DSA makes plans

I got on a DSA call last night “Our Time to Win”. It was a roundup of DSA wins in the last elections and a discussion of what worked, what didn’t work and how to do better going forward. I’m a huge fan of “continuous improvement” work structures, I’ve seen that they are effective, so I wanted to see what DSA’s take on that was. Also I watched media and Right-leaning Democrats smear pro Palestinian protestors, when I actually knew some pro Palestinian protestors and knew the smears were all bullshit, so I no longer trust media or mainstream depictions of anyone on the Left. I wanted to see for myself.

Obviously Mamdani was their big win but the discussion didn’t stop there. They focused on how a “NE region” (NY and New England) UAW endorsement brought Mamdani some cred with political types in NYC and how that juiced his candidacy. There is a DSA member on the governing council of the NE Region UAW and that member worked hard with the rank and file to make them familiar with Mamdani, leading to the endorsement.

They plan to expand this DSA/labor alliance by putting some DSA members to work supporting the Starbucks strikers all over the country.

They also won a city council seat in Atlanta, so the newly elected council member was on the call. It sounds like she won like AOC won – by outhustling the opposition.

Finally, they discussed winning the Seattle mayor’s race (by the slimmest of margins) but still a win.

DSA have about 85,000 members now - they got a huge bump in members from the national coverage of Mamdani. That’s still a tiny number in terms of US national politics but it keeps growing, and in a “continuous improvement” mindset that’s the goal – just keep going in the right direction.