DSA and the Threat of Moronic Rectitude

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Knowing that I’ve been a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and one of its predecessor organizations (the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee) since 1975, several friends emailed me with questions about the following tweet, which DSA issued on April 12:

The tweet preceded by one day Bernie Sanders’s full-throated endorsement of Biden.

The at-first-glance explanation is that DSA, at its 2019 convention, took the position that it would give its presidential endorsement only to Bernie Sanders, and this merely follows the convention’s dictates.

At second glance, while I emphatically believe that all progressives, socialists very much included, should do all they can to (1) elect Joe Biden and (2) defeat Donald Trump—and (1), like it or not, is the sole way to achieve (2)—I’m not sure that at this stage in American political development a formal endorsement from a socialist organization would help Joe Biden. It just might do more harm than good.

The Trumpistas will surely attack Biden as a socialist, and as the Democratic Party is indeed inching its way to more social democratic positions, that attack might sway a few swing voters away from Uncle Joe (Biden, not Stalin). Of course, the reason the Democrats are inching that way is that social democracy has become much more popular in the U.S. since the 2008 crash—and probably more so now in the pandemic’s wake—than it’s ever been, as I note in an article on the Prospect website today. So the question of whether an endorsement will help or hurt is a close call, but on the margins, I still think it may hurt.

The Atlanta local of DSA faced a similar conundrum in 2018 when progressive Democrat Stacey Abrams ran for governor. I didn’t conduct any polls, but I was sure then, and I’m sure now, that a DSA endorsement would not have proved helpful to her with the Georgia electorate. However, the Atlanta local badly wanted Abrams to win, so it released a statement that read in part:

For many reasons, we cannot endorse Abrams ourselves, but neither can we stand aside while our friends and allies fight for something they know will make their lives better. We voted to encourage our members, if they feel so moved, to stand up and fight in this election cycle.

My informed hunch is that the vast majority of DSA members will do what the Atlanta local recommended—at minimum, vote for Biden. That said, DSA’s national political committee should release a statement like Atlanta’s—unless they want the organization to be regarded by sentient progressives and socialists alike as a sect of blinkered Trotskyists thrilled by their display of callous, moronic rectitude. America surely doesn’t need yet another socialist organization that’s neither in nor of the world.

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