Thinking through socialist approaches to party building
I want to draw a contrast between two perspectives on party building. I wrote an article for Midwest Socialist where I tried to sketch out how coalitions can become seeds for party building.
The thrust of my article sees socialists as an integral component within the wider political eco-system. I also try to use the article to push forward ways in which socialists should use the contested spaces of coalitions as democratic opportunities to win over other sections of the eco-system to our views. All of these insights are rooted in the Chicago experience.
So it was interesting to through this NYC experience in a recent Jacobin article. I don’t know Liza Featherstone but I’d love to meet them and compare/contrast more about how the two cities have overlapped/diverged on our electoral paths.
A few observations from this article:
- I didn’t see Featherstone mention what other orgs helped get these DSA members/endorsees into office. So is DSA-NYC working alone on campaigns? If so, why (seems very odd)? Or do they work with other groups like Working Families Party, Justice Democrats, or maybe with hyper-local groups like ward/district orgs? If so, it would be great to sketch out what that collaboration has looked like.
- The article puts forward an air of hesitation around the “defund” demand. There was also only a brief mention of Bowman voting to defend the Israeli colonization of Palestine. Reading between the lines, I’m afraid that this perspective is making way for watering down socialist politics in the interest of getting socialists into office. This would be in contrast to my notion that we need to push our ideas forward.
- The frequency of communication (weekly meetings with selected) is impressive. I wonder if it is overkill or not, but impressive to have that level of coordination. Would love to read meeting minutes to have an idea of what these meetings are like, how power dynamics play out between electeds and NYC-DSA reps, attendance at the meetings, who is invited, are other groups present, etc.
Both articles are linked below:
