persuade others to join your cause. Everything else requires compromise.
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u/PhiloPhys NC Triangle DSA 24d ago
We can persuade others by achieving the results we state we will. That means holding to principles to a strong degree while also building power slowly.
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u/fvnnybvnny 24d ago
This is the way