There Is No Alternative, Let’s Build One

Reworking DSA’s Electoral Strategy

By Spencer Mann and Judith Chavarria

The working-class faces a dangerous situation this year. Joe Biden is a deeply unpopular incumbent who has failed to protect trans and abortion rights and provided billions in funding for the IDF and war in Ukraine. Donald Trump and the Republican Party are on the offensive, leveraging right-wing populism to expose the Democratic Party’s lack of positive compelling vision. Biden’s unpopularity amongst Democratic voters, obvious lack of competence, and disastrous debate performance was too much for party leadership to ignore, and they were ultimately able to convince him to not stand for re-election. This allows Democrats to superimpose a more competent face onto the same political agenda, but also opens the door for a potentially messy convention period and forced unity behind an anointed nominee, instead of one chosen through a more ‘democratic’ process.

Progressive legislators like AOC and Bernie Sanders embarked on an insider strategy by supporting Biden against mass pressure in exchange for promised policy concessions, while abandoning the oppositional politics they built a movement with. Millions of radicalizing young people are sickened by the US-backed genocide in Gaza and are desperately looking for a way to fight back while attacks on trans and abortion rights across the country have empowered a reactionary base. For a large number of working people, the presidential election has only inspired hopelessness and fear – the feeling that we are once again facing a threat much too large for us.

The response from DSA will be critical. We can either build the foundations of a credible opposition right now or fail to differentiate socialist politics from capitalism’s decline and lose ground to the far-right. What’s called for in this moment is a different approach to socialist electoral strategy than has previously been taken. It is our contention that no endorsement for Biden or other capitalist nominees, strong internal democracy and political discussion in DSA, party-like discipline and clear political standards for endorsed candidates and elections, tactical use of conditional endorsements and critical messaging, and bold campaigning on the lack of an alternative is the means by which to confront working class disorganization and build an independent socialist party. Our ability to do this will help determine not just the future of DSA, but of class struggle in the beating heart of global capitalism. This is a serious task which requires full engagement with and analysis of the roots of these crises.

How Did We Get Here?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was distinct from Bernie in that she was elected to Congress prominently as a DSA member, rather than solely with an external orientation from DSA. Having won the primary against an entrenched establishment Democrat, her political trajectory since then has shown the inescapable pressures of working for reforms within a capitalist party. By voting to break the railroad strike, endorsing Biden, voting to expand NATO and voicing support for Israel’s defense systems, her previous willingness to challenge the Democratic Party establishment has come to an end. Socialists cannot take an insider-outsider electoral strategy. This approach necessarily leads to the sacrifice of the outside (the centrality of powerful mass movements in achieving concessions) for the sake of the inside (compromise and negotiation leading to further integration into the capitalist legislature). This proximity to leadership is construed as power by opportunists and reformists, but it would be a mistake for Marxists to conceive of it that way.

Every DSA member in Congress should have refused to take part in these betrayals, but responsibility for our electoral strategy should not be individualized. It is our responsibility as an organization, as DSA, to chart a different course and hold our candidates to it. The role of DSA in the campaigns and administrations of our federally endorsed candidates was from the start, and continues to be, underdeveloped. We should have set proactive expectations such as having members on staff who would take democratic direction from the organization, direction from DSA on platforms and voting lines for legislation, and regularly scheduled meetings to discuss strategy and tactics. This is what being a tribune of the people is like – what is truly required to stand a chance against the pressures of reformism and opportunism. Even these measures do not produce sure results, but they are part of how DSA can begin to even the odds.

To pose an alternative to the opportunism of DSA’s current electoral policy, we need to run our own cadre representatives with a radically different approach in practice and not just on paper.

Major debates on our electoral strategy have pervaded DSA for the last eight years. Our association with Bernie Sanders during his two presidential campaigns gave the organization immense membership growth, clear immediate goals, national attention and a sense of hope in the rebirth of the socialist movement. The limitations of Bernie’s reformist politics, however, were present in his first campaigns and have only become more apparent, and his increasing deference to Biden has seriously disoriented DSA’s oppositional character.

