RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 280 William Lawrence Considers Current DSA Divisions and Possible Solutions
Ep 280 of RevolutionZ has as guest William Lawrence, cofounder of the Sunrise Movement, housing organizer, DSA member, and much mor, to discuss the inner workings and ideological conflicts within the Democratic Socialists of America. Should DSA work within the Democratic Party to expand progressive representation, or should it cut ties completely and forge a new path without electoral emphasis? What existing structural features exacerbate factionalism? What new features might prevent ideological conflict from overshadowing policy discourse, or vice vers?. Reform or revolution--or both? Biden or Never Biden--or both?
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. Our guest today is William Lawrence. William is an organizer and a social movement strategist from Lansing, michigan. He is a member of the Greater Lansing DSA and the coordinator of the Michigan Rent is Too Damn High Coalition or clever name which is fighting for rent control, tenant rights and social housing in Michigan. He was previously a co-founder of Sunrise Movement, the youth climate organization that put the Green New Deal on the national political agenda. He is the host of Hegemonicon I hope I pronounced that right podcast at Convergence Magazine and catching my attention in particular and leading to his being with us today. About one month ago I think it might even be one month ago today he published an essay titled Conflict Could Upend DSA's Big Tent or Steady it on ZNET, in which he discussed certain divisions within DSA and, more generally, ideas bearing on divisions in any political project and how to deal with them. So, william, welcome to Revolution Z.
Speaker 2:Thank you, michael, it's a real pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:I hope we can talk about what kinds of differences exist within DSA that are threatening to damage or to enhance it, and about what kinds of differences exist within DSA that are threatening to damage or to enhance it, and about what kinds of steps you think could be taken by DSA and by organizations, campaigns or movements more generally to deal with such differences, and then, perhaps on a larger scale, about how to have a movement of movements that includes differences yet has autonomy for each part and solidarity overall. So first can you initially, for those who may not know, just briefly indicate what DSA is and its size and current focuses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dsa is the Democratic Socialists of America.
Speaker 2:It's a grassroots membership organization with somewhere around 70,000 members in the United States.
Speaker 2:I think that makes it one of the largest democratic membership organizations maybe the largest democratic membership organization on the US left outside of the labor movement organization on the US left outside of the labor movement. And you know, I've been a member since 2018. My main work has been in the climate movement and, as you mentioned, my main political work was in the climate movement with Sunrise Movement and then now I do tenant organizing. But you know there's a lot of folks like me who do a variety of political work and mass work of various kinds that are also rank and file members of DSA, and that's one of the really cool things about it is that anybody can join. You get a vote in your local chapter. The chapters vote at the national convention, and this means that you know there's interesting political dialogues that surface in the open in DSA that often are, I think, pushed under the surface or avoided altogether in other types of social movement organizations views that now threaten DSA's unity, or maybe to strengthen DSA's solidity.
Speaker 1:But what are the issues that are on the table, so to speak?
Speaker 2:I think a history of the recent growth of DSA was that Bernie Sanders campaigned in 2016, calling himself a democratic socialist. Bernie Sanders campaigned in 2016 calling himself a democratic socialist. The Democratic Socialists of America was an organization that existed and it also happened to have this open membership structure that people could join. So it was a case of having, you know, kind of being in the right place at the right time, but also being prepared to absorb a lot of that energy by virtue of the membership structure. And then there was another big so DSA went from, I think, somewhere around 5,000 members to tens of thousands of members following the Bernie campaign in 2016, and then experienced another big surge when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a DSA member, was, you know, elected to Congress in the summer of 2018. And that's when I that's when I joined was when AOC won. I said, you know, I got to get, I got to be a part of this. And so then, since then and there are have been people from a variety of tendencies on the left, ranging from revolutionary communists to, you know, reformist social Democrats, who are members of DSA. And I'd say the big conflict, to dramatically oversimplify it, you know, is between people who want to kind of continue in the spirit of the Bernie moment, where we're seeking to win elections on the Democratic primary line, to expand the squad, to wage campaigns at the grassroots but then translate that power through a block of electeds who are within the Democratic Party but also are accountable and independent of it by virtue of being members of DSA and other social movement organizations. People who think that we've hit on a good thing with all of that and we need to continue to take the lessons from that, do it better, make the squad more disciplined, expand the squad, put up probably another Bernie-like presidential candidate in the future and then use that, plus the campaigning on the outside, to grow the grassroots membership. That would be one poll. Then on the other poll is people who think that that moment is over.
