Put Independence Into Action

By Rosemary Dodd

On the Steps DSA can Actually Take to Build Toward Political Independence

DSA is not strong enough to launch a new democratic socialist party overnight, but if the pro-party wing of DSA can work together despite our differences, we can make significant steps forward. We need to bring a meaningful section of working-class activists with us, which starts with winning a majority within DSA for such a step. This does not mean that we should sit on our hands until the right conditions for a new party naturally arise. Within DSA, there are a number of political trends that try to give answers on how to move toward political independence. If we can successfully bring the supporters of a “dirty break,” a “clean break,” the idea of a “party surrogate,” and those who support similar ideas together, we can take some decisive steps towards political independence.

Broadly speaking, there is room in US politics opening up for a third party. Although support is down from a high of 62 percent in 2021, 56 percent of people believe the two major parties “do such a poor job that a third major party is needed”according to Gallup.  Significantly, Pew Research has found that the percent of people with an unfavorable view of both parties has spiked to 27 percent, up from just 7 percent in 2002. Of course, some of these people are coming from a right-wing perspective, but there remains significant potential for a party of the left, as demonstrated by Bernie Sanders’ two primary runs.

DSA already contains the seeds of a future party, but we need to consciously and unapologetically build the infrastructure, strategies, and political program of this future party today.

It’s no surprise that people feel dissatisfied with the two-party system: endless war, inflation, climate disaster, and the utter inability of either party of big business to pave a way forward out of precariousness and declining living standards for working-class people.

It’s time for socialists to boldly lay the foundations for a new mass workers’ party, one that can eventually organize our class to shed the despair and destruction wrought by capitalism for good. Of course, such a party will initially only appeal to a minority of workers. But with the right program, a workers’ party could grow rapidly as class struggle develops. DSA already contains the seeds of a future party, but we need to consciously and unapologetically build the infrastructure, strategies, and political program of this future party today.

A Failed Strategy

A growing number of DSA members see the need for a new party. Even elements who have historically been closer to the Democratic Party, such as the Socialist Majority Caucus, say they want a socialist party. And yet there has been little concrete movement in this direction. Why?

After the leftward shift towards political independence signaled at the 2019 convention, which passed a resolution declaring the formation of a new party as a goal, DSA found increasing electoral success winning within the Democratic Party in an inside-outside approach. This success had an impact on member consciousness. “Why,” the thinking went, “would we try to aggressively pursue independence from the Democratic Party when this strategy is working so well?” The 2021 convention, while still affirming the goal of forming a new party, rejected measures that would put that goal into practice, signaling a shift to the right.

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Measured simply in the rising number of DSA office-holders, the status quo is indeed working. Despite this, DSA’s profile is lower than it was several years ago and our growth has stagnated. There’s a growing left in DSA that recognizes that this is a problem. The recent string of high-profile missteps by our most prominent DSA members in office was a wake-up call for many members on the need for a course-correction in our electoral strategy.

From Bowman’s vote for funding the apartheid Israeli military, to all of our congressional electeds except for Rashida Tlaib voting to ban a railway workers’ strike – votes which DSA’s leadership did little to address – DSA Congressmembersall too often offer up the same policies as the rest of the Democratic Party. 

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC, illustrated this shift from outside agitator to loyal opposition in a recent piece in Politico tellingly titled, “From Agitator to Insider: The Evolution of AOC”:

“I … own that I was very critical of our party’s leadership,” she said. Though Ocasio-Cortez said her relationship with the new batch of Democratic leaders is “still evolving,” she acknowledged “a significant shift” in the dynamic with party leaders.

This cozier relationship has led to perks such as the number two spot on the House Oversight Committee. The evolution of AOC isn’t surprising – the pressures on socialists in the halls of power are massive. Not only does it take a committed member armed with robust political education to stake out an independent class approach, it also takes an organization like DSA providing a counter-pressure, supporting our electeds when they stand against the Democratic establishment, collaborating on strategy, and, yes, holding those electeds to account when they don’t live up to socialist values as laid out in our platform.

Frequently, local DSA electeds also fail to provide an adequate political alternative. Although some electeds collaborate closely with local chapters and use their position to build DSA and wider movements, this is unfortunately the exception, not the rule.