To be clear, substantial positive developments in our strategy continue to be made. The debates around the 1-2-3-4 electoral resolution in NYC-DSA were crucial and informative. Around 40% of 2023 DSA Convention delegates voted for electoral red lines, a meaningful advancement. Socialist in Office Committees have been established in DSA chapters across the country. The 2024 YDSA Convention swiftly resolved to encourage DSA representative Rashida Tlaib to run for president after Biden dropped out on its final day of deliberation. It is inevitable that DSA would have to learn these lessons first by launching electoral campaigns before the political mandate for party-like structures and a cadre model was decisively ensured. Now more needs to be done. Within the ecology of DSA, direct implementation of our politics is the only means by which projects become viable. Of critical importance for any successful left electoral strategy is coordinated action from the partyist sections of DSA at the chapter level, and on the National Electoral Committee and National Political Committee. For example, partyist sections in NYC-DSA could work together to put forward a unified set of conditions for endorsed candidates, rather than providing different statements and versions of those conditions which don’t cohere around broader goals. Left caucuses must be ready to campaign together on these conditions in order to build a mass base of support. 

Majorities for political independence will only develop if there is ongoing preparation and conscious movement toward convincing and implementable party-building initiatives. Up to this point, partyist sections of DSA have claimed that these things are possible without the evidence for us to justify it. We will continue to lose without taking steps to produce this evidence. To pose an alternative to the opportunism of DSA’s current electoral policy, we need to run our own cadre representatives with a radically different approach in practice and not just on paper. Agreement on the need for a party isn’t enough, we must work together on the drafting and implementation of a plan to make it happen. Well organized, agitational electoral campaigns which positively demonstrate how a partyist approach can build the socialist movement are a precondition to developing a consistent majority in chapters and national bodies. It is the only way to begin working through the questions and strategies of party-building adequately while developing a base of leaders who can actually do these things. 

A Popular Front with Democrats Against the Right?

The moderate sections of DSA argue for a popular front which enters into passive alliances with the political center against the far-right. This strategy is totally incapable of defeating the far-right in the long term. The politics of the Democratic Party establishment and of those progressives who have fallen behind it are ultimately facilitating the rise of figures like Trump and JD Vance. As Leon Trotsky presciently wrote in “For a Workers’ United Front Against Fascism”:

If you place a ball on top of a pyramid, the slightest impact can cause it to roll down either to the left or to the right. That is the situation approaching with every hour in Germany today. There are forces which would like the ball to roll down toward the right and break the back of the working-class. There are forces which would like the ball to remain at the top. That is a utopia. The ball cannot remain at the top of the pyramid. The Communists want the ball to roll down toward the left and break the back of capitalism. But it is not enough to want; one must know how.

The present crisis is not the same as that in Germany. But it is severe enough that even the momentary victory of the center is accelerating the growth of the far-right. The Democratic Party was previously able to beat Trump, but four years later we are in a more dangerous situation for not having built an independent left. The far-right will not be held back by continuously propping up the center. Battles against the far-right are the terrain on which the working-class must come into its own. Our task is to forge a united front which puts socialist politics at the center of these battles, maintaining criticism of and independence from the Democratic Party while proving that a socialist approach is the only one which can adequately fight back against the threat of the far-right. We must be tearing away the passive and reluctant layers of support for the Democratic Party and organizing them as the base of an independent socialist party.

Congressional representatives of DSA have not been putting forward a clear socialist opposition to Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, which is necessary to accomplish our goals. Rather, by endorsing Biden and promoting the hollow, concessionary platform he is running on, they are providing cover for his failures.

After Biden’s withdrawal, nationally endorsed DSA representative Cori Bush endorsed Kamala Harris, writing that she is “more than ready to lead at this moment.” On the same day, DSA’s NPC put out a statement which claimed that “whoever the Democratic nominee is will undoubtedly fall short of what the working class deserves.” These two statements are in stark contradiction to each other, which signifies a contradiction in DSA’s electoral strategy as a whole. If there is a problem so overriding that we confront this election with no good options, it expresses the mistakes we have made in the past. It is the small choices which have led to our inability to affect the biggest ones – the basis of the crisis we face right now, which has intensified opportunist pressures on all sides, is itself the opportunist electoral policy which DSA has operated from up to this point.

