Tony Unger sets the record straight on Rhode Island DSA’s political experiences with the Democratic Party and need for class independence.
Introduction
The history of US social movements is riven with fundamental political contradictions. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the largest US socialist organization in nearly a century, is no exception. Because of its size and the broader historical conjuncture, DSA is an excellent proving ground for socialist experimentation. Yet, unless we carefully analyze our political experiences, and chart a path beyond our current contradictions, we squander this historical opportunity. In this spirit of comradely self-reflection, I offer my chapter’s experiences with electoral politics and the resultant conviction that the future of the US socialist movement lies in a decisive split with the Democratic Party and the creation of an independent workers’ party.
DSA’s relationship to the Democratic Party is currently its most contentious question. It is unfortunate that debates over electoralism have become so central, however. Electoral politics is only one domain of struggle among many, and other practical questions (such as organizing within unions) have been sorely neglected. Still, the political and strategic dispute over electoralism is the order of the day, even as it covers up other debates. All tendencies and caucuses within the organization have to choose a position on this question, and their position is invariably bound up with their vision of DSA. And although there are probably as many answers as there are DSA members, four broad camps have emerged: realignment, pragmatic indifference, the dirty break, and the clean break.
Realignment, pioneered by Michael Harrington, one of DSA’s co-founders, is the idea that socialists must shift the Democratic Party left in thought and action from the inside. The question of an independent socialist project depends entirely, therefore, on socialists’ ability to get elected as Democrats. Once enough socialists infiltrate the Democratic Party, we will have a de facto socialist party. This theory, once extremely influential in DSA, is now confined mainly to the North Star caucus. Lately, the moderate wing of the organization has shifted to a position that I term pragmatic indifference. Sidestepping the question of the institutional character of the Democratic Party altogether, practitioners of moderate indifference focus on a single question: electing socialists. They don’t seek to realign the Democratic Party, in fact they are outwardly indifferent towards it. They favor an evolutionary approach to socialism, where slowly more socialists will gain office until we have a country-wide socialist majority. This quantitative approach to socialist politics means that they are extremely hesitant to discipline electeds, or to take an oppositional stance towards the Democratic Party. To this faction, a moderate political approach, using Democratic primaries as a key tool, is the most pragmatic way to elect more self-identified socialists. Pragmatic indifference is the status quo of present-day national DSA. Alternatively, the dirty break hypothesis claims that realignment is a fantasy but that ceasing to run socialist candidates on the Democratic ballot line is impractical in present conditions. Advocates of the dirty break see the split with the Democrats as a horizon for socialist politics, but one that requires a significant period of preparation and growth. Finally, the clean break approach states that DSA should immediately cease endorsing candidates running as Democrats and instead attempt to run socialists either as independents or as part of a socialist third party.
In May 2023, Rhode Island DSA adopted a form of the clean break. At our chapter convention, along with other resolutions that staked out a more radical position for our chapter, we passed a resolution essentially committing us to not endorsing candidates running on the Democratic ballot line and adopting an oppositional stance towards Democrats. This resolution and various decisions we’ve made in accordance with it have occasioned much controversy in the national organization. Despite our minor celebrity, we have largely failed to share our chapter’s experience and the political implications of this experience with socialists elsewhere. In what follows, I will clarify the conditions that allowed us to make such an unusual choice and why that experience has led us to believe in a complete separation from the Democratic Party.
The One Party State
To socialists abroad or in other states, it will seem that Rhode Island is a dubious state on which to build a fundamentally national argument. Famously, it is the country’s smallest state geographically and has the fifth-smallest population. On top of that, it has been a solidly blue state for most of the last century: only four Republican presidential candidates have carried Little Rhody since 1928. In the same period, we’ve sent only three Republicans to Congress. Yet, like an experiment in miniature, Rhode Island’s size and Democratic fealty allow us to view the functioning of the Democratic Party more clearly than in more broad and contested states.
Rhode Island is a typical satellite of the Rust Belt. Slater Mill in Pawtucket, once the birthplace of US industrial capitalism, has sat abandoned since 1923. Today, Rhode Island’s economy is split between education, healthcare, and a small but prominent manufacturing sector. The immediate conditions for organizing in a city like Providence are comparable to those in cities like Pittsburgh, Buffalo, or Cleveland. What is different, of course, is its size. The typical paths of capital (real estate development, manufacturing, service work, etc.) are present here, but particularly condensed. As a result of this concentration, the networks of financial interests and political patronage are more clearly visible. The Democratic Party in Rhode Island is no more or less corrupt than in any other state. The quotidian corruption of capitalist parties (or, perhaps, their normal functioning) is simply more apparent, as if seen under a magnifying glass. Corporate influence is less mediated, often taking the form of tangible relationships between capitalists and individual politicians. The same political dynamics and crises exist here as in any other urbanized state. However, there is not enough space, people, or money for state economics and politics to take on the more intricate and complex character they have in New York or California.
