Fight for Every Life as Though It Were Your Own

All-JOIN D.S.A. Edition!

With the presidential election only a week away, this will be my last newsletter before…well, whatever happens as a result. You don’t need me to tell you how bad things have gotten; you can see it everywhere you look. We can not only no longer count on free and fair elections; we can not only no longer count on a safe and orderly transfer of power; we can no longer even count on the sitting president publicly agreeing to leave office if he loses. The Republicans openly endorse voter suppression and disenfranchisement, because they are awful; the Democrats claim to oppose them while tacitly supporting them (with gerrymandering, underfunding poll work, over-investing in electronic voting, and a continued opposition to voter reform). If it was not clear already that voting is an insufficient and ineffective tool for positive political change, it certainly should be by now.

I’m not going to engage in my usual arguments about the limits of voting, however. I’m not going to rail against the Republicans for their cruelty and contempt, or against the Democrats for their ineffectiveness and cowardice. I’m going to do instead what I’ve said the Democrats, as the opposition party, should have been doing all along, but which they have largely abandoned in favor of the argument that they are the only option less evil than the G.O.P.: I’m going to make a case for a clear, distinct, and meaningful alternative. I won’t tell you not to vote, or who to vote for, or what your vote does or doesn’t mean; as far as the franchise goes, exercise it however you wish and as in all things, let your conscience be your guide. What I am going to ask you to do is join the Democratic Socialists of America.

First, my own story: I am (sorry, everyone) a communist. I have been since I was a teenager, and I will be until the day I die. I believe that socialism, and socialism alone, is the only way to provide justice, equity, decency, respect, and security to everyone, everywhere, regardless of their nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation, or ability. But as a member of Generation X, being a communist wasn’t easy, especially in America. This is, and always has been, the most capitalist country on Earth, and when I was younger, merely expressing sympathy towards a leftist perspective was enough to mark you as a traitor at worst and a laughingstock at best. With the Soviet Union crumbling, China retooling itself as America’s gadget factory, and Ronald Reagan’s role in crushing the unions and turning the country to the right, the organized left fell to pieces. I kept at it, quietly and not so quietly, but I never felt that I had a true home on the left.

Then came 2014. By then, the contradictions of late capitalism had been laid bare; economic inequality was more stark than it had been in a century, and the Democratic Party had long since abandoned its position as the party of the poor and working class. Ever since Reagan, the people in charge had become technocrats, centrists, advocates of the elites; their solutions had stopped being about helping the people at the bottom and more about diversifying the people at the top. Their programs were means-tested, focus-grouped, and designed to be, above all, inoffensive to anyone who might one day throw some money their way. The Republicans, meanwhile, had only become more Republican, which is to say more vicious, more racist, more corrupt, and more amenable to authoritarianism. Both parties embraced bad domestic policy and worse foreign policy, and when they talked about poor people at all, it was usually in terms of criminality.

But what were my options? There was no viable third party in America, by design; neither the Republicans nor the Democrats were fond of competition. Most leftist groups were either big-talking ultra-leftists who preached revolution now but practiced revolution never, or well-meaning academic types who had good ideas but amounted to little more than small reading groups. There was no praxis. I didn’t need more talk; I knew what I believed. I wanted action. The only people in my community I ever heard about who were actually getting out there and doing something for the working people of Chicago were those in the local chapter of the DSA. So, one day, after chatting with one of their members tabling at the Logan Square farmer’s market, I joined. Two years later, after never having had a position of political leadership in my life, I was the co-chair.

When I took over the position, Chicago DSA had maybe 600 members, few of whom were active. Leadership was mostly white and mostly older, and we met in living rooms and libraries. With 2016, and the emergence of social democrat Bernie Sanders providing stark relief to the deeply unpopular corporate Democrat and Republican candidates, our membership surged; Chicago DSA grew to over 3,000 members today. Along the way, I did what I could to shepherd our chapter through enormous growth; I learned how to organize effectively and communicate clearly; I committed to reaching out to our city’s beautiful and dynamic neighborhoods full of working-class people of color; I saw our deeply entrenched and corrupt Democratic city council get an infusion of not one, but six open socialists; I saw our leadership become much younger and more diverse; and I learned the truth that political change is only possible from a lifelong commitment to working at every level, not just from engaging in a once-every-four-years choice between bad and worse.

