Varn Vlog
Abandon all hope ye who subscribe here. Varn Vlog is the pod of C. Derick Varn. We combine the conversation on philosophy, political economy, art, history, culture, anthropology, and geopolitics from a left-wing and culturally informed perspective. We approach the world from a historical lens with an eye for hard truths and structural analysis.
Varn Vlog
The Revolution in Democracy: Marxist Unity Group's Vision for DSA
What does a truly democratic American future require? The Marxist Unity Group believes nothing short of revolution will deliver it. In this compelling conversation, MUG members Cliff Connolly, Amy Wilhelm, Jean Allen, and Aliyah Van Pelt outline their vision for transforming both the Democratic Socialists of America and American politics through programmatic unity and revolutionary change.
At the core of MUG's approach is their draft program - a minimum-maximum framework that clearly articulates both immediate demands and ultimate goals. Unlike other leftist tendencies, MUG places democracy as both the means and end of socialist struggle, while boldly identifying the United States Constitution as the final obstacle to achieving genuine democratic socialism in America.
The discussion navigates the current political landscape with remarkable clarity. As workerism and identitarian politics fade from prominence, MUG positions itself on the DSA's left wing with a program-centered approach that rejects both personality cults and reformist illusions. Their analysis of the Zoran Mondani mayoral campaign reveals a principled yet practical stance: supporting fellow DSA members while maintaining clear-eyed criticism about the limitations of taking executive office without majority support.
Perhaps most refreshing is their approach to building a broader movement. Rather than chasing demographics through tailored messaging, MUG advocates presenting a coherent vision that addresses fundamental issues. As one member puts it, people across the spectrum are drawn to movements that acknowledge their suffering while offering genuine solutions.
For anyone seeking to understand where the American left might be heading, this conversation offers invaluable insights from a tendency that's increasingly shaping DSA's direction. Whether you're already involved in socialist organizing or simply curious about alternatives to our current system, MUG's perspective challenges conventional thinking while offering a path forward based on democratic principles and revolutionary hope.
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Host: C. Derick Varn
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Hello and welcome to VarmBlog, and today I'm here with a panel from the Marxist Unity Group. They consist of a couple of their NPC Slate members. I guess that would be Cliff Connolly and Amy Wilhelm. Are Wilhelm, do you want me to pronounce it German or normal?
Speaker 1:Oh, just the American way, that's good, all right, I'll do it the American way. And then Gene Allen and Aliyah Van Pelt are joining us as well and they are representing the Marxist Unity Group, which is one of the three caucuses in the DSA that I like-ish, as opposed to the other two caucuses I'm ambivalent-ish towards. And then all the rest of them, which I avoid, although they will come on my show if they want to fight me. That's okay, and we won't talk about the ones that I like-ish, other than you guys, because they're not here to defend themselves. But we're going to be talking about this in a kind of broad way. This has kind of a double function. One is to get the Marxist unity groups key points, your program, how you want to alter the platform of the DSA, what you want to do in the NPC, out as well as kind of a state of the DSA from your perspective, because the DSA has been a little wild in its messaging lately. Um, like, I feel like different committees in the ds I'm not talking about, you know, caucuses different committees in the dsa are like at odds with one another, publicly on x for everyone to watch, which I am of two minds about, because on one hand, I'm all about factions having, you know, public debates. On the other hand, it makes it seem like the dsa doesn't agree on anything at all. Um, which is an interesting place to be at at this moment in time. Um, so it also seems like the dsa has gone back into a growth mode, the last during the.
Speaker 1:During the entirety of the biden administration, outside of the first six months, the dsa was in a retrenchment mode. You lost, I think, about a fifth of your membership. Um, uh, it looked for a while to be worse than that, but then it seems to have balanced out and it's now back on the increasing. Last time I checked, at least from the official numbers posted by a couple of caucuses a few months ago. So there's all that. There's also the fact that we are in a radically different political milieu than we were even a year ago, and it feels like the left, which I've become very critical of people in the left who talk about the left as if anyone understands that actually is anymore, as if anyone understands that actually is anymore. But the left in America is shifting in a bunch of different ways and it is unclear where it's going to arrive.
Speaker 1:So for a group like yours, this is actually a moment of great importance, because you have the ability to shift a left that seems to be somewhat floundering on where it should go. Now it seems like both the workerism of, say, jacobin magazine or even more workerist groups like, say, class unity caucus and stuff like that, which I don't know that they exist anymore and the sort of identitarian politics that dominated, uh, campuses, both those things seem to be fading from popularity. But you also have to contend with the fact that there is like a um, a return to a progressive atmosphere on the left. That seems very much of a both completely new but also kind of me as an old person. It reminds me of the Bush era left. So that's all my random observations. Let's have you guys introduce yourselves and then we'll talk about what Marxist unity group is in your program a bit. So let's have you guys introduce yourselves and then we'll talk about what Marxist Unity Group is in your program a bit. So let's start. We'll go clockwise here, so let's start with Cliff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, so I'm Cliff Connolly, he any pronouns. I'm in Orlando DSA. This is the fifth DSA chapter that I've been part of since I joined in 2017. I've moved around a good amount, done a lot of different kinds of organizing tenant and labor union work, electoral work, ballot measure campaigns and candidates organized against Cop City in Atlanta, where I'm from originally, like different experience and very different sorts of DSA chapters because there is a lot of geographical variation in addition to sort of the, the caucus and committee stuff that you mentioned. So I am running for NPC as one of Mug's three candidates with Amy and Sid, and I'm really excited to see what convention does for DSA this year. I'm very optimistic.
Speaker 1:I didn't know you're from Atlanta. That's very close to my hometown, Anyway.
Speaker 2:Amy. Yep, my name's Amy. I use they or she pronouns yeah. I have lived in Seattle most of my life and I've been a member of Seattle DSA since I joined in the start of 2022. Yeah, before joining DSA in 2017, I think, like a lot of people is when I got involved with the left, I actually joined Seattle Communists. At the time it was a base building group, one of the founding organizations of Marxist Center, which unfortunately kind of fell apart at the end of 2018, but then I went on and did tenant organizing work with some former Seattle Communist members and some former Seattle DSA members. Actually, yeah, since then, since running DSA, I've worked on a number of electoral campaigns here in Seattle, some ballot initiatives. We've run a couple of candidates that we've run the Sean Scott campaign. He's a member of the Washington House of Representatives now and I am an incumbent member of the NPC. I was elected in 2023. And I'll be running again this year, looking forward to that.
Speaker 1:Aaliyah.
Speaker 4:Okay, sure, yeah, so my name is Aaliyah. Yeah, I actually was on here about a year and a half ago with you, with a few other comrades, so, yeah, pretty happy to be back here again. A lot has changed in that time and I'm really excited to talk about it. I actually went back and watched our old episode. It was pretty fun to see that a lot of the things we talked about really having had come to fruition and really developed in an exciting way since the last conversation. But yeah, I do use she, her pronouns.
Speaker 4:I live here in South Dakota, which I'm sure you know, people know Not a whole lot going on in terms of, yeah, organized working class politics or socialist organizing at all, uh, anything like it. Um, but yeah, so, working on getting, uh, working on getting a chapter off the ground, it's been, uh, quite the challenge. Uh, we had some setbacks too. Um, you know we talked a little bit uh. Um, you know we talked a little bit uh last time about, uh, about the budget, I believe. Um, if I'm getting the timing right, Uh. So, yeah, a lot happened with that. Um, kind of set us back, but getting that back off the ground, uh, really exciting. Um, we'll talk more about it.
Speaker 4:But, you know, even in our area we've seen a boost. Um, that's been great. Um, yeah, I've done a lot with. But you know, even in our area we've seen a boost. That's been great. Yeah, I've done a lot with Cosmonaut Magazine, which you know, you know about and I think your audience does too working as an editor with them. But then, of course, in January, I was elected to the Central Committee of MUG, so I've been doing a lot more with that and that's been really exciting. A lot of fun to get to, yeah, just take on a bigger role within the group. Um, and getting which we can talk about more, about getting our publication off the ground. Uh, light in there super exciting. Uh, getting to do more with that as well. Um, yeah, it's a really exciting time. Uh, yeah, I'm gonna gene that's gene.
Speaker 5:Hey, my comrades um gene allen pronouns, are they them? Um, I have been a member of rochester dsa uh, eight years this year. Um, I joined in 2017. Um, and I also joined I was a like leader of the chapter from 2019 to 2021. Um, I was also a member at large of Marxist center and in 2021, tried to do, did my best to try to intervene to stop Marxist center from falling apart. That did not end up working. It kind of ended up uh, dying slowly instead of dying very quickly. But, yeah, I stayed connected with one of the comrades who I was involved with from that and that eventually brought me to Marxist Unity Group.
Speaker 5:I spent a lot of time as a member of the left, kind of like acting as if I had like a black box at the center of my politics, like I'm going to. Of like acting as if I had like a black box at the center of my politics, like I'm gonna do this right, but I don't know what this is. And in 2023, I kind of realized that the this that I was like resisting was the you know, a lot of the theses of mug is that? Etc. Etc. We'll get into it later but, um, this January I was also elected to our central committee and I am the interim editor-in-chief of Flight and Air, and I've been thinking a lot the last month that in 2020, I really wanted to help run a journal with a very clear and transparent editorial line, and now I'm living that dream, so I'm doing great. I feel like every day that I'm on the golden path bringing us to socialism or whatever.
Speaker 1:I find it interesting that two of you have mentioned Marxist Center and while the deep cut of my audience will know that, uh, I'm not sure that all the youtube uh adjacent people are going to know that um are the public podcast. The reason why is I have now been doing a program where I've gone through the various tendencies and doctrines of the base building tendency, almost all of whom, with the exception of kind of the communist caucus and the dsa, and I don't know if they would call themselves base builders anymore, but they do kind of come from that plus Viewpoint Magazine, plus the Maoism, not an exception, I onboarded so many of them to Marxist Center.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had a super majority of ex-MC heads here, here, yeah um, I was involved with the marxist center as well, but way before it actually came to existence, I was a. I was a member of a group called the web party, which dissolved right before the convention that called marxist center formally into being, which is kind of ironic. Um, so uh, and I was a member at large, because at the time I was in egypt it's kind of hard to organize in america from north africa, uh but so I'm familiar with marxist center. Um, I had been doing an autopsy of the base building tendency, because it was super hot for like half a decade but it collapsed so quickly as to people not even really talking or noticing that. It totally collapsed.
Speaker 5:It was like they just disappeared one day, like here's my, here's my counter. Did it collapse or did it just like get dispersed? Because it's like every city is mutual aid now, or like an urban ag thing now, or like all of those ideas are there and all, and people will be making those arguments that were being made like eight years ago not even real like, but to your point, not even knowing that they're talking, that they're quoting somebody or that that was like an idea that someone consciously came up to as someone who was never part of it, you know maybe a little, a lot honestly, probably a lot younger to the left than everyone else here.
Speaker 4:you know the organized left. It seems like all the best, all the best things, all the best concepts, all the really salvageable stuff from that tendency has honestly mostly been absorbed into this party building culture that we're a part of, Because a lot of this stuff, if it really is worthwhile, if it is really useful, if it is helping the working class, like we already see that as part of like a robust party ecosystem, um, and I think that's why it just makes sense that so many of those people come into dsa um, but I was never part of it so I don't have that kind of insider scoop of I don't how the transition happened. That's my perspective.
