Dead Weight Democrats

DSA Must Distance Itself from the Democratic Party

By Sean Case

As the 2022 midterm elections approach, popular wisdom tells us that the Democratic Party is headed toward a bloodbath. Having failed to deliver on key campaign promises – from raising the minimum wage to acting on the student debt crisis, from dealing with healthcare costs to taking on structural racism and voter suppression – the Biden administration is hemorrhaging support. Add to this the interrelated crises of the war in Ukraine, the highest rate of inflation in a generation, and the still-churning pandemic, and that popular wisdom seems pretty sound.

While in the immediate term such conditions are likely to benefit the Republican Party in the form of Congressional majorities, the full story is more complicated than support simply shifting from the party in power to the party in opposition. Rather, working people’s trust in both parties has eroded significantly, as well as their trust in institutions of government more broadly. This is not simply a shift to the right; it’s an opportunity for the socialist movement.

Biden’s Failures

When Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, it was widely noted that large swaths of voters voted for him not out of excitement for the Democratic Party or their platform, but rather to defeat Trump. In the first months of his presidency, the American Rescue Plan earned Biden and the Democrats much support. Policies like the expanded child tax credit and direct stimulus checks were extremely popular and helped soften the blow to working people from the Covid crisis.

But big Covid relief funding is firmly in the rear view. The child tax credits are gone, the stimulus checks spent. The Payment Protection Plan, meant to help small businesses weather the pandemic, was raided by big business. The Democrats’ next big piece of legislation – the Build Back Better Act – is on the cutting room floor of Congress because the administration and Democrats refused to fight and mobilize for it. The pause on student loan payments is up at the end of August, the debt hanging over borrowers like the proverbial sword. Increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour has been wiped from the agenda. The crisis of affordable housing is punishing working people all over the country.

In August, pieces of the Build Back Better Act (BBB) were picked up and formed into the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a piece of compromise legislation that nonetheless partially delivers on some of Biden’s campaign promises. But the impact of this legislation on voters’ attitudes remains to be seen. It’s a pale shadow of BBB, which was already not ambitious enough. If passed, the IRA would be the biggest investment in fighting climate change ever made, and its efforts to lower prescription drug prices will be welcome news to many. But it focuses narrowly on consumer interventions like making it easier for people to buy electric cars rather than overhauling and expanding our neglected public transit systems; it provides minor incentives for companies to source emissions-free energy, but it also requires the federal government sell off more public land and water for drilling and offers tax credits to coal plants that use carbon capture technology rather than shutting them down altogether; it raises the minimum tax rate on certain corporations but fails to truly punish those responsible for the climate crisis and inflation.

Inaction on and abandonment of key campaign promises now seems to be the least of Biden and the Democrats’ worries. With inflation nearing ten percent, working people are feeling anxious and looking for someone to blame.

The Supreme Court’s recent anti-abortion decision in Dobbs v. Jackson and a fresh crop of mass shootings pushed the popular anti-Democratic sentiment back somewhat, but likely not enough to make a significant difference electorally. Besides, Democrats have largely squandered the opportunity presented by rising anger at the Supreme Court and over gun violence. Rather than move to codify abortion rights by removing the filibuster, they’ve instead used the Dobbs decision simply as a fundraising opportunity. While Congress managed to pass some modest gun control legislation in the wake of recent mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, that legislation – in its bipartisan toothlessness – fails to meet the moment.

94 percent of Democratic voters under age 30 don’t want Biden to run again.

Biden’s approval rating is staggeringly low, languishing in the low 30s, lower than Donald Trump’s approval rating at any point in his presidency. Over 70 percent of voters don’t think Biden should run for reelection, including 64 percent of Democratic voters. Biden’s level of support is even lower among Democratic voters under age 30, a whopping 94 percent of whom don’t want him to run again in 2024. There’s a slight bump in support for the Democratic Party among voters who rank issues like abortion and gun violence as their top priorities, but that support is divorced from any outlook of positive action on those issues, and such voters are a slim minority. The economy – specifically inflation – is overwhelmingly the motivating issue for voters, especially working-class voters and voters of color.

