For socialist electoral wins to lead to real political power, we need to use them to build a majority base. Endorsing and campaigning for closet socialists won’t do that. Portland DSA needs to stop making these endorsements, and run electoral campaigns to build our organization rather than reduce harm.
When asked about publicly identifying as socialists by our chapter, endorsement hopefulls who want to practice politics will take a deep breath and answer the question with sincerity. They will say they want to win on the issues: on the time-bomb that is Zenith, on homeless students, exhausted teachers, or the ongoing genocide in Gaza. They will talk about socialist values. They will say that they have performed an urgent and dire calculation. They have a plan to prevent the worst from happening. It requires getting elected.
The tactical decision on labeling is an easy one for any individual candidate to make. Only 38% of Americans have a positive view of socialism, according to the latest Gallup poll. If we view democracy as the rule of the majority, then “Democratic Socialist” seems like more of an oxymoron than a basis for a winning election campaign. Policies and results, with “socialist” relegated to the campaign’s ingredients label, will have to tide us over until the American palate can acquire a taste for change. When it comes time for the endorsement vote, we check their math and give them the go-ahead. We are materialists after all, not socialist identarians!
But this ingredients-label approach to electoral politics is poisonous for the chapter and for DSA. That's because “Democratic Socialist” isn't an oxymoron. It is a concrete strategy for political power. It has two components: democracy, the political participation of the masses of people; and socialism, the movement to abolish capitalism. If we downplay our socialist politics, we lose our democratic strategy.
Democratic socialism requires a socialist base. Building it through electoral work requires us to think of electoralism not as our final arena, but as our proving ground. Sure, Portland DSA can swing elections here and there with a canvassing force pulled from chapter ranks. But does that build a base, or just access one? Do the people who open their doors to us see themselves as socialists after their ballots are marked?
When it comes to running for election, we might think about the ability to pass policy, legislate, or wield executive power. This is what most people think politics is about - 12 city councilors, 60 state reps, the president - who these people are and what they do is politics as such. From that perspective, a clear path emerges. Winning elections is the first step towards power. It is the first step towards enacting socialist reforms that working people desperately need. Delivering for workers, not transforming them, is seen as how we build a base.
But while delivering specific reforms in capitalism can legitimize our participation in politics, it legitimizes capitalism by the same degree. This is the problem with the tactic of “harm-reduction” and electoral decisions based solely on the gradual improvement of life under capitalism - or worse yet, the mere defense of it. A strategy of reforms without articulating our end goal presents us with a political paint-by-numbers. We busy ourselves filling in spaces with various shades of red, and give up all control over the big picture.
Instead, we need to start with an intention of drawing over the lines. Sure, we can fight for economic and political reforms on a tactical basis, but we need to be willing to take up the system-naming that we know our reforms can’t do. We need to point out the enemy, and condemn it to death.
Look at Great Britain for an example. The labor party accomplished great things within the liberal capitalist system: key nationalizations, council housing, the NHS, etc. But this was historically linked to an issues-only mentality instead of a grand narrative with the working class as the sole and shining protaganist. Now, Great Britain is in a decades-long reactionary slump, with the Labor Party presiding over much of the decline. This is despite the presence of a mature left wing full of organizers with experience to make DSA’s best cadres look like chumps! Getting the goods clearly isn't good enough for socialism.
That's the downside of campaigning around economic issues without putting socialism front and center. The point is not that saying “socialist” is sufficient for a socialist candidate or party - there are countless examples where it isn’t - it is that it's fundamentally necessary. Avoiding the cycle of brief improvement followed by stagnation and decline demands building organization and identity that is stronger than any single issue.
The ingredients-label approach, and winning on just the issues, are actually destructive to our endorsed candidates. Candidates run on chapter support in a way that can’t build the chapter. This gives our endorsed them two alternatives: gamble or sell out. Candidates can rely on the luck of the draw with chapter power, size, and competency. This is largely a matter of federal pendulum-swings beyond the candidate's control. Alternatively, they start bargaining with forces to their right for a shot at delivering for workers before they are up for re-election. See Alexandria Ocassio-Cortez for a recent example of this.
In either case, our endorsed candidates get stuck accessing power instead of building it. By endorsing candidates who won’t propagandize for DSA, we are setting them up for failure. And when they fail, we do too.
Finally, democratic socialism demands a level of democracy that we do not have access to. When we confine our politics to cold plans to influence seven council seats, 31 representatives, or 51 percent of the president from a minority position, we lose the point of socialism. Any socialist intervention in the system must be linked to a conscious strategy to remake all of society. It isn’t enough for that strategy to be a conscious one in just our electeds or activist cadres. For democracy and socialism to be compatible, our ideas and strategies must permeate the majority of the whole working class. That means we need honest agitators who will say the what and why of our politics. That starts by saying “I am a Democratic Socialist. You should be too.”