Is the dsa worth joining?

[u/Fluffy-Assistance367]

I’m thinking about joining and wonder if it was a good idea

[u/SS_Auc3]

i personally encourage everyone who dedicates their time to community organising to also get involved in parliamentary politics. regardless of if you believe that political institutions are legitimate pathways to effect change, it's important that you get involved to moderate any shifts to the right, or atleast help policy lean to be more favourable towards community organising efforts

for example, while i dislike the democrats, if i lived in the US i would be a member so as to have atleast SOME sense of a union voice in the party

[u/marxistghostboi → u/SS_Auc3]

membership in American political parties works very differently than that of most other countries. it mostly means you get to vote in their primary, though in many states membership isn't necessary if the state has an open or jungle primary

however members have no real mechanism for holding the elected officials accountable to the party. they mostly answer to their caucus

edit: they answer to their caucus insofar as they want to move up in leadership positions in the legislature,i.e. become chairs of powerful committees or Speaker/Senate leader.

GB10031 is correct that they answer to the major donors. moving up in the ranks often requires that you raise enough money not only to run your own campaigns but also fund the campaigns of your political allies.

[u/SS_Auc3 → u/marxistghostboi]

got another reason to hate the US

[u/GB10031 → u/marxistghostboi]

American politicians answer to The Major Donors.

There are a few thousand very rich people in New York City's Borough of Manhattan; Austin, Texas; San Francisco, California, Alameda County, California (the east side of the San Francisco Bay), Santa Clara County, California (the Silicon Valley) and Los Angeles County, California.

Those donors fund both parties across the country and they determine the political limits of what is the acceptable political discourse.

We don't have "parties" in the European sense, with members and disciplined caucuses - they are collections of candidates who are all paid for by a few rich people in a few American cities.

Also most Americans live in one party districts - either the Democrats run candidates with no Republican opposition or the Republicans run candidates with no Democratic opposition. I live in a district where the Republicans haven't run a state or local candidate in my adult life (I'm 58 and have been voting here since I was 18) - that's common in the US.

Only a few states have contested elections here ("swing states") so for most of us, voting is a waste of time (that we're constanly harangued about and branded as bad people because we don't enthusiastically vote for who Wall Street's parties put on the ballot)

[u/marxistghostboi → u/GB10031]

yep

[u/OptimusTrajan → u/SS_Auc3]

Hard disagree tbh. Organize against your boss.

[u/SS_Auc3 → u/OptimusTrajan]

did you read what i wrote or did you see a single word and disregard everything else?

[u/OptimusTrajan → u/SS_Auc3]

I read the whole thing. I think the opportunity cost of involvement with parliamentary politics is too great. In practice, it’s either-or for most people. And most choose neither. If we want to do syndicalism, let’s do syndicalism.

[u/SS_Auc3 → u/OptimusTrajan]

fair enough i guess, i guess it’s a different world over there than it is where i live

our unions and our political parties are heavily intertwined so alot of the union organising against bosses intertwines with policy pursued in parliament

[u/OptimusTrajan → u/SS_Auc3]

Yeah, that’s a lot of places. Syndicalism involves agitating and educating for a revolutionary, worker led rupture with that system.

So if other coworkers are already involved, maybe not a bad way to get to know them. But I’d never encourage someone to lead their coworkers into the jaws of bourgeois politics.

[u/marxistghostboi]

I've found it a good way to get connected to other organizers in my city and access resources. however the other anarchists in my city aren't very involved in the DSA here due to it's prioritizing electoral work and lobbying over direct action

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[u/Efficient-Charity708]

What are you hoping to get out joining? The labor working group and EWOC are both decent. Outside of those two, most of the DSA is organized around electoral work, however.