Speaker 2:Maybe some would say, well, bernie was good for that moment in time, but now that moment is past, people have come to see that the Democratic Party is a dead end. They see much more cooptation occurring from members of the squad than they see independent political action and they argue for a hard break from the Democrats. We should disassociate from them entirely. Maybe we should go some sort of third party road, or maybe people would have a non-electoralist view entirely. They'd say we need to have some sort of independent grassroots working class power and we should be angling towards an out and out revolution in the United States on a shorter rather than longer timeframe. Of course this is dramatically oversimplifying it. There's a lot of nuances within those positions, but I would say it's kind of a classic revolution versus reform kind of divide that is at work in DSA and DSA.
Speaker 1:I wonder, you know, of course, like you say at the end, this is not new.
Speaker 1:This is a frequent situation on the left and I wonder what you think about. Call it oversimplified, call it almost a trivially obvious solution to the reform versus revolution division. So would anyone on what we'll call the reform side, or the social democratic side, or the electoral involvement side, say that to achieve transformed economic, gender, cultural, political institutions in the US would be a bad thing? In other words, would anyone on their side say that? And then would anyone on the let's call it the revolution side say that to end a war or win the recent General Motors strike or win a United Auto Workers strike, or win a ceasefire, or win gains for women or minorities, et cetera, et cetera, would that be a bad thing? To win those things now, no. And if neither side would say that, why wouldn't there be unity around seeking reforms but not being reformist and seeking fundamental change, but in part by winning a trajectory of reforms in non-reformist ways? I mean, why isn't that the sort of obvious solution to this tension? Maybe not all tensions, but this one.
Speaker 2:I think it's partly about what people mean by political independence and what is the path towards reaching some sort of revolutionary or transformational outcome? I think in the incentives of the political system such as it is. If you're seeking reforms, you're going to get drawn into dealing with the two-party system. If you want to establish a block in a legislature at a state level or a federal level, you're going to have to run on the Democratic Party line. That's just facts. Maybe one out of 100 times you may be able to find some sort of local contingency that allows you to be elected as an independent or third party, but the two-party system is a matter of mathematics and game theory.
Speaker 2:The spoiler effect is real and the path for people on the left to get into elected office is on the Democratic Party ballot line, and so the people who are the reformers they embrace that.
Speaker 2:They say okay, well, that's just how it is, and the key is to build independent infrastructure that is independent of the Democratic Party apparatus, the DNCC and the DCCC and so forth, so that we can continue to elect these people, regardless of if they don't have any support from any of the quote unquote Democratic Party apparatus, because the ballot line is different from the party infrastructure, of course, but I think the people who are the ones who support a hard break from the Democrats they think that they have a conjecture that people are fed up with the two party system and any association with it is delegitimizing. So if you call yourself a Democrat to run on the Democratic primary line and you're also a DSA member, that dilutes the brand of DSA, I think, is the argument there and it confuses the matter. So better to be fully against in name and in deed and not risk any compromising association with the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1:Okay, I can understand that intellectually. Let's set aside for a minute debating the relative merits. So you have this tension. You have an organization with 70,000 people in it and there's some who feel one way and some who feel the other way, and it sounds like the real tension is operating in some degree at all within the Democratic Party or in the context of the Democratic Party, versus saying the Democratic Party is garbage, we are not the Democratic Party, don't confuse us.
Speaker 1:For the Democratic Party, we want revolution, not the kinds of nonsense that the Democratic Okay. So, without even debating that point, I still don't see why an organization couldn't say and wouldn't think it made sense to say, and wouldn't think it made sense to say if you believe that it makes sense to pursue a block in the Democratic Party and reforms, but in a way that is constantly talking about building toward a transformed future and even describes that future and even talks about later, right, if you believe that, pursue that. And if we others believe that we should operate with no attachment at all and with no connection at all, et cetera, et cetera, we'll pursue that and over time we'll either discover that the former can do the former and still believe in the latter and the latter can do the latter and still believe in the former, or we'll discover that there is a real divide, but we'll discover which side works.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And you know, that just seems so much more obvious than getting into a mode where each side is viewing the other as an enemy in some sense. I agree, I agree.
Speaker 2:They're fighting over the camps, are fighting over the brand identity of DSA because each feel maybe more attached to their own vision of what it ought to represent than the idea that the big tent is valuable. So people who are on the reform side say some would say that these loony leftists, they're making us look bad. And some on the other side would say these fucking reform hacks are making us look bad and therefore we can't build with the people that we want to build with. And I mean, I see people making these arguments all the time online and I don't think that anyway, I disagree with that, but I do think that that's the direction it's headed.
Speaker 1:Is there any evidence for either claim? That is to say that by supporting AOC or Bernie Sanders, we are diminishing our audience, we are confusing our name and on the other side, their claim. I don't see any evidence for either claim. But beyond that, wouldn't the thing that would clarify be if DSA said but this is what we're for. We're disagreeing about strategy and tactics, but we agree about transformed economy, transformed kinship, et cetera, et cetera, and we're just debating or we have different views about how to get there. And the way to test those is to see what works.