DSA Needs Reasonable Red Lines

Our electoral strategy is at an impasse. Jamaal Bowman has lost his Congressional seat, and Cori Bush may as well. AOC is no longer nationally endorsed after NYC-DSA’s leadership withdrew the request when the NPC voted to endorse her with specific political conditions. DSA itself has not been able to bring members together around a mass democratic process for deliberating on its future. A new electoral strategy cannot be realized without confronting the old strategy, which has been defined by the hundreds of DSA candidates endorsed without clear expectations and a class-struggle approach. This is a daunting but necessary task, and the successful navigation of it will leave our electoral program far stronger than it has ever been.

In the present situation, conditional endorsements can be a useful tool to employ when dealing with these middle grounds. By endorsing an electoral candidate with conditions, we have the chance to outline standards which represent what DSA stands for, differentiating our politics from a progressive approach and patiently guiding masses of people through a candidate’s limitations. It is also an opportunity to begin acting like a party, centering the need for principled leadership of the advanced and radicalizing sections of the working-class. The NPC took steps in the right direction by endorsing AOC with conditions. Endorsing her uncritically would have covered over her political failures and continued a one-sided relationship, while not endorsing her at all would have obscured the potential to extract the maximum amount of political development from the situation. In addition to the conditions set by the NPC, we would have proposed one which called for the immediate withdrawal of her endorsement for Joe Biden, and opposition to endorsing any successor chosen by party leadership. This would have put the presidential election at the forefront of the discussion.

However, the NPC did not make the most of its conditional endorsement of AOC. By not holding mass forums, talking directly to the press, or explaining the reasons for these conditions in detail, an educational and generative approach was absent. The question of democracy was ceded to moderate sections of DSA by allowing Groundwork to take the lead on proposing a referendum. The left caucuses on the NPC couldn’t agree to a shared program, which allowed things to become increasingly disorganized right when collaboration was most needed. These errors were not inevitable, but to avoid them the left caucuses needed to meet regularly to clarify and work through differences. AOC has a mass base which does not yet fully understand why her approach is wrong, and this includes a majority of DSA members; this is a limitation that we must strategically break through, not attempt to circumvent.

We can’t trick people into building the alternative, nor can we force them into it; we must prove its necessity through struggle.

The educational period that DSA could have undergone from having set these conditions was ultimately cut short by the NYC-DSA leadership’s request to withdraw endorsement. It is telling that comrades on the moderate side of DSA felt that the absence of a national endorsement would have been better than a conditional one with clear political standards. Bringing difficult lessons to light is our responsibility as socialists, and we believe that their decision worked against that process. Likewise, the unconditional endorsement of Jamaal Bowman in his campaign against George Latimer and AIPAC was a missed opportunity. Without a politically engaging and member-run process, NYC-DSA leadership did not push Bowman on his previous vote to fund Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, ensuring that a longstanding debate in DSA went unaddressed. We believe that a democratic process is capable of changing the outcome of members’ decisions over time and is an important part of building DSA’s solidity. Without a principled Marxist bloc building approval for a different process alongside an independent electoral program, the outcome did not grow the strength and coherence of partyist forces. Instead, the opportunity to pressure Bowman into meaningfully building his relationship with DSA was missed. Unfortunately, it seems likely that this situation will be repeated in Cori Bush’s upcoming primary.

Socialists should take part in elections not to compromise with capitalist parties but to build an opposition to them. Building support for a socialist program that can reach tens of millions of workers and help cultivate a revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist state – this is what must guide our electoral strategy. Of course, the conditional endorsement of AOC and Jamaal Bowman would not have brought us to that point, and there will be other cases where an external, critical support endorsement is justified. But such a horizon is necessary to carry with us – through every action we take, every campaign we embark on, and every worker we talk to – if we hope to fight capitalism effectively and help bring the working class to power.

Confronting the Root of the Problem

What do these debates reveal about the 2024 elections overall?