The Democratic Party’s highly visible and tight grip on Rhode Island has profoundly impacted our chapter’s strategy. Any good socialist organizer knows they should not and cannot dogmatically replicate our path. Nevertheless, that electoral politics in Rhode Island are synonymous with the politics of the Democratic Party provides us a unique vantage point from which to observe the Party on its own terms. Because the Democrats are hegemonic in Rhode Island, there is no ambiguity about which actions truly reflect the Democrats’ wishes and which have been “forced” by compromise with Republicans. From the Providence City Council to the State House and Senate, every action is drafted, approved, and carried out by Democrats. Despite this, conservative policy rules the day in state politics to the bewilderment of progressive liberals and the suffering of Rhode Island’s working class. In the discussion that follows, I focus on the particular political conditions of Rhode Island. Nevertheless, these conditions exemplify omnipresent capitalist political dynamics. In other words, de te fabula narratur – this is a story that concerns us all.
Prehistory: Providence DSA 2019-2021
The conditions that permitted us to radically change political direction are not unique to the Rhode Island political landscape. What makes our chapter unique is that these conditions appeared simultaneously and that there was an organized will in the chapter to use them to pursue organizational reforms. I offer a brief overview of our chapter’s recent history to explain the convergence of these conditions and contextualize my further analysis.
As it was for many chapters, the leadup to the second Bernie campaign began on shaky ground. COVID had essentially eliminated the ability and will to hold in-person meetings, and though paper membership was increasing, activity and engagement were floundering. The chapter was medium-sized, with around 300 members, and the membership was ideologically diverse – including realigners, anarchists, and some Marxists. Providence DSA (as it was then known) had been endorsing local candidates, most of whom, like current State Senator Sam Bell, won their elections. However, the chapter provided minimal resources to these campaigns and was, in any case, a very minor factor in their elections. Providence DSA mainly focused on its Nationalize Grid working group, which campaigned for a utility justice bill proposed by a local nonprofit. This effort fizzled out sometime during the second Bernie campaign, and the bill has yet to be heard in the State House.
The Bernie 2020 campaign breathed new life into the chapter, bringing a sizable influx of new members. I’ll refrain from rehashing the history of the second Bernie campaign, except to say that it played out in Rhode Island more or less as it did in other states: a massive surge of enthusiasm and organization, followed by a crisis after Bernie’s loss. This enthusiasm led to a newfound dedication to electoral work. Providence DSA organized its first electoral committee. For the first time, the chapter took its work seriously and deliberately, organizing around the campaigns of Sam Bell and David Morales, who won their elections for State Senator and State Representative, respectively. Representative Morales, who will figure prominently later in this section, particularly excited the membership. He was a typical post-Bernie candidate: charismatic, working class, and a tireless campaigner. He also spoke the language of the 2019-era DSA, with speeches full of populist references to Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and bringing power to the people.
Several local groups outside of DSA also hoped for that prospect. Two groups were particularly significant for our chapter’s history: the Rhode Island Political Co-Op and Reclaim Rhode Island. The Co-Op was largely started by organizers and volunteers active in the 2016 and 2020 Bernie campaigns. Although they were still firm Berniecrats, the fact that they struggled in the political ecosystem dominated by the Democratic Party meant that they were more skeptical about the possibility of implementing social democratic policies through collaboration with the Party establishment. Their experience led them to conclude that separation from Democratic Party leadership was necessary to some extent, even if it did not go so far as complete political independence.
Reclaim, on the other hand, was founded mainly by people who had become involved in socialist organizing after 2016. Many of its founders were DSA members, some of whom are still in leadership in RIDSA, although no longer members of Reclaim. There was a sense that the structure of Providence DSA was not up to the task of continuing Bernie’s politics. Regardless of whether or not this continuation was a worthy goal, there is undoubtedly some truth to that notion. In any case, some early turbulence plagued Reclaim. A division quickly emerged between members who wanted a more combative and militant stance towards the Democratic Party and those who favored a conciliatory approach. As often happens, the conciliatory faction won out, and there was a slow exodus of left-wing members from Reclaim in 2020 and 2021. Most of this group had been active in DSA simultaneously, so they translated their electoral efforts back to DSA.