Speaker 1:I should actually do a post-mortem on it with former members sometime. The one thing I would say is that, even though it was not an anarchist or anarchistic organization, the understanding of dual power and mutual aid that eventually became dominant amongst those groups in the marxist center, which was also a weird kind of uh, it was a democracy of groups more than it was an actual democracy too, which is also kind of think. They devolved into sub anarchist forms of the thing. So like dual power, the way, the way that we wrote about dual power in 2014 and the way that people implemented it in 2017 and then up and through COVID was like night and day different, because I'm like, no, you're not doing it to build a charity network, you're doing it to like reskill people and and this, that and the other, and that didn't happen, and it was clear that wasn't happening, like for me very early on. But I do find it interesting that so many of you were involved with that, because that is that you know, the marxist center was big.
Speaker 1:I don't. I I actually couldn't get a feel of how big it got, um, but when I say big, that doesn't mean anything, because the dsa is big, although we we have to remind ourselves. Even it's 70 000 is in a country of 340 million, about 200 of whom are of age to participate in politics, 200 million of whom are of age to participate in politics, and yet the DSA is by far, by orders of magnitude, actually the biggest game in town. And so when we talk about something like the Marxist Center, we're talking about maybe 2 000 people, and that's me being generous. Um, you know the, the other sects that are large, tend to be around four to six thousand people, and some of them hit above their weight, like, I'm not going to name which ones, but we can all think of the ones that show up in every city, and yet when you actually, if you actually can get a hold of their official roles, they don't have that many people.
Speaker 5:It's funny that then they get reported on as if DSA didn't know.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that you talk about in your I'm going to talk about your draft program. I consider the draft program to be your guys' key document. Um, do you agree with that? And so let's talk about, like, what is the framework for your draft program, why is it important and and what is the goal there?
Speaker 5:I can. I can take it. So last in the 2023 Mug Congress, actually, going back a little bit, the Marxist unity slate started off with this idea of we need to fight for programmatic unity for the platform of DSA. The problem with the platform of DSA in 2021 was that it was this kind of like this gigantic mishmash that like didn't really have like a clear through line and had like people have all sorts of different criticisms of it. But because it was made in this process that was separate from DSA as a whole and because of a variety of different things, it's a perfectly good platform, but it's not the kind of thing that if you said we need all members to have programmatic unity about this, a DSA wasn't really in the space to even comprehend that, that sentiment. But for that document in particular, it didn't make any sense. Then in 2023, 2024, you had the For Our Rights Committee, which created the Workers Demand More pamphlet, which is now kind of acting kind of as a DSA program. We have a couple of criticisms of it and in 2023, we kind of decided like what is important here is that we at the very least, like what's funny about this being we're talking about this now in April. This is going to be released in June. We will probably have like done. This is going to be a different document by the end of it.
Speaker 5:But what we focused on was need to have a program that talks about democracy, because if anybody, if you've been doing stuff politics in this country for the last decade, you can see that you know how much the deck is stacked against us because we don't live in like a fully democratic country. That needs to be a demand, because we can't just keep on running against the wall pretending like it's going to work one day. We need to talk about that. We need to talk about a minimum maximum program, or it needs to be structured as a minimum maximum program, meaning that it needs to talk about the demands that we have, or like the broad, really big demands we have, but it also needs to have very particular demands that are about removing the ways that the state divides and disorganizes the working class, because the working class is in the United States, is not yet capable of governing, both because we don't have free time, we're, you know, tired and stuff, but also because of the University of Rochester, graduate students are on strike right now.
Speaker 5:At that strike, you cannot bring Palestinian paraphernalia. Why? Because they're reactionaries. No, this is like the Columbia of Rochester. It's because 11 of their organizers have been deported. It's because half of their union are migrant students. Provision, as that threat can be held above migrants' heads. You are dealing with a split working class and you are dealing with a series of suboptimal ways of dealing with that that are basically going to be about accepting the US's current censorship rules about Palestine. So you need to talk about, like the working class isn't able to govern, why? Because of things that the state is doing to the working class, things that the economy is doing to the working class. Did I miss anything?
Speaker 2:oh well, there's a lot to be complicated unnecessarily.
Speaker 5:It needs to be really long and like, have really cool words and stuff.
Speaker 4:Well, what I love about it, honestly, is it's just really concrete. I think that it, you know it points to like very specific things that I think can help people channel their politics in, you know, in the ways that they really want to like, you know, um, there are other proposals, um, you know uh programmatic, or you know uh otherwise, that aim to, you know get to some of these points. Um like, for example, um, you know there is a resolution on the table that you know wants to get uh, a group together, like a working group together, to address the constitutional crisis, but that doesn't, I don't know, but that doesn't actually like unite us around specific like opposition to the constitution in specific ways and for specific reasons, specific structures of government and why. So it is clear to understand. But I, yeah, it's also very concrete in the way that the DSA platform is just not and, you know, since it is kind of our central document, I do kind of just want to go through it. You know, for the listeners.
Speaker 4:You know we talk about universal, equal, direct suffrage for every citizen 16 years of age or older. I think that's pretty, pretty radical, you know. Universal citizenship for long-term residents within the boundaries of the state, yeah, Right to move, right to organize. Abolition of the presidency, abolition of the electoral college, freedom of assembly, you know. Freedom of speech, all that kind of stuff you know people talk about. Oh, you know the bill of rights, blah, blah, blah, like all that stuff's covered, you know. But the right to freedom of information, blah, blah, blah, like all that stuff's covered, you know. But the right to freedom of information, abolition of the rights and powers reserved to states, yeah, I don't know. There's so much here, I don't. I guess I won't go through all of it, but you know we talk about, like we talk about the World Bank, we talk about the UN Security Council, we talk, you know about. So, like world geopolitical policy, you know we talk about. You know, the medical aspect, we talk about infrastructure, like I really feel like it hits every point that we're trying to hit, but it does that in a way that's clear, easy to understandable, easy to explain to anyone at all. It is not vague, it is not vibes based. You know, we are talking structures, mechanisms, like it is. It's very good in this way and if we can actually get DSA to unite around this, like it just becomes coherent in a way that it has never, ever, ever been able to be.
Speaker 4:And I think a lot of the, I think a lot of the counter posed, but similar resolutions that we're going to be seeing happening at convention. I think, yeah, a lot of them are kind of trying to address this problem. Convention, I think, yeah, a lot of them are kind of trying to address this problem. Okay, yeah, Do we need a program? What's that going to look like? You know, because I think that's just where we're at. You know, last convention it was the party question. Now we got the program question, Like that's really what it is at the end of the day, and I just think none of the rest of them really have this, this, have this quality about them.
Speaker 4:I don't think they're either not as comprehensive or they're too vague, or I think they're just not actually something you could unite a mass party around Like they're. They're way too, I don't know, Like I don't know they're too particular. You know what I mean. They try to get too much ideology inside and it's like that's not what this is meant to do, you know. So in that way, I think it actually works as a program the best. It's not.
Speaker 4:Just, you know, here's our declaration of vibes, and I signed here, you know. But these are aims, these are things we're actually really trying to accomplish. It has that minimum maximum structure, obviously, which is good. But even if you don't understand why a minimum maximum structure would be better as opposed to other possible structures, it is still clear to you what your duty is kind of in relation to the document. Do you know what I mean? So I think it's far superior to other proposals in that way and I really, really want DSA to adopt it.
Speaker 4:But honestly, even if we can get DSA to unite around a program itself and actually have that be kind of the central pole of our organization, that already is a big win, I think, for us. So we're kind of in this really awesome position where we've been able to set the tone already for for convention. You know, we, you know, and we kind of did that last year too, I think, um, we didn't maybe even realize that's what was going to happen. I think this year it was more conscious and it has happened. So, even if I don't know, you know, I think I think we're going to see victory, maybe even if our specific thing doesn't win the day, but I think we have a really good shot of it happening, so I'm excited about that.
Speaker 2:Clear for any before I comment Go ahead, oh, go ahead, oh, all right, sorry, yeah, yeah, just one of the things that I think is a really important thing that our program does is tying that all together to the political goals, because a lot of the time and this is one criticism I might have of the Workers Serve More program and really most kind of programmatic attempts at programmatic things might be.
Speaker 2:The better way to put that is that they say the things that we want to fight for. They have sometimes a laundry list, sometimes very specific we want to fight for union specific. We want to fight for union rights, we want to fight for right to health care. One thing that I think our program does very well is it puts those inside of a narrative of like we have to fight for these and there are in order to fight for those, in order to win those we also need to like we need to fight for a democratic society in order to have that, because you know any gains that we make, they're fragile at best and compromised most of the time. They're fragile at best and compromised most of the time.
Speaker 3:So I think that's a really democracy as an end goal.
Speaker 3:Mug is the only one that sees revolution as a necessity to get there, and of the caucuses and dsa that see the the necessity of revolution, we're the only ones that see democracy as the end goal.
Speaker 3:So the two things that we're famous for is our commitment to a program and our hatred of the United States Constitution.
Speaker 3:And what the program does is it gives us a roadmap to revolution and it gives us the obstacle that we finally will have to get over to have a revolution, which is the United States Constitution, the basis of the United States government, and what the minimum maximum program specifically. What that format specifically gives us is that roadmap. It gives us the minimum circumstances under which we would be able to take power and govern and it gives us the maximum program, which is the goals that we're actually aiming for. It also clarifies democracy as both the end goal and as part of the process to get there, ensures the internal party democracy that we want to see in DSA. So it really wraps up the revolutionary tradition of democracy that I think socialism and abolitionism in the United States have always been a part of, and aims it at a future that we can live in as a human species, because I think absent a revolutionary democratic socialist republic in North America we may not have a livable future.
Speaker 1:All right, socialist republic in north america, we may not have a livable future, all right? Um, for those of you who don't know, the min max program is uh, where you have immediate. Well, it can either be a, a two demand structure or a three demand structure, actually, and the three demands, immediate demands, the uh minimum program and uh, the a maximum program which is more about orientation. Um, so the maximum program is what you want to achieve ultimately as your political goal. The minimum program is what you want to do in the necessary steps, and some programs will also differentiate, like we're demanding this right now and this is what we'll do and we're in power, and then this is the ultimate goal of the program. Um, the platform model comes from the american kind of um voter political parties and it I will just say outright that I think the dsa's political platform, while it's a step above just relying on the dsa's constitution which I detest, by the way, we'll talk, we could talk about why, but um, uh, the dsa's political platform is not scoped like that at all. It's both highly specific and highly general. It is given to and I'm not saying this as as just a creed like I don't think everything that's that's progressive is bad, but it is given to, um, progressive tendencies at a given times overlap with radical tendencies to be enshrined into, uh, your political movement in a way that that is not actually super responsive to changing conditions, because it's both very specific, like there's specific laws that you want to be reversed in here, there's laws you want to pass, like a reparations act, uh, and a lot of this stuff seems specific, but when you actually think about it, it's not, uh, all that specific and it's very recuperable because of the use of progressive language. Um, I still think it's, uh, it's, it's, it's better than what you had before 2021.
Speaker 1:But the DSA I'll tell you how I periodize it. I know you guys have a periodicity in your program actually, but I think of it as a Harrington period, from when the Harrington group and the post-Camejo group came together in the 80s in New York and then there's basically 30 years of that and you know the DSA growing very fast, about 5,000 members, and then staying at that for two and a half generations. Then there's the Jacobin period, where Jacobin Magazine comes on, bashar sankara gets, gets involved in the dsa when it's still relatively small, because bernie sanders is there and, um, barbara aaron reich was a, was a member, emorous and stuff like that. Um, and you build up to the bernie period, which I think is was, which I think I agree with you guys is from about 2015 to 2020, where it looks like the DSA is both floating a dirty break but also is primarily functioning as an influence group within the Democratic Party, and there's the washing up on the shores of reality period that I call it, that when, like, oh, the Democratic Party's back in power and everything sucks and our members are leaving um, and that led to things that I think are actually good developments, like trying to establish a platform so that people at least have a certain what idea what you believe in. Uh, the debates around a program.
