Inside the 2023 DSA Convention
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the US in decades, and it is the place to be if you are on the political Left and want to engage in mass politics. DSA is quite unique among ostensibly similar organizations in that it is member-funded and member-run. I am one of said members, and we held our biennial national convention from August 4-6 to chart our course for the next two years. Around a thousand elected delegates from across the country (including myself) gathered in Chicago to deliberate resolutions and amendments as well as elect the next National Political Committee (NPC), the organization’s highest governing body between conventions and its board of directors.
The outgoing NPC decided to try to focus this convention on important political questions by having eight national committees draft resolutions that would be automatically considered by the convention around prioritized areas of work: electoral, Green New Deal, growth and development, housing, internationalism, labor, multiracial organizing, and YDSA (DSA’s youth section). Members could then submit amendments to these consensus resolutions, in addition to submitting their own standalone resolutions and constitution/bylaws amendments (and amendments to these proposals as well). The NPC also submitted several of their own proposals for delegates to take up.
In order to be considered by the convention, all submissions (except those from the NPC or the priority committees) required at least 300 signatures in support from DSA members in good standing. Resolutions also required work plans to provide a better chance of follow-through if passed; simply declaring a campaign does not actually make it happen. A survey was then sent out to all delegates to gauge the levels of support for the various proposals and create an agenda because there was not enough time for the convention to consider all qualifying proposals. So the deliberation that went into this convention has actually been going on for many months before the actual event.
Much of the discourse centered around DSA’s decreasing membership levels, down to around 78,000 from a 2021 peak of around 95,000. This has been portrayed as a crisis—as a member-funded organization, it does present potential financial issues—and wielded as a factional cudgel. However, aggregate DSA membership, whether increasing or decreasing, is far more dependent on external conditions (e.g., presidential elections and pandemics) than any political decisions made by organizational leadership. It also obscures the uneven growth and development of individual DSA chapters; some are thriving, and some have collapsed. So while leadership matters and intentional membership recruitment and retention should be emphasized over passivity, this has to be placed in proper context. Most DSA members do not really pay attention to national controversies and generally just interact with their local chapter, if they participate at all. And DSA is a mere drop in an ocean of non-socialists who are politically disengaged (or hostile) and do not know anything about democratic socialism or what we (or AOC) are doing.
Most people in this country have no experience being in any sort of member-run organization. Democracy is hard work and messy, and tensions often run high. This was my fourth DSA convention in a row and it was probably the most comradely and mature, although I still saw and heard about people getting way out of line, both leading up to and during the convention. We all care a great deal about changing the world, and—back to those external conditions—we bring all sorts of trauma, biases, and individualist conditioning to this work that will take a lifetime to unlearn and heal. Tensions also run high because DSA is important; failure or fracture would be a colossal setback for the US Left and, consequently, the global working class writ large. In other words, what DSA does matters. To that end, this is my rundown of the most noteworthy takeaways from the 2023 DSA National Convention.
Recommitments and Prioritization
All eight of the consensus resolutions passed, some with amendments, reflecting continued commitments to ongoing work like militant rank-and-file labor organizing (via reforming existing unions and helping establish new ones), strengthening and establishing local tenant unions, and deliberately anti-racist and multiracial growth and organizational development.
Of particular note is reestablishing the Green New Deal (GND) campaign as one of the organization’s highest national priorities (alongside electoral and labor), to be carried out by the GND Campaign Commission (GNDCC) via the Building for Power campaign with a dedicated staffer in support. I currently serve on the GNDCC because this is important strategic terrain to not only stop the ecological crisis and win a just transition, but to de-silo and unite our work and develop our positive political program in action. Building for Power coordinates and coheres local campaigns around four key areas: public power, public transit, green social housing, and green public spaces (e.g., schools). These can be structured as legislative or ballot measure campaigns or union contract fights. The idea is for chapters to establish DSA-led coalitions with local unions and environmental justice organizations to fight for and win concrete reforms that “that shift structural power to the working class by synergistically building public sector capacity and the labor movement.” A prime example of this is the recent Build Power Renewables Act, a historic victory won by New York DSA chapters.
Additionally, DSA recommitted to (and fleshed out a bit) the “party surrogate” electoral strategy of strategically running campaigns on the Democratic Party ballot line where necessary while creating the infrastructure for a mass working class party “capable of winning and wielding state power with a strategy for social transformation.” Hard-line, sectarian (and, I would argue, unstrategic and idealist) orientations towards our elected officials were rejected. The National Electoral Commission will also continue working with chapters to help build Socialists in Office committees so DSA electeds are more integrated into the organization. And the rise of the Far Right loomed large, with amendments to run candidates for school boards and defend abortion rights, trans people, and electoral democracy passing with broad support (along with standalone campaign resolutions as well).