There is a common perception among people outside of Rhode Island that Reclaim was the product of a split in Providence DSA, but that’s not entirely accurate. DSA members comprised much of the original leadership of Reclaim, though most Reclaim members are neither current nor former members of DSA. Certainly, Reclaim attracted a few right-leaning members from Providence DSA, but neither group saw this as a split at the time, and retrospective analysis confirms this impression. There was no exodus of members from DSA – membership was more or less stable throughout the affair. Rather, Reclaim’s enduring significance for RIDSA has been to attract people who might otherwise belong to the right wing of a DSA chapter. Mostly, if someone had politics aligning with the moderate and right wings of US socialist politics, they were far more likely to join Reclaim, even before RIDSA moved leftward. It is worth mentioning here that Reclaim has attracted members with significant sway in national media, including in Jacobin. As a result of this demographic makeup, much of the news that comes out of the Rhode Island Left is filtered through Reclaim’s perspective, often at the expense of accurate information about RIDSA.
Building Steam: 2021-2022
At the beginning of 2021, there was little indication that our chapter would set out in a new direction, although in retrospect, the shift to the left is clear. The first significant debate about electoralism was set off by something relatively unremarkable. Our relations with the Political Co-Op were cordial but not particularly close. As we were preparing through 2021 to endorse a new slate of candidates, the Co-Op asked us to prevent David Morales from voting for State House Speaker Shekarchi. At our urging, Morales decided not to vote for Shekarchi. Nevertheless, the discussion around pressuring Morales led to the consideration of a bylaws amendment requiring that endorsed candidates not vote for Democratic leadership. The debate in our general body meeting was contentious, with some members strenuously disagreeing with the resolution. It became clear, however, that they were in a minority, and the resolution passed with 70% in favor.
This resolution was our chapter’s first explicit declaration of opposition to the Democratic Party, a resolution that, while stopping considerably short of a clean break, was a significant step towards it. It did not cause a drastic shift in membership, although a few staunch electoralists on the fringes of our organization chose to depart. However, the resolution did establish a firm boundary for acceptable conduct for DSA-endorsed candidates.
Similarly, the situation around the DSA-endorsed New York congressman Jamaal Bowman moved opinion in our chapter. Bowman had continually violated DSA’s stance of solidarity with Palestine. In addition to voting to fund Israel’s Iron Dome system, he took a trip to Israel sponsored by J Street, a liberal Zionist organization, where he met with notorious war criminal Naftali Bennett. This conduct blatantly violated DSA’s national policy, and there was an outcry to de-endorse him. National opinion was not particularly important here since the ultimate decision in his endorsement lay with the New York City DSA. Our chapter voted to release a statement calling for DSA to cut ties with him (a stance, I think, which has been vindicated many times over by the genocide in Gaza). This statement passed, further cementing support in our chapter for disciplining DSA elected officials and rejecting the Democratic Party. This affair led some members to leave the chapter, dissatisfied with the national organization’s decision to maintain Bowman’s endorsement.
The summer of 2022 marked a resurgence of electoral work in our chapter. Providence DSA endorsed six candidates, four of whom emerged victorious in their elections: Enrique Sanchez for State Representative, Sam Bell for State Senator, Miguel Sanchez for Providence City Council, and David Morales for State House. These victories were monumental tasks for a midsize chapter, and our success was a testament to our resilience and determination. It instilled an invigorating collective belief, which I still hold, that we can organize and win concrete gains, despite our group’s small size.
2023: The Final Straw
Of course, electoral successes have a funny way of turning against themselves. In early January, Representative Morales, who our chapter had thrown its weight behind in two State House elections, voted for Joseph Shekarchi for Speaker of the House. In addition to being a member of the Rhode Island Democratic machine, Shekarchi is an eviction lawyer with connections to the mafia.1 Morales’ vote was a clear violation of our bylaws, which state: “DSA-endorsed politicians are expected to play an oppositional role in the political system. They should not support establishment Democrats for the purpose of gaining the favor of Party leadership.”2
Violation of standards for electeds does not guarantee de-endorsement, nor should it. The solution in cases like this is typically to discuss the situation with the candidate and hold them accountable to the chapter. However, Morales did not appear at a single chapter meeting after the vote and was quite cagey about talking to members who knew him well. As we would discover later, Representative Morales had found that the Democrat game demands a certain amount of compromise. The fact, however, that Representative Morales was not even willing to explain himself to the chapter meant that the resolution to de-endorse him passed quickly, albeit after a heated debate.