Speaker 2:Michael, you're making a lot of sense. You're really making a lot of sense. You're really making a lot of sense. But there are claims, some of the claims that have been made, for instance from the. So sometimes this revolutionary or reform side gets described as the DSA left versus the DSA right. Of course, people hate all of these labels. There's not been a satisfactory label that anybody has come up with, but the quote unquote DSA left prosecuted a you know.
Speaker 2:really a vendetta or an attempt to push Jamal Bowman, Representative Jamal Bowman, out of the organization in 2022 because he voted for the Iron Dome and had a you know, ambiguous politic on his support for Palestine and really he was working through it Now. I mean I would just note that he's been strong in support of a ceasefire. He's been at the Columbia encampment in the last week. He's being challenged by AIPAC with a very sturdy primary challenge because of how pro-Palestine he has been.
Speaker 2:Representative Bowman, but nevertheless that wasn't good enough for the DSA left and they said this is going to damage our ability to build in solidarity with Palestinian movement organizations. So that's the kind of claim that was made in that case and ultimately they drove Bowman out of the organization. He wasn't expelled by DSA but, um, but he, he, he basically did enough yeah. He had enough and he said I'm not kidding, yeah, what is this worth?
Speaker 1:Right, well, but now it's been two years and, as you describe his activity, neither was it co-opted nor did it repel people, much less people outside DSA, who wouldn't even notice, right, so does anybody-.
Speaker 2:And in fact, it was the people who were making an issue out of it who were the ones saying DSA is weak on Palestine, dsa is Well if you're saying that I mean, rather than engaging in political struggle in a way that is relational and is about bringing people along.
Speaker 2:Instead, they're campaigning against the organization by saying that our nefarious opponents inside the organization are the ones who are not sufficiently pro-Palestine. And did you hear that DSA is weak on Palestine? Well, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of your ability to build. Similarly, I would argue that the quote-unquote DSA right is doing something similar now, although I have more sympathies on that side, to be transparent, but in terms of the negotiations with the staff union, where you can't open Twitter without seeing somebody from the DSA right saying, basically, dsa is anti-union, dsa is anti-union, dsa is anti-union and it's like so this is the really negative aspect of the internal.
Speaker 2:You lost me there, I'm sorry, I'm flying way over these, these debates and that one I didn't understand at all.
Speaker 1:So the DSA right now by DSA right.
Speaker 2:I mean the reformers.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's you know, yeah, and not reformist seeking reforms how many? Of them would say the only thing we want is a higher way.
Speaker 1:Very few right and how many of the of the left side or the revolutionary side which makes no sense also would say well, we don't want a ceasefire because that's reformist, Zero, right. I mean, I'd like to see somebody say that in public and claim to be you know. So it feels to me, and you tell me if this is just off the wall because I'm not in there, but it feels to me like it has more to do with almost tribal identification than it has to do with actually taking issues seriously.
Speaker 2:Yes, this is something I've heard from people who are a bit more in the thick of it than I am. I've heard from people who are a bit more in the thick of it than I am, I've heard the assessment that there's a structural issue, which is that there's no forum for strategic dialogue or political education within the organization at a national level other than the ideological political caucuses which are the main partisans of these debates. Now, I think the caucuses are very interesting and I think are potentially positive in DSA, because they create a center of gravity around which people can develop their positions and then give voice to different political tendencies within the organization.
Speaker 2:But, that's really all there is. If you're looking to get involved and have a voice in national DSA politics is to get involved in a caucus, and then the caucuses basically duke it out at the convention and on the National Political Committee, which is the national leadership body, and there's no real space for cross-tendency dialogue and it becomes a sort of zero-sum conflict. And then it does become about that tribalism thing. It's about who you know and who's going to have your back, who your friends are. The path to political power in the organization becomes attached to your discipline or identification with the caucus and it becomes I think, it's difficult to cut across that.
Speaker 1:Are there, just as an example, are there I don't know what to say essays, presentations that are discussed and debated, in which ideas are put forth. So, in other words, is there something that puts forth a let's call it a Bernie position to stop using labels, and is there something that puts forth well, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Linen position is what they would say.
Speaker 1:Really Uh-oh.
Speaker 2:Or they would say you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a whole different situation. See for me, what does revolutionary mean? Revolutionary means you want to change the fundamental relations in society. Now you might be narrow-minded and you only want to change the economy or ownership relations, and you might be living in the 21st century and mean that you want to change the economy and the political system and culture, and so on and so forth. Revolutionary doesn't mean or shouldn't mean, I subscribe to this or that very particular form of organization or tactical commitment, or et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, that's contingent on circumstances. A lot of these positions on the.
