The recent French elections have been widely seen as a disappointment for the far-right and a success for the Left. But that doesn’t mean that sweeping change is coming to France. 

In the French radical tradition, the republic is everything. No economic reform, no act of social justice, no peace in the streets can be had in its absence. It is from this republican tradition that French politicians are born. From the far-left to center-right, the republic is the vehicle that makes politics possible and in times of crisis, it is the republic that must be defended above all else. This is the tradition that declares that Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN, National Rally; formerly FN, National Front) is beyond the pale. RN, founded by monarchists, Nazi collaborators, and coup plotters is, despite Le Pen’s best efforts, still subject to a cordone sanitaire (a blanket refusal by other parties to work with one specific party), although no one seems to have told French voters.

Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call snap parliamentary elections following the RN’s victory in the 2024 European elections is steeped in memory. The gesture is typically Gaullian. Throughout his presidency, the undead founder of the Fifth Republic would famously call the people to vote after experiencing any defeat. The threat was simple — De Gaulle or the abyss, and French voters, having lived through war, occupations, coups, and attempted coups, almost always chose De Gaulle. Macron, who is increasingly isolated by his ever-shrinking cohort of advisors, sees himself as a latter-day De Gaulle. This is why he decided one month before the European elections, that, should RN come in first, the French people will be summoned for a decision: Macron or the abyss.

Macron’s announcement plunged France into chaos. The 2022 legislative elections featured a four-way coalition between Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI, France Unbowed) and the Green, Socialist, and Communist parties. While each gained seats from that coalition, they did not win a majority and quickly fell to in-fighting. There was no common list for the European elections and the Socialists, led by the left-liberal Raphaël Glucksmann, came in third place. But as snap elections were announced, the call went out for a renewed broad-left coalition to protect France from the rising tide of fascism. The call went out for a Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP, New Popular Front).

A new Popular Front was never certain. In the chaos that followed Macron’s announcement, the “respectable” Glucksmann hurriedly denounced the idea of a new coalition with LFI because of Mélenchon’s “failure” to condemn Hamas – Glucksmann is pro-Israel while Mélenchon has been unwavering in his commitment to the cause of Palestinian liberation. Despite his denunciation, the threat posed by RN was real, and all four parties negotiated a renewed coalition. To ease Glucksmann’s bourgeois conscience and to reflect LFI’s poor results in the European elections, the coalition agreement would be pro-European Union, pro-Ukraine, and specifically denounce October 7 as a “terrorist attack.” The number of candidates each party would be allowed to field was also changed, with 97 fewer LFI candidates and 105 more Socialist candidates in districts that had been rearranged to the Socialists’ advantage.

As the NFP became increasingly real, chaos turned to crisis. Two days after the European elections and the morning after the NFP was announced, Éric Ciotti, the leader of the Republicans in the National Assembly, announced an alliance with RN. The Right had now endorsed the far-right in the name of “protecting France” from Mélenchon’s “antisemitism” which was now being “enabled” by the Socialists. It appeared as though Ciotti’s announcement was proof that the far-right was on the rise and that the “respectable Right” would use Mélenchon’s humanity as their excuse to embrace fascism. As the day continued, however, it turned out that Ciotti had taken this momentous step without consulting his party, whose members quickly called for his resignation. After unsuccessfully barricading himself in the Republican Party’s headquarters (someone outside had a key) he was removed from his leadership position but immediately reinstated by a judge for arcane procedural reasons.

This was the state of French politics as voters went to the polls on June 30. On the Left, Socialists bemoaned their alliance with the “obviously antisemitic” Mélenchon. On the right, Republicans struggled to choose between their respectability and love of cruelty. The far-right was on the march and Marcon’s extremist centrism had driven France to the brink in the hopes of playing De Gaulle.

Turnout was at its highest in almost three decades (66%) and the results did not tell us who had won, but revealed the decision France’s politicians would be forced to make. Out of 577 deputies, 76 were elected in the first round, but in most districts, RN was in the lead with a runoff required. In the legislative elections, there can be more than two candidates in the runoff so long as certain thresholds are met and 306 districts had a three-way runoff (known as “triangles”) between RN (who received 33% of the overall vote), NFP (28%), and either a member of Marcon’s extremist center (20%) or an anti-Ciotti Republican (6%). In this Mexican stand-off between RN, NFP and Macron the call went out for “republican discipline.”

