Re: DSA's Platform Reboot

[Edited Message Follows]
[Reason: Corrected last sentence..]

On Wed, Aug 5, 2026 at 11:22 AM, Anthony Teso wrote:

> 
> Here is the difference. The electorate is the class as it appears when
> votes are counted. People are approached one household at a time, added up
> as numbers, and then the group disappears after the election... A base is
> made up of the same class but organized into groups that last beyond
> elections, like union locals, workplace groups, tenants' associations,
> strike committees, or chapters with membership lists and meeting
> notes...The SWP was able to run candidates without turning into just an
> election-focused group because the organized group led, and the campaign
> followed. That is the difference I am highlighting.

Thanks for elaborating, Tony. I understand you to be saying that the class is politically atomized through the electoral process, develops a collective consciousness and becomes a base through its unions and its other institutions, and its transformation from an electorate to a mass base is fully completed only when it holds its candidates accountable, as in the SWP. Do I have that right?

If so, it's a pretty narrow definition of a what constitutes a working class base. Only one in 10 US workers belongs to a union, the central class institution, and I wouldn’t even begin to hazard a guess as to how minuscule a percentage of the class belonged to the SWP a half century ago. You appear to cite that as an outstanding example of a "mass base". That is a misnomer. The SWP represented just the opposite. But not if you equate a mass base, as I believe you do, with that negligible percentage of workers who are able to hold their candidates and political leaders accountable - the essence of your indictment of the DSA.

With respect, then, your concept is idealist in that it defines workers in relation to their varying levels of class cohesion and political consciousness rather than to the means of production as wage and salary earners. That classical Marxist definition, which has been challenged in our postmodern era, is still the fundamental determinant in my opinion.

Elections are peripheral, although whether workers choose to vote and for whom or to abstain provides us with a snapshot of the nature and level of their political understanding. But it does not transfer them structurally or theoretically from the working class into an abstract category called an "mass base" ostensibly best represented by the old SWP presumably at odds with the identifiable mass working class electorate .


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