What do people make of the Democratic Socialists of America?

Dunno if you should laugh or cry that a 21st century redo of the Militant Tendency is the high point of the American left.

It shows a rightwing shift amongst the leftist milieu. Grasping at straws. Looking for a pseudo church for some? Squandering limited personnel and resources in dangerous dead ends eg electoral politics of various sorts and squandering of limited resources in all manner of side shows and mixed up with divisive and dangerous identity politics. Promoted by the deep state particularly as part of the CIA's "Operation Chaos" promoting such divisive phenomena as the "women's movement'. As well of course by the corporate media/universities etc. It and other aspects of Operation Chaos contributed to the demise of many leftist groups in the 70's doing some useful industrial work.
. Involvement in the DSA won't tackle the big issues - the employer offensive & the corporate unionism of the AFL-CIO-CIA interwoven by innumerable threads with the corporate setup-deep state-corporate media. and its hold/influence over workers in key industrial sectors and associated low workers' morale. With large swathes probably voting for Trump. All roads lead to focusing on one strategic sector with outside the job organisation intensively assisting militant networks on the job - in a context where this can be done. Due to issues of morale etc - this activity by outside the job organisation people would have to fit into their daily routines to some extent. Such organisation should adopt such principles as need to know, compartments and vetting where possible. An obvious focus is transport industries. Consider producing a national industrial paper which could lead into regional/state editions. There are some militant looking groups already there which can be approached? Maybe you can get some swathes from DSA involved in various ways in this and doing something useful. Get big actions going affecting many millions raising workers' morale and major splits from corporate unions. Check out www.sparksweb.org for some ideas & "From Corporate Bureaucratic Unionism to Grass Roots controlled Direct Action Unionism: Perspectives for Activity & Strategy for Australia Today" in RW Vol.41 No.3 (235) Dec. 2023-Jan. 2024 on www.rebelworker.org and libcom.org

I don’t really think it is much of a positive force for socialism. Like it’s growth coincided with a bit of media coverage on socialism and their organization. But I don’t think it converted a lot of people to our cause. I suppose most people who joined the DSA were already politically aligned.

I find their Libertarian Socialist Caucus to be very disappointing. I guess that is expected of a group operating within the DSA.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying here, but I don't think this is true at all if you mean that most people who have joined DSA (probably hundreds of thousands of people since 2016) were already people who have been involved on the left. I think the majority of people were essentially apolitical or never really involved in anything prior to joining DSA.

Sure, most were probably not involved in anything before but I wouldn’t say they had just become ‘socialist’ when they joined the organization. Especially the folks involved in the numerous organized ideological caucuses, they don’t come across as newbies to leftist politics.

I mean, they're just not socialists... and it really makes little sense why there are so-called "libertarian socialist" and "communist" caucuses within the DSA. I'm not sure why such caucuses would choose to affiliate with an organization that pushes for stuff like the Green New Deal as if it were some solution to capitalism's climate woes. The surge in membership probably also has a lot to do with Trump coming to office in 2017. I know a lot of people became more political after that, especially considering how Trump emboldened the far-right and how he was/is a literal billionaire (the first billionaire president in US history) claiming to have working-class people's interests at heart.

I think the Democrats may not like it, but they prefer it over the alternative of another National Rainbow Coalition roaming free. As long as the DSA remains in their orbit, the party maintains control and I have to salute that cunning. What the DSA think they’re getting out of it is more the question. Maybe the answer isn’t that interesting

I do fear on some level, this is the absolute limit though. In the same way conflict is generally viewed through realpolitik, reformism sets a sort of pragmatic parameters that then must be obeyed; x y and z are not realistic, you can’t say that, politican c didn’t run on that and they did fine, etc. And that’s when they win. When they lose, well Corbyn starting a new party would have been the biggest leftish story here in the recent past and the foreseeable future.

But you need to look at the role of the Deep State - FBI/CIA/Cops in all this.
With the SDS it was an extra parliamentary group involved in anti-Vietnam War activity so seen as a threat to the set up - so it wasn't just a matter of factions - it would be FBI infiltrators stirring things up to provoke splits. SDS was unfortunately involved in the blind alley of "community organising" but not the strategic industrial organising argued for above. Connected with perhaps its origins and ties with the corporate union bureaucracy.
The CIA did a brilliant job with its manufacture of the women's movement and hidden hand behind LSD, etc in disrupting/splitting/demoralising New Left groups doing useful industrial work associated with the wildcat strike movement in early 70's in the USA. New research points to the massive scale and impact of Operation Chaos - with such pop groups as the Beatles being manufactured by the UK Tavistock Institute connected with the Deep State - throwing new light on seemingly bizarre phases in the Beatles careers eg psychedelic and mystical phases - fitting nicely with CIA's promotion of the LSD/hippy phenomena to disrupt the student/worker radicalisation of the 60's/70's. See Mike Williams sage of quay web site and the work of other Beatles researchers.
A book which came out a few years back based on newly released FBI files (a fraction of the actual files on the CP USA Cointelpro Operation) shows they "manufactured" a Maoist faction in the CP USA in the early 1960's to disrupt it.
In the case of DSA - it has a very much an electoral orientation which would suit them - wasting people's energies/resources in a dead end.