Few phrases hang over the history of French democracy like “republican discipline.” Also known as the “barrage républicain” (invoking the metaphor of an artillery barrage against the far-right), republican discipline is the French equivalent of “vote blue no matter who” with one crucial difference: it goes both ways. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, French liberals would regularly vote for left-wing candidates in runoff elections. This is not because they are better than American Democrats, but because the monarchist Right hung like a boogeyman over the heads of French liberals until the 21st century. De Gaulle, for example, was not a republican but simply acquiesced to the republic in the name of political expediency. Like left-wing Americans told to “vote blue no matter who,” left-wing French voters were often bullied into supporting liberal republicans, but in France this was a two-way street, and liberal republicans could be bullied into voting for socialists in return. Both liberal republicans and socialists came from the same republican tradition and voted to guard the republic before all else.

Since 2002, however, republican discipline has looked increasingly like “Vote Blue No Matter Who.” The past twenty years saw the center radicalize and increasingly refuse the possibility of compromise. The Left could still be expected to fall in line since no reforms are possible without the republic, but since the extremist center would not budge, there could be no alternative.

In the immediate aftermath of the first round, it looked like this trend would continue. On the night of the election, Mélenchon and the NFP’s collective leadership announced that their candidates would resign in all districts where the RN candidate was in first place and the candidates NFP was in third (i.e. districts Macron or the anti-Ciotti Republican candidates were more likely to beat the RN). Candidates had 48 hours to stay or resign their candidacy and the Left did so at a remarkable pace, dropping out of 134 races.

The extremist center, however, was in no rush. Members of Macron’s coalition announced that while the Left might bow to the logic of republican discipline, they would not be as generous. Whether or not a Macronist candidate would resign would be done “case by case” and “district by district.” One Macronist was quoted telling reporters that “Members of LFI are manifestly enemies of the values of the republic” and that LFI candidates would be scrutinized to see if they were “compatible with the republican values on parliamentarianism, universalism, and antisemitism.” Macron’s speaker of the National Assembly told reporters that she believes that “the immense majority of the bloc is republican [but] within LFI I make the distinction.” Macron’s former prime minister Édouard Philippe even called for LFI to be excluded altogether. This insanity was best characterized by one extremist centrist magazine whose cover title read: “Anyone but RN*/*In case of a runoff with a pro-Hamas LFI [candidate], it will be without us.”

This was the line across France’s mainstream media. For 48 hours the French media consumer was inundated with hemming and hawing over Mélenchon’s “problematic” history. While these mainstream commentators rarely outright rejected republican discipline outright, they bemoaned how much easier their choice would be if Mélenchon was not involved.

As those 48 hours came to an end, however, something happened. Macronist candidates were dropping out of races and endorsing NFP candidates, and, by the time the window closed, there were 82 fewer Macronist candidates. As the window closed, republican discipline began to take hold. Macron’s current Prime Minister called for republican discipline from all voters “even if it means supporting an LFI candidate.” In an interview, Glucksmann said that voting for LFI is “no longer a vote from the heart, [but] a vote of reason to avoid catastrophe.” While public figures continued to bemoan Mélenchon’s existence and belief in Palestinian lives, they endorsed voting for LFI candidates. Le Pen’s henchmen denounced what was occurring as a “dishonorable alliance” but there was little they could do. As results came in on July 7, the NFP was the largest parliamentary coalition, albeit well short of a parliamentary majority.

From the Parisian apartment where we watched the election results, I could hear cheering in the streets. Cars honked, people danced along the canal, and an immense sigh of relief filled the apartment. But what has changed? At the nearby Place de la République protesters who had preemptively gathered to protest what many predicted would be a far-right government began to cheer. Fireworks filled the sky and one woman gave the quote of the election: “I’m proud to be French tonight.” Thirty minutes later, the police launched tear gas into the crowd and began arresting the would-be protesters. Macron announced in an open letter that the previous government would remain in power despite lacking a parliamentary majority. The NFP is not in power, but neither is the far-right. In the bizarre world of Macron’s isolated inner circle, his gamble has paid off, the people rallied to the republic, and in his mind, to him. Nothing is better, but nothing is worse either. Vive la République française?

