Pragmatic Leftist Theory
The neolibs are too far right. The tankies are doing whatever that is. Where's the space for the people who want fully-automated-luxury-gay-space-communism, but realize that it's gonna take a while and there are lots of steps between now and then? Here. This is that space.
Here, people should endeavor to discuss and devise practical, actionable leftist action. Vote lesser evil while you build grassroots coalitions. Unionize your workplace. Participate in SRAs. Build cohesion your local community. Educate the proletariat.
This is a place for practical people to develop practical plans to implement stable, incremental improvement.
If you're dead-set on drumming up all 18,453 True Leftists® into spontaneous Revolution, go somewhere else. The grown ups are talking.
Rules:
-1. Don't be a dick. Racism, sexism, other assorted bigotries, you know the drill. At least try to default to mutually respectful discussion. We're all on the same side here, unless you aren't, in which case kindly leave.
-2. Don't be a tankie. Yes I'm sure you have an extensive knowledge of century-old theory. There's been a century of history since then. Things didn't shake out as expected, maybe consider the possibility that a different angle of attack might be more effective in light of new data.
-3. Be practical. No one on the left benefits from counterproductive actions. This is a space informed by, not enslaved to, ideology. Promoting actions that are fundamentally untenable in the system in question, because they fulfill a sense of ideological purity, is a bad look. Don't do that.
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I appreciate you sharing your experience. But it does seem to me that for a party to be effective there does need to be some vague consensus on a broad political strategy. From the outside it does seem like running candidates in democratic primaries has been the most successful activity the DSA engages in, so it's kind of weird to have whole caucuses that fundamentally disagree with that strategy. Wouldn't it be better for everyone if they were separate organizations? What's the advantage of trying to do all of this different stuff under the DSA banner?
Also, I'm very surprised to hear that the ML factions (I assume that's what you mean by left but people have a lot of different ideas about that) are the most democratic because my understanding is that their organizational structure is usually very undemocratic. It makes me wonder if their participation in DSA is just a ploy to seize control of the brand and turn it into another ML party. Of which we have several, and none of which have been particularly effective at anything. But I really know nothing about these internal caucuses and maybe they're different from what I've seen in other orgs. But that's essentially how the Bolsheviks came into power, so it certainly should raise questions.
Firstly, Red Star is not opposed to electoralism, they are critical of it, reserving the the right to critically support a candidate, or even run candidates on this or that ballot line, depending on the objective conditions of where the race is held, and against whom. Red Star is ML, but in order to dismiss their campaign strategy, you have to be able to counter it with something better. If you read this you will find something much more worked out and coherent than the bad faith mid representations in the Atlantic.
Secondly, the left is not ML. MUG are not ML theyrf like neo-Kautskyists, R&R are Trotskyist and ideologically anti-ML, Libertarian Socialist caucus are more anarchist (though they accept many different forms of Libertarian Socialism, not just one interpretation of anarchist), Liberation is Maoist, which is ideologically ML adjacent but actually much different in character, Mountain Caucus are like Gramsci-ist, and so on.
Leninist groups, which includes Trots, MLs and Maoists all have different approaches to some of the same problems. All of these groups agree on a kind of organization called Democratic Centralism. If it is too centralized it is authoritarian, but if it is too democratic then it becomes slow, horizontalist, factional. Lenin often pushed for more democracy in the decades leading up to the civil war. He always gave space for factions and minority tendencies -- until he and the Bolsheviks banned factions. And unlike a lot of conservative criticisms which dont really stick to Lenin, imo that one does.
But the fundamentals of Democratic centralism are sound. Its just like, the way a healthy organizing structure should operate. But DemCent was just recently unbanned from DSA, and we have yet to see how that change will affect the org. In every case, organizers of all tendencies are more concerned with Democratic Socialism than Centralism.
You can't just boil it down to an oversimplification and call that understanding.
The dynamics of a socialist campaigns are completely different, because our objectives aren't to win this or that election, it is to radically change the whole social order. We can lose an election but gain a ton of capacity and knowledge in the process, and it is still a win. But in order to accomplish that, we still need to run very compelling campaigns that try to win.
Okay I found the source. From the article:
The wording of the amendment is not to auto expel anyone who meets these criteria. The wording makes an exception that these members continue this activity "even after receiving fair and ample opportunity for education about the Palestine struggle for liberation." Furthermore, to carry out an expulsion would require "a vote of 2/3 of all members of the National Political Committee." This is the highest and most committed and busy deliberative body in the organization. In order for a member's commitment to Zionist principles to even get to the level of considering expulsion would require that the member had not only flagrantly rejected any attempt to reform their position, but that a super-super majority of members on the NPC decided it was necessary to take a vote, and voted affirmatively for expulsion. The left does have a super majority on the NPC, but not a super-super majority. That's a higher percentage of NPC members than delegates who voted for the resolution in the first place. You would have to willingly and flagrantly try to damage the credibility of DSA, and the Palestinian liberation movement to even be considered for expulsion around this issue.
The endorsement piece is trickier, I'll admit. But the resolution was the culmination of years of debate on this issue, and is representative of the principles of the org