We have significant work to do as an organization to clarify our politics and speak collectively with a unified oppositional message, but there is no time to lose. The working class is experiencing a global ecological crisis, rising costs of living and stagnating wages, endless warmongering and inter-imperialist tensions, expensive and inadequate healthcare coverage, nearly two trillion dollars of student debt, the militarization of the police and political repression, evictions and housing shortages, attacks on trans and reproductive rights, life without genuine democracy, and world-historic defeat drawn out over decades. Capitalism has proven to be remarkably resilient, but a revolutionary Marxist lens allows us to attack its weakest points. There is a deep and profound sense of betrayal that workers are holding in their hearts, and a sense of despair as the future seems to collapse right in front of us. The uncommitted campaign during the primaries was an expression of this sense, showing that the lack of an alternative in this presidential election weighs on people’s minds like a nightmare. The potential of this campaign and DSA’s engagement in it is significant, but a party-building approach is required to cultivate that potential and cohere it against the capitalist state in a far more threatening form than a protest vote in an uncontested primary.

The exploitative and alienating nature of capitalism is the root of the anxieties, questions and fears which dominate the consciousness of the working class and oppressed people. This consciousness is also affected by the fear of a second Trump presidency, but it goes much deeper than that. It is a sense that no matter what name someone checks on a ballot, nothing will fundamentally change except for the worse. Millions of people will go to the polls on November 5th – and millions will stay home. Of those who do vote, most will vote for one of two candidates with distrust and uncertainty in whatever comes next, or a tepid optimism that will be dispelled. The media’s full court press to shame people into voting for Harris (or whatever other candidate Democratic Party leaders choose) to prevent another Trump presidency will make a numerical impact, but it will not overwrite the underlying sickness.

The response from DSA will be critical. We can either build the foundations of a credible opposition right now or fail to differentiate socialist politics from capitalism’s decline and lose ground to the far-right.

This weakness is built into the political situation itself, and there is no answer which can immediately overcome it. The third-party candidates on the ballot this year are not capable of inspiring confidence in the working class. Abstentionism cannot mobilize and inspire people because it is an essentially negative response. Encouraging Rashida Tlaib to run is a start but remains insufficient without a long-term project. To meaningfully address the crisis, we need a more comprehensive and sober perspective: there is no alternative, but we can build one.

DSA must play an escalatory and transitional role in the development of a socialist party. We believe that this is possible. To grasp the root of the matter, we need a credible opposition movement built around an actionable socialist program. This program is what provides the cohesiveness of a mass campaigning approach and demonstrates the real viability of a socialist party. We must diligently and patiently guide the working-class, not just expect the class to arrive at the same conclusions as us. That is, we can’t trick people into building the alternative, nor can we force them into it; we must prove its necessity through struggle.

What’s called for is DSA elected representatives who will refuse to endorse Biden, Harris or any other capitalist nominee. Candidates who make recruiting to DSA at the doors of working people the primary goal of their campaign, who take direction from DSA on their platforms, talking points, and votes in office; that is, socialist tribunes whose political home is their DSA chapters. Representatives close to this standard do exist at the local level, but their commitment should be codified in an organization-wide policy. Chapters can organize at the local level to build confidence in DSA as an alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties, leveraging the rank-and-file strategy to break unions away from them and into open affiliation with DSA. Members of the NPC can propose resolutions for a party-like structure and argue for them in full view of the membership, passing them down to chapters in the process. We can urgently prepare for a dynamic, agitational socialist slate of federal, state, and local candidates in 2026 and 2028; in particular, we require a DSA presidential candidate who can inspire and genuinely lead people in the next election. In the event that they lose in the primary, they should do what Bernie did not and continue running as an independent in the general election, with DSA alongside them every step of the way. We are responsible for implementing our politics as members of DSA, no one else will do it for us. It’s the best way to ensure building a socialist party actually happens.

Right now, our message can be part of a mass campaigning approach to the presidential election. As we fight for Palestinian liberation, trans and abortion rights, genuine democracy and so much more, the need for a socialist party can be the throughline which connects these battles to a larger struggle. That’s what demonstrates the viability and necessity of our approach. A socialist world is possible, but we must be the ones to realize it. We stand in elections and struggle for reforms because we must strengthen the fighting power of the working-class and prepare for the revolutionary establishment of a workers’ state. This is the only means by which our movement can succeed – and we must start now.

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Portland DSA poster by Erica Thomas and Roger Peet