On Sernatinger on the state of DSA

I'm going to take Andy Sernatinger (AS) seriously. He's a good Trotskyist, a politics I once subscribed to myself. He's also a smart fellow. AS is based in Madison, WI. My spies there tell me he is an up-and-coming figure on the Left, so he is worth some attention. The (d)evolution of DSA is also of keen interest to me, since in retirement it has become my principal focus of activity.

For me Trotskyist politics provide a useful reference point by which to gauge one's place. To evaluate reforms under capitalism, I find it helpful to compare them to a full-throated, critical posture.

I will start by noting two elements in AS that I see as positive and important.

One is his spot-on dismissal of campism on the U.S. left, which evidently has infected the DSA leadership. If he doesn't mind me saying it, we in North Star fully agree that the U.S. is not the only imperialist power in the world, and in the case of Ukraine is not the principal aggressor. (N.B. This note is not any sort of official statement by my caucus.)

Two is his understanding that DSA missed the boat on some recent uprisings within the working class, particularly Black Lives Matter. I would add the revolt against Trumpism, improperly dismissed as the complaints of well-off suburban women. I put this down to DSA's class-reductionist economism, a subject for another essay.

On the negative side, if AS is to be believed, DSA's spectacular boom in membership growth is not only over, but is starting to go into reverse. I have no reason to doubt the facts he offers -- a fall-off in dues paid, expiring memberships, fewer volunteers for organizational tasks, an erosion of chapters' responding to the national leadership, reports of burnout, etc.

There is a danger in approaching the reported decline of DSA by using it to confirm of one's priors. Whatever you thought was lacking in DSA, you are tempted to attribute its misfortunes to that same view. I had my own criticism of DSA, so I want to be careful.

For AS, the signal change in DSA politics was from opposition in the Trump term in office to collaboration with Biden's Democrats. The idea is that a clear posture of opposition bolstered DSA ranks.

AS's lack of interest in national politics is reflected in the faultiness of this distinction. Opposition under Trump was a booming industry. Arguably it was harder than usual to get noticed in such an environment. Progressives face choices of how, or whether, to collaborate with the Democratic party leadership no matter who is in the White House.

His other principal gloss is over the role of the left in Congress under Biden. AS does not pause to acknowledge that Bernie, The Squad, or the Progressive Caucus had any impact on policy in 2020-21. He does not even mention the enormous aid that came in the spring of 2020, particularly the extension of unemployment benefits. For those who only see the empty part of the glass, material victories are difficult to appreciate. But you can't fight if you don't know when you're winning or losing.

A current example is the new postal reform bill, which ends the long-term, neoliberal assault on the USPS. It even got a bipartisan vote. As observers have long been aware, members of Congress from rural states and districts do not look forward to cost-cutting that leads to the closure of rural post offices and extra charges for rural delivery. All the postal unions are behind the bill, which has passed both houses of Congress.

There is a place for wariness over 'parliamentary cretinism,' but it still follows that a parliament can be pressured to grant victories to the working class. Victories usually entail negotiation and compromise, things anathema to many. Distinguishing real progress from fluff is part of our burden.

For the most part DSA work goes on in a different world than that of such matters as whether, for instance, the Child Tax Credit is reauthorized. It is focused on local struggles around strikes, evictions, and municipal budgets.

That is all well and good, as far as it goes, but as an old geezer I can tell you a secret about these local activities. They inspire members as good deeds, but those who are successfully assisted for the most part will not hang around as members. They have lives to get on with. They will say thank you, strange person from the bourgeois world who helped me, but goodbye. Their lives are consumed in struggles which oblige them to evaluate based on 'what are you doing for me right now?' -- not, what you did for me last month. *My* prior is that this sort of activity, which I think is limited, gives rise to burnout.

Another source of disappointment, again my prior, is alienation of DSA from the most popular, progressive members and candidates for Congress. Whatever you think of them, such people including Bernie helped to get people more interested in socialism. Rashida Tlaib, who is able to endorse BDS, issued a response to Biden's State of the Union "on behalf of the Working Families Party." What?? The Squad is drifting away from DSA, folks.

Now there is a crisis over DSA statements regarding Ukraine. The fallout in New York City and Los Angeles, reported in the linked articles here, has to be hurting our local, pure candidates, even if they try to back away from the black eye resulting from selective quotation of DSA statements in the press. Recall the old saying in politics: "If you're explaining, you're losing."

There is in fact a long history of criticism of NATO, and not just from the Left. The *political* problem right now is that advancing this background, even if accompanied by unambiguous condemnation of the Russian invasion, is inept politics. It exposes DSA leaders to effective jingoist attacks from centrist Democrats, including local DSA-approved candidates who try to steer clear of the controversy. AS and others here seem to think that such a separation, as in the example of Rep. Bowman, would be a good thing. From what I hear, DSA people in Bowman’s district disagree. If the AS position, or that of the BDS Working Group, became DSA's, would such people reject Bowman, or reject DSA?

I will be honest and say at first blush I was not too worked up by the IC statement issued after the invasion. It was balanced between rejecting Russian claims and criticism of NATO's provocations. The problem is that balance is not good enough, especially for DSA. We need to practice defensive driving. Ironically, DSA's blunder has forced its favorite pols to become stronger supporters of NATO, if only to guard their right flank.

The upshot is that the AS/Tempest line would drive DSA into a ditch. It would become the Spartacist League of the 21st Century. People like to say social-democracy "hasn't worked." Well, the Sparts are not threatening state power either.