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#TMBSSunday - The DSA &the Urgent Need for a Movement for Workers ft. Briana Last (Patreon)

Published:
2020-07-05 18:00:00
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2026-06
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Content

Briana Last (@mirrorstage_) joins us to discuss DSA's current limitations, as touched on in her piece "Whither the DSA?," previously published in The Bellows. Why she isn't "attacking" DSA. The defensive posture of unions. The current class makeup of unions vs DSA and the major difference in incentive structure. What it means to be a mass organization in politics.

Comments

Joshua Baker

Excellent conversation! Please bring Briana on more often. She's so right about the ambiguity in ideology in DSA. I am not a member but have been curious since last fall about joining the local chapter here in Seattle. I spoke with a member at their tent at the CHOP last month and was shocked to hear that there are lots of different ideologies that exist within the local chapter such as anarchy and I had the impression that the embrace of ideologies is almost encouraged. I had assumed socialism was the ideology of the organization. Another person checking out the tent also then laughed at me cynically for asking about joining which on its face is absurd. The whole idea should be to invite people in and make them feel welcome! I was also a bit surprised that the man I spoke too in the tent had not been aware of the Adolph Reed Jr. incident that had happened in NY a week or so earlier. He knew nothing of it. It’s not that I expected him to know and I wasn’t trying to ‘quiz’ him, but it also seemed a bit odd to not know about that situation and not have an opinion about it. I don’t treat this incident as a condemnation of DSA in general and I’m not making generalizations about the organization, but my experience was reflective of what Briana describes. It made me think that there is so much work to do in regards to peoples' education particularly around subjects like history, psychology, philosophy, and the humanities in general. In addition, I don’t think a lot of these people in the membership have much direct experience with poverty either through having grown up in it or working directly with people who themselves live in poverty. Finally as a companion to this piece, I highly recommend people check out the Jacobin Stay At Home series episode called Why Postmodernism Was a Huge Intellectual Step Back with Catherine Liu. It’s a very interesting perspective that has a great deal of overlap with this conversation. It speaks the the challenges we face in confronting the structures that exist within higher education the breed economic inequality.

Smith

Need a new RSS link for my membership. Accidentally deleted my pod sub on my listening app. How should I get that?

Dan LeRoy

Great show! Thanks for keeping us lefties in the “know”!

Sela Lewis

People just have to get used to the experience of DSA as being different from chapter to chapter. What concerns individuals in a New York chapter will be different from the concerns of a Seattle chapter and that is okay. When I heard about the Adolph Reed thing, I stopped caring once I realized it was a New York chapter concern ( I was actually confused for a bit. I thought it was a Philly chapter concern.). But where I live, in Washington, D.C. Metro DC DSA was among several coalitions that helped elect Janeese Lewis George to the DC Council. She ran on a very progressive platform that includes strengthening rent control and divesting from the police. That is where I live so this is a big deal. And it was not an easy victory. I love New York, but longtime New Yorkers have a tendency to think the world revolves around them. Not always helpful when we're talking about very intimate experiences of police chiefs, superintendents, and mayors. The most effective politics is local. But it is also the hardest.

Chris Pollina
>>39835288

Hey Joshua, thanks for sharing this. As the Seattle DSA table in CHAZ/CHOP came together overnight and had to be staffed for over 40 hours a week, there's definitely a chance some folks at the table may have been a little newer / not all briefed thoroughly in how to speak with folks interested in learning more about DSA. I'm sorry to hear that the person who you spoke with "laughed at you cynically for asking about joining." I'm part of the Member Engagement Team in Seattle DSA and I can assure you that that's the opposite of what we're going for here -- we aim to "invite people in and make them feel welcome" as you put it. If you want to get in touch with me, please email member-engagement@seattledsa.org and I'd be happy to chat with you more about our chapter. Cheers!

Chris Pollina

While DSA is certainly not perfect and I think a lot of the points here are totally valid, it’s frustrating that she doesn’t offer much in the way of possible solutions / bright spots we should be replicating / etc. She says DSA is too middle class … but in large part it’s that way because the pressures of capitalism make it very difficult for most poor people to spend time being part of a political organization. There’s no requirements for membership and thus there’s a large array of ideological tendencies … but the alternative of having some kind of test as a bar to entry would ensure the organization stays small and both of them agree that a large influx of “normal people” would be good for the organization. More unity around a political program would be helpful in concentrating DSA’s efforts … but how to get there when people can so easily vote with their feet? Again, all valid points to bring up, they are points that many, many people who are active in my chapter of DSA have engaged with over the last few years … it would just be nice to hear some more ideas. If nothing else, I think that there don’t exist enough spaces to have these conversations within our chapter — maybe other chapters as well? Oftentimes it feels like they are informal discussions of a few people here and there. since things are operating on the “marketplace of ideas” model, I think that there needs to be more opportunities to propose strategic orientations outside the domain of message boards or brief proposals to the membership. I think this could help further a coherent strategy and contribute to political education at the same time. I think a lot of people in our chapter have good, deep thoughts on this stuff but there’s no clear place to put them and thus get more people on board. One of the drums I’ve been banging on for the last year or so is that we need to make the process for participating fully in DSA very transparent and easy to access for people rather than requiring you to hang out for months / years and devote your life to DSA in order to figure out how to work the system to make it do what you want it to. Laslty, to anyone who feels DSA isn’t going in the direction you think it should, my experience has been that there’s quite a lot of flexibility and willingness to hear ideas if you step forward with them in a normal human way. I saw an issue with there being little structure to welcome not-already politicized folks into our organization so I helped to start a group in my chapter aimed at more effectively welcoming people into the organization. We’ve significantly upped our game in terms of orienting new members and speaking to them 1-on-1. I met no roadblocks in trying to do this whatsoever. It’s not a radical restructuring of the chapter or anything, but the point is that there’s a lot of people open to hearing and supporting good ideas that are put forward. If you have big problems with DSA, cool, that’s fine. If you have mixed feelings but see the potential for it to help build the left, I encourage you to jump in, try some stuff out, and see what you can make happen.

Dave Walk
>>39877777

DSA is in this paradox of bragging about their size ("70k members strong!" although active membership is much less) while also being a "big tent" that is partially the reason for that number of paid members.

Dave Walk

lol is the article this whole discussion is based off of even available to read or did it get caught up in The Bellows drama (RIP)?