Democratic Gaslighting on the Economy

Faced with criticism on the economy, Biden and the Democrats are quick to point out that unemployment is at a historic low, that consumer spending is strong, and that gas prices are falling slowly but surely. The response, essentially, is: “the economy is fine, it’s great! What are you complaining about?” This is the kind of tone-deafness that has the Democratic Party losing support from working people, especially those at the economic edge.

Recently, the Commerce Department announced the US’s GDP has fallen for the second consecutive quarter, marking a recession. The Biden administration is desperately attempting to downplay this fact. But working people don’t need Commerce Department reports to tell them the economy is sour, recession or not. They know from everyday living, from expanding grocery bills to suffocating gas prices, to sharp rent and mortgage increases.

While Biden touts the strength of the economy, the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates in an attempt to tamp down inflation, risking further economic downturn. Such moves punish the working class first and foremost while failing to address the root causes of inflation – the capitalist class and its constant drive for profit, even (perhaps especially) in moments of crisis. But, for the Democratic Party, going after the windfall profits of the oil or pharmaceutical industries is untenable, even though it would likely prove popular with the very voters whose support they’re losing; they know where their bread is buttered. Instead, Democratic policy is to once again crush the working class, exerting downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on unemployment, a policy that will push more and more people into precarity, poverty, and homelessness.

Trump and the Republican Party

The recent mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde and the right’s culmination of decades of anti-abortion activism in the Dobbs decision may stem the Democrats’ bleeding this November. Recent polling has Democrats gaining modest ground. But the upcoming midterm elections are still the Republican Party’s to lose. Trump being the wild card that he is, a receding of the Red Wave is certainly possible.

Trump’s continued hold over the party presents a unique problem to the GOP. Like Biden, Trump’s popularity is waning, though not as precipitously. Nearly half of likely Republican primary voters do not want him to run in 2024, many of those saying they’d sit the election out if he were the nominee. The House’s January 6 hearings seem to be having a negative effect on Trump’s support. A significant minority of Republican voters appear poised to abandon Trump due to his role in the riot.

Yet Trump still has by far the largest and most dedicated base in the party. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, himself borrowing heavily from Trump, is a distant second in hypothetical primary matchups. Nearly 50 percent of likely Republican primary voters say they’d support Trump against any other candidate. Trump-backed Congressional candidates have been beating out less extreme personalities in primaries across the country, some of whom, like Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, may very well lose to their Democratic challengers. There’s also the distinct possibility Trump will announce his 2024 candidacy before November, changing the narrative terrain of the election and putting the GOP on less sure footing.

Political Ennui

It speaks volumes that two deeply disliked figures such as Biden and Trump are nonetheless poised to once again be the nominees of their respective parties in 2024. Both threaten the success of their parties this election, in different ways. Neither party has anything to offer the working class in this country. Many seem to be realizing that fact. Nearly 60 percent of people polled believe the US government is dysfunctional and in need of serious reform.

Voters across the spectrum are losing faith in elections. On the right, that loss of faith takes the form of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election pushed by Trump and his allies. On the left, it takes the form of despondency and pessimism. Self-identifying progressive Democrats are increasingly skeptical of voting after seeing Democratic politicians fail to protect abortion rights, pass meaningful gun control laws, or make serious headway in combating climate change. People under 30 are particularly disaffected, nearly 50 percent saying voting makes no difference in their lives. They’re not wrong.

Seizing the Crisis for the Socialist Movement

Flatlining support for Biden, Trump, the Supreme Court, and Congress presents an opportunity for socialists if we can organize to harness the moment. The despondency of working people in response to the crises facing them – from climbing inflation to eroding civil rights – is understandable. They see no outlet for meaningful change in their lives in either major political party. Socialists, and DSA and in particular, have a responsibility to show a way forward. That way forward must begin with distancing ourselves from the Democratic Party, with the explicit goal of forming a new party of the working class.