ASN, how about you cut it out with the conspiracy theory nonsense?
As I'm sure you probably know, the CIA didn't "promote" the women's movement, they infiltrated it, as they did with various radical movements in Operation Chaos. So stop promoting this chauvinist nonsense.
In terms of DSA, maybe this isn't a particular useful bit of input, but I don't really find them that interesting.
Not to say that anything else is much more interesting of course.
But I even think comparing them with Militant is overstating it. Militant was a revolutionary socialist tendency within an avowedly socialist (at the time, in name at least) Labour Party. DSA isn't even as avowedly socialist as the Labour Party was, and is existing as a tendency within a pretty far right (by world standards) capitalist party.
That's not meant as criticism of anyone in DSA.
Although as someone from an anarchist/ultraleft background, it is not really surprising to see DSA elevate various candidates to office, get them elected, and then promptly denounce them for abandoning their former principles, as they have to compromise in order to get things done administering a capitalist state, or elements of it.
In terms of why did they explode, I'm not really sure. Although I think their big tent nature would have helped, and the lack of the type of cultism common in the parties of the authoritarian left.
What does seem to happen in these moments is that some group or other ends up absorbing the bulk of energise new people which come in. I think some of this is just like, and as soon as an organisation picks up momentum, and is seen to have it, then it is likely to continue growing. The organisation, Momentum, in the UK, is pretty similar. I think this is probably the most comparable group to DSA. And I think the trajectory of DSA will likely be similar, depending on how historical events in general go.
So, if DSA continues to have success and growth, then all the different factions within it will probably stay together because of what they see will be mutual benefit. But if things start to stall or go backwards (as happened in the UK with the collapse of Corbynism), then the factions will probably turn on each other, blaming each other for various failures, while the bulk of the less-ideologically inclined membership drifts away.
If it ends up having huge amounts of success, then I think we can assume it will probably follow the path of European social democratic organisations – some material benefits for the working class, alongside compromise, recuperation, and the decline of radical elements.
So a mixed bag I reckon.

Oh yeah, Militant was miles ahead which underlines how diminishing the returns of entryism are. Though watching Adam Curtis’ Shifty, there was some parallels of left celebrity serving as memetic; Derek Hatton does panto, Tommy Sheridan does Big Brother (sol-lid-darrrrrrity), AOC attends the more glamorous Met Gala. You’re right Momentum serve as the actual model, but Lansbury not as photogenic.

Don’t know how to frame this exactly, and I’m sure no one is interested in my magico-Marxism by now, but I do wonder how much of reformism’s staying power is down to this general adherence with realism, practicality and so on. At least in this period, it is shared by radical organisations, big and small. On those terms, you would go for the more likely to ‘succeed’ option as the many academics and Marxists in bio crowing on twitter would suggest.

It is my understanding that most democratic socialists, including those in the DSA, actually do believe in creating a socialist society in the long run, not to end up with a reformed version of capitalism. That’s why they call themselves democratic socialists. It’s just that they prefer to accomplish their goal with the well tested and discredited social democratic strategy. Michael Harrington, the principal cofounder of the DSA, thought their strategy was true to Marx’s so called democratic politics.

As for the Libertarian Socialist Caucus, their understanding of libertarian socialism is far from what actual anarchists understand by that term. I once saw a strategy proposal from within the caucus that was all electoral politics.

"ASN, how about you cut it out with the conspiracy theory nonsense?
As I'm sure you probably know, the CIA didn't "promote" the women's movement, they infiltrated it, as they did with various radical movements in Operation Chaos. So stop promoting this chauvinist nonsense."

Stop being abusive! But the deep state is interwoven with the corporate media - after all the corporate media could have just ignored it - but publicised it internationally - Katherine Graham who worked closely with Gloria Steinem in the "women's movement" was a key publisher linked with the CIA eg the Washington Post (voice of the CIA)and Ms Magazine a divisive mass movement was born in many countries just at the time of a major upsurge in workers industrial action - in the case of the Beatles - the corporate media got behind them on a massive scale - presenting them as musical geniuses, selling eventually a Billion records etc- their "organic" previous group "the Quarrymen" was considered by one its producers as producing "rubbish" music. According to many researchers the corporate media has played a key role in various US assassination conspiracies eg JFK MLK and John Lennon and it seems here with the Port Arthur Massacre - helping frame up Martin Bryant - see you tube on the Wasp Files.
You need to do the necessary research - see Sage of Quay web site - there is very persuasive research there. All points to a "conspiracy" and very sophisticated covering up of the Deep State tracks. Beatles researchers have uncovered important glitches in the cover-up in recent years . With the deep state/corporate media getting behind such an identity politics movement eg the womens movement - you can get going/fire up internal fighting going in various leftist groups doing good work on the industrial front contributing to their demise. It is presented as all "organic" disintegration when behind the scenes there is very sophisticated manipulation. No need for the mailed fist of the State. Although this fist was used quite a bit by the cops/FBI with some of their COINTELPRO operations as is well known against such groups as the Black Panthers - all well documented. A new book coming out some years back on Operation Chaos & the Manson Family - looks at an Operation Chaos style death squad to wipe out key people in the Anti-Vietnam War movement eg Jane Fonda and in the Black Panthers - the place where the Manson Family murders occurred was actually a hangout for these activists. - if the murders of these activists had been successful - it would all be blamed on an LSD Hippy cult nothing to do with the Deep State - all discussed in this book.
In the case of the DSA - you certainly may be seeing deep state engineering - particularly with this factional regime - but also certainly organic developments - But that is a common feature of Deep State manipulation - a small group of unknown artists such as Jack Pollack, De Kooning etc are suddenly discovered by the Deep State such US State Dept. and become this massive international movement - Abstract Expressionism. It has been a well documented "conspiracy" and they were legit artists.
So in my view the DSA there is strong possibility to likely to be engineered by them for this role to draw all manner of people and particularly those from the leftist milieu into the dead end of electoral politics and a bogus social democratic outfit. In the case of the DSA which suits their agenda - their infiltrators/operatives - would be involved in some sophisticated manipulation behind the scenes - heading off any moves for splits and infighting assisted by how the thing has been engineered and of course acting is a seeming "even handed way" - so there are no massive bust ups like with the SDS (the research needs to be done to get much more of the story on it) - the deep state has massive resources and corporate media connections - and as I have argued considerable expertise in manipulation so they can if so required provoke massive disruption in the DSA but they don't - it fits their agenda.
However the research needs to be done into the DSA and if a Deep State job or it is playing a significant role needs to be exposed - adequate research needs to be done into other aspects of Operation Chaos such as in regard to promoting identity politics.
However with the DSA there may be an opportunity to get these new people who have joined in large numbers involved in useful work particularly this strategic industrial organising. If progress can be made with this work - their morale would be raised and they can move away from this electoral politics fantasy and this fake Social democratic outfit to more appropriate anarcho-syndicalist organisation and activity.

