Re: How DSA fixes a political problem

On Mon, Aug 24, 2026 at 04:58 AM, John Reimann wrote:

> 
> Trump's attacks on universities, the capitalist new media, major
> capitalist law firms, and more. It also includes the presence of election
> deniers on many election boards around the country. Almost all
> revolutionary socialists ignore these attacks in favor of a crude
> interpretation of Marxism. They tend to focus exclusively on the direct
> class struggle,Trump's attacks on minorities, etc.. I think this is a huge
> mistake. We cannot just focus on relations between the classes; if we are
> serious we must bring to the fore what is happening within the capitalist
> class.

Not my impression from this list and the range of US Marxist, social democratic,  and liberal media such as Jacobin, Counterpunch, Monthly Review, WSWS, Marxism-Leninism Today, In Defence of Marxism, People's Voice, Portside, The Nation, Dissent, New Politics, The American Prospect, New Republic, Mother Jones, etc. - all of which have devoted extensive coverage to Trump's attacks on the media, law firms, universities and his efforts to rig elections in favour of the Republican party.

For the most part, these news sites share the concern bordering on alarm that John regularly expresses about Trump's actions and authoritarian impulses. The revolutionary socialist media, far from being complacent, have stressed the need for mass mobilization in defence of democratic voting rights during the midterms. Such differences as there between them tend to turn on how to characterize the Trump administration, an issue which has also been extensively canvassed on this list - whether Trump, and his clones abroad, represent the far right wing of bourgeois democracy or whether they have successfully scrapped the system in favour of single party or strongman rule akin to 19th century Bonapartism or 20th century fascism.

Some of us also regularly follow the mainstream and financial  media (NY Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News etc.) for exactly the reason John mentions - to understand and "bring to the fore what is happening within the capitalist class".

Additionally, many of us listen to a selection of the innumerable podcasts reflecting the wide range of opinion above.

Far from "tending to focus exclusively on the direct class struggle", we don't focus on it enough - although through no fault of our own.  The Marxist left is unfortunately for historical reasons no longer widely embedded in the class as it once was, with its own activists able to provide first-hand reporting of strikes and other class struggles in daily publications which were widely distributed and read in working class communities.

Like many veteran Marxists, John is a keen observer and analyst of current events but - frustrated as we all are by the political marginalization of the far left - he has a tendency to blame this condition on subjective rather than objective factors (our collectively wrongheaded ideas) and, as a consequence, to invent fundamental differences where they don't really exist.


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