The post France Celebrates an Election Where Nothing Changes appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Millions of Americans are fed up with the choice between bad and worse in the two-party system. DSA’s 2024 program provides the opportunity to fight for proportional representation and a multi-party democracy.

Americans are exhausted with politics for good reason. Year after year, politicians from both major parties make claims that hope and change is on the way. It never is. 

Most years, the majority of Americans who support Medicare for All, bold action on climate change, an end to brutal foreign intervention, real police reform and reductions in incarceration have no one to vote for in November. It’s no wonder most sit out non-Presidential elections entirely. Why waste time and energy to think about, let alone support, a con artist making inspiring promises you know they won’t keep, and uninspiring ones you know they will.

Those who want progressive change and muster the energy to bring themselves to the polls, often vote for Democratic Party candidates — either out of false hope or more regularly a sober and pragmatic desire to defeat the Republicans, often a mix of both.

The 2024 presidential election is different from previous ones only in the sense that it feels almost like a parody of decades of depressing lesser-evilism. On one hand Americans can vote for Donald Trump, a xenophobic far-right candidate threatening to wage war on the little democracy we do have in the United States. On the other, voters have the option to vote for Joe Biden, an active partner in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians who has also adopted Trump’s extremist immigration policies that Biden ran against just four years ago. Even if Biden is successfully replaced as Democratic nominee, his replacement is unlikely to break from from the Democrats’ policy of co-conspiracy in the genocide in Gaza.

Understandably unhappy with this dilemma, the Left has found itself between a rock and a hard place, at once hoping to defeat the ascendant far-right and also finding it impossible to enthusiastically or unenthusiastically back Biden, or any other Democrat, and their genocide. 

Luckily, DSA’s program for 2024 provides a clear path out. At the 2023 DSA Convention, delegates approved a proposal to establish a program that can provide a clear alternative to the two parties and their own platforms. Already, the For Our Rights Committee has published a draft soon to be finalized, published, and distributed throughout the country.

But having a clear public program is only part of the story in making a clear intervention in the 2024 elections that builds independent working-class political power. The most important part is the program’s content, specifically its synthesis of popular working-class demands for policies like Medicare for All and a Green New Deal, with proposals that would expand and transform American democracy. Among the proposed democratic reforms, the most important at this conjuncture is proportional representation elections which would allow third parties to be more competitive, and provide a path to dismantling the two-party system.

Breaking the Cycle

Pew Polling from late September 2023 reported that 28% of Americans held negative views of both major political parties — rising to 34% for Americans between the ages of 30 and 45, and and 37% for those between 18 and 29. In the same polling, a super-majority of Americans reported dissatisfaction with the two-party duopoly. In response to the statement “I wish there were more political parties to choose from,” 37% said it described their views extremely well, and another 31% somewhat well.

In the months since that polling, the Biden administration’s combination of a pro-genocide foreign policy along with a domestic campaign of disinformation and police repression, akin to the worst of Trump’s own chronic lying and repression of the Black Lives Matter movement, has likely driven even more young people away from the Democratic Party fold.

The unfortunate reality is that despite collective disgust at the options before us, most Americans concerned with the growth of the far-right really do have only two concrete options come November 2024. Absent a miracle such as the pro-Palestine movement forcing Democratic elites into taking serious action for Palestinian freedom, we can either vote for genocide or sit it out in disgust. Any candidate who replaces Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris or otherwise, will be unlikely to break from the Democratic Party’s established support for Israel. These are not good options, nor conducive to coalescing this moment’s mass anti-establishment sentiments into a coherent independent political force capable of taking on the political and economic elites that control both major political parties.

