Priority Proposal: A New Strategy and the Fight for Bodily Autonomy
Whereas, DSA’s national Political Platform holds that the US is not a democracy and that the fight for socialism is synonymous with the fight for true democracy,
Whereas, North Carolina, by prohibiting ballot initiatives without state approval and heavily pre-empting the powers of municipalities, denies legal public input into politics,
Whereas, it is quite possible that the next state elections in North Carolina will produce a Republican supermajority legislature and/or Governor, exacerbating the lack of democracy and additionally threatening a wide swath of existing civil rights,
Whereas, North Carolina specifically is widely regarded not just among socialists, but among experts and lay liberals as well, to be an exceptionally anti-democratic state,
Whereas, North Carolina is uniquely suited for a democratic political struggle, and there is no clear existing movement for democracy with a mass base in North Carolina at this time,
Whereas, due to both our organization’s level of development and the specific anti-democratic features of our political system, it is not practical for NCTDSA to contest for meaningful power at the state or federal level, but NCTDSA has already proven it can win a municipal race in Carrboro,
Whereas, the wielding of municipal power to facilitate the creation of a mass base and displace the legitimacy of the capitalist state has wide precedent in socialist politics, and direct municipal resistance against unjust state and federal law has a broad precedent through sanctuary cities,
Strategy
Therefore, NCTDSA will convert disparate, unfocused struggles for democracy and civil rights into a broad struggle for socialism and the overturning of all existing oppressive relations,
Therefore, NCTDSA will take initiative in the movement for bodily autonomy and reproductive justice, by building a mass movement to conquer municipal power and challenge the authority of the state government through civil non-compliance, therefore assuming leadership in the struggle for democracy in North Carolina, and by openly tying these efforts together,
Therefore, NCTDSA will aim to assume leadership by showing clear and politically focused initiative, and strive to avoid any chauvinistic orientation towards other groups fighting for democratic and/or civil rights,
Therefore, NCTDSA will attempt to actively recruit and politically develop the most politically advanced layer of the working class it interfaces with through these struggles,
Therefore, this proposal shall constitute a priority for the chapter, and all provisions within this resolution shall, unless specifically otherwise stated, apply for a period of one year, upon which NCTDSA will review the campaign and optionally propose it for renewal or revision at a general meeting,
Therefore, this proposal is available for any modification or termination of its measures by the general membership at a valid general meeting of the chapter as described in the Chapter Bylaws,
Therefore, not precluding any endorsements made by national DSA, NCTDSA will prioritize municipal races over state and especially federal races, and will advise interested candidates who indicate they wish to run for state or federal level races of this policy,
Tactics
Electoral Working Group
Therefore, the Electoral Working Group will adopt as its strategy the capture of municipal governments with the explicit goal of putting these on the front line of the struggle for democracy within North Carolina, and accordingly prioritize local elections, and prioritize further races that are necessary to win a governing majority at the municipal level,
Therefore, the Electoral Working Group will collaborate with the Socialist Feminist Working Group and the Queer-Trans Solidarity Working Group on candidate recruitment and development, both in terms of cadre DSA members through direct asks and power-mapping of existing NCTDSA members who may have not considered running for office before and promising potential candidates discovered from coalition organizations,
Therefore, the Electoral Working Group will seek to get cadre DSA members, particularly but not only those interested in running as municipal candidates in the future, on municipal boards and commissions relevant to this democracy and civil rights program,
Therefore, NCTDSA will require all of its electoral candidates to run as a unified, openly democratic socialist slate, and require candidates to promote unified messaging on the fight for democracy and civil rights and the role of municipal government in this as envisioned by NCTDSA,
Therefore, NCTDSA will require all successful electoral candidates to form a socialist caucus in any body where more than one DSA-endorsed candidate is elected, deliberate strategy in collaboration with NCTDSA’s Electoral Working Group, and vote as a bloc,
Therefore, NCTDSA will not seek to capture any executive offices and will instead pursue a strategy of building legislative majorities that will take a stance of opposition to the reactionary state and federal government,
Therefore, the Electoral Working Group will create agitational draft ordinances for Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh, fitting the above criteria, and propose the chapter adopt them officially before the end of 2023 at a general meeting,
Therefore, NCTDSA will aim to mobilize the advanced layers of workers and activists in our communities to demand that the municipal councils of Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh adopt these ordinances, as opposed to simply lobbying council members,
Growth and Development Committee
Therefore, NCTDSA’s Growth, Development & Outreach Committee will instruct and train mobilizers to cover the priority campaign during mobilizations with an ask inviting new members to participate in the next canvass, external action or meeting associated with the priority campaign, with preference given to canvasses and external actions and not meetings as the first entry to the priority campaign,
Therefore, NCTDSA’s Growth, Development & Outreach Committee will draft a basic and accessible curriculum aimed at people new to both DSA and socialism that explicitly connects the struggle for democracy and civil rights with the necessary struggle for socialism, from an introductory Marxist perspective, and by extension NCTDSA’s political strategy as described in this proposal,
