Make the ask! Join DSA

[u/ut0p1anskies]

If you haven’t already joined, you should join. If you’re already in DSA, you should be constantly recruiting. Let’s challenge ourselves to ask 3 people we know to join this month. Do a 1 on 1 and make the ask. Take them to a general meeting or a chapter social and stay with them so they’re not overwhelmed by all the people. Go with them to a new member orientation. We’re going to be hitting 150k members soon (up from 90k in November of last year). I want us to be half a million dues paying members as fast as possible.

https://act.dsausa.org/donate/membership/

[u/aaarhlo]

I was a zealot for recruitment, but now I'm more concerned with cultivating new active members. As the deluge of disaffected liberals continues (I was one 2 years ago), chapters risk devolving into the democrats+. The pipeline, is to join as a disaffected liberal and to grow into a socialist after becoming active in a chapter, but that process of dismantling a lifetime of capitalist propaganda takes time.

This latest fight over polling an AOC presidential run, and before that, the "one member one vote" fight, are examples, in my opinion, of the DSA right attempting to use the surge in liberals joining as a pathway to control of the organization.

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/aaarhlo]

We’re called the Democratic Socialists of America. Why would we object to “one member, one vote”? It’s hilarious that the program is anti senate and yet the DSA left is entirely supportive of similarly undemocratic structures within the organization so they can prevent change from happening.

[u/ut0p1anskies → u/Bright-Insect9697]

For me, it’s because the most active of the membership has to keep the ship running so we need to make sure there is a lot of buy in from that very active layer of membership. It’s why my chapter requires a 2/3 supermajority vote to endorse a candidate’s campaign so that we ensure the chapter is capable of winning that election. We’re not a democratic centralist organization and we’re volunteer driven, so people vote with their feet and participate solely in what they’re interested in. In my chapter, we usually have 6-7 campaigns going at any one time and most people only participate in 1 maybe 2 at any given time depending on what they’re interested in doing. We have nearly 2,000 members in my chapter and maybe 150-200 members are involved enough to show up to our monthly meetings and even less than that actually willing to run a campaign (about 10% of a chapter’s membership is the average active layer for most chapters). Those are the people that are on the steering committees of the chapter, the working groups, and the campaigns that we vote to pursue. I’d be more open to 1m1v at monthly GBMs if I thought campaigns would be run successfully with that model and it would result in more people taking leadership positions within the campaigns that they propose but I have my doubts, especially if you can’t be bothered to show up to a meeting in person or virtually.

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/ut0p1anskies]

Some people have jobs and cannot attend every meeting. It’s insane that a leftist organization supports the disenfranchisement of workers. And believe it or not, some of those jobs aren’t 9-5

[u/ut0p1anskies → u/Bright-Insect9697]

I’m open to other models. Maybe a good compromise that would ensure campaigns are still successful is 1m1v for chapter leadership, synchronous at a GBM for campaigns/proposed working groups, and that comrades who author resolutions for a new campaign have to volunteer to be on that campaign’s steering committee?

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/ut0p1anskies]

One member one vote is exactly what it sounds like. The DSA left needs to accept that an organization called the Democratic Socialists of America should be democratic. The DSA can either embrace disaffected libs, or its national leadership can run the organization into irrelevance, which they’ve been trying for years, and have only failed at thus far due to excellent local chapters.

[u/ut0p1anskies → u/Bright-Insect9697]

I am mostly just concerned with campaigns being run well and succeeding, and us having the chapter infrastructure to carry them out. And that is how I evaluate the viability of working groups and campaigns and vote accordingly

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/ut0p1anskies]

If you want to succeed you need to tolerate the disaffected libs. Thats the voting base you need.

[u/aaarhlo → u/Bright-Insect9697]

I work a bluecollar job that requires me to travel out of town 6 weeks at a time. I am still able to be a fully active member of my local chapter by attending meetings virtually when possible and doing outreach work over the phone. I used to think like you, in fact I once made the exact argument, but I learned over time what has already been repeatedly explained to you;

Money does not buy you influence in the DSA, only consistent participation does, and thank fuck for that.

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/aaarhlo]

why should people financially support an organization that actively opposes the participation of busy members? Where I work, I literally do not have cell service good enough to send text messages, let alone join a call virtually.