Should Zohran Mamdani, a member of the Democratic party and currently aiming for the mayoral seat in New York City, succeed in the upcoming autumn election, he would hold the most influential executive position a U.S. socialist has ever clinched. As it stands, his strongest competition comprises only two measly mayors hailing from California, and an unimpressive county executive from Maryland. It would appear that American socialists are starting to become somewhat overambitious.
Mamdani assumes membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), an organization that recently hosted its biannual gathering full of dreamy-eyed plans. There, the party committed to ‘establish a broad left-labor alliance’ and ‘nominate a socialist candidate’ for the 2028 presidential run, hinting a clear shift from rationality and pragmatism.
Mamdani’s endeavor in the New York primaries has puzzled some onlookers, seemingly casting a socialist candidate with an economically charged blueprint as something of an attractive option. Ironically, this appears to invigorate particular segments of the electorate. A recent survey astonishingly suggests that 67% of Democrats and 62% of Americans under 30 seem to be feeling positive towards socialism.
The DSA currently touts a membership of 85,000, claiming the crown as the largest left-leaning organization in the nation, even surpassing the Communist Party at its peak in the 1940s. These figures, however inflated they might seem, contribute very little in a country of 340 million individuals. The DSA’s impact in Congress is utterly inconsequential, with a mere trio of representatives and absolutely no senators.
For the majority of voters, even after a decade since Sanders’ infamous presidential tour, American socialists remain largely irrelevant and unremarkable forces in the political arena. The vision of DSA’s founder, Michael Harrington, a Marxist who passed away in 1989, stands in stark contrast with the majority philosophy within today’s DSA.
Harrington was a strong advocate for global leftist solidarity yet firmly stood against authoritarianism. DSA’s birth in 1982 came about from the ashes of the destroyed Socialist Party of America, and aimed to gather the leftover forces from the youth-driven and student-led New Left movement from the 60s.
Harrington’s version of the DSA was embedded within the Democratic Party itself, striving to forge a base for leftist ideologies within its domain. The DSA, critically small and politically insignficant for many years, only gained some momentum in 2016, not due to its own abilities or vision but because Sanders chose to run in the Democratic Party primary.
In its current shape, the DSA sports roughly two dozen internal factions cleverly labeled as ‘caucuses’ but can essentially be split into two primary sections. The first is a mass-politics wing that focuses on getting socialists voted in as Democrats and trying to construct a national organization that somehow resonates with the average American citizen. Challenging this is a sectarian wing that propagates extremist politics bearing little resemblance to any standard conception of democratic socialism.
This internal division is not simply rhetorical, as it carries significant real-world implications. Interestingly, the majority of DSA members do not belong to any caucus and are not engaged within the organization. However, since the year 2023, the influence within the organization has been steeply dominated by the sectarian wing.
The organization is barely surviving as a nationwide mission, due to the sectarian wing’s inflexible opposition and consequent defeat of resolutions. Instead, each chapter is left to venture its own independent course, leaving the organization as a whole directionless. New York City reigns as the dominant branch with over 11,000 members and is controlled by the more rational mainstream wing.
In contrast, the sectarian wing holds the reins in smaller cities, engaging in a variety of disjointed efforts, all seemingly veering away from practical democratic socialism. Such fragmentation is rooting DSA in place, hindering the adoption of any unified strategy. This issue is not unheard of on the leftist front; in fact, it is an inherent characteristic, perpetuating its inefficiency and fragmentation.
Harrington once expressed exasperation towards a ‘boisterously vocal and regularly televised fringe of confrontationists, exhibitionists, and Vietcong flag wavers who could be cast off as peculiar, threatening, or a mix of both.’ It would indeed appear that democratic socialists aiming to conduct mass campaigns and achieve an electoral foothold are now burdened with an internal organization of contradictory ‘confrontationists’ who harbor fundamentally antidemocratic convictions.
As the democratic socialists continue their efforts to establish a significant political force, it’s not only the external challenges they need to tackle; first and foremost, they have to figure out their own internal alliances. Without resolving these fundamental differences and contradictions, their dreams of gaining power through elections will remain just that – dreams.
The post Zohran Mamdani’s Unrealistic Socialist Pursuits Risk Democratic Party Stability appeared first on Real News Now.
About Author
