DAILY INTERVIEWS

Democratic Socialists of America: We are an alternative to the establishment

Abdullah Younus, a co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), spoke to Evrensel Daily, about their activities.

Democratic Socialists of America: We are an alternative to the establishment

Ekim KILIÇ
New York

From the American comedian Jim Carrey, who said, “We have to say yes to socialism” to the report of “Opportunity Costs of Socialism” on White House’s website, prepared by Economic Advisors Council, which acknowledged that “socialism is making a comeback in American political discourse,” while referring to 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birthday, there has been an unprecendented period after a long time in the US.

In the midst of discussions, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), with almost 50,000 members, have an important place today. The DSA was established to organize the popular struggle against the dominance of companies in the 1970s, which ended in the Ronald Reagan period in the United States. DSA, emphasizes “the radical transformation of government and economy structures” to establish a more equal society. After the organization gained power from Bernie Sanders’s campaign, a social-democratic candidate in the US presidential elections of 2016, it became a prominent organization in the US today.

We talked with Abdullah Younus, co-chair of DSA NYC, about his organization and struggles in different dimensions. Younus, a union member at the same time, states that the intense public participation of the DSA is one of the consequences of the emphasis on democracy and its application in the organization. DSA, which is organizing in areas where even for Democrats difficult to organize, says that as long as they organize around the social and economic problems of the people, which President Trump gained votes with manipulating them, socialism is not a strange and unacceptable word to people.

Could you tell us the story of Democratic Socialists of America? How did it emerge?

DSA started with Michael Harrington founded it in the 1980s. And it developed chapters all over the country. There was a strong student movement element to it. So they had a presence on campuses. And then in New York City, in particular, which is the chapter that I'm in. It had a resurgence about 6 or 7 years ago. Folks decided that hey they were younger folks, they were out of school. They wanted to revitalize this chapter. So they started building up infrastructure. They started getting involved in labor struggles. They started getting involved in some legislation around racial justice issues. And then that led us into the Bernie Sanders campaign. A lot of folks in New York City DSA was very involved in that as well. And from then, a lot of new people joined here in New York City DSA. And then we had the Trump election, which was another big round of people joining New York City DSA. And since then we've had a serious a fairly steady growth along the way. You can map it to other electoral events. But well the variety of the campaigns that New York City DSA has been engaged in has continued to flourish, but the nature of the campaigns has always remained the same, which is finding work. And we can be involved in that brings DSA into closer solidarity with working class struggles and the struggles of communities of color.

What kind of organization is DSA? What are the components of this organization? I know that you are involved in the labor movement. However, other large parts of it are students and young women, it seems.

I think before we answer this question, and this is going to be a trip, but I'm going to walk you through the the democratic structure of, the organizational structure of DSA New York City. So in in New York City, we have six geographic branches. That means that these are branches that are tied to different boroughs. Soon we're going to have a seventh, because Staten Island is also kicking up. We have the Bronx- upper Manhattan branch, we have the Lower Manhattan branch, we have Queens, we have North Brooklyn, central Brooklyn, and South Brooklyn. On top of that, we have the Y-DSA, which is our youth wing. They are active on college campuses. And then we also have the labor branch. So that is one structure we have. Beyond that we also have are working groups. And I couldn't possibly list all of the working groups out right now. But we have everything from, we have the racial justice working group that's working on a postal banking campaign. And we have our socialist feminist working group. That is trying to ensure that the New York Health Act gets passed. We have the Immigration Justice group that is working on getting ICE out of our courts. And we have our climate justice working group that is working and coalition with a whole host of groups all over New York City to, you know, get better climate reform legislation passed. And we have our housing working group which is working to do tenant organizing all over New York City along with getting the rent laws renewed in 2019. And I have only listed a few of our groups so far. And so that's sort of what we're up to right now.

'EVERYONE DOES ENVISION THEMSELVES TO BE A PART OF A BROADER MOVEMENT'

As a national organization, what does DSA do between elections? Or does it see itself as a part of broad people’s movement?

Again, elections are just a part of what we do. I hadn't mentioned one of the working groups is the electoral working group. And that's where all of our electoral work is held. So, other folks will go knock on doors the people that are more active. And the immigrant justice working or housing justice working group, or something like that, they're going to come out and knock on doors for our candidates. That the electoral working group seeks and then works on their campaigns for. For the most part, folks that are in these other groups are more active in these other groups are working in coalition with other organizations to do that. So I think everyone does envision themselves to be a part of a broader movement. Even when we look at our electoral work itself, it's also in coalition with other progressive groups, like Make The Road, or New York Communities For Change, or Our revolution.