Speaker 2:You know some would say Lenin. You know, some would say Lenin. I think others would say there's a tendency that is prevalent that people refer to as the neo-Kautskyites after Kautsky, who was a German socialist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I apologize for laughing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No, I'm not, and I can't claim to be really into the Leninology and Marxology, so this is where I get out of my depth as well. But unfortunately, in my opinion, a lot of this is coming from the quote. Unquote DSA left ends up becoming positions from the 1900s through 1920s that then kind of get projected onto people's ideas of what their positions are now, and so it's not always a storm, the winter palace Leninist vision, but it is a sort of like aggressive version of the democratic road to socialism through. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I could see it on both sides, that is, I could imagine. On, the reforms are valuable. We should try to win them in a way that leads to a better future. On that side, I could see people saying it's Michael Harrington or it's Bernie Sanders, and he's our man and don't violate what seems to flow from his identity. And then on the other side, like you say, I could see that as being Lenin or Trotsky or what have you.
Speaker 2:I'll just note as an aside that the number of true Harringtonians, I think, is pretty small these days, and people even on the Bernie side are kind of eager to distance themselves. I mean, look no further than the issue around Israel-Palestine would be one of many cases where people would be eager to distance themselves from Harrington.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and I just want to say because my sympathies in practice are with the social Democrats, the reformers, whatever you want to call it, and I'm a Green New Deal guy I worked on the Green New Deal when I was in Sunrise and that's been one of the major issues of that wing of DSA as well, and so I'm very much with that in practice. I do think the critique that I hear coming from the other wing that I don't know is always heard or received by the reformers and DSA is like I hear the question being how are we not just going to speed run the 20th century and redo a sort of new deal, social democracy in the United States that may rebuild the US middle class but will be built on the back of a new, another century of American imperialism abroad?
Speaker 2:And I think that's a very fair question, and I don't think that there's always been. I don't think that there's a great answer. I don't think anybody has a great answer of like exactly what that will look like, but it's something we have to discover?
Speaker 1:Sure, but in the same way that you don't want to rebuild that, you probably don't want to go back to the 20th century or the 19th century or the 18th century to look for a solution. And a solution isn't another. You know, it drives me crazy, you know, and but you see, I think that one of the things that you're doing, um, when describe, I mean, I don't, I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but when, if they describe themselves right, as social Democrats or as reformers, then I can understand the split emerging and diverging, because the the who you're calling the left, I would then be on the left. I would then say, well, wait a minute, I'm for a whole new kind of economy which changes everything. Changes not only ownership relations but the division of labor and allocation and so on and so forth, and I'm for a new kind of country and so on and so forth, and those fundamental changes are revolutionary. So I consider myself advocating a revolution. And if you're telling me, right, joe, if you're telling me I think it's fine to just reform things, it's fine to accept the basic structure but ameliorate the pain, then we have a.
Speaker 1:You know, that's a substantial difference. It's not obvious that you can do day-to-day practice together. In some sense, in fact, I could. You know, I wouldn't have any problem doing day-to-day practice together, but I wouldn't give up what I was supporting. Yeah, on a tactical rather than a strategic level. Does that side say to the other side okay, what's your alternative economy? What's your alternative culture? What's your alternative kinship? I get that you like these structures from the past, but what are you fighting for? Do they say that?
Speaker 2:And if they do say that to the left side, where does the left side respond? They've been the ones who really place a premium on practice and on organizing and on campaigning out in the world, and that's their sort of like, that's what they value and that's their, that's how they, you know, consider themselves to be strategic and virtuous is, and they'll tell you about their success at organizing, about the campaigns they won, about the people they've elected from people who, frankly, value analysis and critique more than they value organizing to win things in the here and now. And everyone believes, of course, theoretically haven't quite heard that organized like ideological line of questioning or critique coming from the right back across to the left. I think in large part because they've been catching up to the fact that they're actually fighting for their lives in this organization and and a lot of them are really busy with waging campaigns on a daily basis and most of these people are volunteers.
Speaker 1:Let me ask another. The flip side of that question Does the left say to the right look, we get what you're doing, we get that you're doing, that, you're good at what you're doing, but does what you're doing lead to going home after you win? In other words, does it lead any place further? And if it does, where and how do you know? Let's say, you're fighting for a higher minimum wage or a shorter work week, which would be really very good. Do you fight for that in a way that causes that, attempts to cause people to seek more after, or do you fight for that in a way that is like an end in itself and you want it and you celebrate and you go home?