I've got some new thoughts on the DSA - another dimension maybe to be a sort of honey trap to gather all these leftist types into it - and assuming it is a deep state front - they would have all their details so helping in the context of a future State drag net against leftist elements - currently Trump is waging quite a drag net and locking up a lot of immigrants. In the Australian context until 1971 there were in fact plans for doing something like that in the context of a national emergency - there plans were for setting up camps to hold leftist types- presumably those in the communist party and others would be targeted. THere had been had been vague legislation to outlaw "subversion". Its mentioned in the introduction to the Book "our asio files" by Meridith Burgmann and Wendy Lowenstrein. I think. Definitely if the DSA is a deep state front/job - its definitely too dangerous for people and particularly those from leftist groups to get involved in it.
It seems to me it would be more likely for the CIA to run it - they would have experience in infiltrating various Social Democratic/Labor Parties and creating factions in them - Intriguingly a faction in the Swedish Social Democratic Party the Brotherhood was involved in luring Julian Assange as part of a trap to sweden to give a lecture - one of those involved seemed to have quite spooky/rightwing connections. So it may be urgent to warn people off about the DSA particularly now they look to be facing big growth - assuming deep state front. However all we have to go on at the moment is theories/suspicions.
I think its important to get the experts involved. It would be useful to get those who have done books/research into the US deep state - to get their views on the above theories on the DSA - they also may have stumbled across some important info/contacts - also one of them may be interested in doing the research on them for a book - a publisher who specialises in this area - is Trine Day - they may be helpful - books could take a long time to get published - so its important to get whatever info on them re the possibility of deep state front to expose it if such a front and warn off people.

Look I think we're going to have to say that you have to stop posting all these deranged allegations with zero evidence.
As I'm sure you will be aware, if you have studied counterintelligence programs as much as you seem to think you have, that a primary tactic security services used in US was badjacketing – making fake allegations of people being in league with the state. As I'm sure you're also aware, this got people killed.
So you are doing something which the security services deliberately did to disrupt radical movements.
If we allow you just make these crazy allegations, someone else could equally just say that you are working for the CIA. So how about you just cut it out?

do the necessary research proposed to determine the facts

It would be different if you were citing actual declassified documents to support what you're saying, which plenty of scholars do (e.g. through FOIA requests in the US), but just referencing some conspiracy theorist's website doesn't really encourage others to take you seriously. I also don't think I've ever seen a serious scholar use the word "deep state" before either, so I'm curious what sort of "research" you're referring to there. It's mostly a right-wing/conspiracy theorist term used by people who, I imagine, don't know how to engage with actual government documents or sources. There are plenty of real instances of governmental conspiring (e.g. the American support for the Khmer Rouge as a counterweight against reunified Vietnam, as well as other stuff like Cointelpro), but you have to base what you're saying on more solid evidence than just some random guy's website or just telling people to "research it."

In any case, the DSA and electoral/reformist politics would need to be fought against regardless of whether they're being used by the Trump administration or not, which is something I seriously doubt.

I was looking at seeking the feedback from those who have done serious research into JFK,RFK, MLK and John Lennon assassination conspiracies/CIA Operations generally and particularly into CIA infiltration of Social Democratic/Labor Parties in various countries and those who have done research into COINTELPRO - and maybe you can find someone who is interested into doing serious research into DSA and a book - sort of farming out the work to them and seeking any insights to look into

Admin: any further off topic comments about conspiracy nonsense will be removed.

Follow-up admin note: a further off-topic comment was removed. If you want to start a new discussion about conspiracy theories or admin moderation decisions, feel free to do that, but don't disrupt this discussion about DSA.