Speaker 1:I remember when I taught, I used to do uh, one of the side effects of my work with the red party um in 2015, 2016 is that I literally read the programs of about a hundred different communist organizations to come up with like guidelines for, like the different models and flows of programs and platforms and and and whatnot. I came to the similar conclusion that you guys that actually the classical min max program is probably the best one, although I did have a framework where I was like, and maybe you can have like an intermediate level demand too, I don't know, but when I would go and teach this to various groups. Um cause, I would go and speak with various groups in person when I came back to the States in 2017. And, for example, I did a whole workshop with uh, new Orleans DSA on this on programs and their historical meanings and why they might be important their historical meanings and why they might be important. The immediate response that I got was that it would split the DSA as soon as you did it, and my response to them was well, I hope that doesn't happen, but, frankly, I don't care. It would be good. So you know, but I'm not a member, you know. So it, it doesn't matter what.
Speaker 1:What are the various? I mean, you've been kind of hinting around this, but what are the various blocks? You don't have to mention specific caucuses or committees, but what are the various blocks of advocacy in the DSA right now? Because the caucuses, frankly, and the slates change so quickly that it is kind of hard to keep up. I was I was actually going through the various caucuses from 2015 to like 2024. And I was like I don't recognize like half the ones that you started with are gone. Uh, some of the other ones are now almost quasi independent groups almost outside of the DSA. Now, almost quasi independent groups almost outside of the DSA. So what are the various blocks in the DSA as you see it from Muggs point of view?
Speaker 3:so there's the good guys wing that does mass, but I'm just kidding, um.
Speaker 3:So the way I would characterize it is there is a clear left, right and center in dsa I say clear uh, there's nuance to it, for sure, uh, but we have the right wing of dsa, which I would characterize as socialist majority caucus and groundwork, sort of north like, way further to the right of them, but they're not really relevant. And then in the center, I would say Bread and Roses pretty much holds the high ground of the chessboard right now in the center. And then on the left you've got Mug and Red Star and a lot of the other caucuses that don't have NPC representation at the moment. That's broadly how I would characterize it. Of course, there are major differences between everybody within those general wings.
Speaker 3:I don't know when this will end up getting dropped, but, as we're recording, there's a bunch of polemics between caucuses being dropped, which is great. It's clarifying lines and stuff. So that's broadly how I would characterize it. I think there's a right, left and center. I kind of doubt that that's going to hold over the next two years. I do think that this convention in August 2025 is going to switch things up a good deal.
Speaker 1:But we'll see what happens.
Speaker 3:I can't predict the future.
Speaker 4:I'll say, so far from what I've seen and I think this is probably subject to change very quickly too. So, just, I mean, who knows what's going to happen between now and when it airs? But in terms of what we're actually proposing, going into convention, I haven't seen a lot of stuff that's designed specifically to like, strongly oppose, you know, the major stuff about what we're doing, like I don't know even like on the right, like I don't think we're seeing like a ton of you know there aren't all these others, you know proposals coming up to try to stop us from getting to adopt this. I think it's more about defanging everything. I think it's more about defanging everything. I think it's more about kind of being like, yeah, we all agree with that, but like let's totally make it impotent and kind of worthless and it's actually not doing the thing that we want to do at all, but we're still calling it that, though you know what I mean. Like I'm seeing some of that like and that's so. It's like it is, I think, a specific strategy of opposition where there's enough on it, and I see it as I see it as a sign that really the majority of DSA I think is is is really kind of riding this wave out. Like you know, um, I think they don't quite have the numbers. So I think what it has to be about is either like seeing that, okay, these ideas are popular enough that they're just going to go through. So how can we make them? How can we make them just kind of pointless and worthless and make sure nothing actually changes, or, um, or yeah, I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 4:Um, there's a lot of like, there's a lot of uh, right, yeah, like there's been a lot of writing against us, um, a lot of kind of, oh, this idea is stupid or this is bad, or they're dumb, but you're not actually proposing alternatives. You know what I mean? It's just more like delegitimizing our stuff. But, like you know what's the alternative? We're not really putting forward anything compelling, you know. So it's, and I think the opposition likes to be uncharacterizable almost in this way um, if they're almost like a pure opposition right now, and so I don't know if there's like a challenge or or what, but I just kind of feel like, hey, where's the heat? I don't know. Like I'm honestly not, I don't know.
Speaker 5:But yeah, I would. I would characterize our biggest problem right now not so much as direct political opposition by an alternative project, so much as by the inertial desire to not take too big of us, to not take too big of a stand, to not think of dsa, which, hey, you know, I joined in 2017. I know what it sounds like to say that dsa is, but is the party of the united states of america. It sounds kind of crazy, but it's just. It's like you.
Speaker 5:Going back to our, our shared experience in the Marxist center, I think that part of the reason that so many of us came from that experience is that we went through 2020. We saw what happens when you have the biggest protest wave in US history and there's no one who's really consciously intervening into that. We saw the biggest spontaneous. It was absolutely insane and it has now been totally crushed and it, you know, led us to this reactionary moment. We can't keep on waiting for dad to show back up. You know like Marx isn't going to come down and say you are allowed to be a party now, you are allowed to take political positions. That's not going to happen. We have to do that for ourselves and it's going to seem weird.
Speaker 4:We're done now, sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you have a question of blocks. Right now. It is something that shifts a lot. I agree with Cliff. I think there is, you know, what I would characterize as kind of less than a right. You can definitely kind of make that, identify that spectrum, but there are a lot of places where changes occur.
Speaker 2:You know, I think that one of the major points right now that is fractured on some of that alternative like what's the alternative? There won't be something coming, I think, for a program as a thing, because I don't think that, I don't think that unifying around a program is really for some you know, factions in DSA is really on the radar. There's a certain it sounds really insulting, there's a certain paranoia, I think. But I also think that, like it's not unjustified. Part of the alternative proposal is well, we have to fight Trump and we have to do anything we have to do to fight Trump, because we can't do anything until we defeat Trump. And that really is the it's kind of the liberation road idea, that well, you know, we have to, we have to defeat Republicans first, first, and then we can start thinking about being, then we can start thinking about implementing socialism, because Democrats, for whatever reason we believe won't come down so hard on us. I think that, you know, 2024 should disabuse anyone of that notion If, if nothing else over time did.
Speaker 2:But I think that that is kind of a major fracture point here is we want to talk about what we want to be doing and how we want to be what our goals should be. There's definitely a block of, uh, very defensive like how do we kind of a a perspective of, how do we continue to exist, how do we avoid having the state clamp down on us? In some regard that's not exactly right, but how do we survive it if that happens? That kind of thing, which is important, you know. But uh, I think a lot of that can turn towards. That can sometimes turn towards. Well, we talk to other national organizations that you know may be facing that kind of thing like Indivisible Okay, another, and then I think one of the other things that is kind of conceptual, um, opposition to a program is an idea that, an idea that looking forward and making long-term plans can get in the way of doing good things now.
Speaker 2:Plans can get in the way of doing good things now. And I'll just say I think I have a big problem with that, because I think that having a program, having that strategy, has to inform your tactics. You know an understanding of. I think that an understanding of the function of the state has to inform how you fight for reforms and what you believe they will actually do. Otherwise, you wind up claiming wins for things that are compromised before they pass, and I think that is maybe when we get down to disputes within the ESA. I think that there are probably some examples of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, yeah, I think a lot of the opposition to just the idea of having a program at all for DSA uh comes down to something Amy's talked about a lot, which is just the lack of DSA basically sees the program as this Trojan horse to bring purges into DSA. So once we have a program we can go hey, get on board with every facet of the program or we're kicking you out of DSA. I think that first of all, like I don't, I wouldn't begrudge anyone having that fear. I think that it basically makes sense given just the total lack of trust between DSA members across political tendencies right now and I hope that you know we can change that moving forward. So it's understandable, I think.
Speaker 3:For socialist majority caucus comrades in particular, it's like they just don't see any need for a program. They're like what could we possibly gain from this except the ability to shrink the tent and kick people out? So I think that's where the fear comes from for them. I think for groundwork they pretty transparently have said in the past we think the tent is too big. There are people in DSA that we don't want to be in DSA, we need to get them out, and so they feel that way about a lot of us, I think, and so when they see us bringing a program forward, they're like oh, like, I would kick you out of DSA. So you must be using this to kick me out of DSA. So I definitely have more empathy for the SMC comrades' concerns about the program.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I think it's all basically a consequence of just a baseline lack of trust in the organization and I think we're going to win this fight, that convention. I'm pretty confident about that. I think most DSA members are starting to see the necessity of a program and starting to see like Muggs, specifically, is not like a bad faith actor, like we've got a track record that you can look at now that we are here to build DSA and make everyone in the organization better and work together better. So I think there's a little bit more trust than there was in 21 and in 23. So that's number one. I think we're just straightforwardly going to win this fight and have a program and I think that that in and of itself, when we win that fight and then we don't go all right, we tricked you, you get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 3:Uh, people are gonna be, like oh, okay, like maybe we do have a reason to have some trust between each other, so I think that that will maybe not be as much of an issue moving forward from 2025 right.
Speaker 4:Like I think, for people outside of dsa there is kind of this boogeyman about dem, these, you know, I don't know dem party people who are slithering around inside of DSA making sure we can't ever do anything that might be bad for the Democratic Party or, you know, like Kamala's little henchmen running around all over the place and it's honestly it's just totally a spook Like this is not my experience, like even the right wing of DSA, even when their politics are frustrating, even when I find that ultimately, yes, when their politics are frustrating, even when I find that ultimately, yes, maybe they are kind of antithetical to what I would see, as you know, an anti-democratic party establishment orientation. I do think they have like legitimate reasons that make sense, like you know, and I think that, yeah, and so I agree, it is a trust thing on, you know, the left and inside the right of DSA, but it's also it's it's it's not how people on the outside maybe assume it is. I think that and and yeah, so I honestly agree with Cliff that like no more and longer we work together. Like you know, I don't agree with as much as I can understand groundworks politics I don't agree with almost any of them, um, but but, for example, like I can you know, like those people are also interested in reading hegel with me, and that's just fine. Do you know what I mean? Like it's not, like they're just these evil, crazy, reactionary weirdos or something. Um, you know, I don't know. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:And so, yes, there's a lot of conflict, but the thing about dsa is we do have our conflict very publicly and people say like, oh, that's bad or something like that, like I'm not even in DSA and I can see them arguing. It's like OK, and think about how different that is than, like you know, people being abused in other sex and not being like perfectly covered up because because it's like literally a cult and they just have that kind of culture. You know what I mean Of total opacity that doesn't exist, of total opacity that doesn't exist. So you know, yeah, our conflicts are very public, but like also, like what you're seeing, like the worst of it is also as bad as it gets. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:I think on the internet is where it gets the absolute nastiest, and when we're working together, it's honestly, that can exist and we're still able to work together and there's still always that. Well, not I don't want to say always, but there's still really that baseline comradeliness in most situations. So I think that's just something people aren't used to, but they're not getting the full picture of what it's really like inside of DSA, you know.
Speaker 5:I also do think that the conversation is like the conversation is being laid. I think that for people who are coming into the left in the last couple of years, I think the necessity to have a program that clearly lays out what your tasks are makes a lot more sense than it did two years ago, three years ago, four, five years ago. Why? Because, to your to what you said earlier, um, it's you know the a lot of, not a lot of, because I was always a grump about this, not even a grump, I was right. Biden wasn't going to do the stuff that anybody who was selling Biden said, and if you had two eyes in your head, you could kind of tell that he was at best going to give warmed over Cold War, labor, liberalism, right and what's kind of. You know, the thing about him is that he is the only figure in the Democratic Party who could do that. Because he could. He's the only person who could pull off being both pro labor and anti communist, because that'sist, because that's a 20th century mode of politics that we've lost.