What is your take on labor movement? How does DSA involve itself in the labor movement? Could you give some examples?

DSA was very involved. DSA members were very involved in the labor movement. There was a Verizon worker strike, which happened a few years ago. The members of the New York City DSA were extensively involved in that. There's also a lot of support for the progressive caucuses that are within unions themselves. So there's both working in solidarity with people that are striking. There's always DSA members that are out there that are going to go support people on picket lines. But there's also this understanding that the labor movement itself can also be moved to the left. And we should be really proud of that. Because the labor movement has, to a large extent, kept the candle of progressivism alive in New York in between these sorts of political moments.

Among the members of DSA, is there an intention or a tendency to build a working class party of the US?

I'm sure some people are considering that as an end goal. But where we are right now as an organization is that we are not a party. The extent to which to be engaged in electoral work is again sometimes we're open to a lot of different strategies. And we have run Green Party candidates. We ran Jabari Brisport last year for city council. We also got him a socialist ballot line specifically for that case. So that we could have folks getting votes on a party line that wasn't the Green party line. That was a DSA party line. But that existed in a moment, and then it went away. That's also the nature of New York state's election law, where the only way you can have a sustained party line is if you're getting you know X amount of votes in a gubernatorial race during a cycle. But then, we've also run folks as Democrats. Obviously we do that as well. We run people in the primaries, but as far as us having our own party so far we're not there.

How many chapters does DSA have across the country?

I think it's around 150. In state level, it's either 49 or 50.

'WE CAN GO FORTH AND DO SO MUCH MORE THAN WE EVER COULD BEFORE'

What is the narrative of the DSA that made DSA today an organization that everyone talks about?

I think extraordinarily what initially draws people to it is the fact they were on the frontlines. And we're constantly engaging in these fights. More recently we've also been winning these fights. And I think you know that's a good feeling for people to have that you want to be a part of something that has a chance of being successful. But once people are through our doors, and they're going into these meetings, and they're becoming involved as organizers, I think it ends up being the democracy. There is this emphasis on democracy that, I think is really novel for a lot of people to experience. This power that you know. There is consequence to the things you say in a meeting. And that you can convince people. And you can actually make your idea happen by having votes going through a process, but also having these conversations with each other. That’s not something people usually experience. So much of in the way capitalism works is it completely strips people away of their agency and their power. And they become beholden to the boss. And they don't feel like you know. They stop remembering that they have even had a voice. So that's the empowering feeling that these spaces provide and what DSA does really really well. And I think that is radicalizing in itself. And that's the fervor and the energy that continues to that need these folks can then bring into the movement. And that we can run. And we can go forth and do so much more than we ever could before. Because now we have even more people.

'PEOPLE, YOUNGER PEOPLE ESPECIALLY ARE VERY AMENABLE TO THE TERM SOCIALIST'

And since you call yourself socialist, it should be another reason for anger from Democrats against you in terms of the particular anger towards the word “socialism” in the US.

When we look at the most recent Pew polls though that is certainly shifting. People, younger people especially are very amenable to the term socialist. Bernie Sanders went a long way to normalize that for people. And DSA continues to run with that. I think that, again, it's not all Democrats right. Like Alexander Ocasio Cortez, Julia Salazar, Jumaane Williams, these are Democrats. And this is just New York. We can really be resonate with, because they have been a part of the struggle. They understand what the moment is, what the movement is. It’s really just people, politicians are parts of the party that are beholden to these moneyed interests that are the problem. Threaten by us.

Since you are a group that you have a claim to change the power in the US, I think you should have something to say about international politics of the US. What do you think of the US’s approach to Puerto Rico, and the US operations in the Middle East?

I think when it comes to Puerto Rico, the United States has not been kind. It's operated as an imperialist power. And that's generally how the United States has continued to operate for so long all over the world. It’s through a political agenda that's again motivated by these billion dollar industries. We find ourselves in these struggles, where we really have no place being, where people have a right to self determine yet we're present. And I think that's something that the United States needs to no longer do. I think it's not our place to be involved in those sorts of fights.

Do you have something similar for the Middle East?

Organizationally I'm unsure if we have a stance on this. On a personal level, I think the United States should have a non-interventionist strategy, when it comes to the Middle East. We should allow people to self determine. And when I view so much of the way in which we rationalize going into these spaces, we go under the guise of humanitarian concern, when we should really be viewing these problems as internal political problems for people to solve for themselves. But once we go in and we intercede, we create opportunities for our billion dollar corporations to inform what the nature of these new states is going to look like. A post conflict. That’s to me not not acceptable.