I suppose maybe I am being a bit overly jaded. I suppose my thinking is because we had successful social democracy here in Europe from over a century ago, having a very small but growing movement for European style social democracy in the US is not particularly inspiring to me, because even when that sort of thing is successful it ends up with the kind of situation we have in Europe, which I suppose it's easy to take for granted and think is pretty terrible.
However, I guess that is partly the privilege of growing up in a relatively functioning social democracy. From a US perspective, having even the weak kind of social protections we have would be amazing. Like not having no-fault dismissal, and having 28 days minimum annual leave per year, not to mention things like universal free healthcare, would be absolutely life changing for the majority of US workers.
So I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer! But I guess seeing social democracy slowly collapsing in Europe for the last 40 years doesn't really inspire confidence in the general project…
That's very interesting to hear about the CP and IWW membership. Although I must say I haven't seen much in terms of active industrial campaigns or high-profile propaganda from either of those groups corresponding with a growth in membership. Perhaps I've just been missing something. Maybe if there is something to report on that front we could start a new Discussion.
Also interesting comment about anarchism. I have started a new Discussion about that here: https://libcom.org/discussion/are-anarchist-organisations-decline 

I don't think people should underestimate how much AOC & co. are changing the makeup of the Democratic Party. Virtually every Democrat supporter I've seen (on the internet, I don't live in the US to be fair) despises the people who lead the party. The old guard types aren't going to be around forever and the powerbrokers are well aware how popular people like AOC and Mamdani are with the Democratic base. The 2024 election showed how little people were inspired by the solidly establishment candidates of Biden & Harris; even with the threat of another Trump term on the horizon, they still managed to do worse than ever.

I don't think the party is going to suddenly turn into an open social-democratic one, but I think the DSA-aligned leftists will gradually become the leading force. The DSA itself has lots of factions within it wanting clean or dirty breaks or whatever but they're sort of irrelevant when the main thing that attracts people to it are precisely the candidates the factions are dissatisfied with. In fact, the proliferation of all these different caucuses to me indicates exactly how irrelevant they are.

The National Rainbow Coalition post the 84 run. That result was set in stone but in 88 the Democrats were cognisant they were a legitimate threat and manoeuvred internally to counter it. The old guard may feel the same about the DSA but they’re not going to live forever and sections of capital will eventually come around to the inevitable. There’s also this propulsive tendency of the left to chase ghosts, unionisation increasing means nothing other than unionisation increasing, not an indication of militancy. Democratic success in Nevada over the last few cycles has been attributed to the culinary union there as one example. It’s likely power will consolidate around a tradeunionised, reformist, pro Palestine base as a new form of liberalism in the U.S and elsewhere, internally going around in circles with its contradictions. Sure socialism will be electable but only as something unremarkable.

But maybe that’s conspiratorial.

To Juan Contatz's original question about why the DSA exploded in 2016, that's something that I think about occasionally as well. I remember running into some DSA folks at a picket in late 2016 and being surprised since I'd never seen or met a DSA member in 10 or so years of going to protests and other events. Within a year they were the largest leftist organization in the US since SDS in 1969.

I think there's a couple of interrelated reasons why they blew up. The first and most important was the Bernie Sanders phenomenon. I think it's easy to forget that his campaign was the first time in decades that socialism was discussed in a serious way at a national level in the US and he made a big point to label his politics as "democratic socialist." I literally think that there were thousands of really excited young people who were looking for something to get involved with once Bernie conceded, googled "democratic socialism," saw that there was an organization for people with their exact politics, and joined. I also sort of suspect that a lot of branches were formed from networks of Bernie volunteers who decided to join or start DSA chapters en masse, but I don't actually have any evidence to back that up.

Another thing that I think allowed the DSA to explode was having really popular media. The most popular socialist publication at the time, Jacobin, and the most popular socialist podcast, Chapo Trap House, were both run by DSA members who were outspoken in support of the organization.

The last thing was that there weren't a lot of great alternatives: CPUSA was as moribund as the DSA at the time and was less likely to attract folks who weren't communists, trot groups like the ISO (which was probably the most active and visible socialist group at the time) and Socialist Alternative had more restrictive politics, bad internal cultures, and hadn't been very open to the Bernie campaign, Marcyite groups like the PSL and WWP and Maoist groups like FRSO weren't as well positioned politically, generally seeming more focused on anti-war and police reform protests and having less palatable politics around North Korea, Iran, etc. (the whole online Tankie thing was just starting to emerge at the time), and the IWW was too specifically focused on workplace organizing to attract folks who had just been energized from a socialist electoral campaign.

Since some folks brought up Militant, I wanted to mention a more recent episode of a small socialist group blowing up from out of nowhere. This past year or so, Socialist Appeal (Ted Grant's group when he split from Militant) and their international, the International Marxist Tendency and all, or nearly all, the groups changed their name to the Revolutionary Communist Party or something similar. The US group, which I believe may have just been called the US Section of the IMT and seemed miniscule even by tiny Trot sect standards, is now rebranded as the Revolutionary Communists of America and has been on a really large membership drive, mostly oriented around leaving stickers that say something like Are You a Communist or Join the Communists around college campuses. While it's hard to say how large they actually are, since most of their activity seems to revolve around slick self-promotion and highly-visible activities, they've definitely managed to hold some fairly large looking rallies and have a lot of really active members in places like reddit. Does anyone have any insight into this development? It feels much less organic than the growth of other groups like the DSA or PSL (which I'm not sure is entirely organic either, given their ties to wealthy pro-Chinese propagandists) over the last ten years.

I mean, the growth of the British Soc App/RCP makes slightly more sense, cos they were one of the only groups that had stuck with Labour in the pre-Corbyn years and so they were in a good position to recruit from that, for them Corbynism was like a prophecy come true whereas everyone else who'd spent the past however many years trying to build a new party outside Labour was stuck in the position of having to hastily rewrite their positions if they wanted to be able to recruit Labour people.
Internationally it's a bit more mystifying but I guess it could be a thing of British RCP grows - IMT/RCI gets enthusiastic new members who post about it online a lot - Americans are influenced to join via reddit and the like? Maybe?
The other observation I'd make about them is that usually trot groups have been very careful to have their own set of imagery distinct from stuff that looks too "USSR" , Trot groups have almost always been called socialist rather than communist and avoided use of the hammer and sickle etc, whereas the RCP's imagery is a lot more tankie-looking, so I think that's a (seemingly successful) attempt to fish in the same pool as the likes of the YCL in the UK and the PSL/WWP in the US?