Speaker 5:But a lot of people fell into an idea that that might work, or fell into the idea that a lot of these different ideas of what if we just nationalized healthcare, for instance, or statified healthcare or something like that? We've gone through a lot of these struggles for meaningful reforms and what you start to see is is that, I don't know, the American state is designed in such a way that power is only in the rooms that you're not in, and if you don't acknowledge that, at a certain point in time, people are going to start getting demoralized by like, where, like, when is? When is this mode? When is this idea of, like, a left populist victory of economistic reforms? When is that going to happen? Because I it doesn't seem like it's happening and I nobody is giving me a reason for why it's not happening. That doesn't just lead into well, you may as well just you know smoke, weed and play video games. You may as well, just you know smoke, weed and play video games. You may as well, just you know travel the world and eat good food. Because if this isn't working out, then, like and you're an asshole for even thinking it then what are we doing? I think that there's the space to have that conversation in a way that there just hasn't been previous.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's a lot there. One thing I would say about it is there does seem to be this new paradigm emerging, and I'll just start with an anecdote. One of my an argument that I had online with David Griscom of Left Reckoning was about the protest of Bowman and AOC during the Palestine situation. David is like you're making this out to be a big deal, but, uh, the current, like bernie politics is so subsumed to bidenism for whatever reason, that I don't think it's going to matter one way or the other, and you should just let people speak their conscience. It's not cool to be shaming your own side while also trying to pull a similar like we should be able to be insider outsiders with the democratic party while telling people in the dsa they can't do the same thing, and um, uh, what I? The reason why I bring it up, though, is I. I was right. I saw the the bowman rally in new york, greater new york state, which is a, which is a dsa stronghold. There was 500 people there and like 50 people protesting it.
Speaker 1:The reason why I bring this up now, though and I want your response about what this means for the DSA is um, I've been reading Ryan Grimm's reporting on AOC. They've been. She's been distanced. She's been distancing from the DSA for quite a while. Um, it doesn't seem to.
Speaker 1:You don't hear as much talk about the squad, but you have this whole fight oligarchy campaign that is going on, where people who last year could only draw 500 people in a major city market are now drawing well, they literally drew one-fifth of the population of salt lake when they came here.
Speaker 1:Um, which is crazy, um, but I will tell you that my response to it, while I'm not, you know, it seems like a very different thing than bernie from 2015 to 2020 or even to 2014 to 2016, in so much that, like, the talking points are way vaguer. There is more coalitions with the progressive caucus, like I saw Ro Khanna speak at one of these things, and it does not seem like even the right of the DSA, such as groundwork, has really invested that much into this. But it does seem like a lot of people who are new to the dsa are going to come from that to you guys. How do you address that? Get them into a new culture and without shitting on what aoc is doing, but also making it clear that, like your vision is a lot more than just fight the oligarchy in some vague, nebulous way.
Speaker 4:I mean, I don't even think we're opposed to shitting on it, are we? I don't know Like I see plenty of shitting on.
Speaker 5:You can shit on it if you want to. There's a needle.
Speaker 4:I feel like there is a needle and I honestly don't even care to do that particularly but at the end of the day, like AOC doesn't have DSA's national endorsement anymore, that just isn't the relationship and national DSA is like. The absolute best case scenario is that it's incredibly split on a maintained endorsement and relationship with NYC. Nyc, you know so, and that's not like 100% of the folks in NYC DSA are even, you know, pro this relationship, so it's contentious as much as it exists at all, which is it's just kind of as a layover, you know. And as far as these rallies go, I can't imagine they're really anyone that different than the type of person we've already described, which has just been bought into this. Yeah, this warm, this microwaved Cold War liberalism, as I think it was called for, so long that it's just like what else? What else can they even have faith in? Because, because they have, they have already decided that a real, yeah, like a real working class policy is not an option. Socialism, communism is a boogeyman to them and they just they don't and and they've lived for so long in that that they've never challenged that framework. They're not able to. This is like a last bastion of hope for them. This is this stupid series of rallies, um, and that's who's showing up, but in terms like the youth, I'm sorry but who's? Like, you know, do you know what I mean? Like those crowds old, they're not, that they're not politically engaged, they're not the real like base, like those are all just you know, so whatever, but I don't really I don't see that as being a thing because, like, the kids are at home and they're on their computers, you know, or they're out or wherever, but they're not at these rallies and I don't, I don't think it's of interest and I, I do have a very, you know, I don't.
Speaker 4:I can't say exactly what it's like in more established DSA chapters, you know, but I know, for me, like getting people invested in DSA here in South Dakota, what do people, you know, what have people had the understanding of is like, oh, you guys are like the Bernie AOC guys, right, that's kind of lame, you know, no one's into that, they're not into it. And so our biggest, you know kind of obstacle has been saying, actually, like just explaining to people that like the relationship has changed so fundamentally that it is almost not worth considering, especially like in our area, like in New York City. Maybe you have to care about it more here. It doesn't. You know what I mean. So, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4:I don't think that trying to be like hey, you know, I know AOC is cool, but we're doing something better is at all how we're selling it. I think it's. I think it's actually just, you know, continuing to create our own place over here, our own totally separate identity and our own separate politics. Like, like, like, functionally and materially too, um, and our own separate politics, like, like, like, functionally and materially too, um, just saying, no, these huge stupid rallies aren't what we're doing. We're doing way cooler stuff, real stuff that's actually gonna make your life better.
Speaker 4:We're not just standing up on a pulpit like, uh, you know, and think about, like, I'm sorry for blah, blah, blah, but like, like, think about when they sat down with hasan. Okay, hasan, like the kids love hasan. That's like the young politically invested. You know, like the kids love Hassan. That's like the young politically invested. You know even the normies, right, like, they're watching Hassan. He has a, he's hugely popular. Um, they sat down with him and he was genuinely excited, because even he is that's.
Speaker 4:He's like the youngest example of someone who really was like oh, aoc and Bernie, that's going to be it, Right? Um, and and they barely give him five minutes, they, you, it was egregious actually, like you could tell. You could tell they couldn't even believe, like their own bullcrap. Aoc walked out like halfway through Uh, Bernie was just kind of shrugging his shoulders Like they do not care. And I actually think it's visible to anyone paying attention that Bernie and AOC are washed and it doesn't matter if they can, you know, get these huge rallies together like they have nothing to offer. And and the people who are going to be doing politics in the next 30 years can see that clear as day. And they, they have, they don't have that investment in that tie and that dedication. That it's not something you have to break them from. They, they're already over and beyond it and we can present an alternative. We just have to keep being able to say honestly we actually are an alternative. That's what they want to hear.
Speaker 5:I think that if any does anyone oh no, I can. So we, rochester, hasn't had Sanders come, although Sanders has endorsed the U of R grad student strike or grad worker strike. So thank you, bernie Sanders, for that. But we've. We have had the 50-51 and the indivisible protests and we got we tabled, we got 69 signups, but it is, you know, it's a markedly it's like the return of that geezers for peace, bush era protest, demographic of, and it's likely a lot of the same people, and then there's like a lot of middle-aged people and what you see when you go to these protests, which is why I'm like there's a needle that we need to thread here.
Speaker 5:Those signs that people have are annoying as shit. I'll just say it. It's annoying as hell. I really hate, hate the attitude of like you know stuff's messed up because I'm here, because it's like yeah, dude, you're for sure everybody who was involved in politics a second before you is a complete idiot, weirdo. You're the only protagonist of reality over here.
Speaker 5:But all of it's like people are declaring I am desperately trying to figure out what's going on in the world, like liberalism has fallen apart as an ideological force. I am trying to find some direction. That's what people are trying to declare, which my position on that is cool. Then why are there? Why are they lecture series and not seminar? Like, why don't we just have discussion? That's because these are from largely liberal groups who don't view that stuff as important.
Speaker 5:But with I mean with AOC I went to the dance, the 2024 DNC in Chicago and what like her saying that we're we're working tirelessly for a resolution in palestine was a lie and, like I know that trump lies all of the time, I know that this whole system is built upon lies, but we can't like fucking stand for that. That was just not a truthful statement and when I saw that, I was like okay, she's our generation's obama. We have now started to morph into a footstool for her personal project. The thing that sucks about this is that she is politically into the average American, not like that distinguishable from us, because we haven't had any desire to distinguish ourselves, but also because the nature of her and Bernie's project is not that they're going to make an alternative organization that rivals us. Their project is a personalistic project which goes along with our personalistic individual culture, which we know.
Speaker 5:We've been on this before, like in college, every time that there was a fire alarm, we would chant Obama because that was the last time that many people were out on the quad. You know Like I experienced that. I saw that with you. Know other figures, since we need to understand that we're the protagonists here, not like this other person, and I also just want to say that there's with the much vaguer anti-oligarchical message.
Speaker 5:I think that we need to actively move past this left populist moment that we've been in for a decade, because this idea that we're going to do socialism, if only we ignore these controversial political issues, like I said with the U of R grad student stuff, it's dead in the water.
Speaker 5:It's like, for the same reason, that no socialist, despite it, like intuitively making sense that like dozens and dozens and dozens of organizations have tried to be the homophobic socialist organization and they can't get it off the ground. We can't be doing this stuff with palestine, like just kind of amend and abridge palestine and migrant issues out while people are being thrown into pacifica burka. Now, you know, like this is not like we're in, like this moment where the U S left is dividing in this almost imperceptible way along its classic like Americanist, nativist, uh left versus like a more internationalist left, and like we need to consciously make that choice that in the United States, we need to be standing for like oppressed peoples and for civil rights and stuff, not because it's a feel-good thing, not because you're like a bad person if you don't, but because, like it's a part of our organizing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think you know you talk about the internationalism, just one more tiny little thing. But I think that is so key Because you know, I think we have, you know these, you know relationships and they obviously could be a lot stronger, but we do have connections to. You know these similar, you know party building efforts that are emerging in other places around the world. You know what I mean and we can point to that and say like, look like this is something like you know we're all doing together because people recognize that it's a whole world problem. And even if Bernie and AOC had, like, a much more socialistic, much more even you know I'm not they would never have a. You know they would never have a revolutionary program. That's a totally different conversation. But you know what I mean. It's way stronger in terms of, like real legitimate, awesome reforms for the working class and for, you know, you know, all citizens universally in this country, all citizens universally in this country, they want to be president of the United States. They can't even point to, they can't point to anything like that. You know, they can't even promise to, they can't even promise the world. You know, even if they, even if they could give the country and we, you know that's something we can't.
Speaker 4:We actually can do and we can say look, we're building this right now with other, just like regular people, you know what I mean. They can say fight the oligarchs, but what's the alternative on a global scale? You know, and I think even people who don't have this really, really strong sense of class politics understand that the oligarchy, as much as it exists, is like a one kind of global force, you know. However, they see, you know the kind of internal factions of it playing out. They understand that it's a sort of monolith that hangs above them. They feel so hopeless about that and they know it's like it's too big of a problem for them to possibly, you know, solve. And that's like, yeah, we're going to need everyone, you know, and they can't talk to that and they don't want to, they never would.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the closest they get to that is like Jean said, you know, because it's a very individualistic project and it's all about the individuals. You know a Bernie sent an email, a run for something email basically, and that doesn't get you anything. You know, I had, through a chain of mutual acquaintances, I happened to have dinner with a former candidate for city council here who had who just bounced off the seattle dsa endorsement application because it's like are you dsa member, are you going to commit to help build dsa? And like are you going to work with dsa members? It's like I'm not interested in a party, I don't want to. You know, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2:And it's like well, you're not the kind of candidate we're looking for, you know, and I think that's someone who will respond to the call to run for something. It's not going to be the kind of candidate that we're looking for. It's not going to be someone who wants to help build a project and and make a difference collectively. You know that call is you personally. You can make a difference if you get an office and that's.