Take the New York City chapter of DSA for example. The chapter has done an admirable job building a powerful electoral apparatus, but once elected, its candidates do not always enact the will of DSA. When the chapter endorsed David Alexis for State Senate against a Democratic incumbent, NYC-DSA’s two State Senators, Julia Salazar and Jabari Brisport, refused to endorse Alexis. They prioritized not rocking the boat with their Democratic colleagues over supporting an insurgent socialist candidate.

Another Way

What it means to “build power” for the socialist movement is contested terrain. There are those in DSA who say they want a new party sometime in the distant future, but believe we need to continue our current strategy of electoral success until we’re large enough, have a big enough chunk of state power, to launch our own independent party. Furthermore, those in favor of this policy argue that since many working-class people still have illusions in the Democratic Party, differentiating ourselves too much will isolate us from the workers we’re trying to connect with. But does this actually hold true?

Certainly it’s alienating when socialists take an overly sectarian approach of denouncing Democratic politicians from the sidelines but not engaging in struggles with entities we disagree with in a misplaced desire to keep our hands clean. Struggling for trans rights, abortion, a Green New Deal, etc. will inevitably mean working with – though still putting forward our independent politics and criticizing when necessary – liberal groups and even Democratic politicians. However, the focus needs to be on building movements to enforce the necessary change. Otherwise, even so-called progressive liberals always find excuses not to support working-class issues. 

This does not mean that staking out an independent path from the Democratic Party is inherently a losing strategy. In fact, refusing to criticize the Democratic and NGO approach to, for example, abortion rights, actually makes winning abortion more difficult, not less, since it points away from a struggle-based approach.

An example from within our own ranks of how socialists can be unapologetically independent without self-marginalization is Robin Wonsley, a DSA City Council member in Minneapolis who ran as an open socialist outside of the Democratic Party. Robin is now running for a second term as one of six DSA members. She’s been the most radical, left-wing voice on the council but, via movement-building, has achieved a position of strength such that the Democratic Party has chosen not to challenge her. Clearly, sometimes running independently can strengthen the impact of socialists rather than isolate us.

Building the Foundation

It’s a false choice to say we can either prematurely launch our own party now, when most of our own members aren’t even on board with that strategy, or continue to drift closer to the Democratic Party. Although our electoral strategy is only one piece of the work DSA does, it’s critical to the way we’re seen by workers, which is why the discussion around forming a new party focuses so heavily on our electoral activity.

It’s a false choice to say we can either prematurely launch our own party now, or continue to drift closer to the Democratic Party.

There have been several chapter-level attempts to steer our electoral practice towards independence. The 1-2-3-4 proposal, introduced by Bread & Roses in NYC-DSA, would have been a concrete step forward in raising the profile of DSA and democratic socialism more broadly, as well as pointed towards a unified, democratically-decided campaign platform and coordinated action once in office. Although it failed after being opposed by all NYC DSA electeds except for Zohran Mamdani, the measure started an important debate.

Since then, the Portland and Seattle chapters have passed “ABC” resolutions, which were inspired by, but not identical to, 1-2-3-4. Critically, ABC establishes a separate category of “DSA representatives” who would be held to significantly higher standards than left-wing candidates DSA might want to endorse in order to show general support. Making the case for a socialist approach to electoral politics, the Seattle resolution reads:

As socialists we believe it is mass collective struggle from below that is the main engine for social change, not elections. We run in capitalist-dominated elections as a platform to reach a broad audience of working people to popularize our politics, encourage mass struggle, raise the profile of DSA, and recruit to DSA.

Such an approach to electoral politics is impossible if we continue to maintain a cozy relationship with the Democratic Party.

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Toward a Party-Like Electoral Strategy

Reform & Revolution and Marxist Unity Group have co-written an amendment, presented to the National Convention of DSA in August, “Towards a Party-Like Electoral Strategy,”  that attempts to unite members who are serious about moving towards a new party, whether they support the clean break, dirty break, or party surrogate model.