I think the IMT/RCI has stalled since their big membership drive campaign; they don't post their big membership target milestones any more. It's worth keeping in mind that the standards for joining are pretty low, it's basically "are you a communist?" and "do you agree to follow the leadership's orders?". Add that together with their aggressive self-promotion and advertising and you get a group that is probably a lot less significant than they seem.

What surprised me about the IMT is the extent to which they transformed into the RCI without any visible signs of internal dissent. The whole organisation began in opposition to the majority faction of Militant that wanted to ditch Labour and run independently. Now they themselves have ditched Labour and are running independently, without any real explanation of why beyond "communism is so in right now". Surely some of the old timers would have freaked out at all this.

Just started reading this discussion.

"I suppose most people who joined the DSA were already politically aligned."

In 2016, two of our then high school kids seemed sympathetic to the Bernie Sanders wing of DSA. Obviously I failed as an anarcho-syndicalist father, hehehehe. One of the kids stuck with that sorta DSA view point until university. They shifted further leftward, but has yet to take "the plunge" into a more radical politics. The point is, I believe between 2016-2020 there were lots of politically aware/interested people who joined or were in the DSA orbit who may not have been "politically aligned". The entryists, yes, much more so "aligned" with one outside group or another. Then, I suppose, one must ask: what does aligned actually mean?

Just seen this conversation, I agree with Synd above, I was very active on social media in 2017 and ending up talking to many DSAers, most of which were young and was their first experience with a group.

I've skimmed and skipped in this thread, so apologies if I'm repeating something's. My impressions of them was that they were mostly nice people but I didn't think they would go anywhere. A couple I knew ended up being delegates and Youth chapter leaders and they just confirmed my concerns.

The common problems seemed to be many new members had no experience, which we all have to start somewhere, but the DSA has a bunch of caucuses made up of various competing tendencies which is an excellent environment for targeted recruitment and pressuring.

The DSA as a whole is ill-defined and most of its own membership don't know how it works. I was told repeatedly that the DSA is not a party, often in the middle of a lengthy explanation of how a political party works/what they were doing in an election campaign.

Its seems to be vulnerable to highjacking. As far back as 2017 members were vocally appalled about its various admin bodies, particularly its foreign policy group for ignoring the will of the wider membership. And this is something I still see active members complaining about nearly 10 years later.

The Democratic party. This is the big one, they're tied to the democrats, while some groups did or do some good things in tenants organising etc every time there's an election cycle they drop everything and start canvassing for democrats, they even campaign and support elected officials who carry out policing and sentencing. I fail to see how you can live in the United states and see the road to socialism through the democrats.

Wondering if we should do this thread again for the UK. now that Corby & Sultana have got their generic party off the ground now. Corbynmania mk II or will it just flop? Seeing all the Trot sects rush in before it's even officially launched makes me think it will dissolve into infighting sooner rather than later.

Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani has won NYC mayoral election last night. He got just over 50% of the vote, although the city is still counting. Cuomo and GOP candidate Sliwa combine for 47% of the vote. Not exactly a big win for democratic socialism, but it’s still alive.

Anyone else's head about to explode listening to people describe nationalization of industries and public services like fire departments as socialism/communism? I guess it could be beneficial if some reformist social-democratic party overtakes the Democratic Party in the US. It could place us on the same level as most European countries (in the sense of having a nominally socialist/labor party, which we don't currently) and make socialism less of a scare-word, even if people associate it with what is basically just "humanized" capitalism with more safety nets, if even that. It could also help show how reforming capitalism or nationalizing industries has its limits and is no solution to the contradictions and antagonisms inherent in capitalism.

I'm not sure how this isn't a big win for the democratic socialism. The New York city mayor is an extremely powerful political position and he was outspent 20 to 1. I would say that winning by 9% in those circumstances is a pretty big deal. I'm not a democratic socialist and I don't think that his election is some stirring step towards communism, but I do think that on the DSA's terms it's a big win.

NYC has long been touted as one of the most progressive cities in America. Perhaps that is not really true. But he only took just over 50%. And he was the candidate for the Democratic Party. How many of his voters actually supported him for democratic socialism? Maybe, they just liked some of his policy proposals. Maybe, they were disgusted by the alternatives presented by Cuomo and Sliwa. It is a big win for DSA, but I don’t think we will see a democratic socialist movement in the ascendency in the foreseeable future.

https://www.vox.com/politics/467397/zohran-mamdani-nyc-mayor-democratic-socialism

I found this piece amusing. Published by Vox a day after the elections, it is an interview with Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin Magazine. After discussing a bit about Mamdani’s victory and what it meant, it shifts to discussion of Sunkara’s vision of market socialism, which dominated the rest of the article. “Markets in and of itself is not capitalism,” says Sunkara. Also, “markets are tools for coordination and consumer choices.” Pretty disgusting stuff.

Aye, cos it's really easy to win against a shit opponent. That's why Harris won by such a huge margin against the 78-year old serial sex pest.

From the Onion...

Claim: Mamdani is a communist.

False: Any real communist will happily spend six hours explaining why this isn’t true.

https://theonion.com/fact-checking-claims-about-zohran-mamdani/

I recently became a member of DSA! I was impressed by Mamdani's momentum.

