Below we publish an article and a response to the proposals put forward in this article on how DSA and the left should approach the 2024 elections.

Facing a Biden-Trump Race: How to Build Toward Independence?

By Philip Locker and Stephan Kimmerle

Let’s Promote a Democratic Socialist Party 

Joe Biden has overseen a nakedly imperialist agenda of supporting Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, bombing Yemen, waging a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, NATO expansion, a criminal increase in the Pentagon budget, and a growing conflict with China. Here at home, Biden has failed to deliver for working people who are increasingly dissatisfied with his policies. 

Our primary objective intervening in the 2024 presidential election should be to promote socialist policies and build support among working people that we need our own political party as an alternative to both far-right Republicans and Wall Street Democrats. 

However, the main sentiment on the left of DSA is to ignore the presidential election given there are no good options. We disagree. 

No Endorsement for Biden

While DSA is not yet strong enough to simply launch a new party, it absolutely can politically make the case for a mass workers party (just like we do for Medicare for All or our larger vision of democratic socialism). The best way to advance that this year is by building DSA into a larger and politically stronger party-like activist organization.

However, there will be no avoiding in labor and social movements, as well as in discussions with our families, friends, and co-workers, the upcoming presidential election. It will be at the very center of US politics this year. It already is. 

Almost all unions and progressive leaders have, or soon will, endorse Joe Biden and will actively campaign for him. DSA should not be silent about this bankrupt policy. Instead, we should publicly announce we will not be endorsing Biden. Our position needs to be crystal clear: Biden and the Democratic Party do not represent us – they are ruling in the interests of US capitalism and imperialism. 

This message needs to be amplified by DSA’s highest profile public representatives, DSA members elected to Congress, state houses, and local offices. We also need to raise this in our unions, opposing the union bureaucracies class collaborationist policy of endorsing and spending hundreds of millions of dollars promoting Biden as a “friend of labor.” 

DSA can stand out and grow this year by confidently making the case that working people are politically disenfranchised by the corporate Democrats and right-wing Republicans, and that we are fighting to build a political alternative that actually represents the 99%.

What about Trump?

While starting from a position of political independence from Biden, there is clearly another dimension of this election that needs to be factored into our position: Donald Trump. Tens of millions of working and oppressed people’s central concern will be making sure Trump is defeated. 

They correctly recognize that Trump represents the biggest threat in this election. A second Trump term is likely to have a more right-wing character than even his first. Much of Trump’s more radical policies were obstructed by the Republican establishment and the deep state in his first term. January 6 represented a turning point, with Trump now even more independent from the GOP elites. All signs point to Trump installing a more loyal and battle tested administration that will fight to implement his policies.

Trump is preparing the ground to unleash a ferocious campaign of police-state terror against millions of undocumented immigrants. He will overturn the less hostile  policies of Biden’s NLRB toward worker organizing. There will be stepped up assaults on abortion and LGBT+ rights. Fossil fuel production will be further unleashed. Police will be even less restrained with a more aggressive law-and-order agenda promoted. Trump’s right-wing rhetoric creates a favorable political climate for far-right forces to spread their poison of racism, sexism, xenophobia, and attacks on LGBT+ people.

What should DSA say about these fears? It damages our credibility, and more importantly is simply untrue, to claim that workers have no stake in the outcome of this presidential race.

Our emphasis needs to be on building powerful mass movements that directly protest against Trump while also building a broader fight back against big business. 

But what about who to vote for in November? If we want to actually engage in mass politics, for example in our unions, we need to take into account that despite not having love for Biden, millions of working-class people will vote for him to avoid the greater evil of Trump.

DSA’s criticism of Biden and the corporate Democrats will be more powerful if it truly resonates with people’s experience. We do not have to deny the differences between Biden and Trump, between a poison that is slowly killing us (Biden) versus the more urgent danger of an unleashed maniac with a finger on the US nuclear arsenal (Trump).

1) Who to Vote for in the Presidential Election?

