For Member-Driven Endorsements, and Beyond
The secret behind DSA’s organizing muscle is twofold: our socialist vision, and our member-driven democracy. Together, our membership has built the largest socialist organization in generations, won some of the most significant material transformations for the working class in the country, put hundreds of socialists into office, and become a key driver of our resurgent labor and anti-war movements—often at the same time.
But a dedication to democracy means not settling, but always striving to become more democratic. The national internal crises that DSA has faced over the years can be defined along many lines. But core among them is that they have involved a significant percentage of our members feeling locked out of decision making that directly affects them. A lack of democracy. And with no direct venue for input, members feel like the only way to influence these decisions in the two years between conventions is via social media pressure campaigns that treat our own leadership more like how we would treat capitalist legislators than our own comrades.
As DSA enters its new era, we will have to make difficult decisions. For years, our political direction was largely implicit in the types of work members have chosen to do and emphasize. But to become a true party structure the way we have widely agreed is necessary, we must go through the growing pains of determining an explicit political direction.
In order to do so in a way that makes us stronger, we must dedicate ourselves to building what Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò calls “constructive politics.” We must be able to make difficult decisions in the most constructive and democratic way possible. With deep consideration by DSA not just from a handful of leaders and voices on social media, but from DSA’s rank and file up.
We are now entering a key test, considering the re-endorsements of AOC and Rashida Tlaib nationally, we believe the best way to democratically decide our political direction would be to empower members to make the choice.
This is a major decision. The socialist project is deeply intertwined with these two DSA members in congress, both in their districts, and nationally. The results of these decisions will deeply affect every single DSA member. And so, every DSA member has the right to take part in that decision.
The press, the Internet, politicians, our allies, and our enemies are watching us very closely right now, waiting to capitalize on our divisions and tear us apart. We must make the decision to emerge from every major debate stronger, but we can only do so if we do it together.
That’s why Groundwork NPC members are proposing a resolution for a membership referendum and mass call — no later than May 6th, 2024 — to discuss these re-endorsements, and a poll following the call. The poll will be held via OpaVote and will give members in good standing time to discuss and think about the re-endorsement amongst comrades so we can come to a democratic conclusion as an organization.
The idea of a member referendum for difficult decisions was proposed by the Libertarian Socialist Caucus in previous conventions and voted down. But the practice is fairly common in DSA at the Chapter level, with some of our largest and smallest chapters both regularly holding member referendums on everything from campaign proposals, to structural changes, to endorsements specifically. And by structurally facilitating direct member input and decision making, membership-wide votes generally result in the most satisfactory outcome and build real member buy-in for those chapters.
At the end of the day, the best way to get members to come together and decide collectively on our direction is to get members to come together and decide collectively on our direction. At the Chapter level, major decisions on campaigns, structural changes, and endorsements are often held in similar ways. We hope this proposal can contribute to the start of this new era of DSA, and not just avert a potentially destructive battle over the country’s two highest profile DSA members, but start forging new ways to to make National DSA the kind of engine for socialist transformation we are all fighting for it to be.
In that spirit, we encourage our comrades, whether rank & file, chapter leaders, or national leaders to look and consider our proposal not as one set in stone, but the beginning of a process through which we can build that same kind of consensus. We believe that Socialists Must Lead. But as any organizer will remind us, Socialist leadership does not mean telling people what to do—it means bringing out the desire for true self-determination, and forging the collective, democratic power to make that desire into reality.