The upcoming DSA convention in 2023 is an opportunity to reorient ourselves toward breaking from the Democrats.

While socialists in Congress have raised DSA’s profile somewhat, they’ve been largely ineffective and often disappointing. The failure of AOC, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, and others to form a coherent bloc in the House, especially with the tight margin of control the Democratic Party has in that body, is baffling. They must do a better job of distinguishing themselves from Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic Party – for example by forming an open and bold socialist caucus.Though they all have their bright spots (Bush’s protest against lifting the eviction moratorium comes to mind), DSA electeds fail to be accountable to the organization and its platform, with Bowman’s votes on funding Israeli military efforts being the most reprehensible examples but likely not the last. The strategy of DSA members in Congress, and the predominant strategy within DSA, is one of realigning the Democratic Party. It’s a losing strategy. The alternative would be to use elected positions – even those won on the ticket of the Democratic Party – to boldly criticize the Democrats in the interest of building movements for climate justice, canceling student debt, Medicare for All, and so on.

The increasing disaffection of poor and working-class people toward the Democratic Party tells us the Democratic Party is an albatross DSA must shrug off. DSA voted to adopt a “dirty break” strategy at its 2019 national convention, but unfortunately took a step back from that strategy in 2021. The upcoming convention in 2023 is an opportunity to reorient ourselves toward breaking from the Democrats and toward forming a new party of the working class. Adopting such a strategy – and fully committing to it – can help pull DSA out of the unconfident and inward-looking haze it’s been in under the Biden presidency.

Forming such a party will be a tremendous undertaking, and it will need to include many forces outside of DSA. But DSA can begin modeling how such a party could operate and boost the confidence and size of its membership through its organizing. Electorally, DSA should identify races in which to run independent socialist candidates, up and down the ballot. The twenty-odd major cities with nonpartisan local elections are a great place to start. DSA’s national organization should support local chapters with funds and staffing to wage such campaigns, urging existing members of those chapters to democratically decide who amongst them to run in particular races and on what common platform.

A party of the working class would need to go beyond electoralism. It would need deep roots in workplaces and social movements. Helping workers organize their workplaces, intervening in social movements with clear and bold demands, and serving as a hub of community activity should be the bread and butter of such a party. DSA’s current Starbucks Solidarity work is a good example. Let’s do it with Amazon workers too.

As the right-wing assault on abortion access continues in the wake of the Dobbs decision, it’s critical that DSA increases its engagement in the burgeoning movement to defend reproductive rights. DSA’s national organization should have a plan to turn out an organized contingent of socialists to the Womens’ March’s “Weekend of Action” on October 7 to 9 in as many cities as possible, providing resources to local chapters in order to turn out and prepare their membership. Such protests will draw out radicalizing layers who are fed up with the Democratic Party and want to fight to retake, protect, and expand their rights. Armed with concrete demands for Medicare for All, ending the filibuster, and packing the Supreme Court, socialists at these protests can win those radicalizing layers over to socialist ideas and the project of building a new working-class party.

At its 2021 national convention, DSA passed a resolution to supply matching funds to local chapters wishing to rent office space and hire staff. National should go out of its way to encourage local chapters to pursue those efforts and help them fundraise. Hired staff can help chapters better focus their organizing work in ways an all-volunteer-run organization simply can’t. Paying dedicated socialists to build the socialist movement locally can boost everything from chapter communications capacity to member engagement and fundraising. Chapter office spaces can be places for staff and members to work out of, store equipment, host meetings, and should be expanded wherever possible into community centers of sorts – hubs of organizing activity, offering political education, workplace organizing workshops, social events, and more. Such spaces will be necessary building blocks for a new party of the working class.

Poor and working-class people are more and more disillusioned with Biden and Trump, with Democrats and Republicans, with our decrepit institutions in general. Without a positive option, they’ll opt out of politics altogether. By focusing on building our organizational capacity, on bold and outwardly facing socialist messaging in our campaigns, we can be that positive pole of attraction. Now is the time to intercept despairing workers and invite them to help us build a better world.