DSA should argue that it is reasonable to try to avoid Trump, but that this needs to be linked to a strategy to overcome the big business domination of politics altogether. In the approximately 40 “safe states” where the winner will undoubtedly be Biden or Trump, we should call for a vote for the strongest left challenger while expressing sympathy for everyone voting for Biden to stop Trump. 

In “swing states” – around 10 states that are actually contested – we should urge DSA members and left-wing voters to vote for Biden to block Trump, but with no endorsement of Biden, nor any false promotion of Biden being “on our side.” While calling for a tactical vote to stop Trump in these swing states, our message should remain clearly oppositional towards Biden. In all 50 states our emphasis should be for workers and youth to get organized, join DSA, and build working class movements and organizations.

Is this too complicated? Actually, we believe that the overwhelming sentiment among progressive workers and oppressed people will be to vote for Biden as the best way to stop Trump – without much hope in Biden. Acknowledging this, and recognizing the reality that Trump is the greater evil, helps us to fight back against unions and elected socialists prettifying Biden and the Democratic Party. 

DSA Congressmembers need to clearly separate themselves politically from Biden, which is most clearly summed up by refusing to endorse him. Demanding they do this without denying the need to also engage in the battle to defeat Trump (building movements in the streets and urging a vote for Biden in the swing states), offers them a fighting chance to avoid being cut off from a major part of their base without falling into opportunism.

And in the approximately 40 “safe states, there is no reason why DSA and our Congressmembers should not promote a vote for the strongest left-party challenger for president. A clear stance for a tactical vote against Trump in swing states allows us to have a much more forceful intervention in safe states in labor and toward our elected officials, and will much better resonate with a political call in all states to promote building a future working-class party by joining DSA today. 

For example, last year AOC announced she was endorsing Joe Biden in largely positive terms. DSA should push for AOC to change course by publicly withdrawing her endorsement of Biden while still expressing sympathy with all people who will vote for him to avoid Trump. She should urge her supporters in New York (a safe state) to vote for the strongest left challenger, and most of all, to join DSA so we can build a political alternative to avoid being stuck in this mess in future elections.

Unfortunately it appears likely that there will not be a dynamic left-wing presidential campaign this year. Cornel West’s campaign had real potential, but it has been very poorly run and undermined by a series of tactical mistakes. We might be left with a relatively insignificant choice between Cornel West, Jill Stein from the Green Party, and Claudia De la Cruz from the PSL as left wing candidates. Still, DSA’s main aim should be to engage in the mass discussions around the presidential elections and empower activists in labor and social movements with a position that takes the fears about Trump seriously without promoting illusions in Biden and the Democrats.

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Against Ultra-leftism and Opportunism

This position is not the default in DSA. Many activists in DSA separate expressing their radical views from seriously fighting to win the working class to socialist politics on the actual terrain that workers are engaging with. 

However, if we are serious about building a mass party, that is the challenge. How to win majorities for our positions in our unions? How to put pressure on the Squad and others to promote independent working class politics? Trying to ignore the number one political discussion of working-class people means in practice to let them – the Squad and labor – off the hook with their opportunism toward Biden. 

There is a peaceful coexistence between a more radical, communist sentiment in DSA which ignores the presidential election and a more reformist section of DSA who goes along with our elected representatives endorsing Biden. A central task for Marxists is to break up and ideologically defeat this false approach. 

We need a serious orientation to mass politics (as opposed to radical rhetoric and policies that are disconnected from an orientation to mass struggle), carried out on principled socialist lines (in contrast with an opportunist policy of taking the line of least resistance, promoting the immediate goals of the movement while losing sight of the overall objective interests of the working class). 

DSA – especially the new left-wing majority on its national leadership (Red Star, Marxist Unity Group, Bread & Roses, and two anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist independents) – giving a free pass to AOC and other DSA representatives endorsing Biden is in effect, regardless of intentions, a nakedly opportunist policy. Radical rhetoric about communism, revolution, anti-imperialism or anti-Zionism does not alter its opportunist character.