This vote did cause three or four semi-active members on the right wing of the chapter to leave, although recruiting meant that our actual chapter membership stayed more or less the same. The more significant effect of the Morales vote was to amplify questions about electoralism in the chapter. We had to ask each other: what did we want to get out of participating in elections? Our electeds, even when they followed our candidate guidelines, were stymied at every step by the strict discipline of a party that is corrupt, controlled by powerful, moneyed interests, and profoundly undemocratic. What was the point of putting immense chapter efforts into these campaigns when they often led to our candidates breaking basic socialist principles and the disorganization of our chapter? Recognizing the need for a new direction, our long-time members saw a unique opportunity to consolidate our electoral analysis and avoid the pitfalls of aligning with the Democratic Party. With this in mind, we convened a platform committee, a crucial step in drafting a new platform and direction for the chapter.
These particular debates are common to any left-wing organization participating in electoral politics. Yet, our decision to pursue electoral politics outside the Democratic Party remains an unusual (though not unprecedented) move for a DSA chapter. In the final analysis, three primary factors allowed RIDSA to formulate a break with the Democrats: our experience with disciplining chapter-endorsed elected officials, the relative lack of committed Democratic electoralists in our chapter, and the presence of experienced radicals. The first led us to realize that the presence of our endorsed candidates in electoral bodies did not translate to the ability to implement socialist policies. Our endorsed candidates directly contradicted the chapter’s will when they entered office, and we had to discipline them strictly. Our electeds were often a source of controversy and disorganization. Moreover, our underdeveloped strategy did not offer any clear route to fixing those problems. In addition, our chapter had very few members ideologically committed to a conciliatory stance towards the state Democratic Party. Potential members who favored this route were drawn to organizations like Reclaim. Finally, our chapter had many revolutionary socialists who could formulate a concrete plan of action to respond to our chapter’s crisis. In short, the problems inherent in working with the Democratic Party took the form of a strategic impasse.
“Elect More Socialists!”
With the previous history for context, I can more thoroughly analyze the organizational problems we encountered running candidates on the Democratic ballot line. When choosing tactics for a socialist organization, it is essential to consider a tactic’s immediate outcome and its lasting effect on the organization and broader political situation. Focusing simply on short-term wins can lead to disastrous and disorganizing effects. In the sphere of electoral tactics, this mistake is particularly pervasive. Electoral campaigns, superficially, present a simple goal: to elect a candidate. If your endorsed candidate wins, that is a win for your socialist organization, and if they lose, it is a simple failure. The problem with this seemingly self-evident argument is that it relies on an underdeveloped notion of winning. Advocates of electoral politics through the Democratic Party rely naively or cynically on stunted notions of “power” and “winning.” These are ambiguities that advocates of the Democratic ballot line use to conceal a total shift in politics. To these people, power indicates the presence of DSA-endorsed candidates in elected bodies, and a win is a quantitative increase in the number of such people. Disagreement with these conflations can mean only one thing: that one is a raving sectarian.
As socialists, we believe that class conflict is a determining dynamic in every society and that preparing the working class to win a permanent victory in this conflict is necessary. Power can only mean the power of the working class to create a classless society through socialist politics, and wins are results that pave the way for accomplishing this task. With this frame of mind, it is entirely unclear why the election of a DSA-endorsed candidate, considering no further context, is a win or builds the power of the working class. On the contrary, based on our chapter’s experience, the election of an endorsed candidate can stunt a socialist organization’s ability to fight.
When a chapter decides to endorse a candidate, it is either a paper endorsement or an endorsement accompanied by a dedication of some organizing capacity to the campaign. In Rhode Island DSA’s case, before 2021, we had endorsed candidates, but the disorganization of our chapter meant that these endorsements were purely symbolic. This type of endorsement naturally had little impact. More significant is the possibility of devoting labor, time, and organizational focus to a campaign. Providence DSA shifted in this direction in 2020. Yet by 2022 and a new round of elections for city and state positions, serious issues began to emerge with the “just elect socialists” strategy.
In the first place, we found that serious work for an electoral campaign drained a lot of time and resources with few tangible gains for the chapter. The summer of 2022 saw a wave of electoral activity in our chapter. We turned out many canvassers, and our members actively worked on campaign strategy. One of our co-chairs ran the campaign for an endorsed candidate for State House who unseated a long-time incumbent. That election season was one of the most significant undertakings of our chapter. It also drew a lot of new faces to DSA events. But once elections were over, and with them the thrill of big rallies and doorknocking, we realized that the mobilization of that summer had all but evaporated. Like all other campaigns a chapter runs, electoral campaigns necessitate deliberate planning to translate short-term enthusiasm into permanent political gains for a chapter.