But two-party systems neither fall from the sky, nor are immutable. They’re often the result of how a country runs their elections for legislative bodies. Electoral systems where districts elect just one person, whoever gets the most votes, create the infamous “spoiler effect.” Third-parties can rarely gain in support because voters who agree with their policies instead opt for the “lesser of two evils” between the two major political parties to prevent throwing the election to their least-preferred candidate. 

Many other countries, unlike the United States, use something called multimember, proportional representation for their elections. Instead of one elected official, each district selects multiple representatives, allotted proportionally to the vote received by each political party in the district. Multimember districts of this kind remove the spoiler effect since it is no longer winner-take-all. In multi-party systems, minor parties can challenge dominant ones, and allow for more serious political competition unlike the U.S. system that shields Democrats and Republicans from serious third party electoral threats, limiting democratic control over our representatives.

Working-class movements around the world have long fought for proportional representation to give ordinary people a greater say in their political systems. In fact, proportional representation was part of the very first demand of the German Social Democratic Party’s famous 1891 Erfurt Program. The reasoning was very simple: the greater the level of democracy in a country, socialists argued, the easier for working-class parties to organize to build and win political power.

But we don’t have to go back 100 years to find struggles for proportional representation. Following 2011 student uprisings against neoliberalism in Chile’s education system, a group of student movement leaders were elected to Congress independent of the dominant center-left coalition. Though technically different from the US electoral system, Chile’s had also effectively created a two-party system. But after student movement leaders came into office, their movement won major reforms to expand the number of representatives from each district and create a more proportional electoral system. For the 2017 elections, those student leaders in Congress, along with their organizations and parties, formed an insurgent Left coalition, the Frente Amplio, and won seventeen more congressional seats, breaking up Chile’s post dictatorship two-party system. 

In 2024, DSA must not rest its success on choosing between two bad options. Instead, we must foreground our criticism of the system that produced the options in the first place and demonstrate a compelling strategy for overturning those conditions. We must provide a potential organizational home for both those who cannot bring themselves to vote for Biden or his potential replacement, as well as those who will do it through gritted teeth. 

How Do We Fight For Democracy?

Throughout the world, the far-right is advancing in both strength and its assaults on democratic institutions and civil liberties. Though the United States is clearly not a functioning democracy, the democratic rights we do have are under attack. It is incumbent upon the Left and working-class movements to fight back, not only to defend democracy and civil liberties, but to expand them.

Both the Left and Democratic Party apparatchiks rhetorically agree on this political priority, but diverge dramatically about what to do in the face of the fascist threat. To the liberal elite, the fight against the far-right begins and ends at electing Democrats over Republicans, with little concern for the policies of the party itself. But for years, democratic socialists have argued that the policies of those Democratic politicians have played a key role in facilitating the rise of the far-right.

Throughout the capitalist democratic world, the failures of the center-left in government have directly spurred on the growth of fascism. Under center-left governments, people experience rising inequality, deindustrialization, the hollowing of social services and welfare, and increased marketization of social goods. Some voters are drawn to the far-right’s reactionary scapegoating, others in protest of the status quo, while still more become demoralized about the prospects of politics delivering any positive change in their lives. 

When liberals decry criticism of the Democrats as undermining the fight against Republicans, socialists respond that Democratic Party elites are in the driver’s seat of a car heading toward a cliff, and their uncritical loyalty to unpopular politicians, policies, and governing strategies is tantamount to hitting the accelerator with full force. In recent weeks, Biden’s clearly deteriorating mental faculties have moved large sections of the liberal elite to support his replacement, still though with zero reflection on the contribution of the party’s policies to his unpopularity.

As an illustrative example, despite pledging in 2020 to fight against Trump’s racist anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy, Biden has now all but adopted a Trumpian approach to immigration, such as the recent executive order to shut down the border to asylum seekers. Ignoring for a moment the moral depravity of the policy, the political calculus will likely result in the opposite of its intended effect to “outflank Republicans” on immigration. Instead, Biden has accepted and doubled down on the far-right framework that the large numbers of asylum seekers is a crisis that must be dealt with through immigration restrictions. Once they’ve accepted this right-wing framework, the far-right will always have the “stronger” (read: more draconian) policy. This exact pattern was repeated this past week. Following the failed assassination attempt on Trump, it’s been reported Biden plans to respond by “condemning all sorts of political violence including his sharp criticism of the ‘disorder’ created by campus protests” against the genocide in Gaza. Within our two-party system, the options before voters now become little more than a difference in the extremity of cruelty and state repression. If people check out, who can blame them? 