I also met comrades who will be my friends for life, both personally and in the struggle. I learned the real value of democracy – not just of voting for president, but of democracy in organizing, democracy in the workplace, democracy at home. My wife joined and has become a linchpin of the chapter, leading our socialist feminist working group and helping with logistics as Chicago hosted DSA’s national convention (then the largest gathering of socialists in America in over a century, and since superseded by our 2019 convention in Atlanta, both of which I attended as a delegate). I made public appearances, helped get candidates elected locally and nationally, led our security team, dealt with political disagreements and bad-faith internal actors, had uncountable defeats and occasional glorious victories, and generally had my entire perception of what it means to organize, to work for progress, and to learn how power really works changed. It can happen. All you have to do to enter a whole different world, where you are able to join together and experience the power of mass organization, where you are part of a movement and not just a subject of the whims of the wealthy, is to do what I did: join DSA. It literally changed my life; it can change yours as well.

It may be that you’re not a socialist. That’s fine, as long as you understand what socialism means and why you don’t agree with it; I’m not here to evangelize you into believing something you don’t believe. I also won’t subject you to a discussion of what socialism is or isn’t (although I’m totally willing to have that conversation with you if you’re interested!). What I do want to emphasize is this: Capitalism is inherently cruel. It is inherently destructive. It doesn’t just thrive in conditions of poverty and inequality; it depends on them. It does not need democracy, racial harmony, the support of the people, education, or prosperity; all it needs is a large number of workers to exploit and a small number of elites to grow fat off their labor. Exploitation is built into capitalism’s basic framework, whether it is poor people at home or overseas, and there is no way to wash exploitation out of the model. It is inherently reactionary, racist by necessity, and imperialist by design. Whatever you think about the difference between Republicans and Democrats, both are parties of capital; and neither will solve our country’s most pressing problems, because they are problems of capitalism.

No one, least of all me, can promise you that this struggle will be easy. If you want something easy, just do what millions do: abdicate their role as part of the political process, vote once every four years, and hope for the best from the leaders you’ve decided should be responsible for how you live your life. It will be hard. It is a constant battle, internally and externally. Many people will want you dead; many more will want you to just shut up. You will be joining a difficult march uphill, towards the peak of a mountain you will likely not live to see. I can’t tell you it won’t be hard, and you will be dissatisfied, frustrated, and angry at times. But you will have comrades, you will learn solidarity, and you will make a difference. You’ll be part of the mass movements that result in real change, the actions that result in real political change that the politicians always take credit for. You will be part of something greater than yourself. You will fight for someone you’ll never meet. You will participate in the effort to liberate all mankind, not just the people who can afford it.

DSA is not a political party; it is a political organizing body. It is a true big tent, with the flexibility to take on the smallest of local issues and the national power to focus on the biggest of problems. It has grown in four years from a fringe group with fewer than 6,000 members to a powerhouse that will reach 100,000 by the end of the year. It is the largest socialist organization in America, and one that wants to build multi-racial working-class power under a diverse leadership responsive to its membership through a robust democratic process. It has never made me, as both a leader and a member, feel taken for granted. It is a membership organization, and while it costs money to join (unlike the Democrats or the Republicans, where all you have to do is mark a form, but where you have no say in what the organization does), there are many ways to join if you can’t afford the yearly membership. It is building chapters in every city and every state, and it has strong ties to international socialist organizations and parties. It is not beholden to bosses or owners. It is explicitly ideological and always antifascist. It will teach you more than you ever thought you would know about how the world works, and what you can do about it. It’s more than just a job placement service for Ivy Leaguers and the well-connected; it is an ongoing project of making the world what you want it to be.

The watchword of our movement is solidarity. Not individualism; not autonomy; not status or achievement or accomplishment. If you want those things, they’re available to you. Don’t join any organization. Set off on your own, answerable to no one and reliant on no one. Keep buying the story that America has told you for hundreds of years, that you are free and unruled in a word where society and consequences are just words. Many have chosen that path; its byways and signposts are pretty familiar to everyone by now. We know where it leads; we see its final destination every time we turn on the news. But I have chosen a different path. I proudly sing “Solidarity Forever” with my comrades, belting out the words “What force on Earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?” I stir when I hear the words of John L. Lewis: “With organization, you have the aid of your fellow man. Without organization, you’re a lone individual without influence and without recognition of any kind, easy prey to exploitation when it pleases some industrialist who desires to make money from your misery.”

If you’re interested in socialism, but you’re not sure what it means; if you want to join the fastest-growing political organization in America; if you’re a liberal who’s frustrated with the Democrats and their constant cozying up to the right; if you’re a conservative who’s tired of the Republicans saying they’re for the little guy and then leaving you out to dry; if you’re a leftist who wants to stop talking and start doing; if you are missing the material analysis of class conflict that is missing from the American political discourse; if you are tired of treating your allies and enemies and your enemies as allies in the ongoing effort to reduce human suffering; if you are ready to become more than just a single person, alone, railing against a system that doesn’t care if you live or die; if you’re ready to become part of something bigger than yourself: join me. Join DSA. Vote how you want; then the real work begins.