Re: DSA's Platform Reboot

[Edited Message Follows]
[Reason: Corrected quote in first paragraph.]

On Tue, Aug 4, 2026 at 10:52 AM, Mark Baugher wrote:

> 
> Well, Marv, since you have embraced the Bonapartist theory of the current
> US crisis... in my opinion, the crisis in the US today is not Bonapartist
> in that workers are threatening the rule of the capitalists, workers are
> not organized independently of the capitalist parties.

Mark, have you not read the lengthy exchanges between Tony and me and to a lesser extent with Hari and John R.?  I believe you meant to say the "workers are NOT threatening the rule of the capitalists", for the reason you mention and others I expressed earlier. If so, we're on the same page.

You and Tony are closer to the DSA than I am and if they are focused on electoral politics to "the exclusion of mass organizing" then I'm in full agreement.  My impression, though -  admittedly from a distance outside of the organization and based on second-hand accounts - is that the DSA does pay due attention to both.

If there is more emphasis on electoral work, it may be because more attention has quite naturally been drawn to its highly-publicized victories in the electoral arena than to the less visible and tougher slogging in the multiple workplaces and neighbourhoods where its members are located. That's doubtlessly been what's prompted its rapid growth, as the Mamdani campaign illustrated, so I'm therefore inclined to cut them some slack.

If the SWP back in the day was having that kind of electoral success, you can bet the party would have encouraged it.  Rather than diverting resources from other mass work, it more likely than not would have had knock-on effects in recruiting from within the unions and the antiwar movement where it was also engaged.

My previous comment was aimed at your remark that "what is crucial today (is) the mobilization of the working class and its allies in the general population as an independent political force rather than as voters in capital-dominated election cycles.”

Obviously, we all share that goal.  But the issue, as always, is how we get from here to there. Tony to his credit is one of the few on the list who is wrestling with the nuts and bolts of the issue in relation to the actual rather than idealized political consciousness of the masses which is at an historically low level.


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