Speaker 1:And that would be a fair question from the left to ask to the right.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking of an article that I read that I think did frame that pretty well. It was written by some organizers DSA members in New York, largely in the context of tenant organizing happening in New York City and then playing out in Albany at the state level, and it was a critique of what they dubbed the policy feedback theory, which is that you wage campaigns, you win policy and then the policy necessarily redounds into more working class power broadly and more organizational power specifically, which is the theory often you hear coming from the reformers and I've bought that myself. But this article was asking is that actually playing out and can we evaluate if that's playing out and what are the conditions under which that would play out? And let's not just simply assume.
Speaker 1:What do you have to be saying while you're organizing?
Speaker 2:Exactly, let's not just simply assume that you win, and then the win automatically creates this virtuous cycle of policy feedback. Because we have some evidence that it can work to the contrary or it can have a neutral effect, so that was an example of an article from the so-called left to the so-called right that I thought was a step in the direction of a useful strategic conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay, so again, independently of who's right and who's wrong, when that article appears, what happens in DSA I mean? In other words, do people feel the need to discuss it and to hear each other.
Speaker 2:No, no, no.
Speaker 1:Well, it seems maybe that's the essential problem, right, I mean? Of course it's not going to go anyplace if nobody's listening to anybody else, right, I mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, okay. How do you explain that nobody is listening to anybody else?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the forum hasn't existed of caucus warfare rather than as a process of mutual dialogue towards shared learning and understanding something better. Some position which is neither of these positions an actual engagement in the dialectic of ideas, one might say. And like you know, like let's try to find the third position, because I don't think either of these camps really have the answers about how to like enact a transformational change in the United States.
Speaker 2:But but I do find the potential for the dialogue to be very fruitful, which is why I even tuned in and got invested in these debates in the first place because, like, as someone who's like definitely like organizing around some version of that policy feedback strategy, like I need somebody holding me accountable to say, like don't just get lost in the sauce of like trying to find your win, because Lord knows that's hard enough by itself, but you have to do something even harder, which is to slingshot that into, like this vaster form of working class power and mass movement. So that's where I find the dialogue to be potentially generative, but it needs to have a forum in DSA where it's not just there for people who are curious and interested in doing it, but there's actually a structural incentive that you need to be a part of that in order to have success in the organization this may sound a bit insane, but imagine a sports team and and it, everybody wants to win right, and so they want to do better and they want to, et cetera.
Speaker 1:They don't set up caucuses in the team, that you know. One goes for defense, one goes for offense, one goes for three point shooting, one goes for, you know, trying to stuff them, et cetera, et cetera. And they argue their case as if they talk and they have a coach. But they talk and they try and figure out and they test things, and they don't want to be right, they want to win. Nobody gives a shit who's. You see what I'm saying. Now maybe I'm idealizing a little.
Speaker 2:You want to get into the starting lineup. I mean you want to get more minutes than the other guy on your team. So there is competition but the competition, but there's an order of operations On a good team. The team is first, everything is about the team, and then it's about fierce competition among the players on the team to be the best they can be and get the playing time, but that helps the team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that helps the team, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, and you know I used to say this all the way back in the sixties Um, we're not in. We used to play socialist basketball in the sixties. The idea was to make your opponent as best they could be. So when you defend somebody, you defend sort of consistent with the abilities of the person you're playing with. So you don't squash them, you don't stuff them, et cetera, et cetera. But there's one problem with this way of playing Same thing with offense. There's one problem with this way of playing, which is that it has nothing to do with winning, and that's fine for socialist basketball. It is not fine for the left that is trying to create a better world. We have to win, right, that's it. Winning matters. So you don't want to become macho, because winning matters, and you don't want to lose track of human sensibility, because winning matters, but you want to win.
Speaker 1:I've often felt and this is a question, believe it or not I've often felt that on the left, the idea of winning is not prevalent. Winning a new world, winning a campaign? Yes, winning maybe an election? Yes, but actually winning, changing, transforming society. And so that doesn't serve as the unifier within which we discuss different strategies and different tactics. Instead, the identity isn't the goal, it's the strategy, like I'm a leninist, right, you see what I'm saying, and so, and that's at best, at worst, the. The thing that's forefront is do I look revolutionary, do I sound revolutionary? I mean, that's the worst version of this, because that's all I have to do, because I'm never going to win. So what the fuck? I might as well. You know what I'm saying. I mean, I'm not sure I'm being clear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean let me maybe build on that a little bit and how I see this playing out in these different tendencies is what we lack is a clear program and a clear vision of how we actually get from here to there, how we actually get from inside this brutal system that is also built on a mountain of bones and a river of blood, how we get from inside of this into something which is qualitatively different. That's the thing that we lack. And so then— Wait, wait, wait wait.
Speaker 1:What's that qualitatively different? That's the thing that we lack. And so then Wait, wait, wait, wait, let me. What's that qualitatively different thing?
Speaker 2:Well, we would need a vision of it, and then we would need a path for how we get there.