Unlike other campaigns run entirely by a chapter, however, electoral campaigns for Democrats create structural impediments to this translation. First, when people decide to run for office with a socialist endorsement but not as an organized socialist candidate, they separate from and polarize the chapter that endorses them. For instance, our chapter recruited a few dozen canvassers for our endorsed candidates. Without Providence DSA’s efforts, these canvassers likely would not have spent time canvassing for these particular candidates. During election season, these people worked on the long and challenging task of canvassing, which often precluded their participation in other campaigns and chapter activities. Once the campaigns concluded, they had a connection to the candidate they had canvassed for but very little connection to the chapter or our long-term organizing efforts. Those who canvassed for the candidates who lost their elections expressed cynical discouragement. They had little drive to continue working because their political experience revolved around a single, short-term goal rather than a more expansive vision of politics. Counterintuitively, the outcome was similar for members working for a winning candidate. They completed their objective of winning the election, so their new task was to wait eagerly until their candidate told them to re-engage. The comrades who remained active in the chapter were generally people who had been involved before their involvement in the elections and could conceive of electoral work as a part of a larger project.
This pattern alone points simply to an organizational deficiency on our chapter’s part. The best practice is to contact these volunteers and draw them to events where their enthusiasm or dejection can go towards socialist activity. Indeed, this practice works very well for chapter-run issue campaigns. Yet, shortcomings of our practice aside, the fact that Democrats view winning elections as the ultimate struggle for political power inevitably hinders attempts to organize the working class. Failing to secure and maintain their elected positions means political death for Democrats. This leads them, regardless of their good intentions, to have a vested interest in preventing political groups from organizing to make them face electoral consequences. Opposition, however comradely, poses a threat. Consequently, the ideal support base for a Democratic candidate is an obedient one. A group with solidly principled, working-class-based politics is undesirable, as it will not forgive selfish political compromise or permit its candidate to put their political career over the needs of their constituents without facing consequences from active, rank and file members. Often unconscious of what they are doing, candidates attempt to keep people oriented around their campaign and will work with DSA only to the extent that they can ensure uncritical support for their election.
From the perspective of chapter leadership, we find our recruitment efforts failing to match the enthusiasm that surrounded a campaign and that crucial organizational tasks have fallen by the wayside. The organization we thought we built during the campaign proves to be an illusion, a distorted image of the structure of the candidate’s campaign. This process is one way that DSA chapters become addicted to electoral work. We seek the activity, organization, and clear goals an electoral campaign can provide. During these campaigns, our members know exactly what to do, who has what responsibilities, and what we are working towards. Yet, these are not things that the chapter has developed organically. They are the mere effect of living parasitically off organizing in support of Democratic Party objectives. Once election season ends, we are left disorganized and unable to court new members. The next time a candidate comes along seeking our endorsement, we enthusiastically agree, eager for the structure and enthusiasm of an electoral campaign. And so the cycle continues. After a time, chapters become hollowed-out shells. Whatever independent politics they hold are merely a facade for the unreflexive support of whatever candidate courts our endorsement. Organizational addiction to electoralism is why some DSA chapters and members continue to support AOC and Jamaal Bowman. Sure, they voted to send arms to Israel and openly denigrate DSA, but we have come to depend on electoral campaigns to fuel and justify our existence.
Democrat Centralism
The fundamental issues with endorsing external candidates are clear. A necessary condition to solve this issue is running candidates from within and under the supervision of a socialist organization. This does not appear to preclude the possibility of running such candidates as Democrats. Advocates of adopting the Democratic ballot line argue that the Democratic Party is a neutral medium, or at least one that permits room for dissent and counter-organizing. To the contrary, the Democratic Party maintains a discipline far exceeding that of any socialist sect. This discipline is not laid out in any party documents. To write it down would deprive junior Democratic politicians of their youthful optimism before it could be put to political use. It would also deflate the hopes of “progressive” political activists to shift the party line. Yet, this discipline operates ineluctably on all Democrats.
The first mechanism of Democratic discipline is through personal appeals. As soon as a prospective candidate shows any sign of skill or charisma, the Democratic Party links them with people in the party who can show them how the game is played. Seated Democrats will tell the prospective candidate that they are intelligent, brilliant even, and that if they work with the Democrats they will have a long and successful career. This appeal to self-interest and careerism can be very persuasive, even to principled candidates.
