More Groundwork & DSA

“Groundwork” is a caucus in Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). I’ve commented on them in the past and I stand by what I wrote then, though I am warming up to them now, naturally with a few caveats.

Their bit on the election is to support what they call "tactical voting" for Harris. This is a bit understated but not unreasonable. The focus is on down-ballot races. It should be understood that the House and Senate will be critical, almost as much as the presidency. It would be a mistake to confine energies to DSA-certified candidates.

What aggravates me the most is their crapping on AOC (and implicitly Sanders), as I wrote recently. They do seem to recognize the magnitude of the threat from Trump. But there is another issue.

Groundwork is a caucus. I’m in one myself, the so-called North Star Caucus. After meeting some DSA folks IRL (‘in real life,’ as they say), I’m coming around to a negative view of caucuses in general. Factionalist caucuses are a relic of ferocious battles within the student movement of yore, not to mention earlier events in and around the Communist Party. In this sense, North Star is pretty un-caucus-like. Its focus is not to take over. This irked me at the beginning of my participation, now it does not.

There is still room for debate within DSA and organized proposals to move the organization this way or that. But caucuses are icky. They cloud open and aboveboard advocacy and debate. Little gremlins plotting in closed groups on how to manipulate everyone else. North Star, by the way, is completely transparent in its doings.

I would also venture the observation that outside of Democratic Party advocacy, in whatever you’d like to call the radical left, the issue of Palestine is everything. It is frustrating that there can be no relief on this front until and unless Trump and MAGA are defeated, since the party establishment brooks no dissent in this, or indeed any, vein.

It’s still true that a Trump presidency would be catastrophic for Palestine, and potentially for much more than that. There has been reporting on sentiment from those in Palestine and Lebanon to this effect. Would that our red-hot student activists safe in the U.S. (for now) pay attention.