Speaker 1:But so some people have ideas about that.
Speaker 2:We lack both. In many cases Some people may have some idea of a vision as participatory economics or what have you, but that can be kind of pie in the sky, not that it's useless, but we certainly lack the path and the program together. Who share that tendency? Outside of DSA, on the wider left, are people who really think of themselves as winners and they want to prioritize winning and they want to prioritize impact and being able to show that and demonstrate that, whether that's in terms of the scale of your organization or the reforms that you've won in the world, or the people you've elected to office. Again, that's what they value and if you ask them to justify themselves, that's what you'll hear. But that comes at the risk of ending up entirely inside the system that we already have, because that's where the wins are available to be had and we lack for the pathway towards the greater wins.
Speaker 2:Now I think the other tendency, the so-called DSA left and the wider revolutionary left or whatever you want to call it those are the people who they really value, staying in integrity and truth about the nature of the system, about the violent foundations of the system, and they don't want us to forget that the violent history of imperialism, of colonialism, the foundations of the order and the fact that this exploitation continues on a daily basis. And it's more important for them to hold on to that truth, even if it's just one person repeating it to another person, who repeats it to another person, and kind of keeping the torch of that truth, even if it's just one person repeating it to another person, who repeats it to another person, and kind of keeping the torch of that truth alive, is often more important than being able to show something that you know the wide world will recognize as a win in the here and now.
Speaker 2:And I also find that valuable, you know, because, if, because of course we can't forget that, but both sides lack for the path through into something else, and I think that's what and you would think that the discussion would be fruitful.
Speaker 1:Taking everything that you just said, it seems like a 10-year-old could deduce that a discussion would make sense, that listening to each other would make sense and might yield real fruit. If it doesn't happen, then there's an impediment. You know what I'm saying. In other words, it's a natural thing to have happen, but it doesn't. And so the question is what the hell is the impediment? What is it that stops it? Is each side afraid that it'll lose? You know, you could see from the left. The left could be afraid we're going to lose touch with the reality of how bad things are. What is the right afraid? That it would lose? In other words, it's not the right. I hate to call it that, but what would it be afraid of? That would cause it to circle the wagons instead of to try to discuss.
Speaker 2:Letting the fox into the hen house is what they're afraid of, because they think that there's no compromising with these people and ultimately they're out to wreck the organization. That's what some people would say they're afraid of.
Speaker 1:Okay, so now comes the hard question what's the solution?
Speaker 2:Well, I should note that in DSA there's a there's a democracy commission that is tasked with it, which is cross tendency, cross caucus and and is tasked with asking these sorts of questions and posing questions. You know, asking questions like how do we, how do we make DSA's internal democracy work better and be more constructive? I've heard some people on that commission wonder if they're, if they're, irrelevant after the, the latest kind of blow up of this internal conflict, but they're tasked with bringing some stuff back in the next year. I'm not sure exactly how that's going or what they'll come up with. I do think that there's some sort of like you know, structural reforms that are about incentives, and the incentives to work upwards through your caucus and maintain caucus discipline versus the incentives to, like, reach across and try to have this dialogue and come up with creative solutions.
Speaker 2:Let me just mention, in a context that's kind of about the wider left, when I was in Sunrise we had a very different kind of problem, which is that we were a decentralized mass movement with a centralized you know, basically staff-led NGO at the center that was kind of trying to give directions to the decentralized mass movement and we had attempted to quote, unquote, front load as many key strategic decisions to the very beginning and bake them into the principles of the movement so that the movement could be just like, focused on action and building, rather than having to deal with ideological debate or, you know, conflict. And that was a big part of our success for our first three or so years.
Speaker 2:But then when the conditions changed and outran, you know what we were able to plan for then all of a sudden, people start making different sense of their experiences and you have the ideological and strategic debates rear their head and in that context, I wrote a piece that was internal to Sunrise, called On Strategic Dialogue, which was just about the need for exactly what we're talking about the opportunity to discuss this in the open in the organization I mean forget about the organization. From a pedagogical standpoint for the development of its members, being able to talk about the struggles that we're participating in in real time is absolutely essential for us to be able to learn from political struggle in real time. I was on the national team at Sunrise. We're having all kinds of crazy experiences. You know, at the quote unquote grass tops of all the major progressive organizations in the US and in Congress and whatnot, we were learning a lot. I would have loved the opportunity to be able to talk about that with people who were at the grassroots of Sunrise who were learning other things about how we were being perceived, about how our structure was working and was not working and how the struggle was taking course on the ground.
Speaker 2:We all had the opportunity to learn a lot from each other that we didn't do and in the end it tore a lot of us apart and the organization had to rebuild because we lacked for that the strategic dialogue to be able.