The next appeal that Democratic leadership makes is on the basis of political pragmatism. The slogan here is: that’s just how the game is played! Democratic officials will rapidly induct the young elected socialist into a web of personal patronage and ostensible pragmatism. If candidates are attached to certain pieces of legislation, Democrats will enjoin them to compromise it, making it easier to pass. Certain elected officials may support the legislation in principle, but demand softening, to make it more palatable to moderate members. This extends not just to proposing legislation, but to voting for completely reactionary legislation as well. For instance, our candidate may be asked to vote for a tax cut, so that the Speaker of the House will be more likely to consider their rent control bill. Like borrowing money from the Mafia, what starts as a favor here or a chance meeting there grows into a rigid constraint on an elected socialist’s political agenda. Eventually, the once-promising young socialist elected becomes ensnared in a web of favors, compromises, and back-room deals. At this point, their possibilities for promoting policy that violates the Democratic Party consensus are nonexistent. Such a move would sour the complicated web of pragmatic decisions that the socialist in office has spent so long cultivating. They would be left isolated in a party consisting of people enmeshed in the same system of patronage that they broke from, who they now find are violently hostile to their politics. The aspect that is particularly insidious about this method of discipline is that the elected socialist is compelled to act, not necessarily by persuasion, but by a coercive narrowing of choices. The result is that many candidates maintain the notion that they are remaining true to their politics, while in fact their actions speak otherwise. This leads to hostility when a socialist group like DSA attempts to hold these elected officials accountable. The elected socialist can respond, logically, that these socialists simply don’t know how the game is played. DSA doesn’t know that these apparent deviations from principle aren’t really betrayals, but temporary setbacks on the road to a fairer society.
A further factor ensuring adherence to the right-wing Democratic line are business interests. Wherever there are Democrats, from the national to the local level, capitalists and landlords set decisive limits on the range of Democratic officials’ political positions. It is enormously difficult to finance a campaign, particularly for a first-time candidate. To even begin a run for State House, according to some of my comrades who have done so, requires at least $15,000 all told. As the campaign goes on, funding becomes even more crucial. And our socialist candidate finds out that it is far easier to court a single real estate developer than it is to solicit donations from hundreds of working-class people. And slowly, they will find it necessary to change policy to attract larger donors. Perhaps they become convinced that their rent control bill was simply not practical, and that a bill to subsidize new development will have the same effect without the alienation of Vinny Boombatz Real Estate Co. This mechanism, of course, is how Democratic economic policy is set in the first place. The richest and most powerful individuals are capitalists, and are able to dictate economic policy through financial support, both direct and indirect.
Finally, if our socialist elected somehow manages to evade appeals to their pride, pragmatism, or pocketbook, the Democratic Party has directly coercive methods. A particularly good example of this comes from Nevada. DSA-endorsed candidates won control of the Democratic state committee, but the outgoing conservative Democrats took the membership lists, technological tools, and donor and consultant networks with them. In addition, the previous slate’s staffers resigned en masse. As a result, the DSA-endorsed state Democratic Party chair, Judith Whitmer, adopted a path of extreme capitulation in order to preserve some resources. This is typical. In Rhode Island, DSA’s elected Providence City Councilor, Miguel Sanchez, was fired from his job as a staffer in the governor’s office for taking an outspoken position on the Palestianian genocide. Similarly, the Democratic Party has arranged a primary challenger for our elected State Representative, Enrique Sanchez. The list of underhanded, retaliatory tactics is extensive and well-developed.
In the final analysis, the Democratic Party cultivates the outward appearance of a fair, even-handed, and progressive organization. But in point of fact it suppresses political dissent through appeals to careerism, personal patronage networks, the discipline of financial interests, and outright coercion. Those who deny this fact are either inexperienced with the Party’s dealings or remain willfully ignorant to them.
A New Direction
If the outlook for DSA-style electoral organizing is so dire, what is the point of running candidates at all? From RIDSA’s perspective, this is the question we should have been asking all along. We, like countless other DSA chapters, participated in electoralism out of instinct, a vague sensation that this was an important arena. But in the last year we have sharpened the question. How can socialists use electoral politics as a tool to build working-class consciousness and organization? It would be dishonest to suggest that RIDSA or any other organization has a full answer. Yet, our experience in Rhode Island vindicates Marx’s famous 1850 address to the Communist League, in which he states:
Even when there is no prospect whatsoever of their being elected, the workers must put up their own candidates in order to preserve their independence, to count their forces, and to bring before the public their revolutionary attitude and party standpoint.
In short, the point of participating in elections in a system that is rigged against socialists is to foster an independent working-class movement, to evaluate our strength, and to fight relentlessly in the public eye for a revolutionary reorganization of society.