"DSA" is not a single thing. It is a bunch of little chapters of random activist types from across the country, many of whom are young, inexperienced, politically facile, etc. It is basically anarchist groups but with better social media.

The DSA elected officials (AOC, Mamdani, etc.) often run as DSA candidates for signal-boosting purposes but they have basically 0 accountability to the organization. Some of them, like AOC, were elected through groups like JusticeDemocrats and BrandNewCongress which did a good job finding local races in which existing incumbent candidates were demographically mismatched with the electorate, and then running exciting candidates like her. They pick these "easier" races and use it to build momentum. Mamdani is himself an example of this, running against an extremely unpopular sex pest who clearly did not anticipate the sea change about Israel.

Nonetheless, they are not revolutionary and apart from viewing it as a place to meet young activists and get involved it is not something anyone should put any real hope in. For one, the DSA itself has no political power or influence, even over the people who run in its name. Indeed, there are several high profile instances of DSA-affiliated candidates publicly snubbing the DSA; instead of the electeds getting unendorsed, the DSA itself ends up having an internal meltdown.

Lastly, re: the candidates themselves: they are not extraordinary. Democratic Party candidates at local and lower offices have always been around smack-talking those in power. Even if they have better social media presence now, the idea of a Congressperson or a Senator condemning Israel, AIPAC, etc. is not unheard of: Cynthia McKinney, Pete Stark, Jim Abourezk, etc. Given that virtually all anti-Israel sentiment has been limited to symbolic measures that they know cannot pass -- and the DSA electeds' repeated willingness to work with Zionists (even endorsing Kamala Harris, etc.) it is fair to say they are riding a wave of discontent rather than pushing one themselves.

I hope that slowly but steady Black Rose Anarchist Federation growth at the point that for those anarchists that are in DSA or outside become a home to social participation in class struggles.

Re Black Rose Anarchist Fed. They have the look of a typical bizarre leftist sect - no strategy and getting involved in everything going like the Trot groups.Presumably crawling with middle class leftist activoids brainwashed with identity politics - the A-infos report on their 2025 Convention gives the impression of their infatuation with identity politics informed navel gazing. Likely to give a diabolical impression to militant workers outside the exotic leftist subculture. Whatever they on about its not workers' control directed activity and the revolutionary project. The Federation presumably formed because they have been ineffectual in helping achieve any thing of major significance on the crucial industrial front or otherwise, but they can manufacture a micro bureaucracy and have the fantasy that with this "formal structure" they achieved something of significance to impress people in their subculture.

Hard to tell from the outside but it is definitely a positive sign that they have materials in Spanish. That is a strong suggestion that they at least intended to reach working class people in the Americas, many of whom are immigrants from the Latin countries.

The content of their convention does provide an important clue of something seriously wrong going on with them just as certain symptoms hint at serious diseases

The problem with this kind of criticism is that it substitutes caricature for analysis.

Rather than engaging with Black Rose's actual strategy, programme or practice, you're relying on a string of assertions: "middle-class activoids", "identity politics", "Trots", "sect", "micro bureaucracy". None of these explain anything or constitute an argument.

Black Rose has a clearly articulated strategic orientation centred on building working-class power through workplace, tenant and community organising, while arguing for the need for a specific anarchist political organisation. You may disagree with that strategy, but it is a strategy.

The fact that their convention discussed oppression, race or gender does not mean they are "infatuated with identity politics". Every serious revolutionary organisation has to grapple with how divisions within the working class affect organising. Ignoring those questions does not make them disappear.

Likewise, dismissing any formal organisation as a "micro bureaucracy" is odd. If anarchists believe coordination, accountability and collective responsibility are valuable, then creating democratic structures is not bureaucracy for its own sake; it's simply organisation. The alternative is usually informal hierarchies with even less accountability.

Finally, if the criticism is that Black Rose has failed to transform the labour movement, that standard would condemn virtually every revolutionary organisation in North America today, including syndicalist ones. The relevant question is whether their ideas, interventions and organising are helping to build working-class capacity, not whether they've already won.

Critique their politics if you want, but it's much more productive to engage with what they actually advocate than with a collection of labels.

And, frankly, Black Rose has probably done more to advance anarchist politics and working-class organising in North America over the last decade than all of ASN's pamphlets have done for Australian anarchist politics and working-class organising. It's easy to dismiss organisations from behind a keyboard; it's much harder to build one, intervene in real struggles, publish serious political material, train organisers and maintain a presence over many years.

If we're judging organisations by their concrete contributions rather than by rhetorical point-scoring, Black Rose has a record that deserves serious analysis, even by those who disagree with its politics.

According to some of the content of their 2025 convention there is evidence of this navel gazing exotic identity politics/gender stuff fixation which based on my extensive industrial and otherwise experience - would give a terrible impression to various layers of militant workers outside the leftist milieu. Symptomatic of middle class leftist/student/demoralised workers based sects/cults. But if you are a denizen of this milieu/subculture you don't see any problem with it. Like in the Fable of the "Emperor and his New Clothes" the emperor who had no problem with his attire You become lost in the labyrinth of the leftist milieu.
Proclaiming you're self as a revolutionary organisation doesn't make you one eg particularly the Trot/Anarcho Trot groups in Australia and elsewhere which have taken a rightwing trajectory and preach "socialism". With all this you have the pseudo church sect phenomena..