Speaker 1:Bernie didn't Right. I'm just going to say it again, bernie, there's not a single piece of Bernie's agenda, even when he got a key committee seat, that was implemented during the Biden administration or before that was implemented during the Biden administration, are before. I mean, and that to me is, you know, great, we have socialist Ron Paul Cool. The one thing I want to point out there's a lot of talk of the youth and this is a big problem. That the that I do think that both the progressive left in the general public and this weird sort of like let's tail the reactionaries because that's how we meet the working class, where they are, uh thing. I I've never really understood that. I'm and my suspicion keeps on being proven true that no one's gonna trust you because you seem fake on both sides.
Speaker 1:And if you see how these parties have done galloway uh, the party in germany around sarah uh, what's your face? Uh, when face Wanganix. Thank you, wanganix. They haven't done particularly well ever and I find that interesting. But it does leave a big question right now, because I do not think we should be throwing vulnerable populations on terms of gender under the bus. But I do think you have a reactionary men problem amongst the youth you do. And how is the DSA or how are you guys going to try to deal with that without any weird right-wing tailing? Because I do think it's a sincere problem that the progressive left during the aught-tens did not address at all. And so what do you guys think? How is your program going to help with that?
Speaker 3:I want to wrap these two questions together because I think they're related, so I'm going to back up a little bit. Bernie has always been anti-organization, anti-party. This tour with AOC is not happening because Bernie wants to cohere the working class as an organized force to affect American politics. It's happening because he sees himself as the protagonist of American politics and he's going to be dead really soon, so then American politics won't have a protagonist. So what is he going to do? He's going to get AOC to take up the mantle for him, and I don't think it's really any more complicated than that. However, they're getting crazy fucking crowds because there's death camps being constructed and they're the only people who are politically visible that are even treating that as an emergency, not because they have any kind of solution. They're just the only people who are acknowledging reality at all. So what we need to do is dsa is fucking show up and be there, even though they're wrong, and the people in the crowds have a lot of incorrect political ideas.
Speaker 3:One of my friends a couple years ago moved to Chicago from here in Orlando. I moved around the country a zillion times so I went to go help him. He's not one of my friends, he's my best friend and he packed his U-Haul like all fucking wrong. He would not take any of my suggestions. It was going to be a nightmare and I was driving with him to Chicago and I was like, dude, I just I have to be frank with you. This is not going to work. We are going to have to stop like five times between here and Chicago to like re put your things together and your shit's going to get broken and it's going to be a fucking nightmare. But if you're stuck on, this is how you want to do it. I will suffer through all 22 hours of it until we get to your new apartment and put your stuff in there, because that's what you do when you love someone and that's the exact approach that we need to take, as these massive crowds are flooding into this thing. That is not going to fucking work. We need to show up. We need to say, hey, you're right that this problem exists and you need to come into this organization, because it's not Bernie or AOC that are going to solve these problems, it's you, it's us together.
Speaker 3:And I think that Mug actually has a great resolution, which I think Gene is actually the author of, for this convention, the Democracy for All resolution, which is all about creating a national campaign to win voting rights for everyone 16 and older, including incarcerated people, including convicted felons, including non-citizen residents. That is a fight that's going to appeal immensely to all of these you know kind of liberal, progressive people who are fired up, showing up for Bernie and AOC. It's going to appeal to them. It's something they're going to want to get involved in and, unlike listening to Bernie or AOC bloviate about their ideas, it'll actually fucking do something. So I think that that is a big solution that we can bring.
Speaker 3:In my chapter in Orlando DSA, I've seen a crazy you know second Trump bump coming from these like 50501 protests or whatever the hell they're called, and the the Bernie and AOC stuff.
Speaker 3:We're getting a lot of people coming in and the issue now is not recruitment, it's how do we, you know, onboard and develop and deploy these people into something that actually makes a difference.
Speaker 3:So I think that really addresses that and the reason I think this is related to like why is every 19 year old boy in America like a Nazi? Now, I think they're related issues, which is that if you're a 19 year old boy, or literally anyone else, your life fucking sucks and everyone is pretending that it's fine and you're dying. So you're just going to latch on to whoever speaks in a way that you can understand. And if you're a 19 year old virgin who wants to kill himself, that's Andrew Tate, and if you're a 44 year old wine mom, it's Bernie Sanders or AOC or somebody. But if someone comes and presents to you a program and a set of fights that can actually make a difference, you might change your mind because you're really not committed to whatever branch you've latched onto, you're committed to being able to fucking breathe. So I think that just showing up and saying, hey, you're correct, that there's an issue, but this is the actual solution to that and not the bullshit that these people are selling you on the internet.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, I don't know that Mug had like a particular line on the exact reason this is happening, but, like you know, just, you know, even just drawing on the theory that we use, you know, people always talk about how, with the neocots, where the Karl Kotsky guys, you know he talks about how the workers are duped right in so many ways against, you know, class organization, and I think that is like the defining characteristic of our culture, and how capitalism, imperialism, you know this, this Nazi culture is so hegemonic and widespread because ultimately, yes, like they control all the media, they've got the money they can like pay to have so many different arms of media and they, honestly, have perfected this kind of system where, if you ask a question, you can find a Nazified rabbit hole of answers for you to just fall into. And like they all of the infrastructure that we use for all of everything, you know people are undereducated, sold falsehoods and all of this stuff is basically just designed to help them find an in-group, increasingly smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, whatever that gets them to do literally anything other than recognize themselves as a member of the working class and organize as a member of that class, you know so. And even the 44 year old white moms, you know, if they want. You know, maybe they're like huh, why did I spend $100,000 on giving birth to a baby? Why did I have all these? You know, I mean, there's like it's like they're so, literally, whoever you are, it does not matter, they have something for you that they can give you, to give you an enemy. That is just not them, and I think, ultimately, that even just having the opportunity presented to them hey, consider you really, you're just a, you're a member of the working class, try it out. I think it's one of those things where you know, I don't know, does the socialist consciousness become come first or does the socialist society become come first? And it's really like that is not an answerable question.
Speaker 4:Like society and everything we build, it creates types of people. People have access to the information they have to make the opinions they have based on all of the information they interact with and all of the different ideas floating around all the time. So, as we continue to win, people will just like there is a real philosophy to this project. People will become more rational. People have access to better information. People are working together with different kinds of people that aren't like them.
Speaker 4:And these narratives, these bigoted narratives, just stop holding these bad narratives, like we see this, even with the Israel-Palestine question, you know what I mean. Like we've already talked about how people just increasingly just have had to pick a side and the people who just cannot stand with Palestine don't even. You know what I mean. It's like these lines get drawn all the time. It's just going to keep continuing to happen.
Speaker 4:And yeah, I don't know, I don't know that there's like hey, hey, incels, come over here. You know what I mean. It's like, say, you know, even with even the Nazi thing, you know they recognize, they recognize kind of a great conspiracy against them that has to do with money somehow. Is it really that far of a gap? They're gonna get there. I just honestly think they're gonna get there, and maybe that's too optimistic, but I think everything we fight for, this freedom of information getting out there, these agitational campaigns running them, like even just them, maybe being able to see, oh, this is the working class for itself, organized as a party. I had never considered that before in my lifetime. That I don't know. It challenges all of those. It challenges all of those narratives that have been built up for so long. I think it's going to collapse if we are able to keep going. People aren't going to be able to believe these things forever. I don't know.
Speaker 5:Or worst case scenario like I actually Amy go ahead.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, I mean similar to what Cliff and Leo were saying in some ways. Yeah, I think that you know. Know, we look at, you look at the right, you look at the more overtly nazi or fascist types, but you look at anybody on the right, um, and what, how that gets popular? Um, all of that comes down to a recognition that, like, something is wrong. You know, the state doesn't work. Um, the system that we live in is is is fucked, it doesn't work, it never has worked, does not work for the people. Um, and I think there is.
Speaker 2:I have had um self-proclaimed Marxists in DSA say to me or argue that, um, you know, a major task for socialists is to build up trust in the state, and that is the opposite of what we need to do. Because the reason that people turned right, the reason that your average person not someone who's ideologically committed already to the project of you know the varying neo-reactionary projects right, the reason, I think that regular people turn to that and why they find it, you know, attractive, is that here's someone who, unlike liberals, unlike a lot of the left, is saying, yeah, actually something's broken and here's whose fault it is. But we can't do. I mean, we can do that, but, um, but the difference that we have is we actually have a solution. Um, you know, the solution isn't to oppress other people, um, who you think are, you know, competing with you. The solution is socialism. The solution is we solve it together, and I think that's the message that we need to have.
Speaker 2:Um, we need to, we need to be willing to say yeah, things aren't working. The, the state, the form of the state doesn't work. It's made that way on purpose. And we have the solution. Come, help us implement it. I think that is is what our message needs to be. Is it going to get everyone? No, is it going to completely be something that everyone prefers? You know, like, like I said, I think no. I mean, are you going to change it? It gets socialist consciousness before you have social society. Not entirely, but I think that's that's the message that we need to have. We need to be out there. Getting that out. It's not just media disparity, it's also. We need to be willing to say that we have the solution. We need you to help us build it.
Speaker 5:And the solution is day zero, year zero, phenom Pen level destruction on all video games based off of maps, because I don't think that human society Maybe we destroy maps in general. At this point I'm getting worried about it. When Donald Trump said our name would look so good on the map if we took, could you imagine? And it's like no, no, there's like. I know exactly the 22-year-olds who are in this man's office.
Speaker 4:That is hilarious and I agree with you, and we're also friends on Discord and I see your Steam activity.
Speaker 5:Listen, I'm saying that I'm willing to sacrifice how much I care about this revolution.
Speaker 2:Society's best need for maps. We have GPS Exactly.
Speaker 5:The worst-case scenario I talked about is a friend of mine said this to me like, um, you know, back in the day you talked to someone who didn't believe that evolution existed and they were an insane crank, right, but they had a fear, like it was a conspiracy theory, right, they were a crank like the way that we are cranks right, like the like they have an insane reading on history and stuff, but it's like a rationalistic, modernistic project that just so happens to believe that dinosaur, that because dinosaurs bones are next to man bones on this one river, therefore dinosaur, you know, yada, yada, yada. Um, what we have now is like post-modernistic hell, right, and like what? The like something. The more I think about it, the more the idea that we can kind of replicate, like the rights way of arguing, way of engaging. It's just. This is not about empowering people, it's about disempowering people to the level where you're only able to engage with the kind of reality that you're creating for yourself.
Speaker 4:And they're specifically and intentionally underdeveloping people the way they have underdeveloped states.
Speaker 5:Exactly.
Speaker 4:And you start to. You know, you get one person talking about everyone around me so stupid, and it's like, actually, let's entertain that for literally two seconds and let's talk about why you feel that way, and that's a really good way to get them to be scared but also be like oh, oh, oh, crap, which is sometimes how you have to make people feel, because that's the reality we're doing with.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this. This makes me think about the amount of people for whom you know, like 10 years ago, like they were buying the shirt at Walmart, that was like I hate people yeah. Yeah, don't talk to me before I have my coffee. And now, like chat GPT is their best friend, their therapist, their partner. There's got to be people who have, like an Andrew Tate chat GPT. You know that's like trained to that model, basically Like there are human beings that no longer live in reality. Yeah, I don't exactly know what to do about that.
Speaker 5:I don't exactly know what to do about that, the way that things kind of orient themselves now around whale hunting of finding someone with an addictive tendency to be like. Here's another microtransaction it's only $5. It's only $15. It's really disgusting. I will say it is funny now that the same kind of person who said not seeing a lot of ladies and people of color here are now like all the what? 19 year old, white, maladjusted guys you know.
