Written by members of the DSA Communist Caucus in the Bay Area.

11/10/2020

Biden has won. The “Trumpian” far-right movement remains, however, and will undoubtedly strike back harder down the road. A strategic impasse looms as long as DSA prioritizes electoral politics. The far-right movement will be used as a foil to disempower the Democratic Party’s left. We will be reminded that only the neoliberal center can beat the far-right. Though most socialists recognize the faults of this argument, it makes a convincing case for sidelining “unrealistic” leftists to a Democratic party base committed to an exceptional understanding of “Trumpism.” The problem, though, is not merely about arguments. The Democratic party has moved materially in this direction by centering the concerns of largely white suburban voters—always the most active in the US electoral system—at the expense of younger ‘progressives’ and people of color. But this impasse can be avoided if we alter course and begin to build our own bases of support that aren’t mediated by the Democratic Party. Constructing new working class organizations—like tenant unions, worker centers, or labor unions—will also position us to take advantage of future disenchantment with the Biden-Harris government. Either we change with the times and build power outside of elections, or we’ll end up stuck in an impasse characterized by deference to the centrists who swept the most recent leg of the Democratic Party’s long civil war.

“Trumpism” represented one of the nastiest legacies of the American project—white reaction—but a Biden-Harris presidency is no wholesale repudiation of the American right. The political axe with which Biden and Harris cut apart “Trumpism” is characterized by the same politics that have brutally eroded working class power for decades. Concerns faced by a majority of Americans, like stagnant wages, the erosion of worker rights, exploitative healthcare costs, racist police violence, or the coming wave of evictions, all remain. It’s in this sense that the centrist hatchet is a double bitted one. Its second edge has torn apart the political efficacy of left-wing electoral challengers. Centrist strategy constructed an anti-Trump coalition that removed any leverage held by the electoral left. This was accomplished by substituting the “progressive” wing of the party with “respectable” politics of the right of center, and by prioritizing white suburbanites who support center-right policies. With the election of Biden to the executive, this strategy has become legitimized. Recriminations against the Democratic Party’s left have already begun. 

Thus, the looming impasse. Defeating the “Trumpist” movement has already become the central element for a Democratic Party that has no serious plan. Insurgent social democratic politicians will be systematically sidelined if they do not close ranks with the center. In other words, the success of the Biden-Harris campaign will likely have a disorganizing effect on the electoral wing of the DSA. From “rebuilding the blue wall” in the midwest, to picking up new electoral victories in Republican territory like Arizona, to defeating what Bernie Sanders described as “the most dangerous president in the history of the US,” we are only beginning to see the deluge of arguments for preserving a “progressive neoliberalism” within the Democratic Party. With apparent success of the centrists, the electoral route—often mistakenly treated as a central one in the DSA—has been robbed of its ability to stand on its own two feet.

Unsurprisingly, part of the damage was self-inflicted. Boosted by the electoral dopamine of the 2020 Nevada primary victory, many claimed that the Democratic Party was “Bernie’s party now.” But a crash follows every high when playing with the short-term euphoria of electoralism. Working class people who were brought into the fold had been merged together into a cross-class coalition led by the Democratic Party center. Without any ownership over Bernie and his apparatus, and absent extra-electoral organization that can fight on any other terrain, liberal anti-Trump provocations carried the day. Though we lost the current war, certain battles were clinched, like the election of Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, and the squad, to name a few. These are important wins, but the Democratic Party is not, nevertheless, Bernie’s party, nor DSA’s. Roads to effective electoral opposition within the Democratic Party have narrowed. 

More than ever, it is necessary to build sites of working class power that are independent of the capitalist parties and their adjacent non-profit organizations. That Biden’s “blue wave” turned out to be a false alarm is all the more reason to expand our organizing; neoliberal grip on the Democratic Party apparatus does not mean that they also hold legitimacy over the working class. With neoliberal consolidation in the Democratic Party, we have an opportunity to draw real distinctions between them and the DSA. Of course, many DSA members will continue to engage in electoral organizing, irrespective of its strategic utility in our moment. To the extent that electoral work exists, it can be recalibrated to support our base building efforts. Rather than prying small concessions from a Democratic Party occupied by the neoliberal right, electoral work should be subordinated to building new mass working class organizations that cannot become so easily hemmed into the centrist fold. But this also requires that many more DSA members engage in the difficult work of forming new working class institutions that organize the unorganized. Though this kind of work is harder and slower, it is our best bet for avoiding the coming electoral impasse. 

The stakes have never been higher. Not only do we face enemies in the Democratic Party, we also must not forget that Trump’s base is not going to disappear. Indeed, the Biden-Harris strategy was never aimed at gutting the material foundations of white chauvinism. Rather, the Democratic centrists have opted to accommodate its more respectable forms. We can expect far right-wing challengers to amass at the gates of liberalism, especially since the neoliberal centrists of the Democratic Party cannot confront the real crises of American capitalism. Economic stagnation, the defining condition of our time, will force yet further reckoning down the road. It’s up to us to provide not merely alternative ideas, but alternative forms of political practice that distinguish us from the Democratic Party’s seemingly progressive rhetoric.