{"id":11114,"date":"2023-09-12T12:41:33","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T16:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=11114"},"modified":"2023-09-27T00:11:27","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T04:11:27","slug":"the-dsa-moment-is-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2023\/09\/the-dsa-moment-is-over\/","title":{"rendered":"The DSA moment is over"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>n 2022, fully two years after Bernie Sanders ended his presidential campaign and joined with Joe Biden, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) started to grasp that the situation had changed. Not DSA as an organization formally, but its constituent elements: caucuses, associated publications, leaders, and so on. Jacobin\u2019s Bhaskar Sunkara began that year with an editorial<\/a> describing the situation as being stuck in purgatory<\/a>: \u201cThere is no doubt that we\u2019re at the end of a period of rapid politicization and settling into one of either gradual decline or slow advance.\u201d Scattered throughout the year, a<\/a> soft<\/a> debate<\/a> went<\/a> on<\/a> about what socialists should do<\/i>. Most of these writers did not comment on the state of their organization, but each acknowledged, in their own way, that what had worked since 2016 was not working any longer and things would have to change in the politics and strategy of the organization.<\/p>\n

The elephant in the room was that DSA\u2019s fortune had changed, and certainly not for the better. Without elaboration or discussion, National Director Maria Svart announced at the DSA convention in August 2021 that membership growth had \u201cslowed to a trickle.\u201d At the February 2022 National Political Committee (NPC) meeting, DSA<\/a> Observer<\/a> reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The NPC and staff were realistic in outlining the major challenges DSA currently faces. Staff cited \u201cpolitical malaise\u201d among members, and noted that many chapters were demotivated by political and interpersonal conflict. According to the recent chapter survey, at least a third of chapters are struggling. The staff report also noted that many of their chapters are citing \u201catrophy and loss\u201d in their desire to engage with national work, and are instead retreating to chapter-level work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By November 2022, NPC member Jenbo released figures<\/a> that were damning: in August 2021, DSA had approximately 94,687 constitutional members, 81 percent of whom (77,177) were in good standing. One year later, it lost twelve thousand members in good standing, and the total roster fell to approximately 87,000, only 74 percent of whom were in good standing. In one year, the membership contracted by 15 percent. The 2023 Growth and Development Committee report<\/a> shows a worse picture still, with 57,982 members in good standing.<\/p>\n

\"A
A chart showing DSA\u2019s decline in membership\u2014both Constitutional and Members in Good Standing (MIGS)\u2014between February 2020 to January 2023. Image Credit: DSA finance report 2023.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The end of booming growth, loss of membership1 disintegration of chapters<\/a>, and constant strife on the national leadership<\/a> are not self-contained problems arising spontaneously and coincidentally. The political moment has shifted, and there is no longer a sense of opportunity and purpose that was easily identifiable in the Trump\/Sanders period. In the ensuing period, with Biden in the White House, the exhaustion of the electoral Left internationally, and the far right\u2019s rise, DSA members became disoriented and demoralized with no clear path to advance. Problems that had been tolerated for years became untenable, and DSA as an organization lost its appeal as a dynamic alternative to politics as usual.<\/p>\n

An exceptional period<\/h4>\n

The arc of the new<\/i> DSA (2016-2020) has been an exception in the organization\u2019s history. For the first thirty-five years of its existence, DSA remained stagnant at approximately six thousand members. It consistently allied with \u201csocialist\u201d Democrats in office, a political orientation that stressed working in the Democratic Party, and a \u201cbig tent\u201d organizational model. From its founding in 1982 to 2015, DSA was unsuccessful in growing beyond its initial numbers and was regarded more as a Left AARP<\/a> rather than a serious organization that attracted new activist layers.<\/p>\n

If there was a political change in DSA\u2019s politics, it occurred after<\/i> the influx of new members, not before. DSA continued doing what it had always done, and somehow it ballooned in size beyond anyone\u2019s expectations\u2014least of all its own. What had changed was largely external to DSA, and by an accident of history DSA became the beneficiary of political currents much larger than itself. This is crucial to understanding DSA as an organization. DSA\u2019s success is not a story peculiar to the United States, nor is it the victory of one set of Left politics over another. The accidental and contingent growth of DSA has been the U.S.-expression of a global political moment, and its trajectory has followed a similar path here as it has elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Between 2012 and 2020, \u201cleft-reformist\u201d2

Beginning with SYRIZA in Greece, there were the campaigns of Podemos in Spain, Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon and La France Insoumise, Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s bid for leadership in the U.K. Labour Party and his narrow defeat against the Tories in 2017, and then Bernie Sanders in the U.S. in 2016 and 2020.<\/p>\n

Corbyn and the Labour Party group Momentum were of particular importance to DSA in 2016\/2017 as an English-language counterpart and the loose parallel of a democratic-socialist challenge within an established political party for executive office. Young DSA members exchanged political notes directly with Momentum<\/a> and outlined the campaigns for universal healthcare often with reference to the U.K. experience.<\/p>\n