Therefore, the Growth, Development & Outreach Committee will work with the Political Education Working Group to incorporate this basic political education into the new member onboarding process,
Therefore, the Growth, Development & Outreach Committee shall hold at least two fundraisers for the Carolina Abortion Fund, SisterSong, Equity Before Birth, and other reproductive organizations before the end of 2023 and document the process for other working groups, organizations, or individuals who may want to do their own,
Socialist Feminist Working Group
Therefore, NCTDSA’s Socialist Feminist working group shall pursue working relationships with other groups fighting for women’s rights in North Carolina, particularly around non-electoral initiatives to preserve access to reproductive rights and healthcare,
Therefore, the Socialist Feminist working group shall organize a campaign to disrupt local Anti-Abortion Centers holding monthly canvasses of nearby neighborhoods and businesses, picketing AACs, and teaching new participants how to organize their own actions with the goal of building an active base to help AAC clients find alternative resources and push municipalities to implement our demands,
Therefore, the Socialist Feminist working group shall work with UterRiot to expand their disruption of anti-abortion activists by providing organizing materials, recruitment assistance, and other resources as appropriate. This should also act as a way to build a larger base of support for pushing our demands,
Therefore, the Socialist Feminist working group shall recruit participants from this base through the aforementioned canvasses, as well as phonebanks led and conducted by priority campaign participants, for other reproductive care organizations to assist people seeking reproductive care in the Triangle and embed ourselves in the reproductive care provision infrastructure,
Queer and Trans Solidarity Working Group
Therefore, NCTDSA’s Queer and Trans Solidarity Working Group shall pursue working relationships with other groups fighting for LGBTIA+ rights in North Carolina, particularly around non-electoral initiatives to preserve access to gender-affirming care and generally safeguard and fight for additional rights for LGBTIA+ peoples,
Therefore, NCTDSA’s Queer and Trans Solidarity Working Group shall push Durham City Council to create a name change fund, make Durham a sanctuary city for LGBTIA+ people who are fleeing anti-LGBTIA+ legislation around the country, and expand safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ peoples to provide community and fight for liberation,
Chapter As A Whole
Therefore, NCTDSA as a chapter will specifically advertise and attempt to mobilize its membership for any public actions related to this priority proposal by the various working groups,
Therefore, NCTDSA Steering Committee will include time during general chapter meetings to discuss progress in this priority campaign.
What is the New Strategy?
In Support of the Priority Proposal
DSA’s National Platform accurately declares that the US is not a democracy. With that as our shared context, we will assume that the transition from the rule of the capitalist class to the rule of the masses will involve some kind of rupture - a revolution - that at minimum will necessarily, because the US is not a democracy, not purely occur at the ballot box.
In spite of this, most socialists rightfully recognize that electoral politics is a site of struggle, one of a few places where the masses engage in political struggle. Historical revolutionary leaders, such as Vladmir Lenin, urged revolutionary parties not to cede this site of struggle even with the awareness that revolution would ultimately not come at the ballot box.
However, historically, electoral politics on the left, including DSA, has suffered from not being consciously aware of its horizons. Most debate around electoral politics in DSA focuses on things such as whether or not to use the Democratic Party’s ballot line, which political lines and fundamental elements of our politics are red lines and which ones are up for negotiating over the course of parliamentary maneuvers, and so on. In other words, that socialists effectively engaging in electoral politics means some kind of fight for reforms while playing by the capitalist class’ rules is an assumption that is scarcely questioned.
The unspoken default assumption in DSA, with some ballot box victories but little follow-through of results, let alone historical evidence, that would back this theory up, is that fighting for some set of incremental reforms will make it easier to do other organizing (such as union organizing) that will eventually lead to socialist revolution. Others, namely Trotskyists that are mainly outside of DSA but also are a minority within DSA, have advocated variations of a “Transitional Program”, a set of reforms sufficiently ambitious such as that the capitalist state could never implement them, with the idea being that the tension between such a program being hypothetically popular and the impossibility of its implementation will hasten revolution.
Let us speak of what revolution really is, though, and make it clear that the above strategies are fundamentally indirect measures. Regardless of how it is enacted, socialist revolution is the displacement of one class by another - capitalists, and their state, being displaced by the working masses, and their state. It is the moment in time where one state, the capitalist state, loses its legitimacy, and an alternative, the socialist state, gains it. Historically, in contrast with electoral politics, most socialist organizing outside the realm of electoral politics has existed in a state of tension with the law. The ability of the capitalist class to enforce its rule, through the state, in workplaces, in rental properties, etc, is its legitimacy. When socialists historically have engaged in realms of class struggle, such as union organizing or fighting for civil rights, even when subjected to persecution and existing in a state of tension with the law, their victories are in a qualitative way, and even when they have been ephemeral, gains of the working class at the expense of the capitalist class, in a way that reforms within a legal framework fundamentally and irrevocably controlled by the capitalist class cannot be.