Speaker 2:We lacked for that the strategic dialogue to be able to learn, and then the decision-making process that could collectivize that through some sort of democratic process to then agree on a shared course of action.
Speaker 2:Instead, we had basically a command and control thing going on, and that only worked for so long. So I think that that's where then, after that, I got interested in DSA, because I said well, dsa has a form of resilience and durability and this is what I said in the first section of my essay that is a result of the fact that it is a member democracy. So there's the potential for something different, something better to be happening here that results in, you know, better pedagogy for the members, but also then, better strategy for the organization as a whole and the durability to ride through these political cycles, because no plan is going to just like permanently. Reality is ultimately going to catch up to any plan you can make and you're going to have to make a new plan. But, as we've said, obviously the incentives aren't there yet in DSA to be able to actually have this work on a permanent basis. So something's going to have to change.
Speaker 1:Changing gears a little. Certainly not, because I think there's something more important. I actually think that the kinds of things that you've been talking about dwarf in importance, the kinds of things that mostly get get attended to, which is, um, poverty hurts, racism hurts, sexism hurts let's say it 400 000 times to the people who are being hurt by it and already know. Or let's debate something from a hundred years ago, or et cetera. This stuff, which a lot of people, I think, probably would deem airy and, you know, too abstract, or I don't know what they would call it, is actually what stands between between the left 55 years ago and the left now and winning. It's not an understanding of oppression that stands between it and it isn't even it's dealing with these issues. But I think there's another one coming up that I'd like to ask you about, which is the election, which I think this time around is going to be even more difficult than last time around in many ways, unless Trump completely falls apart, which is not impossible, I think.
Speaker 1:But in any event, do you think DSA will? Well, will DSA play a role and will DSA members play a role? Is the never Biden view strong in DSA? Not that I don't like Biden view. That should be ubiquitous in DSA, but the never Biden view, not even in a swing state, not even, et cetera, et cetera. Is that view really strong and dominant, and is there a counter view which is strong? I mean, how is it shaping up?
Speaker 2:to become the policy of DSA, an explicit anti-endorsement of Biden, if you will.
Speaker 2:I think that there are people who would say that's contrary to the sentiment of what was decided at the last convention, which was more or less to stay out of it and maintain political independence while also defending democracy, which I think some people would interpret as not doing something that would help Trump win, which an anti-endorsement of Biden would.
Speaker 2:So there's both sides that are contending around this right now. I think that the one side says that basically should focus on defending DSA's electeds, on winning new seats wherever possible, certainly defending the ceasefire candidates, and there are people who would argue that DSA should even be endorsing a wider swath of candidates that has previously, you know, drawing on the lines of who was strong for a ceasefire in the early days of the war in Gaza. I don't think that will happen. So I think it's a question of will it be a sort of status quo endorsed down ballot and protect the champions, or will some sort of no votes for genocide position actually be able to get an endorsement from the MPC? I think that would be a disaster. I hope that that's not what happens, but um yeah, I, I find it.
Speaker 2:I find it, you know, I find it to be good enough to say biden's not my friend, trump's my, my friend. I'm not going to say a single nice word about biden, and I will say, just as an aside this is where I think aoc is misplaying her hand right now in trying to say too many nice things about him and campaign with him, take pictures with him. I understand she thinks she has a responsibility to bring people on the left into the Biden coalition. I don't think she's helping her case by doing what she's doing. I think it's plenty to say. I don't like either of these guys. The nicest thing I can say about Biden is I think Trump and his forces need to be crushed before Biden and his forces can be crushed, and so we're just going to have to do it in order.
Speaker 1:But that's right and if that's what one thinks, it means one A certainly does not, which is what you suggested earlier certainly does not do things which enhance the likelihood of Trump winning, and that's a real issue. It may be a real issue in Chicago in the summer. But, does one, and I would say one does urge a vote against Trump, which means a vote for Biden in swing states and in contested states.
Speaker 2:I would. I mean, I live here in Michigan and I'll say, I think to this day that Biden should resign from the race and they should install a different candidate at the convention. Sure, ezra Klein made this argument months ago and I think it's as right today as it was then. I'm dismayed by how little traction that's getting. I think that the polling shows that Biden is a very weak candidate and I do believe that the Democratic Party has a handful of other candidates who would be better as general election candidates to defeat Trump. So until the convention occurs, I'm going to keep repeating that. But once a nominee is determined at the convention, I mean I'm comfortable saying now that I'm going to vote for the Democratic nominee, but I don't have to say anything nice about them other than that Trump needs to be defeated the idea that one can't say that, which is basically the critique of that.
Speaker 1:The critique of that is if you say I'm going to vote for Biden in Michigan because I'm going to try and stop Trump, If you say that you're a shill for the Democrats, it means you love the Democrats. That's just so far from the reason.