For anarcho-syndicalists we are about getting mass a-s industrial union movements going - which would occur in the context of the direct action/strike wave movement across industry and major syndicalist break aways from the corporate unions interwoven with the slowing of the tempo of the employer offensive and neo-liberal push via the defeating of various spearheads of the employer offensive - the ASN has played a very important role in Australia since the early 1990's in work facilitating aspects of all this.. Documented in editions of NSW based Sparks and RW. See 'From Corporate Bureaucratic Unionism to Grassroots Controlled Direct Action Unions: Perspectives for Anarcho-Syndicalist Strategy and Activity for Australia Today." on libcom.org and www.rebelworker.org
We certainly have produced a mountain of magazines and flyers over many decades and helped militant workers achieve important results with them affecting millions in Australia eg defeating privatisation pushes and greater worsening on the environment front. Our work and achievements are of course covered up by the predominat corporate media/union bosses etc.

To my knowledge the BRAF has never had such an impact on the industrial front and it never will. As you mention they are involved all manner of areas similar to various leftist parties. Taking account of their limited resources and personnel, they must be "realistic" focusing on one strategic sector which can facilitate the above processes. Drop the anarcho party building stuff! Get a mass a-s style union movement going and transitional steps toward it and breaking out of the USA labour relations/contract system via resort to direct action (to my knowledge groups like the IWW and others work within the framework of the US industrial relations system/contract system to various extents ) then these a-s unions would not be so narrowly focused as ASN style catalytic networks (avoiding alienating different layers and trying to win them over) - but would certainly be involved in all manner of issues on the industrial and community front and working with different community groups which would spring up spontaneously. (See RW review of "Green Bans Red Union" on archive section of RW web site.) It is in this context of an mass a-s union movement you could take steps to tackle the predominance of the corporate media. The BRAF wouldn't have a clue how to realistically achieve this.

asn: I agree with some of your criticisms of the college leftist milieu, which is contrived; but I'm not sure why you think an "anarcho-syndicalist union," particularly one which rejects the concept of a communist/socialist state, is anything other than an equivalent form of "navel-gazing".

It seems like these bourgeois student types (whether or not BRAF is one of them) break up and destroy almost any meaningful attempt at a political campaign, but your suggested alternative seems equally questionable as it does not put forward a means of seizing power from the ruling class other than finding workers who share in the discontent who want to do, well, whatever it is they want to do (it's not clear).

How can sporadic acts of workplace silliness replace the broken political Left? Why shouldn't it be seen as the other side of the same coin?

Well, as extremely silly and unhelpful as asn may be, I'm not sure that an anarcho-syndicalist union that was pro- the idea of a communist state would be any better.

We actually support a workers' and community councils state model based on ultra democratic principles. Unlike the Soviets in Russia in 1905 which became rapidly representative bodies, infiltrated and taken over by political parties. In October 1917 the Bolshevik party had achieved a majority in them in some large cities ie Petrograd etc and were the launching pads for their seizure of power and imposing a Red Dictatorship. (See the Unknown Revolution by Russian anarchist Voline.)

The role of a-s unions would be to prepare workers for it - preparing and planning for workers control/self management of industry in and across industries. Other aspects would be organising a workers' militia and antimilitarist organising in the military etc. (Very important in countering military coups.) As I have mentioned the workers' council state would not be the bureaucratic/corporate ones we have today of course.

In the case of Drivers for affirmative Action of March 2004 discussed in "From Corporate Bureaucratic Unionism to Grass roots controlled direct action unionism......." another grade was inspired to take direct action - eg guards - assuming we had got out a draft program/log of claims for these and others in rail in time and then other sectors were inspired to take direct action like you saw in France in 86/87 and Dec. 1995 public sector strike waves- you may have had important preconditions for major break aways from the corporate unions- perhaps leading to a transitional steps to a full on mass a-s union confederation - which we in the ASN would be agitating for of course. In this context of course you would break out of our industrial relations/enterprise bargaining/contracts set up. You had some like this in Australia in the wake of the 1969 general strikes which freed Clary O'Shea but the bureaucratic reformist unions of those days "ran with the wolves" even getting behind the workers control movement and then got back in the saddle with a vengeance in the ACTU/ALP Accord and unofficial Accord years and became 'corporate unions' .

In the context of all this you could turn the tide re re the employer offensive eg make major reductions in working hours without loss in pay and put a stop to 12 hour shifts which play a very important role countering workers organisation on the job, etc via organised and coordinated campaigns of direct action run by the grass roots via mandated delegate conferences and committees in a-s unions. In this context of considerably raised morale - a-s agitation for revolutionary demands is likely to gain grass roots support.

In regard to the broken Left - you do what we in the ASN do - those on the job from Leftist groups and independents etc are welcomed to get involved in Sparks for example - have their own sections and do their thing in their sections - but of course they won't dare getting up to any identity politics navel gazing stuff there - we are creating this alternative syndicalist mass media today - such a paper takes a life of its own - with different points of view/debates etc unlike the union boss/corporate media. We are getting people with significant political differences working together but also they are very much forced to do so due to the harsh conditions on the job and class struggle. Not all Trot sect members and definitely Trot gurus are not keen on this dalliance with we anarcho-syndicalists,

Also many militants from a Marxist Leninist background in areas like transport we focus on due to their experience of corporate unionism/ALP Rightwing Machine develop an anti-bureaucratic orientation in many respects - so in terms of their workplace activity and role say as union reps - their activity from my observations would not be too much different from a conscious anarcho-syndicalist.
I have even helped them get elected re their campaigns. It would be quite different say at university campuses, education, public service perhaps. Many of them in these contexts seem to get up to Trot intrigues and setting up party front groups and nefarious stuff, to help the union bosses out, etc.
Also Trots and others outside the job are welcome to help re Sparks. As a network of course we are based on Need to know, compartmentalisation and vetting as much as possible principles. Because in terms of serious industrial organising in strategic sectors you are going to get drawn into a world of spiders webs of intrigue,cloak and dagger etc, particularly if you are making headway.

