The US midterm election has provided a lot of food for thought on the left. There is cause for celebration in the fact that socialist-affiliated candidates all over the country won their seats, showing that the American populace at large is simply not scared of the socialist label anymore. Furthermore, the results represent a strong repudiation of Trump broadly and the Iran War in particular. However, very few, if any, of these candidates are principled socialists. All but a handful of the winning campaigns were on the Democratic Party ticket, and those that weren't were city council and state seats, many of which were nonpartisan by law. All the most high-profile House and Senate campaigns were running largely on a neutered Nordic model, keeping the robust welfare state, leaving public ownership and increased democracy behind. Likewise, the rejection of Trump was not a principled anti-imperialist awakening of the American people, but instead a reminder of the lesson my high school US history teacher drilled into our heads: wars are expensive. This leaves the US left at something of an impasse: a massive surge in interest in socialism not seen in 100 years with a lack of strong institutions to direct the people.

I will direct my disappointment primarily at DSA, the belle of the ball at the moment. Anyone who is a critic of the realignment strategy has reason to be outright despairing at the direction of the organization. With a surge in membership and unprecedented interest, the central debate of the moment is whether or not to endorse the presidential candidacy of someone who has not announced they are running. This is not the activity of a serious party that believes they have the power to shape the moment.

It is easy to blame the DSA right wing for this state of affairs, as they are the ones with the majorities and the ones pushing this strategy. While they certainly maintain their share of the blame, the left wing cannot be spared. Despite no shortage of criticism from the left towards these strategies, there is an overwhelming lack of action towards developing a serious independent socialist party. That is not to discount the actions that have been taken towards this goal, such as Kubicek’s recent run in Rhode Island, but to recognize that despite having nearly the same level of nominal support (measured by NPC seats), those against the realignment strategy have little to show for it.

As with all things, it is helpful to analyze the DSA through the lens of “the purpose of a system is what it does”. The cynical answer to this is that through this lens, the purpose of DSA is to elect Democrats. However, this idea falls apart on a closer look. While certainly DSA electeds have all been Democrats, one only needs to look at how the candidates themselves discuss DSA to see that DSA as a national organization is not integral to their campaigns. Further, the fact that DSA is built entirely on free association makes it hard to claim that most who participate in the canvassing, etc., for these Democratic candidates would be otherwise politically occupied without DSA. In reality, DSA on the whole likely pulls liberals left more than it pulls communists and anarchists right. Instead, what DSA provides to those on the left is simply a left-wing social club.

Looking at the chapter in my area as a case study, the extent of organization they have led is movie nights, range days, and a book club. To give some credit, it does serve as a broad hub for the socialist and progressive movements in the area, but this is a consequence of who decides to join, and not to the credit of the organization itself. Most recently, the chapter has booted anyone who is not a dues-paying member from their communications to ensure the club’s exclusivity. While this chapter may be an outlier in its particulars, it is indicative of a broader truth. DSA is a wonderful place to meet like-minded individuals and engage in debate, but a poor place for organic growth of something new. Most everything worthwhile that is associated with DSA is the result of an outside organization teaming up with like-minded members of DSA, not a top-down directive.

This is not inherently a bad thing, as this lack of a need for top-down directives is a source of dynamism within the organization. It does explain why the realignment strategy has so much momentum, though: the Democrats already exist. Without the existence of an organization for the breakers to use, the break strategy is doomed to wait for a top-down directive from the NPC that may never come. Unfortunately, the chances for this are currently slim.

PSL has been a prominent option as of late, but recent revelations have made it likely to follow the path towards increasing irrelevancy like FRSO before it. It is simply the latest in a line of supposedly democratic centralist organizations that have chosen the form less out of a respect for democratic struggle and more as a way to ensure that their followers fall in line with the founders. These types of organizations are inherently weak to abuse because of the importance they place upon the upper cadre. Once the trust that they rely on is broken, it is nearly impossible to recover.

I will give the ACP credit for one thing, and that is to try something at least a little different. Their strategy of directly trying to appeal primarily to the more reactionary sections of the working class is relatively novel, though I share the opinion of many of their critics that this is misguided. If they do succeed, they will still do so under a similar structure as these top-heavy democratic centralist parties. The party has elevated Haz Al-Din in a manner more reminiscent of Bob Avakian than Lenin. Whether or not ACP ultimately falls to some scandal, it is clear that it is the party of Haz, and that is unlikely to ever change.

Looking at the parties with longer histories does not provide much hope either. CPUSA was perhaps permanently crippled by the Red Scare. Not to mention the further mass political education needed to popularize communism as a term. Despite the lack of this hurdle, the Socialist Party USA is perhaps even more irrelevant to modern politics. The Green Party, while commendable for their recent explicitly socialist turn, will be doomed to perpetual “also-ran” status unless they can let go of their obsession with presidential politics. There is hope here in all three that they could be the subject of their own sort of “realignment” campaign, injecting the life needed into these parties to capitalize on the moment, but their current state of affairs is dismal.

I provide this critique not as a pessimistic tear-down of the American socialist movement, but as a hopeful intervention. I am hopeful that the broad support of socialism and desire for change will coalesce into a socialist movement with real power. In order to do so, however, a principled organization must engage with the social network DSA has created.