Speaker 2:It's like how insecure do you have to be to not be able to just state the reality of the situation? And it just reflects a real kind of struggle with boundaries. I think, like if I'm going to get cooties or I'm going to be morally infected, I just don't buy it.
Speaker 1:Do you think it will blow up that or that one will be able to be handled?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I mean I think Chicago is going to blow up at large, regardless of what happens in DSA. I mean I think that if it weren't in Chicago, who knows what would happen? But given that it is in Chicago, we're destined to repeat history.
Speaker 2:I mean it's just because people are going to want to perform the story from 50 years ago and again being here in Michigan, I mean I just will say that the thing I will never do is I will never tell someone who is Arab or Palestinian American to vote for Biden, because the position is very clear from in that community, which is a large community here in Michigan, that they simply believe that Biden must be punished to the greatest extent possible for the crimes he's committed. And as somebody said at the encampment I was at the other day at Michigan State, you know, 75-year-old, venerable Palestinian-American man, I mean he said you know, trump gets elected, we'll deal with him then the way we're dealing with Biden now. Now, again, I've already said I'll vote for the Democratic nominee, but it's going to be.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's a way back with the Arab-American community, unless there were to be an absolute about-face from the Biden campaign between now and then. So it's going to be very difficult.
Speaker 1:It is difficult, it's going to be difficult with lots of people. It is difficult, it's going to be difficult with lots of people, but it's. I mean. I look at the situation and I just feel like I mean I write, so I have to write about that and I have to tell the truth, which is that it's an absolute. You know, I call him Genocide Joe. I don't have any problem with that, but I wouldn't have any problem if I was in Michigan voting for Genocide Joe because for so many reasons that are so obvious. But anyway, let's not dwell on that. We're just at about an hour.
Speaker 2:I wonder if there's something that you would like to talk about that we haven't yet, that you would have liked to have gotten in. I just think this moment I mean to bring the two threads of the conversation together the conversation about strategic dialogue, the conversation about the presidential election in the context of the genocide in Gaza I think that this is going to be the question for the left in this decade is how to reconcile the aspirations of the Bernie moment, when we learn to dream bigger and fight for more as members of the US working class and dream of some sort of social democracy in the United States, and then the ongoing reality of American imperialism that we're face-to-face with in the present moment, here in 2024,. That needs to be reconciled and we need to find a program that allows us to fight for ourselves and fight for people here at home while fighting for the poor and oppressed people of Palestine and across the global South. And I think that that's the thing that the US has always struggled with, the US left has always struggled with. I can't claim to be an expert on all this history, but you know I do subscribe to the theory of unequal exchange, and I mean the New Deal order was paid for by the oppression of the rest of the world of the rest of the world, and if we're fighting for a Green New Deal, or whatever we want to call it here in the 21st century, we have an ethical imperative for it to be different.
Speaker 2:Now. I think that the world political economy is different in the 21st century than it was in the 20th century, so I don't know if there's even enough of the super profits sloshing around to buy out the American working class, like happened in the 20th century. That's something that I want to talk to some people who are scholars of political economy about. I'm going to be doing that on my podcast, but this is the question I'm sitting with. I think that this is very much just what the left at large is dealing with in the United States, and I don't want to back down. I don't want us to back down from finding a synthesis, finding an answer to those questions.
Speaker 1:Well, it's been very good. I much appreciate most of the stuff that you've been saying and the concreteness of it. Coming out of DSA and you know your personal experiences and also with uh sunrise, I wish you had a larger forum to express this stuff and have it debated. Um, you know, not just to pronounce it but have it debated. I often feel that way. It's a frustrating situation and I would just advise you uh, hang in there.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:You said two or three different times that you don't have experience of certain kinds of ideological stuff. Well, I'm here to tell you that that's not a debit. Some of that is a virtue, some of that. I had a friend. He's not with us anymore, but he wrote a book called the More you Watch, the Less you Know, and it was about American TV and you know the media industry and in particular, the news, and it was the More you Watch, the Less you Know know, the more you bury yourself in you know ideological formulations that most people can't even read, much less relate to the less relevant you are is not a crazy formulation. So I wouldn't rush to switch from what you're paying attention to to classics or whatever. Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just keep on doing what you're doing. You know, Mike, I the thing that I think I do well with that is that I do. I mean, I have a practice of organizing and mass work. I'm doing my tenant organizing, and that's half my time, and then asking these big questions is, is, is is half my time, and I'm trying to keep it that way because I do think that each of them holds the other accountable. So I think a lot more people ought to be trying to strike that balance.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And that said, this is Mike Albert signing off until next time, and I hope you'll return at some point in the future for another session, maybe as we get close to the middle of the summer.
Speaker 2:I'd love to.