If I am not wrong, you have recently built an inner circle which is called “Afro-Socialists.” Since I know that the Black National/Racial Question has not been solved, it is exciting to see an appearance of Afro-Americans. As I know, white socialists and black socialists still have tensions as a result of current tensions implicit to society.

Could you tell us what your relation is to the Afro-American freedom movement?

Afro-socialist and socialists of color Caucus, which I'm a member and my co-chair Bianca is also a member. And she's a founding member actually. We recognize that for the socialist movement to succeed, it's going to have to be led by authentic leaders from communities of color. Because those are, you know, the most marginalized and some of the most repressed groups. So you'll see us out there, when there are protests happening. And of course there's a lot of work being done in conjunction with our racial justice working group as well. And much of the focus is on building leadership, because we have to train ourselves, and we have to train our fellow people of color on effective organizing and affective leadership. So that people can rise up. And actually become leaders and do the work that they need to do in order to succeed.

So, it is interesting that DSA also has chapters in the deep south and as I know in Appalachia. How did you achieve that? Since Hillary Clinton called them “deplorables,” it would be hard for Democratic Socialists which has some affiliations with the Democratic Party. Knock on their doors, talk about your program? Or wouldn’t it be even harder to connect with those people since you call yourself socialists. What do you think about that?

The reason why I am an active member of the labor movement, on a personal level, I work for a union. And why I consider myself a socialist is, because working class solidarity is the ubiquitous tie between all communities. And our common enemy is certainly the one percent. So, when we go into these conversations with people in the Deep South, as you said, or in the Midwest or in other areas that are on the on paper a lot more Republican or conservative, if you scratch beneath the surface, I think what you find is that what people need is they need job security. And they want education for their kids. And they want health care. And if those are the issues that you're going to organize around, then you're going to find it fairly easy to get people to understand that socialism isn't a bad word. And there is a way forward that isn't necessarily so rife with hate. You can organize around these issues, and you know, be successful. We've seen that. Just the demonstrably way we can see that is our electoral work doesn't just happen New York. It happens all over the country. And we have had, you know, folks win in Kansas and in Virginia and other all over the country. People have been winning elections. They have been willing winning elections in areas that you folks would not normally consider winnable for Democrats. But as it turns out the same issues that Trump was able to agitate around, the same people that he was able to bring into his camp, while he didn't actually have the solutions and he lied to them. What our programs are what our policies offer is actual solutions for those very same problems. Those are the issues that we should be organizing around and reaching out to these people on.

Since we said that DSA is a composition, do you mean that there is no clear stance on international politics compared to what DSA have on national politics?

The way we form stances at all in this is going to go back to what democracy looks like in our organization. We have to put forward resolutions. And then everyone has to vote on them. So I think our two major international stances that we took at our last national convention. We have a national convention every two years, where all of the chapters from the countries send representatives. And then they vote on amending the Constitution of the national organization, and also on resolutions that pass. One was the support of be endorsed the boycott divestment sanction movement. (BDS) So, that was one international stance we took. And the other stance we took was we removed ourselves from the socialist international. So in order for us to develop further stances, those would have to be put forth to vote at the next national convention. And then we would have a national position on them. In the same way that when we have positions on a chapter level, on a city level, those resolutions go up to our New York City Convention that happens once a year, or they go up to our quarterly citywide leadership committee meetings one of which is happening on Sunday, where then people will vote on take on priorities or resolutions.

What was the reason of the decision to remove yourself from the Socialist International?

I think we found that all of the parties that were in coalition around the world had found themselves in much more despotic positions. And they were less socialist than they were dictatorial. We wanted to no longer be a part of that. We think that there should be a New International Socialist Movement that we might want to be a part of rather than continue to be a part of this vestigial one that is socialist in name only oftentimes.

Have you made any attempt for that, or a recent push?

I think we're developing relationships with folks in momentum in the UK,. and also in other parts of the world, but I'm sure these things are going to come up at the next National Convention.

Do you have any last messages, or something you forget to say?

To our Turkish American readers, you should come to a DSA meeting. You should reach out, you should come, and we should continue to have these conversations, and be a part of a broader movement. Because It's only in coalition that we're going to have solidarity, that we're going to build this mass movement together. The more people from different perspectives that we can have at the same tables, the stronger we're going to be.


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