The direction of DSA’s International Committee (IC) was also reaffirmed, and it will continue building relationships with “foreign governments, political parties, and social movements” and apply to join the Progressive International. Additionally, an NPC recommendation to move the previously autonomous Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Working Group into the IC passed, including an amendment committing DSA to a positive program fighting for Palestinian liberation. The BDS Working Group has been one of the biggest flashpoints and sources of conflict for DSA nationally over the last couple years, and this result seems to reflect a maturing organization focused on structural coherence where national bodies serve the membership.
Organizational Structure
Overall, DSA still has basically the same national structure that it did in 2016 despite being a vastly larger and different organization: a confederation of local chapters governed by the 16-member elected NPC at the national level (along with two YDSA representatives with a half vote each). Attempts to change this at previous conventions failed, and this one was no different. Despite some last minute on-the-floor maneuvering to secure more support, a proposal to increase the size of the NPC (and ostensibly reduce the ungodly per-member workload) narrowly failed with 62% in favor—constitution/bylaws amendments require a two-thirds majority, as opposed to a simple majority for resolutions.
However, a proposal to establish a Democracy Commission did pass. This 21-member body will be elected by the 2023 convention delegates and is tasked with studying other political organizations and parties around the world and investigating DSA’s structure to come up with proposals for organizational restructuring to be voted on at the 2025 convention. Hopefully they can finally thread this needle.
Paid Leadership
DSA will now have four full-time paid political leaders: two national co-chairs and two National Labor Commission (NLC) co-chairs. Until now, DSA has been entirely volunteer-led (with dozens of staff hired to support our work), while paid leadership is a normal feature of Left parties around the world. The NPC Steering Committee has received monthly $2,000 stipends since 2021, but that is not enough to live on alone. The national co-chairs will be elected by the 2023 convention delegates out of the pool of newly elected NPC members and will serve as the outward-facing political leadership of the organization. The decision to pay NLC co-chairs to organize full-time reflects an unsurprising commitment to labor as a central site of struggle for DSA. The method of their election was not specified in the resolution, so it will be democratically important for the new NPC to ensure they are elected by the 2023 convention delegates as well rather than the limited membership of the NLC.
Additionally, the convention voted to increase the stipends for the nine-member elected leadership body of YDSA from $2,000 per semester to $1,000 per month. In terms of value, this makes sense considering that college students typically go to class full-time and work part-time, so this frees them up to organize more instead.
NPC
Only one member of the newly elected NPC is an incumbent, a reflection of the difficulty of this role and the toll it takes. Much of the discourse around this NPC election focused on “left” and “right” wings, which I think tends to obscure much more than it reveals. The largest bloc comes from the Groundwork slate with four members, followed by three members each from the Red Star and Bread and Roses caucuses, two each from the Socialist Majority Caucus and the Marxist Unity Group caucus, one from the Anti-Zionist Slate, and one unaffiliated with any caucus or slate. One of the YDSA NPC representatives is from the Constellation caucus and the other is unaffiliated.
I am not going to analyze what these caucuses or their representatives believe because that could be the subject of an entire article and, frankly, is sometimes difficult to parse and often exemplifies the narcissism of small differences (at least when it comes to actual political practice in the present). But suffice it to say that this NPC will be multipolar, with different majorities emerging on different issues. It is vital that they avoid sectarianism and personal beefs and work together constructively to carry out the will of the convention and guide DSA forward in a positive direction. The forces of structural and individual disorganization abound, and consistently turning towards durable mass organization and building DSA is a mighty challenge.
Despite stagnating paper membership levels, DSA has more elected officials than ever and is a political force to be reckoned with in many areas across the US. My unscientific assessment is that, coming out of this convention, a lot of DSA members are more energized than ever to get to work. A proposal to focus a national dues drive around signing people up for 1% income-based dues written by the Groundwork slate not only passed overwhelmingly, but hundreds of members have gotten a jump start by proactively making this solidarity dues commitment to help fund all of the big spending approved at the convention.
This is a great example of what makes DSA so special. There are very few places in US life where we can truly experience democracy and collectively shape our destinies, and we deserve a whole lot more of them. We will have to work for it.