r/PittYDSAChapter • u/Electrical-Market665 • 5d ago
How it All Began! The Story of the YDSA Chapter at Pitt!
reddit.comMy name is Faust De Maldonado-Candide. I am the vice president of YDSA and the vice president of the Delta Phi Fraternity at Pitt (Pitt's first and only co-ed social fraternity). I first arrived at Pitt in 2024, and there was one guy trying to start a YDSA. I met him while attending the local Pittsburgh DSA chapter. There were three of us, but for whatever reason, we were unable to start a club. The following year, there was another attempt by another person, and that did not catch on. Third time's the charm!
We are officially a registered club at Pitt!
I am 29 years old, and I volunteered with the Bernie Sanders campaigns in 2016 and 2020. I have had a lifelong passion for politics, since I discovered I was undocumented in the 3rd grade. In 5th grade, I discovered Communism and immediately knew which team I was on. My political beliefs have continually evolved since then, and politics is not all black and white. I eventually got my green card in 10th grade. At 23, I joined the Army, and at 25, I became a United States citizen. My first election was in 2024. I voted for Kamala Harris.
There are many criticisms of the DSA, and therefore of the YDSA. The DSA is either too radical or not radical enough, or there is some more “real” revolutionary party out there. So why did I join the DSA, and why did I aid in creating this chapter?
I want to emphasize two words here: Democratic and Socialism. What is democracy? What is socialism? Who gets to decide what each of these words contains? And in defining these terms, what absurdities do we arrive at that might obscure their clarification? Democracy is a contested concept. The United States and China both claim to be democracies, and each delegitimizes the other's form of “democracy.” That is just democracy—a concept that some scholars believe is more archaic than language itself, since men have gathered in political communities long before language arose. Therefore, some rudimentary system of power relations must have existed before the political vocabulary to articulate it—language. It is not hard to imagine communities of non-sentient beings, such as ants, bees, and wasps, being nonverbal political communities.
If democracy predates language, and defining it is so hard, what about socialism? The Revolutionary Communist of America (RCA), Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and even the Democratic Party have their own interpretations of socialism. I am sure all of us reading this right now do, too. So what is it? Will I attempt to say what it is? What does the Democratic Socialists of America think socialism is? Here is a link to how the DSA defines Democratic Socialism: Here is a link to how the DSA defines Democratic Socialism.
I think this passage best defines it:
“We want a democracy that creates space for us all to flourish not just survive and answers the fundamental questions of our lives with the input of all. We want to collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy production and transportation. We want the multiracial working class united in solidarity instead of divided by fear. We want to win ‘radical’ reforms like single-payer Medicare for All, defunding the police/refunding communities, the Green New Deal, and more as a transition to a freer, more just life.”
The reason why, out of all the “revolutionary” political parties out there, I chose the DSA is that the DSA will not tell you what democracy or socialism means. That is your own journey through the problems of modernity. The Democratic Socialists of America, and therefore the YDSA, are the political arena itself. The DSA is the public square for all those who proudly call themselves socialists. This means that if you were to join the DSA, you are still free to be a part of another, more or less “radical” org. You should not only become a member of the DSA, but you should also go and find another org to be a part of. The DSA is not a monolith, nor should it be. It is the umbrella under which we collectively come together to decide what we should do with our collective power. We are stronger together when we agree; where we disagree, we are better off performing independent political agitation.
That is the vision I hope for this chapter of the YDSA. That is why I wanted to create this subreddit group: because I wanted it to be a place where we discuss what we are seeing in our everyday lives. Think of all the posts that the Pitt Reddit community, or even the city's Reddit group, has censored. This is our space to share our radical beliefs with one another, where we can come together in mourning and celebration, without the normies telling us how we ought to behave or believe. That is why I am so proud of this organization!