Speaker 4:uh, at the same ds, the same person dsa meeting seven years apart well, and just one way, I'm just reminded, um, really recently, about how maybe having like, yeah, this specific class of people controlling like all infrastructure completely and like, at this point, our, our whole ability to learn anything at all, like literally just our access, even to the symbolic register at a certain point, is like owned and sold back to us, and that's really problematic.
Speaker 4:Like I was trying to read this like just an article on my phone and I literally couldn't do it because this pop-up AI ad kept coming up with like this grotesque, uh, like AI illustration of like this, just kind of like mild phobia I have, and it's it's not a super big deal, it's just part of my particular consciousness that the algorithm has picked up on kind of you know, randomly through my search history, and now it's like we're going to use this to just kind of terrorize you, and so, instead of reading this article that you would like to read, learning about something in the world, you could just look at this just horrible, weird image of bugs, until you give up and decide, actually you just don't need to read it.
Speaker 4:Um, I don't know, is that the world we want to live in? And it is at a point where we just have to ask people like, like, do you actually want to live in a world this stupid and gross and evil, um, or is it maybe worth like getting off your ass and just like just trying to like maybe live in a different world?
Speaker 3:I would like to give it a shot, because this sucks ass I feel so in community with all previous generations that have come before us because, like 10 years ago, I was like isn't it funny and stupid that every generation thinks the world is ending when they're alive?
Speaker 4:and now I'm like, oh yeah, I completely fucking get it and just this artificially imposed dark age, like it is at a point where we have to recognize, like we just you know, you know all of these, all of these things that we say, oh well, you know, at least I get to have, at least I get to listen to the songs I want whenever I want, and I get to read when I want, when I want, and I get to watch all these cool movies and I get to be entertained all the time like look at all my breads and circuses and all my treats, like it's amazing, those are like revocable in like a single second. And you might be, you know, maybe we should talk about just the fact that they could, you know, and you think?
Speaker 4:oh, they won't, but they can.
Speaker 5:I think that I think that Liberation Day is like going to be the marker for that and postmodernismism, because it's like it after you can't I I said this in uh red sincerity, enlightened air, but like donald trump is like the, the post-modern, like orator of our times. There's not even you have to do baldriardian readings of everything that he says, because there's no proper nouns in anything that he says. You have to like be a college literature student for like the president's statements and that doesn't. I don't think that. I think reality exists and where I think that Americans are going to discover that, between when us, when we say it, and when this comes out.
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh, or like I don't know you'll, you'll meet these like pithy Trump aphorisms and you're like wow, if I hadn't like, if I hadn't like curiously read Blavatsky one evening at 3am when I was 19, I just literally wouldn't even know what you're talking about. Man Like where, like what? What plane are you on it's? But it's just horrifically evil.
Speaker 5:It's crazy, yeah, so I don't even know, I'm not going anywhere with that, but just yeah it's. It is about kind of all of us being in our own self-enclosed reality, things, where you get to self reassure yourself constantly. I think that you just you need to be brave enough to have like a positive belief system that can be right or wrong by like the shared reality you have, and it's kind of it's about a force of will to force like no, you said this. What did you mean when you said this? Like not letting people kind of, because it's such a it's a problem that exists on the right and the left. I think of wanting to just exist in the state of negation, of like negate, like I am not.
Speaker 5:All of these bad politics and you even you do see it with the right, where it's like I'm not, you know, gay or a feminist or woke, and it's like well, the center of that is kind of the same center as I'm not homophobic or transphobic or racist or you know, like it's just that you're right all of the time and that like that's a consumer belief system. It's not like the belief system of someone who can interact with history. Uh, and that's we gotta break through that.
Speaker 3:It's gonna be nearly impossible, but also, who the hell knows, milk might be like 20 next month I think that all this like separate reality stuff is really wrapped up in the um, this epidemic of like oh, that's co-worker music and that's those are co-worker politics and that's a co-worker meme, and like what does that even fucking mean? What it what it means is that you are forced to experience a person who is not in your curated reality box that your fucking internet overlords made for you. Uh, and I think that the the solution to all of this sort of doom and gloom that we've been pontificating about is to shockingly go to our coworkers and our neighbors and the people in the streets, and I think that that's something everyone in DSA agrees on. Dsa agrees on.
Speaker 3:I think that the DSA right sort of accuses us on the DSA left of not wanting to do that or saying, like you have to meet our purity tests or you have to fit into our self-selecting boxes, like if I would be mad at you on Twitter I'm not going to organize with you, kind of thing, and that's just.
Speaker 3:That's not true at all. I think it's self-evidently not true. If you look at the suggestions we're making, like the Democracy for All campaign. I think that the difference is that we just want to approach other people confidently that action plan that we want people to get on board with and not worrying too much about offending their sensibilities or, you know, being off-putting to them, because we plan to stick around for the long haul. It's not going to be one interaction and I think that the DSA right also believes in that. I don't think that they don't. I think that there's just a communication breakdown happening and I really, I really am optimistic about this convention hurting a lot of people's feelings but also, in the long run, bringing all of us closer together and unified around that common plan of action.
Speaker 1:So I think we've fucking yapped enough, derek, if you want to take us to the next place well, I mean, we're gonna round this up with a with a, so with the Soar on Madonna campaign. What is Mug's stance to that? How is that? How is that helping or hurting the DSA's work? There's a lot of resources being used. At the moment it doesn't look super great since Cuomo's come back and gotten business union endorsements and whatnot. But what is Mug stands to that? And how does that relate to everything else we talked about?
Speaker 3:I think we've been pretty clear about the fact that we don't think it's a good idea for socialists particularly in the United States, but really anywhere to take executive office without having won a majority of the population over to our ideas, over to our program. You could also make the argument that you shouldn't do that before you've got a majority in the legislature which would actually allow you to govern. I mean, even then in the United States, with the judiciary we have. Anyway, we think it's a bad idea and also we are doing it with the rest of the essay.
Speaker 3:Some of you know Sid, who's one of our other NPC candidates alongside myself, and Amy is, who's one of our other NPC candidates alongside myself and Amy is. I don't have a sense of who's doing the most canvassing, but I'd be shocked if Sid wasn't in like the top five canvassers from New York City DSA for Zoran, and Sid himself has written articles saying this is a bad idea. And I'm on board, let's do it. And again, that's the posture that I want us to have towards the working class when they're wrong, and that's the posture that I have towards DSA and what DSA is wrong, and I think that that's correct.
Speaker 3:I think it'll be a fucking disaster if Zoran Mondami becomes the mayor or you know, it's not about him. If Bernie had won in 2016, I think DSA probably wouldn't exist anymore. In 2016, I think DSA probably wouldn't exist anymore. Socialism would be entirely tied to a government that cannot function, plus imperialism. That's still happening.
Speaker 3:If that were the case, the New York City parallel is going to be if we have a DSA mayor, that's the person who's in charge of NYPD. That's going to be bad, because either they're going to try and dismantle the NYPD and get killed basically, or they won't, and then they betrayed everything that we stand for. Um, so that that was a bad idea. Let's do it, because that's that's what people want to do. Uh, I disagree with you. I think the situation is excellent.
Speaker 3:I think Zoran uh being number two when the ballots are counted is probably the best case scenario for DSA. The New York City government writ large, which, by extension, will make DSA the main opposition to the Democratic Party police state machine in New York City. That's the best possible case scenario that I could hope for and what I would want to replicate on the national level in DSA. If we run someone for if we run a DSA candidate for president in 2028 and they are able to get the second most votes out of the democrat, the republican and the dsa person, like I would, I would be over the fucking moon.
Speaker 3:You know that that would be the best possible case scenario the opposition to uh, bourgeois rule in the United States. So that's basically where I'm at and I'll say I think all of us, if Zoran does somehow become the mayor of New York City, we'll be going all right. Well, this is a bad idea, but let's do it Because that's the heart posture that we have towards our comrades and towards this project. Whatever happens, we're going to try to make it work as best as I can. But yeah, I would definitely maintain running for executive is a bad idea. We should be focusing on winning a majority, if not in the legislature, then in the hearts and minds of the populace.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, like if a campaign is happening and a campaign is happening and you can intervene in that campaign in a political way that is gonna advance revolutionary politics in that context, like that's good. And you know too, as much as I would love to, just really like I would love to see Benjamin Netanyahu arrested, wouldn't that be absolutely amazing? I would be so, so, so thrilled and happy to see that. And the reality at the end of the day is, if you look at the existing world order, that is literally not going to happen in a situation where that was actually legit, like any situation where that was attempted right now would be a situation that us, like as a socialist movement and as anyone around that is not equipped to handle.
Speaker 4:Um, and that is the reality. And so that's the reality that needs to be addressed first and change um, if we would like to see something like that happen. Um, and that doesn't mean we don't want to see it happen um, you know, but we're just not, we're not going to lay lambs out to slaughter here, right, um, hopefully yeah, um, I just, I'm sorry, I just why is cuomo still like what the fuck?
Speaker 2:what is wrong with democrats? Anyway? Um party like, how can he even? You know, anyway, um, I agree with all of that. Um, I think the big thing my feeling has been for a long time for a socialist to be a, to become executive, like, first of all you need the support for it. First of all, you'd be ready to be a tyrant over the state machinery and you need the support for that, whether it's legislative, but also very much in the among the people. Like you need to. It can't be you're a singular tyrant. It has to be you're expressing a will of the, a will of the populace. You need to have populace with you for that. You know tyrannical rule over the state machinery and have fear to be a martyr because one or both of those is going to happen. But yeah, I think that I agree. I think that that's not what we're doing here. Nonetheless, I think it's a good campaign. I think that what's probably the most likely result is is going to be good for us, um, and I think that I think it's been a beneficial thing for DSA. It's been a huge, huge boon for NYC DSA for sure.
Speaker 2:Um, it's a little complicated by the fact that, um, you know, some of those internal DSA conflicts, um, I think, I think honestly, partially well, yes, partially, maybe largely as a result of, you know, the AOC not being um complicated how it happened, us wanting to start to distance ourselves from AOC, saying, okay, well, these are specific expectations that we want to have if she's going to be endorsed by DSA. Is there what we expect her to do in terms of Palestine, specifically, oppose funding to Israel under any conditions, oppose funding to Israel under any conditions, and that is something that we're willing to say, that and we're willing to say that. That is here's why we want that. Here's the things that lead us to be concerned about that. That is something that NYC DSA found to be intolerable because it's a media cycle about its conflict with DSA and AOC. I'm going to say who are the judges? It's not the New York Post. I don't think that's necessarily bad media for us, but that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 2:Um, that I I think is a large part of why, um, nyc dsa steering did not decide to, you know, bring for uh national endorsement um still beneficial to dsa. Um chapters are still being involved. That's kind of DSA inside baseball along. You know, the difference of national and local endorsement, I think to most people outside of DSA is pretty opaque and strange. It's strange to me as someone inside of DSA. You know AOC is still to most people, a DSA endorseee. Zoran, although endorsed by NYC, dsa, is still going to be seen by people as a DSA endorsee and so I mean still, I think that's different. Why? I think it's great things I like about the campaign Zoran's out there talking about, about talking about working class issues, um, talking about, but also talking about DSA. You know he's a proud DSA member. He's helped us out, um, and is I think that win or lose. Like this is a campaign where we have a DSA member who is out there promoting DSA and promoting our message and I think that's really, really important. So I think it's a good campaign. Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, I would broadly agree with those sentiments. I think there's a lot of talk about holding electeds accountable and I've always said well, you can't hold electeds accountable unless you have sizable caucuses in Congress and, and if not, money, people power and I don't mean 70K people power, I mean something like 500K people power and I think that, ironically, a lot of the right actually does run a strategy that was endorsed by Marx, which is obstruct, obstruct, obstruct until you actually build enough power to do something. And that's Marx's strategy in the letters. He's actually very clear about that. Unfortunately it's in the letters. It's not necessarily in any public-facing document, but nonetheless it's important to realize.
