https://twitter.com/DSANorthStar/status/1602758852851531776
Also take a look at their logo
https://twitter.com/jonnysocialism/status/1603024109558206464
https://twitter.com/DSANorthStar/status/1602758852851531776
Also take a look at their logo
https://twitter.com/jonnysocialism/status/1603024109558206464
This is a caucus in the org. They do not represent the org or common opinions within it.
So frustrating to spend a ton of time and effort doing decent work and trying to bring people in only for this site to elevate the absolute worst parts of DSA instead of anything half decent.
Yes I just made this account I’ve lurked here since day one and I normally have a strict no posting rule but I am bleeding out my eyes reading some of these comments.
My personal take? If you want to organize in politics you are going to be surrounded by some of the most absolutely horrible people you will ever meet. Like north star caucus. It’s the reality of trying to build something out of absolutely putrid conditions.
This caucus is clearly entryist, they aren't socialists that's for sure. They appear to be neoliberals accusing others of doing exactly what they are doing.
We have exactly we have exactly 1 North Star member in our chapter. They are an older boomer with some sort of personality quirk that makes them feel compelled to preach to us. They’re honestly a joke in The chapter.
in this case, as someone who spent 2018-2020 trying to push the org to hold electeds accountable at the local and national levels, the North Star position is actually the org policy. the org has decided that it will not and cannot threaten removal from the org if an elected deviates from the ostensible politics of the org. in our local context, the member in question took money from the Fraternal Order of Police and the chapter refused to even issue a reprimand. what do you know, once he won the election, he busted unions and shoveled money at law enforcement. shocking, really.
the reasons I heard for this basically cited the brand victory of an elected member of DSA. pragmatics demanded that electeds hew to the right so we just needed to accept that they were going to occasionally do things we didn't like - shifting "the Overton window" was enough reason to endorse bad candidates anyway. I hope I don't need to explain here why this position is so self-defeating.
I left the org once I was fully convinced that this was the majority position of the membership. it just can't accomplish much beyond winning a few seats so long as it insists on endorsing candidates without a care for how they behave once the endorsement is given. I'm not even saying they must go full democratic centralism - just set boundaries on how far right candidates are allowed to drift before they face sanction and expulsion. otherwise, the right is twisting their arms and the left is telling them "do what you have to".
Our chapter focuses almost entirely on local politics and it is such a W I can’t even describe it. Every year we have people try to tell us to run candidates for positions and we just say no and focus on local organizing. I’m sorry your experience was negative though.