pleeeeaaaasee send me the tea

No one at convention had anything nice to say about Zionism or Israel. Main objections I heard on the floor were people worried about the expulsion language e.g. “Can this be abused by leadership?”.

The answer I think is obviously no, DSA just doesn’t purge people - we’ve never done that. Our main criteria for expulsion is already the comically vague language of being “In substantial disagreement” with DSA politics; if people were going to wield expulsion as a weapon in political fights it already would have happened.

Thank you for the writeup fellow Dedicated Sicko of America

This guy is kind of annoying and I don’t agree with everything here, but I do think about this article a lot these days.

In the future—not the distant future, but ten years, five—people will remember the internet as a brief dumb enthusiasm, like phrenology or the dirigible. They might still use computer networks to send an email or manage their bank accounts, but those networks will not be where culture or politics happens. The idea of spending all day online will seem as ridiculous as sitting down in front of a nice fire to read the phone book.

No clue! Gun to my head, I’d guess she would continue to crash out on Twitter, saying something like “I’ll continue doing the real work for Palestinians and my district despite what uninvolved and unimportant haters say!!” and then her staff would stop answering our emails.

What I would say is people usually categorize B&R as “left” when compared to SMC and GW, totally discounting international issues. As far as I can tell B&R might be the absolute furthest right on international issues of any major caucus. I’m weirdly glad they did not do well on the NPC this convention.

All items left on the agenda at the end of convention are referred to the NPC. While I would certainly like them to vote to censure her, I suspect it will be the opinion of even some of the left flank of the NPC that censuring such a visible figure without the full backing of a convention vote will lead to a lot of internal and external criticism that they probably don’t feel like dealing with. Maybe I’ll be surprised.

The ongoing strategies around labor prevail in the passed resolutions. For labor folks all eyes are on May Day 2028 as an organizing goal. The National Labor Committee is still big into rank-and-file stuff. There’s an ongoing national campaign to salt Amazon sites. EWOC has been growing. Also, the below language appears in a passed anti-Zionist resolution, but I can’t speak to whether it has any teeth on the organizing end.

This has IMO been one of the most significant developments since 2016. When I first joined I heard the same thing, but since then there is a vast majority consensus that DSA is a socialist party, though our exact strategies for party building are perhaps the most debated, written about, and analyzed aspect of our work right now.

Dang y’all, I wish I had jotted down their names. I wanted to link up with them after the panel, but they had already split. I got the impression they might be local to Chicago where the convention was held.

lol okay here’s the preliminary minutes

My question is what kind of things did Tlaib subliminally say about AOC?

I was going to try and recap, but judge for yourself! The remarks in question start at 6:45.

No one has a majority. You can break down the results in such a way that there is a slight “left” majority, but the left/right dichotomy in DSA factions is most useful as shorthand. The caucuses themselves have very mixed politics and none of them always get it right IMO. But the results are encouraging.

There was a resolution we did not have time for to censure AOC which I firmly believe would have passed at this convention. I’m happy we (mostly) spent our time on commitments to action and not statements, but I would have liked to see us crack the whip a little.

In general, especially with Zohran becoming a poster child for what actual DSA cadre running for office can look like, sentiment on AOC has soured significantly among all but the most rightist factions.

If the resolution about expelling Zionists can get enforced I think that’ll be a really good line in the sand moment.

The convention has definitely spoken, but the aftermath remains to be seen. DSA has kicked people out but I am not personally aware of any expulsion proceedings, which leads me to believe they are not common. However, I have been told that multiple local chapters have passed similar commitments in the past two years which have been used as cause for intervention on egregious behavior. For reference, here is the text from the reso (there is also a lot of good stuff in there committing us to further pro-Palestinian organizing work):

Oh, and I’d be remiss to not mention, for the benefit of my PSL comrades, that a couple of reps from PSL also spoke, talking about the importance of a strong labor movement and independence from the Dems.

I’m planning on putting together a write up once convention ends on Sunday. Maybe while I’m sitting in the airport.

AOC was barred from the DSA

That would be news to me! The most I’ve heard is National (not NYC DSA) has rescinded their endorsement back in June. And there’s a resolution at convention to officially censure AOC, which I think has a good chance of passing after the iron dome shit.

There’s a little bit of that. A lot of the anti-Zionist resolutions call for us to join this-or-that coalition, and a lot of the electoral ones call for us to form some kind of left-labor coalition as part of running for office (such as recruiting candidates from unions). In general, you’re more likely to see united front stuff being hammered out locally on specific issues. The PSL chapter in my town likes us, for instance, which I don’t think is necessarily true for their national org (jack can correct me, lol).