The New Strategy is a theory of engagement with electoral politics that accounts for a revolutionary horizon - one in which a socialist state displaces the capitalist state, and is conscious of the fact that for this to happen, the capitalist state must directly lose its legitimacy and the socialist state must gain it. In short, one major component of this strategy is the idea that we should introduce tension with the law, a direct attack on the legitimacy of the capitalist state, into our strategy of engagement with electoral politics. However, even a strategy that has a revolutionary horizon can be pointless if it is impractical or indefinitely postponed until the moment of revolution. The other major component is that at this moment we should specifically target the municipal layer of government, nearly exclusively.
There are many reasons why the municipal layer is most appropriate for this strategy. One major reason is that they simply have a lower barrier to entry at a moment where socialism in the US has not quite reached the realm of mass politics: for most places the total voting population in municipal elections is going to be much, much smaller than state or federal races. Expenditures in these races are much less, and in many places it’s even feasible for us to directly knock on the doors of a sizable amount of the relevant population. Thus, we are able to have a much more disproportionate impact.
There are other reasons, however. Another major reason is that in most places, including where it is relevant to us, municipal races are non-partisan. So much hand-wringing has been done about the dilemma of partisan politics. When the working masses engage in electoral politics, it is a zero-sum game. For any sincerely engaging voter, it is simply not rational to vote for third parties, even socialist parties, as opposed to one of the two major parties. The following is more true than ever: votes are cast more in opposition to the party people don’t want to see than in affirmation of the party they are voting for.
Therefore, for socialists to win elections in partisan elections, it is almost always necessary for them to run as Democrats against Republicans. However, when Democrats win, socialists are placed in the supremely unenviable position of being forced to play defense against Republicans while also, predictably, being sidelined and under fire within the Democratic coalition. Predictions that DSA electeds would be able to win major reforms within the Biden coalition proved to be mistaken, and the spirit of rebellion which swelled DSA’s numbers to nearly 100,000 strong during the Trump years is nearly nowhere to be found anymore.
However, one crucial reason, which is hardly discussed, is that more than any other layer, the municipal layer of government perhaps offers the most opportunity for a direct attack on the legitimacy of the capitalist state. It is unfeasible for socialists to take power at the federal level and at the state level, for reasons I do not need to justify because our organization agrees that we are not in a democracy. However, it is realistically envisionable for socialists to be able to hold the decisive sway at the municipal level in at least some places.
The municipal level of government is unappealing to those who are dreaming of hypothetical grand reforms because it does not possess the necessary jurisdiction. One also might raise the very reasonable objection that even municipalities are a component of the overall capitalist state. They are subject to the laws of the State and Federal layers of government, hopelessly out of reach. Indeed, much of the persecution that the working class experiences is at the municipal level, at the hands of cops.
That last part, however, is key. The municipal layer of government is a surprisingly important component of the capitalist state. It is where the law is mostly enforced. Indeed, that is why, in our exceptionally anti-democratic state, the legislature so heavily restricts what municipalities can and cannot do. What would happen if municipalities, being controlled by socialists, decided to ignore these rules and restrictions, or refuse to persecute the working class on behalf of the capitalist class? What if there was a way for us, even while operating in the realm of electoral politics, to directly attack the legitimacy of capitalist law, to bring the power of our class into direct conflict with theirs?
As a matter of fact, this is not without significant precedent. Most famously, we have what are known as sanctuary cities, municipalities that have decided to limit or entirely forego compliance with federal immigration detainers. Municipalities, mostly in clear defiance of mainstream capitalist party politics, have been able to mount surprisingly strong and effective resistance to federal immigration law. However, there is no broad, organized “sanctuary city” movement, let alone a socialist one, at this time.
At this political moment, when bodily autonomy rights specifically, and especially the rights to abortion and to gender-affirming healthcare, are broadly under attack, there is, in the tradition of parties that have come before us, an imperative for socialists, the most advanced layer of the working class, the layer that clearly understands the conditions of our liberation, to give mostly unorganized but very spirited resistance by the masses against their oppressors political leadership and a clear, effective direction - capture of municipalities, and a fight for municipal non-compliance with any and all measures restricting, among other things, bodily autonomy. In our state in particular, there is very little hope that those rights can be protected through traditional politics in the long run. A real opportunity exists for us to not just participate in, but lead, the actually effective struggle against the right, for our rights.
The priority proposal is a concrete implementation of this New Strategy for the conditions we face in the Triangle. It is not a start-to-finish recipe for revolution, but it consciously orients our practice towards a revolutionary horizon in a way that is practical. It places us directly into the ongoing, pressing struggle for civil rights in North Carolina. By transforming the way we approach electoral struggle, and by introducing tension with the law, our engagement with electoral politics becomes directly compatible with ongoing class struggle outside the realm of electoral politics. It gives uniformity and cohesion to the ongoing work of several working groups. It gives our chapter a clear theory of change to uphold and strive towards, one that can be concretely tested and revised as needed. It was drafted, revised, and is now supported by many chapter and working group leaders.
In conclusion, it represents an exciting new moment for our chapter, and I urge you to sign on in support, and I also urge you to attend the May general meeting where we will be discussing, debating, and voting on this.