Speaker 1:I like your points about the personalizations in a lot of these politicians and whether or not that was always true with Bernie. I somewhat think it was, but there's been a confusion about the popularity of an individual with socialist ideas versus actually having any sort of movement, and it's been circular the entire time. Uh, and it has led to this weird um, there's a kind of, I would say, a jacobin socialist that would, uh is like if bernie hints that we should sort of party, all of a sudden they become partyist overnight and then, when Bernie pulls it back all of a sudden. They're back to being in the Democrats and they're like, oh, but we're winning, we're being practical and I'm just like you're popular, but you've never actually won anything Like since Bernie's made his national turn. You know, um, he's not achieved all that much actually and his political instincts in the end of the biden administration were terrible, like I mean, he and he had he and aoc expended political capital for a person that all insiders knew was going senile, like it. It was deeply embarrassing and one of the things these rallies have managed to do is erase the memory of that.
Speaker 1:With uh Mandani you have, you also have a similar campaign. But I just want to point out, like the DSA local endorsed and I realized there is a difference between local and national endorsements and the level of agreement and blah, blah, blah. I don't think local should be allowed to endorse political candidates. Frankly, that's my personal opinion. On most things we agree, but the local endorsed mayor, uh mayors, almost to a person and in many cases not the fault of the mayor themselves, and I want to point that out. It is not necessarily because they were bad faith actors or bad members of the dsa or any of that, but almost all of them have been a disaster. Well, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 4:It can't work. I just think that's such a big part of what we're talking about all the time. If we take power with this Constitution and with these structures of government, we will not be able to govern well. That is exactly our politics. That's exactly what this program is about. I am sorry to interrupt you, but it's just that is so key, like they can be the best ever and have the best intentions and make all the right choices honestly whenever possible, and they will either, yeah, like, have a failure of a government and that does that, does not that not actually represent the people, um not actually serve their needs, um and not actually have it function in the ways that they would like it to, or they will like what die, probably, like. You know what I mean Because they're, they're trying to to govern as one socialist alone, um in in a government that's not, that isn't for them and is is opposed to them, even being their existing Um. It's not possible. It is not possible.
Speaker 3:I feel like we've agreed too much and I'm in mug right, so I have to be a minority of one. So I'm going to push back on something you said. You said that everyone inside the Democratic Party understood that Biden was going senile. I think everybody in the fucking country understood that Biden was going senile. I think everybody in the fucking country understood that Biden was going senile. I think everyone in the country understood that AOC and Bernie lied to their faces about it. We just had I'm sure everyone's seen this interview that just came out with Elizabeth Warren, where the interviewer confronts her on it and she just starts laughing because she has no respect for any of us. That she would just lie to our faces and then laugh about it after because she knows there will be zero consequences for anything she ever does ever for the rest of her life. Fair enough.
Speaker 3:And they're the exact same way. They can't even keep a fucking lid on their own people way they can't even keep a fucking lid on their own people. You've got sean o'brien giving them shit for flying around in a private jet on their stop oligarchy tour. Because all of these, all of these little guys, are competing to be the personification of the working class and none of them are well, that will that.
Speaker 1:This is a question I wasn't going to intend to ask, but I'm going to ask it now because it's something that gets on my fucking nerves. I have gotten very frustrated with the hero worship that we see with executives moving to even rank and file union leadership, because in almost every case it has ended up embarrassing. Almost every case it has ended up embarrassing. Um and again, I'm not saying that because I think sean fain's a bad guy or sean. I mean, I think sean o'brien might actually be a bad guy, but like, uh, I I don't think that, but I have been like you're over investing in people you're hearing about like promises that an individual cannot make in that kind of institution. Like Sean Fain cannot bring about a general strike that involves more than the UAW and he probably can't even make it happen in the UAW.
Speaker 4:Does he even see himself actually as a tribune of the people, trying to truly be like a pure representative of, like the will of this group of people that he's representing? Like is that even his responsibility? Like, does he actually have to meet the promises or are the promises actually just him building a brand? Because I don't think the promises are actually promises in that sense. It is branding, it's all branding, it's all branding all the way down. And only we can offer anything other than branding. Who are the only ones that actually care about any of the things we we say?
Speaker 4:we being the working class um the organized working class um, and you know in, yeah, not any one of us, you know yeah, I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 5:I mean like, yeah, um, I feel like that that cult of what's so weird about it is that you see people talking about. It's like the cult of these, these executive personalities who are then, but, like, we are cultifying them not as political leaders, we are cultifying them as characters on the television screen that we're watching Right, like when people talk about. I remember this in with Hillary Clinton, when people were like well, she had to make tough decisions and I'm like you're not fucking part of that, you don't get to, you don't know if she made, you don't know if the decisions were tough, you weren't there because it's a room that you're not able to get into. But people, yeah, like, and I don't know. I think that, the more I think about it, aziz Ansari has been doing great stuff, talking and writing about the Constitution and like the veneration of the Constitution and how that kind of emerged out of the 20s and out of the reaction to the soviet union, and we have this really weird idea of america, like I feel like all of us are incubated with this really odd idea of american, um, politics is this like perfectly structured thing where, uh, you know, democratic and libertarian rule can exist and it's. There's so much power given to executives at every level of government in a way that doesn't even makes.
Speaker 5:Oh, I said fucking. I'm a fucking idiot, I, I. It's not a disease, rana, um, it's a rash disease. What am I thinking of? I'm gonna I kill me with a gun, um, but anywho, sorry comrade, I'm going to wrote the constitutional bind. There's new left review. I'm looking at it now. I don't care. I don't care that I exit, that I messed up.
Speaker 4:I shouldn't have said anything. I'm so sorry, that was dumb.
Speaker 5:I mean, you should have said something. I'm glad that you said something.
Speaker 3:You're allowed to be wrong and make corrections. You are an editor, so it is your job. I was like, oh, Aziz.
Speaker 4:Ansari. Really that's a cool career pivot for him.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 5:That would probably be right, but like there like so much executive power I don't know, thinking about like other, like other other countries on the american continent get knocked for being like you know, uh, like codismo and like strongman rule, but they have the same.
Speaker 5:They all have constitutions that emerged out of the American Constitution. Why did they have something that is structured that way? Because you needed to be able to keep slaves and indigenous people couldn't meaningfully take that structure and do anything with it, and we now, for our whole lives, have lived within that thing, and I realize that you said something about different kinds of executives, but it just, yeah, I don't know. We have this idea that that is like such a democratic system when, or like such a, uh, empowered system when, like mayors in russia aren't don't have the powers that mayors in america have got, like there's so much uh power that's bound into this weird executive judicial structure that we have everywhere and it obfuscates and makes trying to get working class power anywhere difficult, which is why we're now talking about can we take a power at a local level instead of when, when, eight years ago, we were pretending that we could win the presidency and that everything would be fine?
Speaker 3:Yeah, years ago we were pretending that we could win the presidency, and that everything would be fine. Yeah, the United States Constitution was written in such a way that, if you try to do wealth redistribution, george Washington could personally show up to your house and shoot you in the head with a gun.
Speaker 3:And that's the only person, that's the only one individual who is invested with that, that level of power in the way that our society is structured. But we not us in this room or digital room but we on the left are so inundated in this idea that we're treating sean o'brien or whoever the fuck like they have that level of institutional power as an individual and convincing ourselves that if we showed up to their house they would talk to us instead of fucking calling the police Like we have nothing to do with these people. But you know who will talk to you if you show up is anyone in the DSA, if you come to a DSA meeting, because our project is about putting people as a collective in power instead of putting these individuals on platform where they have the I can shoot you in the head with a gun power. That's just not our project and I think that that's the training that we really need to break ourselves out of. Is this individual fetishization?
Speaker 5:I think I pronounced all that wrong.
Speaker 3:But that's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I say all the time, let no one represent you. And I don't say that because I'm an actual advocate of, like, total direct democracy all the time, although I'm not far from it. But, uh, what I would say is the focus on the executive has been a disaster. The united states constitution, I think, is deliberately written contradictory, whereas, um, the original articles of confederation emphasis of the of the congress as the first among equals of the government is still kind of there, but it was also undermined in the writing of the constitution for the reason that you said because they were afraid of shay's rebellion and the risky rebellions and and this, that and the other. As I tell people, the minority that Madison's talking about, that all the liberals tried to convince you was, like I don't know, poor press people said in the Federalist Papers. So it's something to point out.
Speaker 1:Gene, I wanted to pick up on something you said. I had told people that they should look at, um, you know I talk about bonapartism and caesarism a lot, uh, as a like a problem that's universal in our current liberal society, because it's a tendency that marks the serve that happens when things start to break down and and, uh, the the bourgeoisie can't even do what it wants to do, because it's undercut itself for short-term gains, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I've said you should look at Caudillo politics, caudille and Caudillismo more, not because we're just like becoming that, but because we have always been that in a way. It's just we wear better suits and are less likely to have a military junta that is obvious behind it. Um, it's, you know, it's anglo-brain subtlety or whatever his administration
Speaker 5:was on run with his wife's astrologer. And you're telling me we're not in a latin american country.
Speaker 1:Come on right, um, and I have been flabbergasted at the number of different kinds of leftists who've embraced basically a unitary executive theory of the left, and I have always warned that that was going to be a disaster. But another thing when it comes like when we talk about Sean Fain or Sean O'Brien, but another thing when it comes like when we talk about Sean Fain or Sean O'Brien. Ok, the other thing I want to point out is they might be doing their jobs, even in the strict sense of representing their industry. There is no union and this is by design that represent even though, like I don't know, sean Fain also represents a bunch of graduate students, weirdly, because there's that whole thing. But the business union model makes sectional solidarity the limit of most workers organizing, and that was on purpose, I mean.
Speaker 1:Taft-Hartley was designed so that there would never be a labor party in America, you know, and not that the labor parties in Europe are great, but they actually are historical labor parties. I remember when someone that I would probably consider on the right of DSA told me, well, like you know, the Democrats are a labor party, and I like laughed at them and I was just like no, they're not, they've never been a labor party. They're the weird leftovers, but they're like the proto-bourgeoisie and bourgeois leftovers party and they have been the entire time. Um, you know, like now it's professionals, but it used to be southern sharecroppers and stuff, the large holding ones and and plantation owners they've. It's always been weird. Um, so I think that's important to point out the people. When, when we talk about someone like champagne, it's not about our sean o'brien, it's not about that. I think that they're bad or that they don't mean what they say. Um, they might mean what they say they might not. It's, frankly, irrelevant. Do they have the power to do that? And the answer is almost always no.
Speaker 1:And do you have access to them? How many of us are in the uaw? I mean the auto industry that's unionized is a very, very, very small part of the. I mean it's like two percent of uh of the. It's not even that, because the entire industrial productive sector is only between eight and 12% of the U? S population and the auto industry is a tiny sliver of that, and 60% or 70% of the auto industry is not unionized, like you know. It's just, you got to take these facts into consideration and it's been. I've been very frustrated with socialists who are like, well, we should work with the former unions, and I'm like, yes, we should, but you have to admit that. What is it? 80 percent of private sector water workers and 55 to 60 percent of public sector workers are ununionized. Like, but like you keep telling people to join a union, but most people don't even have the option to do that. So you know, let's be realistic here about about these movements.