While leaving open the possibility of running tactically on the Democratic ballot line, it reaffirms the goal “that DSA and its local chapters remain committed to the project of building a working-class party: a mass democratic political organization capable of winning and wielding state power with a strategy for social transformation.”

It also contains key action items. Like the Portland and Seattle resolutions, the amendment creates a special category of candidate, DSA representative, that will, among other things: identify prominently as a democratic socialist running against the Democratic Party establishment; form socialist caucuses with other DSA electeds; meet regularly with DSA leadership; and refuse to vote for measures that would prevent strikes, strengthen the police, or provide military funding to US client states such as Israel.

This resolution cuts across the terminology, allowing those in DSA who are serious about creating a politically independent, campaigning organization we know is necessary to liberate the working class from capitalist exploitation. 

Moderate elements in DSA will inevitably argue that the provisions in this resolution go “too far,” but in reality, nothing in this resolution stops DSA from tactically choosing to run candidates on the Democratic Party ballot line or endorsing left-wing candidates that do not fall under the category of DSA representative. These are modest, actionable steps that nonetheless can shake DSA out of its dead end trailing of the Democrats.

To win the majority of DSA and a significant chunk of the working class to a new party, we need to prove the viability of independent action. This resolution points DSA in a fresh, independent direction that can reverse our organizational stagnation, help us use electoral politics to build movements, and lay the foundation for a new socialist party.

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What Kind of Party?

Winning reforms and ultimately a socialist transformation of society requires our class to be organized, and the best vehicle for that organization is a party. Such a mass, working-class party wouldn’t simply be an electoral apparatus – it would also be rooted in all types of struggle: labor, environmental, and anti-oppression.

To win socialist change, a mass party would need to be armed with a Marxist program. This wouldn’t be automatic, but through participating in struggles and testing out ideas in practice, socialists would have the opportunity to win people over to our politics. Unlike the bourgeois parties, a working-class party would need to be membership-based, with bottom-up democracy and a robust culture of debate.

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War of Words

Clean break, dirty break, party surrogate, realignment – what does it all mean? As the debate about a new party has evolved, some of the terms that describe different positions have gotten muddy.

Party Surrogate: Invisible-Party-Within-a-Party

The party surrogate model was developed as an alternative to launching our own party – due to the restrictive laws in the US, we should build the infrastructure of a party while running on the Democratic ballot line indefinitely. It asserts DSA can be a party in all but name. 

This approach has some benefits, at least if implemented: it calls for having a binding program and a member-driven structure. 

However, by giving up the idea of forming and promoting our own party, it tacitly accepts being part or at least being seen as part of the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future. 

Despite good intentions, this policy in practice has led to an ideological drift that now sees DSA closer to the Democrats than it was previously. Despite the flaws in this model, some of the concrete steps necessary to build DSA into a party surrogate could also help lay the foundation for a new party. 

Clean Break: Taking People With Us Doesn’t Matter

The “clean break,” or the idea that DSA needs to completely disassociate itself from the Democratic Party immediately, takes the opposite approach: no serious socialist organization should be involved with the Democratic Party. 

The proponents of the clean break are correct that the Democratic Party is a dead end and that we must pursue a mass workers’ party as rapidly as possible. However, taking an overly rigid, non-tactical approach to breaking with the Democrats runs the risk of putting a viable mass party further from our grasp by not winning over key sectors of workers and even DSA members. For example, there are cases where it still makes sense to tactically use the Democratic ballot line, or engage with campaigns such as that of Bernie Sanders that push the socialist movement forward.

Dirty Break: Building Towards Independence

The “dirty break” was first developed in 2017 by Bread & Roses member Eric Blanc, who has since distanced himself from the position. The dirty break means building forces for an independent party while tactically running on the Democratic ballot line and seeking to take real steps toward political independence.

Unfortunately, many proponents of the dirty break have not advocated for steps that would actually lay the foundation for a new party and instead have supported candidates who are only interested in reforming – or “realigning” – the Democratic Party. While the dirty break is still a useful concept that most closely aligns with Reform & Revolution’s position, words alone aren’t enough: it’s more important to organize around concrete steps DSA can take to win political independence, and these concrete steps could appeal to members who identify with a variety of strategies.