@theatlantic: Motivated by Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral primary win in New York, the Democratic Socialists of America are dreaming big, Arash Azizi writes. But little from their recent convention suggested a movement intent on winning elections and coming to power. At the convention in Chicago, the DSA pledged to “build a broad left-labor coalition” and “draft a socialist candidate” to run for president in 2028. But for the average voter, “American socialists are simply not a distinct, recognizable political force,” Azizi writes. The DSA can be divided into two ideological wings. The mass-politics wing seeks to elect socialists as Democrats and build a national organization that connects with the average American, while the sectarian wing follows more extreme politics. This wing has one caucus that openly supports Hamas, another that faults the Green New Deal for failing to articulate “a clear commitment to dismantling the settler-colonial and American imperialist projects,” and another that calls for DSA “to free itself from the Democratic Party” and “fight to overthrow the Constitution.” Since 2023, the organization’s leadership has been effectively controlled by the sectarian wing. And the clashes between these two wings have had real-life consequences. The DSA refused to endorse Joe Biden or Kamala Harris in the past two presidential elections. The crowd at this year’s convention “seemed to consist of a consortium of activists, many of them focused on single issues,” Azizi writes. “Mamdani, AOC, and Sanders were absent, and so was their welcoming, practical political style.” In fact, the DSA’s national leadership has voted not to endorse AOC, and many in the organization are now actively hostile to her. A motion to discuss Donald Trump’s presidency was voted down. “Democratic socialists who seek to run mass campaigns and attain power with elections are now encumbered by sharing an organization with ‘confrontationists’ who hold fundamentally antidemocratic beliefs,” Azizi continues at the link in our bio. “If they wish to build a political force capable of coming to power, they must first decide who their allies are.” 🎨: The Atlantic. Source: Getty.

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Wednesday 27 August 2025 19:49:12 GMT