Speaker 4:You can't pretend it's 1955 anymore right well, and you can start a union too, but if they aren't actually plugged into, you know, like a like some kind of party structure that's going to give them the guidance and give them the tools and give them the resources, the you know experienced people who have done this before to help them through this, it's like nearly impossible. Like I've tried organizing unions a couple times, like here in south dakota even, and's like you know what I mean with these right to work laws, like just the real power you'd have to have at your back to like successfully pull that off is so immense, and so it just seems that just any more is like yeah, it's not don't join a union, it's not don't work in a union, but just. But I do agree that we should recognize the reality that just a lot of people do not have access to that kind of thing and they're going to have to be building this infrastructure in their ground up, and so it's like connecting to them to that national organization is that much more important, because how else are they going to have the confidence, tools, resources to do that? It's impossible.
Speaker 4:If I hadn't joined DSA, I wouldn't be able to do a single thing you know what I mean and I probably wouldn't have even really considered it possible, and a lot of people feel that way, you know. So. So, yeah, no, it's not, don't, don't maybe prescribe that, but just that we really have to think broader. It's you know really about, yeah, it's we got to go way beyond that. This trade unionism, this economism is just like it does. It's just can't even get off the ground in so many instances, you know we can't even get off the ground.
Speaker 5:In so many instances, you know we can't even get to step one, and then you know how can we possibly get beyond that just really quickly? I, I feel it's not. Does you know? Does sean o'brien, do any of these executives, have the right politics? It's about the continued fantasy that if they did that, it would like immediately fix everything. You know, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the key point.
Speaker 5:I mean because, like I said, and that's why they turn around so quickly and like, get so hypercritical, and then jump right back on because it's like, okay, okay, this is the new, you know. Or jump right back on back to bernie and aoc um, because it's like, well, but I want to idolize some like if these, you know, I can't be the object of history. It has to be someone on the television screen yeah, that's, that's uh.
Speaker 1:I think that's a good takeaway for why this stuff matters. I mean, for example, very pro-union myself, I tend to do union work, but I and I I like sean fain actually, but I have been just flabbergasted at the way people think that, because because, also, it plays into our enemies sometimes to do that as well, because it's like, oh well, you know, shuck is pro-tariff, um ross perot style, so. So now you know, it creates a pretext for the Democrats to go even more anti-union than they have been in the past, which you know, and I'm just, I'm just sort of like, well, they're going to do that anyway. So you need to find a whole nother way to to articulate this. But we're going to wrap up some.
Speaker 1:For some of you, it's really late, as you guys notice. We're gonna wrap up some. For some of you it's really late. As you guys notice, we're spread out. The only region that I don't think is represented in this call is the southwest, um, so, uh, and I guess maybe the southern the, the southern west coast, but um, but we got people on the east coast and it's getting late there. So we're going to wrap this up. Everybody gets your final point and where they can find your work. So we'll start with Cliff and go around.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we talked so briefly about Shays' Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion and I really want to highlight this. I'm sure you've already, I'm sure everyone on this call has already read it, but I want to highlight this. I'm sure you've already, I'm sure everyone on this call has already read it, but I want to highlight this for any readers I don't know if it'll come across an economic interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. You need to read this book because it's going to tell you a story. It's a story that you need to hear. Nobody else is going to fucking tell you. And it's about that.
Speaker 3:The Shays Rebellion. I think there's like a kind of high school history class narrative that it was just like the American Revolution happened because we didn't want to pay taxes and then Shays was like I still don't want to pay taxes and then George Washington killed him and that was the whole thing. But there's really a more complex history behind it, where they wanted to have paper money at that time and that was going to help abolish some debts and secure land for them and actually sort of be a form of land redistribution. And it was opposed on that basis and really the political forces within what became the United States at that time was you had this sort of Shazite left that was very leveler land redistribution oriented, and this Republican center that, rather than giving them any ground, made concessions to a ardently monarchist right wing at the time to defeat that Shaysite land redistribution left. And even the left itself at that time was totally predicated on the dispossession of indigenous peoples, the continued oppression of a racialized laboring population. Nothing about that story has changed in the last 250 whatever the fuck years. Nothing about it. That is still the exact story of United States history and without that insight I fear that we're shortchanging ourselves without that grounding in history. And that, I think, is where Mug really gets its clarity of vision aiming ourselves at the Constitution as the final obstacle to revolution in the United States. United States holding democracy, real democracy, not just for people who look like us or people in our nation, but everyone on a plurinational basis, particularly in a prison house of nations like the United States at the top of the imperial hegemonic ladder. That is of the utmost importance and keeping that in mind will keep you from getting attached to these Sean O'Brien fantasies of we get enough fucking tariffs and get the car manufacturing jobs back. That's how we'll get the socialism. This this is, this is the medicine to keep us from that. So that's really important. I guess for plugging.
Speaker 3:I have written for Cosmonaut. I'm running for fucking NPC. I'm Cliff Connolly on Twitter. I am fully committed to making the Democratic Socialists of America the home of resistance to far right wing reaction in the United States, the home of a hope for a livable future, because no one other than the left can offer that, and we need to get fucking organized today. So that's me, cliff Connolly. Join DSA if you're not in DSA. If you are, help me and Amy and Sid get on the NPC at convention this fall so we can make the DSA live up to its historic mission.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't have quite such a show and tell for the finish, but yeah, Join the DSA if you haven't. Absolutely, and just to tell you what Cliff and Sid and I are standing for, we published our NPC platform. The big thing that Mug is about the revolutionary path of democracy. We need a real democratic society. It's going to take revolution to get us there. We want to build DSA as the mass party, as not just, or maybe even not at all, the kind of pile of packs that make a party in the United States system, but a real mass organization where people come together, make decisions democratically, build each other up and become, you know, build up every cook to be able to govern. We want to, and through that we want to unite the entire working class, not just within our borders but internationally, and build a new international so that we're not standing alone. Those are our four big blanks. Yeah, Join the DSA if you aren't in it. If you are, you know, run for delegate. Come to the convention and vote for Cliff and Sid and I.
Speaker 4:Yeah, for Cliff and Sid and I. Yeah, I don't have really a whole lot of like. I don't really have any like personal projects to promote. I do do the Emancipations Reading Group, which I'm sure some of your audience is also part of a few other Mug folks in there, so that's fun. If you like to read, you should join that. But yeah, I mean just honestly mainly like to join dsa. You really should join dsa. Everyone should join dsa.
Speaker 4:Um, if you're watching this, I think you belong at dsa, to be honest, unless you're like, oh, like, I hate those guys, I want to kill them, like. If that's how you feel watching this, you should join dsa. Um, there's a place for you there. Um, you should be part of, uh, the culture we're building. Um, help us build a party Because honestly, yeah, not only yeah do we far and away have the numbers, but we have the structures, as imperfect as they are, and it's, I feel, like it's our only hope here right now, and what's going on here is good and it's worth being part of. And if you don't like stuff that's happening, then good, even more reason you should join, because it actually is democratic and you actually can change the organization. I can't help but feel like we didn't get to talk about like so much of the stuff that we really could and should have been talking about. But you know, so, maybe after convention maybe there's room for another. But honestly, if you want to know more about what we're about, you can check us out online. Join DSA. I actually do politics with us. That's a really good way to see what we're about.
Speaker 4:Read, um, read Light and Air, our publication. Um, yeah, I don't know. Get on our email list, uh, so you can receive our bulletins, our beautiful bulletins. Uh, read Cosmonaut Magazine um, there's mug people in it. There's tons of people who aren't mug um, but it's, you know, it's an awesome publication. That, um, yeah, and please, please, please vote. Uh, cliff Connolly. Amy Wilhelm uh, uh, sid cw. Uh, carlson white. Sid carlson white. Um for npc.
Speaker 4:If you're in the dsa, and please check out our resolutions and sign on to them, if you can. Um, yeah, we have a few um, I will actually name them if you don't mind. Terribly, uh, let me pull them out. Make sure I don't get any of any of the titles wrong. We have Workers Demand the World, a revolutionary program for DSA, principles of Party Building, democratic Discipline, a uniform process for electoral censure across DSA and Democracy for All. You can read more about them on our website and in our publication. You can keep an eye out and lighten the air for even more articles coming out about those. Um. Join dsa, get involved in the forums uh, you can see us talking about more stuff there. Um, just plug in, just really honestly plug in whether you love us, whether you hate us. Uh, come be part of what we're doing, yeah I want to plug lightning, interim editor-in-chief of it.
Speaker 5:We already have pieces from Cliff and Amy. Amy wrote Democracy is More Than V happened. It's a very interesting okay, where is the democracy actually happening within your organization? And it's a combination of it's more than voting, but also sometimes it is also voting. Not to spoil the whole thing, cliff wrote a great piece about Mugg's vision of democracy, which is, I think, one of the best propagandistic. Like anybody you know. My mom was able to read it and fully get it. My mom is not a member of DSA. She might be soon. She's a. She's a.
Speaker 5:I was about to say Red Scare, but she listens to lefty podcasts now.
Speaker 5:Um, not red scare, but uh, um, and you know, red sincerity there will be. We have had an intentional project to like, develop, like, make sure that, like comrades who are involved in like practical projects are writing, because mug very much cares about transparency and we have like a program that means that you can put a bunch of comrades as articles next to each other from very different perspectives, with very different like um experiences, and it doesn't read as eclectic bullshit and that's a something that I'm very proud of, but that it also has basically nothing to do with me, I'm very proud of, but that it also has basically nothing to do with me. I'm very proud of the organization that I'm a part of. If you're listening to this, we need to be a part of one unified party. That sounds crazy, but the only way that we're going to do this is by doing this all together. Join DSA, run for delegate, vote for our stuff. I'm going to see you handing you a fucking paper at convention.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, thank you guys so much. Yes, I was going to ask you guys to come back after the convention. Anyway, if we're debriefing, and also to any other DSA, slate Congress, caucus Committee. Whatever my open invitation stands, I don't have to agree with you or even like you very much. You can represent yourself here. To other sects you can too, unless I think you're heinous. There are a few that I won't talk to, but I'm not going to go into who they are. So get that up. Check out Cosmonaut Magazine, check out the Mug website, where you can also find their new publication. I think it's good that you guys have a publication, so not that I think it's bad that you guys are associated with Cosmonaut, but it is a different project and that needs to be very clearly articulated.
Speaker 5:We just got tired of people yelling at us, because whenever something came out in Cosmonaut, they were like that's you, we're like. Oh, you know, they were like that's you.
Speaker 1:And we're like oh, I mean like honestly, cosmonaut publishes people who hate each other, so like which you should Well and there's plenty of people part of both projects, I'm part of both projects.
Speaker 4:There's even plenty of times where, even as someone on the editorial board, like I would just say, like hey, like I am not the guy, like I can't unilaterally make a decision about what Cosmonaut publishes or not and whether I agreed with it or not. Like, mug definitely doesn't have that kind of control. And one of the reasons Cosmonaut is so awesome is that it can publish all of these different viewpoints that have nothing to do with each other and they don't agree with each other. It's awesome, it is, it is really an organ that way, kind of like how in DSA, all kinds of dependencies can exist. But yeah, that the the, the idea that those were ever, like you know, mug endorsed publications was just, I mean, flatly untrue and frustrating, because it's just like, can you know what I mean? How many times you know? So hopefully it does clarify a bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I do remember the very brief lived Anarcho-Primitivist DSA caucus which was pretty funny, but hey, I'm not actually. I'm glad it existed for the few minutes that it did, I guess. So on that note we're going to end. Thank you guys so much. I will put links to the Mug website and you can find almost all the other links from that in the show notes. Like I said, you guys will be coming back, or at least some representatives of Mug will be coming back after the convention to talk and let's see where things go. No-transcript.
