Teeing Off on the DSA 2025-26 Platform

Workers deserve better

The document is here. I’ve heard this was the product of extensive internal deliberations by the National Political Committee (NPC) of Democratic Socialists of America. It needs much better deliberating. It celebrates socialist victories in elections, even though the socialist leaders in question all have very different politics than that embodied in this platform.

Naturally, the MAGAs will cherry-pick what they take to be the most offensive pieces of the platform, in some cases resulting in comical denunciations of things that are actually very popular.

Now the same crew that formulated this document is opposing calls for a national poll of DSA members for 2028 presidential endorsements, one which AOC would probably win. The worthies on the NPC don’t want that. Some democracy. If the Rs had a clue, they would try to make some hay out of that, though that would be hampered by their own alienation from democratic practice.

Right off the bat, the preamble implies an equivalence between Republicans and Democrats, even though there is much railing against the atrocities of Trump’s party. There is an aspiration for an independent ‘workers’ party’ that fails to reckon with the rules of our system, that render such a strategy dubious.

There is nothing wrong in general with the meat-and-potatoes sections for a Green New Deal and so forth. The big thing missing is a political strategy to make any of it happen, though in actuality the DSA chapters that are doing useful work, electing socialists and progressives to public office, are making real progress in those areas.

I’ve been saying there is a basic contradiction between the constructive, reformist dare I say ‘social-democratic’ grassroots work, typified by the Mamdani triumph, and the noodle-brained proclamations from assorted ultra-lefts on the NPC. I do not advocate any expulsions or splits. I merely point out that this tension cannot be sustained, that a break of some kind is inevitable, and I wish some people would just go away. I only hope the ultra-lefts do not bring the ship down with them.

The groups in question are called the ‘Marxist Unity Group’ (‘MUG’) and ‘Red Star.’ They bloth like to flog the hammer and sickle, but evidently the MUG is not quite as out-there as Red Star. Neither could survive a genuine national poll of the burgeoning membership, now said to exceed 120,000. They do, however, exercise overweening influence on the NPC.

There is no point in trying to dissect their internals. Simply put, they are not democratic socialists, and they have no future in politics. All they can do is drag down the rest of us. I’ve heard that one or the other sect has been able to take over some of the smaller chapters, which underlines the most important thing about DSA: its diversity. Reject all generalizations about its politics and its objectives. It is not one thing.

The one big thing that DSA mostly is can be seen in the politics of successful socialist politicians, starting with Bernie and AOC, and now with the potential blossoming of ‘The Squad’ in the U.S. House of Representatives and elsewhere.

We also see the advance of “municipal socialism,” a.k.a. “sewer socialism,” in New York City, Seattle, Minneapolis, Boston, the District of Columbia, and Los Angeles. Cities are disadvantaged by the provisions of state constitutions, but in terms of economics and population, they are the power-houses of states. So the prospects for dissemination of progressive politics beyond urban boundaries looks promising. NY state has already bent the knee to Mamdani.

The programmatic aspects of the DSA platform are constructive and politically viable, in general. Match that with the progressive politics happening on the ground and we have the makings of relief from this MAGA nightmare.