The importance of independence, by which I mean either running as an independent or on a socialist ballot line, cannot be overstated. I have already elaborated the impossibilities of working within even state Democratic parties. The advantage of independent socialist candidates is to establish in form what ought to be true in practice: complete separation from and opposition to capitalist politicians. The phenomenon of class conflict makes clear that there is no possibility of persuading or shifting capitalist parties to support socialism. They have good reason to oppose us. Socialist electoral tactics must be conscious of the fact that society has placed us in unavoidable opposition to the ruling class, and our forms of organization should reflect this fact. Political independence reduces the structural incentives for political compromise. If a socialist runs as an independent, it is explicitly in opposition to the Democrats. The normal routes of Democratic co-optation and compromise are not open to the candidate, and their politics can remain faithful to the interests of the working class. It is far more difficult to pursue electoralism with this oppositional orientation, but it is necessary in order for electoral politics to be of any use whatsoever to socialists.
Elections also give us a valuable tool for evaluating our own strength. We’ve seen that the rush of enthusiasm that Democratic elections bring can deceive us about our own power and organization. An independent socialist electoral campaign can broach no ambiguity on this point. If our candidate is defeated, it is because we are not prepared enough, and this is valuable information for a party to have. It is far preferable to a sense of complacency.
Finally, independent politics provides the incomparable opportunity to bring uncompromising, honest, socialist politics to a larger stage. For the vast majority of Americans, elections are the only major interaction they have with our political system. An independent campaign, regardless of whether it wins or loses, allows socialists to bring their message to working-class people in familiar terrain.
Conclusion: Implications for National DSA
What the right wing of DSA means by pragmatism is complacency. We know what Democratic campaigns look like. As disappointed as we may be in “progressive” elected officials, they are the only elected officials we know. But at the risk of reiterating what revolutionaries have been arguing for centuries, the entire point of our political project is a definitive break with the political world as we know it. And given the failure of the Democratic Party to defend the modest Keynesian gains of the New Deal, the tools for building this break must be of a qualitatively new kind.
The point of our movement, the point of socialism itself, is to build class consciousness, the capability of the working class to self-determine and create a new society. No matter how weak and paltry our efforts may appear now, our activity must be directed towards that colossal goal. It is not a goal we begin building towards once conditions are right. Conditions will never be perfectly amenable to socialism: the movement or party will never present itself in anything other than a weak and disorganized form to start with. What we found in RIDSA is that alignment with Democratic politics was a way to avoid contending with our colossal goal. It was familiar, a way to assuage our dissatisfaction with the world as it exists by doing something that was immediately at hand. A break from the Democratic Party was necessary because it cured us of the illusion that there was a familiar road to socialism, that socialism was essentially an extension of our US political experience. The shattering of this illusion was not pleasant. It meant that we had rejected much of our most familiar political experience. But in this unfamiliar terrain, new and more promising tactics arise. Even at our current size, we managed to run a Vote Uncommitted campaign, attracting 14.5% of Rhode Island democratic primary voters, a bold if modest statement of outrage against the Democratic Party’s complicity in genocide. Our Medicare for All working group is fighting for a system of nationalized health care and the abolition of medical debt, with enough success to attract the concern of state and city politicians. Our electoral committee has developed a campaign plan and is gathering the resources to run an independent socialist in 2026.
These are modest accomplishments, to be sure. Our break from the Democratic Party was not the end of our political battle but the beginning. It is too early to judge whether our efforts will succeed or not. But while we are building a new path, we do it with confidence that the old path was a dead end. The movement to build a workers’ party has already begun in Rhode Island, and with our work it will continue.
Appendix: RIDSA Convention Resolutions
We attempted to enshrine our chapter’s new direction, provisional as it may be, into official chapter strategy at our 2023 chapter convention. I summarize three resolutions of particular relevance to our chapter: the (in)famous electoral resolution, the program (in effect, a reorganization of our chapters’ central structure), our political education, and a core principles bylaw amendment. I have chosen these resolutions to illustrate a movement towards principled tactics, and organizational and ideological coherence.
The first of these, and the one that has led to the most controversy, is our electoral resolution. The resolution, on an immediate level, commits us to
endors[ing] a single independent campaign in a small district with 3,000-4,000 general election voters by 2026 … choos[ing] the district [for such a campaign], recruit[ing] a candidate to run, assembl[ing] a campaign team of at least ten people, writ[ing] a detailed campaign plan, and [recruiting] supporters from out of state.