Sounds fake, If all that incredible work was indeed carried out and sustained, one would expect anarcho-syndicalism to be stronger than ever, and for that example to have spread to more industries and sectors of the workforce, making it a significant social force in Australia today. There must be something wrong with the ASN's current strategy for that not to be the case. And there is no point in blaming others.

Those all sound like very ambitious ideas. But it still sounds like you are restricting politics to shop floor struggles alone. What about everything else, imperialism, etc.?

In the case of Drivers for Affirmative Action of March 2004 - it didn't go past its early stages as we were one day late with a draft program - drivers were bought off with bonuses (rebel guards then went back to sleep) - and it didn't like in France go on to spread throughout other industries apart from NSW rail

- So in the case of DAA it didn't lead to the emergence of a-s style movements in other industries - In the French situation those strike waves didn't lead to major breakaways from the French corporate unions and only modest growth in some allegedly a-s union federations - such as the CNT-F . In the early strike in France in 1947 - there were numerous significant breakaways from the Communist Party controlled CGT and the then it seems legit a-s CNT-F of those days ballooned in membership according to some estimates to 100,000.
In the case of the Australian situation - if this strike/direct action wave spread across industry - it would also need to lead to major syndicalist break aways from the corporate unions - this would also be connected to our work over the years with Sparks - in the form of readers circles/supporters taking copies home and distro amongst family and friends in other industries and strategic workplaces - this sort of thing does go on but I'm unsure how extensive - and there is also Rebel Worker distro (we have done consistent work with this on a regular basis since 1982)- both would help with networking and syndicalist education behind the scenes - so may facilitate syndicalist breakaways in the context of the strike/direct action wave movement. In certain major sectors even with the direct action wave movement sweeping across industry in Oz - syndicalist transport unions would have to emerge to help militant networks inspired by syndicalism to get major breakaways going eg in Building and Construction due to blacklisting linked to sites coming and going - to get the major breakaways from the CFMEU -you would need the industrial solidarity of a syndicalist transport union to achieve recognition of the new building/construction a-s union and fight black listing etc. You need to take account of the various difficulties we face and the successes of the employer union boss/ALP offensive against workers over many years,.

- If the corporate union bureaucracies are still in place they are capable of very sophisticated manipulation techniques due to their Deep State/Corporate Media/ALP connections and will be working with management/govt to roll back any workers achievements and counter a new direct action movement. In the railways and buses there was no syndicalist style break aways from the now RTBU - and the union bosses went on to launch a new counter attack involving Driver Only Operation on new trains as restructuring for privatisation - we were able to assist militants to defeat these pushes - mainly through outmanoeuvring the union bosses on the issue - and so defeating the pushes - according to the Chinese Philosopher of War Sun Tzu - the highest form of strategy is to frustrate your enemies strategy through out manoevuring them avoiding clash of arms - we wanted of course more this clash of arms in the form of direct action, However the union officials were able to get through the Metros -driverless trains obviously demoralising workers and weakening industrial action. See May- June 2026 RW and Sparks. Also in the railways there was the introduction of 12 hr shifts as a "temporary" measure for the Olympics 2000 but of course became permanent. - this obviously has had a very disorganising impact for militants activism and organising.

There was nothing fake with DAA and its campaign of direct action based on a work to rule campaign - it was widely covered in Sydney Newspapers/TV/Radio etc and of course RW and Sparks - the leader and spokesman had interviews in the Telegraph and massive spreads - he was involved in our network. See reports of the Lightning State wide rail strike in 1999 in Sydney News papers and RW and Sparks.
Stop this nonsense and do the research - go to libraries or something and put down that bottle of vodka!.

We also in Australia have other problems like the ASF No.2 mainly based in Melbourne - a cult heavily informed by the Stalinist legacy - so giving a terrible impression informed by extreme Trot ways to a certain layer - the IWW is more of a sect - and certainly not doing the strategic industrial organising and working with the ASN they could be doing.

However if they could get on the strategic industrial organising track - we would let bygones be bygones and cooperation could occur . Although like with the BARF in the USA and also with the ACF (Anarchist Communist Fed) here which seems similar to the BARF in terms of being lost in left subculture ways/with a middle class/student base and showing evidence of a rightwing orientation - like the rightwing Trot groups - being drawn into assisting the smoke and mirrors performances and skulduggery of the corporate unions, I don't see this new era of cooperation happening.

I have provided ample evidence of some highlights of our main our achievements See "From Corporate Bureaucratic unionism to Grass Roots Controlled Direct Action Unionism..."
These are the most significant achievements any group on the left has achieved in Australia since the early 1990's on the industrial front.

If we could get these syndicalist breakaways from the corporate unions going or some sort of transitional steps - we would be better placed obviously to get direct action going on such issues as anti-imperialism and of course the Iran war etc via appropriate agitation. The NSW BLF of the late 1960's and early 1970's was a sort of a-s transitional step in a very different era and of course famous for its green bans and involved anti imperialist stuff eg re the Vietnam War.

So... ASN do nothing wrong, it's the other groups than don't follow our true and rightly lead.
When ASN will take responsibility for their actions? Or even more, when they will take responsibility of having a wrong strategy to build a revolutionary working class movement?

How many people are involved in ASN?