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2) Down Ballot Races

Reform & Revolution has never shied away from criticizing our elected officials. However, we also recognize the advantages of having comrades like Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, and AOC in Congress to stand up against the war on Gaza. 

Super PACs like Democratic Majority for Israel are spending fortunes to unseat Left representatives this year. DSA does not have to stop its criticism of their weaknesses to go all in to defend them – while promoting our socialist policies.

Down-ballot, our priority should be to run candidates who openly promote socialism, recruit to DSA, and act as accountable representatives of DSA in their campaign and when elected.

3) Ballot Initiatives

There will be a number of ballot initiatives on the state and local levels. Democrats and major feminist organizations often use these campaigns to just “Get Out the Vote”. However, these campaigns also reflect real aspirations to defend and expand reproductive rights or other positive reforms – and DSA has shown in previous campaigns in Kentucky, Ohio, and elsewhere how to use them to organize working-class people and raise expectations beyond what the Democrats are prepared to offer.

Local ballot measures, such as the renters rights initiative in Tacoma in 2023, have shown the potential to intervene in elections and build socialist consciousness.

4) A Socialist Manifesto 

To connect the dots DSA needs to develop a program, a kind of election manifesto, of what democratic socialists are fighting for and how all of the candidates and ballot initiatives we support are linked to building the socialist movement. 

It should promote transformative demands like ending all military aid to Israel, slashing the Pentagon budget, Medicare for All (including reproductive healthcare), a Green New Deal, a $15 minimum wage nationally, and canceling student debt to a fundamental opposition to capitalism. It needs to hammer home how these elections demonstrate how corrupt and broken the Republican and Democratic parties are, and that working people need to organize our own political party to represent ourselves. 

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The Counter-Argument:

There is No Choice – And We Can’t Fake It

By Sarah Milner and Ruy Martinez

A Response to the “Safe State Strategy”

DSA faces a difficult situation in the 2024 election. The two major parties are suffering a clear crisis of legitimacy, forced to rely on two unpopular candidates. But the left lacks solid alternatives. We overwhelmingly agree with the comrades – the best response for DSA is to hit the situation head on, with material, messaging, and a dynamic campaigning approach that ties together a national strategy and chapter-level action. 

However, there is one major disagreement we wish to highlight. The ‘safe-state strategy’ of calling for a vote for Joe Biden in swing states, and a left alternative in safe states, is not a strong message for DSA to campaign on. While the strategy tries to address real issues – people’s fears about Donald Trump, the weaknesses of various third parties, the complicated frustration around voting – it misses the mark as a leading demand for three reasons. 

First, by hamfistedly trying to appeal both to people that plan to vote for Joe Biden and those who would never vote for him at the same time. It will confuse both and connect to neither.

Second, by seemingly endorsing Biden and third parties, it simultaneously comes across as opportunist and ultra-leftist. 

Third, it overestimates the number of people who will actually be recruited from third party presidential campaigns, which have historically not proven a good base for building DSA. 

A more effective campaigning message for DSA would be one which acknowledges the poor situation of the left in presidential politics and confronts it directly. There is no left alternative to Joe Biden that actually seems viable, or even respectable to people, because the organizational structures of third parties are inadequate to the task and have been for decades. 

Our presidential campaign should be based on a strong, clear, concise platform from the For Our Rights Committee that lays out an alternative set of positions. We should tell voters that a third party vote or a vote against Trump are both understandable given the basic problem is the lack of a developed alternative. Practically, this means articulating a position of no endorsement for Joe Biden. 

But most importantly, we should articulate that, in the long-term, the only solution is to actually build socialist organizations like DSA, so we don’t have to make a choice like this in 2028. The only way to build that alternative is by joining DSA and strengthening its political intervention. In this way, we actually connect to people’s despair and frustration, instead of trying to engineer a solution for 2024.