In addition, the resolution commits us to endorsing only “DSA representatives,” which the resolution defines as candidates who
are independent candidates (not on the Democratic ballot line) who are elected through fully DSA-accountable campaigns run by DSA members. [A DSA representative] takes direction from the chapter on messaging and hiring of staff, and holds voter data outside VAN [Voter Activation Network, voter database software for Democratic candidates]. DSA representatives are not only expected to maintain a good voting record, but also must publicly promote the chapter platform, accept guidance on political messaging, and actively recruit constituents to Rhode Island DSA. They are required to endorse all other candidates Rhode Island DSA endorses … and may not endorse any other politicians without a vote of the chapter.
Though the resolution does not state so explicitly, in practice this means that our endorsed candidates going forward will typically be DSA cadre. Our current endorsed candidates are grandfathered in, though they will have to meet these requirements if they seek endorsements in their next elections.
These tactical orientations are posed with the purpose of building a mass independent socialist party, abiding by the ten-point program below:
- A commitment to defeat capitalism through class struggle.
- Oppositional politics. Our party will not make alliances with capitalists or their politicians. Socialist politicians avoid backroom deals and instead will fight for reforms by calling out corrupt officials, unmasking the capitalist system, and encouraging mass movements.
- Electoral accountability. The party’s politicians understand themselves to be delegates of the membership — accountable to the democratic decisions of the general body and bound to the party platform. They will not accept a salary higher than that of the average worker in their district (and will donate any remainder to the party). Party members will be able to vote to withdraw support for a politician at any time.
- A broad membership rooted in the multiracial working class. Membership will be open to anyone who agrees with the socialist mission of the party, and recruitment will be aimed at bringing in a majority of working-class people.
- A base in the labor movement. The party will need strong ties to a large section of unionized workers, who eventually must be willing to strike for political demands.
- Democratic decision-making. The membership will collectively determine the actions and policies of the party, and party officers will carry out the resolutions voted on by members. All party officers will be elected, recallable, and again, paid no more than the average worker’s wage.
- Freedom of opinion. Members will be free to debate, disagree with party decisions, and form factions when they wish (while respecting the will of the majority, which determines party policy). The political coherence of the party will be maintained through its educational programs and political organizing by cadre.
- Social institutions. The party will remain present in members’ lives year-round through political education, social clubs, and forms of support such as childcare.
- Democratic funding. The party will be funded by membership dues, not corporate money or corporate-affiliated NGOs.
- Internationalism. The party will aim to be part of one socialist movement, extending beyond Rhode Island to the rest of the country and the world.
While the electoral resolution is best understood as a consolidation of the lessons we had learned through our electoral campaigns, these experiences as well as our experience running other working groups led to the realization that our leadership structure was too diffuse, and working groups often operated as independent entities, rather than as part of a unified chapter. As a result, we passed what we called “The Program,” which reformed certain aspects of our organization. The most important changes were:
- Renaming the chapter from “Providence DSA” to “Rhode Island DSA”, reflecting that our membership is drawn from the entire state, rather than just Providence.
- Making certain basic principles part of our official bylaws, and thus binding on membership.
- Allowing our Executive Committee to approve expenses of up to $500.
- Giving working group and committee chairs membership on our Executive Committee.
- Electing working group and committee chairs by a general body vote, rather than just a vote of working group/committee members.
- Making simultaneous voting (i.e. either in-person, Zoom, or proxy) mandatory for General Body votes, rather than via an online poll open for multiple days.
- Implementing requirements for voting privileges, including payment of dues and attendance at at least two previous DSA events in the last 365 days.
- Requiring working groups to submit official plans to the general body for approval.
- Outlining specific duties of working group/committee chairs (keeping minutes, maintaining membership lists, deciding delegation of tasks, etc.)
Finally, as referenced above, we passed a bylaw amendment adding basic political requirements to our bylaws, namely that:
- Rhode Island DSA welcomes as members all who are in general agreement with our Core Principles:
- Socialism. We believe that capitalism, and its repressive political institutions, must be replaced by a government and an economy that are run democratically by the working class.
- Class Struggle. Workers and bosses have conflicting interests. The working class needs its own organizations to fight back against the capitalist class.
- Unity of the Working Class. Socialists organize to unite workers across divides of race, gender, and nationality, and we fight oppression wherever it is found.
- Eli Sherman, et al., “Investigation links RI House speaker’s aide to mob associate, marijuana operation,” WPRI.com, October 27 2022, https://www.wpri.com/target-12/investigation-links-ri-house-speakers-aide-to-mob-associate-marijuana-operation/.
- This quote can be found in the preamble to Article X of the chapter bylaws: www.ridsa.org/bylaws.