Democratic Socialists of America Needs a Unified Strategy
So far, the Democratic Socialists of America has mostly relied on left-wing elected officials to act in concert without a coherent program. It has worked — but staying the course is risky. To keep up the momentum, DSA needs a coordinated plan.
Democratic Socialists of America 2019 National Convention delegates vote overwhelmingly to endorse a Green New Deal priority campaign. (Courtesy of Paloma Nafarrate)
Nearly a decade has passed since Bernie Sanders announced his first presidential run and ignited a democratic socialist electoral wave that has given us Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the Squad, and democratic socialist officials at every level of government.
Since its inauguration, however, the project has grown and changed. Democratic socialists holding local and state office have continued to proliferate, whereas the movement has stumbled at the federal level. At the same time, Sanders’s cohering influence has begun to wane. And as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, the pressures faced by the socialist left are certain to intensify. The result leaves the movement at a crossroads: relying on elected officials to act in concert without Sanders’s or some other cohering program is a risky proposition, and one with a hard ceiling on the power it can build.
The need to develop a shared political and organizational program is one key reason that democratic socialist elected officials and movement leaders gathered in Philadelphia this fall for the How We Win northeast regional conference. The event, hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Fund, provided attendees the opportunity to share experiences, camaraderie, and insight. It was the forum’s second iteration, following last year’s national meeting attended by more than eighty democratic socialist elected officials and headlined by Sanders himself. New York State Senator Julia Salazar, who attended last year and helped organize the sequel, cited the “constructive and inspiring” nature of the national gathering as her motivation for ensuring that it took place again.
This year, the conference paid special attention to the relationship between elected officials and DSA as an organization. To facilitate that discussion, elected officials and their staffers were joined by representatives from DSA chapters’ Socialists in Office (SIOs), which are the DSA internal bodies tasked with coordinating between local chapters and their endorsed elected officials. The emphasis on movement and organization-building marked a sharpened focus on leveraging the institutional power won through electoral campaigns alongside the “outside” power that has more traditionally been the purview of DSA and other movement groups.
The conference also shone a spotlight on the growth of the movement. As Salazar noted, “With every election cycle we see more democratic socialists elected.” Indeed, a world in which socialist elected officials nationwide could fill a single conference venue, let alone repeated large-scale gatherings at the regional level, would have been absurd only a few years ago. According to DSA Fund chair David Duhalde, a similar gathering is planned for the Midwest next year, with additional regions to follow.
Yet no elected federal officials were in attendance, an absence that felt more notable in the wake of US representatives Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush’s recent high-profile primary losses to right-wing challengers. While the project started with Sanders’s run for president, and then swelled through AOC and the Squad’s successful congressional runs from 2018 to 2022 (with the critical backing of Justice Democrats), the center of gravity has moved to the state and local level.
Both shifts in focus — toward closer collaboration between elected officials and the rest of the movement, and away from federal office — come in response to a new political moment that is raising new questions for the elected officials and the DSA members they organize alongside. Pennsylvania state senator Nikil Saval reflected, “The context has changed,” both because years have passed since “the wave of movement activity” during which many socialists were elected, and because “the global right and the right within the Democratic Party have become more sophisticated.” Indeed, while the presidential election had not yet occurred when the conference took place, the possibility of a Trump victory was top of mind for those present.
Diverse and Diffuse
Perhaps the most stark question the movement will need to address in this changing political moment is: How can it identify and pursue a shared strategy?
Finding an answer that accommodates the wide-ranging differences across the offices and officials who comprise the movement is no easy task. The Philadelphia conference, for example, was attended by democratic socialists representing districts in major metropolitan areas like New York City, suburban districts like Plainfield, New Jersey, and less densely populated areas like Agawam, Massachusetts. Attendees represented districts ranging from politically deep blue, to purple, and even red. And some participate in defined socialist voting blocs and sophisticated SIOCs, whereas others operate as the lone left-wing representative in a hostile legislative body and without a DSA chapter to support them.
Of course, it is not hard to find similarities as well. The officials at the conference are all democratic socialists, united by a shared belief that capitalism has failed working people, and members of DSA. They accept the strategic value of contesting elections on the Democratic Party ballot line, despite their disagreements with the party itself. And in contesting those elections while carrying the mantle of democratic socialism, they are advancing a project that Sanders began.
Since Sanders’s 2016 campaign, these similarities have helped democratic socialism achieve more in the electoral arena over eight years than it had in the preceding hundred. Their unifying power allowed chapters, campaigns, groups, and individuals to respond to broadly similar national phenomena — the surge in political engagement on the Left engendered by Sanders, Trump, and then AOC, the pandemic, the George Floyd uprisings, and more — in similar ways. But they did so primarily at a local scale, and (albeit with notable exceptions) with limited coordination across campaigns and actors.
There is obvious value in this flexible approach, and the fact that it has worked so far is a testament to the cohering power of the conjuncture of the late 2010s. But a movement reliant on the inchoate energy of its members and the disorganization of its opponents will eventually taper off, as inspiration fades and capital organizes itself to fight back. The movement cannot rely on independent local action to reliably reflect a broad left-wing consensus forever.
The participants of the How We Win conference recognized the need for shared strategy to confront new and shared challenges, and the important role gatherings like How We Win play in generating that strategy. Pennsylvania representative Rick Krajewski felt reassured to learn at the conference that “many of the dynamics DSA and socialist electeds are wrestling with in Pennsylvania about this political project we’re in are not unique to us.”
Toward a Shared Strategy
Developing a shared strategy will require asking questions about political priorities (e.g., what is the minimum political agreement that DSA officials must have with each other and with DSA?), communication (e.g., how should the movement talk about itself?), and resource allocation (e.g., are certain races or legislative fights more critical than others, and if so, how can resources be directed to those fights?) that may have seemed less urgent in the past.
To find answers, the movement will require organizational infrastructure to facilitate deliberation and consensus-building. Beyond gatherings like How We Win, DSA cochair Ashik Siddique spoke to the national organization’s role in identifying where the movement possesses strengths and creating a plan to emphasize them. He noted the importance of the national organization’s leadership in the effort to “develop a five-year and longer-term program” for DSA’s electoral project.
Building a movement that is greater than the sum of its parts is a task that cannot be avoided. Without it, at best, the movement will be just a series of unconnected local projects that is no match for its opponents. At worst, those local projects may undermine each other, whether through contradictory messaging, or even direct competition for finite movement resources.
At a bare minimum, the next phase of the democratic socialist electoral project will demand regular communication among the movement’s leaders. Events like the How We Win conferences, by creating a forum for elected officials and DSA to share experiences and strategies across campaigns and geographies, address that clear need.
Of course, the fact that these conversations are happening should create no illusions that a coordinated program is just around the corner — or that anyone can know exactly what that program will entail. But even being in a position to begin developing it marks a step in the right direction.