However, it is only an independent and left-wing opposition to the status quo that can challenge the conditions that give rise to fascism. It’s our job as socialists to intervene and prevent the growth of nihilism, instead showing people that we can actually break out of this two-party trap and begin to build toward a society and government that is actually responsive to working peoples’ needs. To do this requires providing the millions of Americans who are depressed and frustrated at the options before us an analysis of why we are facing this dilemma, and a plan to break out of it — building a working-class political party with a bold socialist program, and fighting for reforms like proportional representation to establish a multi-party electoral system. Good thing our program for 2024 does just that.

The post Fighting for Democracy Means Fighting for Proportional Representation appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

by Jake Thornton Ezell; writer, poet, and disappointed newspaperman.

“I must take one sock off to feel comfortable because I’ve had a disagreement with a boiling pot of salt potatoes. I disliked the interaction because they were talking shit and snucked up on me while my back was turned. At the end of the day, they all turned into shit. And I’m still here, just a little blistered and salty.” 

Journalism isn’t dead, we are.

If you walk around today, it feels like the odds are about one out of a thousand, or more, people you may come across are journalists. They are as common as actively working standup comedians. A journalist will tell you they stick their necks out and put their names on the line when it comes to true journalism. Many don’t consider themselves biased by consuming “both sides” of a story. Some don’t even have Facebook, Twitter (“X”), Instagram, or what have you—Their contracts just require it, lest their underlying political beliefs jump out organically through a keyboard. 

Without a doubt, there are some “citizen journalists” brave enough to do some form of real journalism. While something like “citizen journalism” has always existed, this format has gained popularity with ubiquitous access to mobile phones. The dissemination of reporting through social media has now often broken through blackouts by legacy networks. But what we’re currently experiencing in the American zeitgeist, is overwhelmed by a never-ending influx of information that isn’t journalism at all. Much of it is fraudulent on its face.

For example, this is an editorial. It’s not an article. We need to learn to distinguish the difference between the two. These days, editorialism is passed off under the umbrella of journalism.

Journalism hasn’t betrayed us. Journalism has been betrayed, through a shift from thirst for bylines and scoops to fixation on profit margins, growth, and cost-cutting. The layman will never understand nor be invited to the backroom discussions in a newsroom where the dismantling of journalist institutions is discussed as technobabble. Perhaps we’ve confused journalism with the naughty word “propaganda,” or contemporary rhetoric where we can consistently do no more than edgy “dunks” and headbutting. The laymen are not journalists, despite their new media bio.

Journalism isn’t dead. It has been rebranded. Anything anyone says now counts as reporting that doesn’t discriminate, doesn’t challenge conceptions, and doesn’t rock the institutional boat. We live in a material stew of gimmicks and internet clickbait coming to life. 

We’re just getting started.

Full confession: I am a millennial.

The end of 2007 was a bummer. America was approaching a contentious election socially and I was finishing up high school at the adolescent age of 17, contemplating college because the alternatives were jail and… Well, that’s all that was offered. I chose school to study journalism because I loved reading, being engaged, and staying “connected.” I saw journalism as the ultimate search to get to the bottom of America’s story; to deliver an objectively correct and honest truth.

By the time I got to college the following year, the playing field changed to a degree that honesty and journalism were in competition. Unfortunately, I came into the age of journalism that became a game changer due to internet platforms. Alongside the rise of clickbait and hot-takes has come the slow moving dilution of journalism. The lines between journalistic articles and editorials seem to have been blurred and repackaged through algorithms competing to get the most eyes on their content.

Full confession: this text is under the umbrella of an article. But this is an #editorial.

A new stupid wave of journalism.

Sometime in the 2010’s the media industry took a hard capitalistic turn toward consolidating and controlling the information markets in mutual exposure of information for profit gains, while moving beyond broadcast and print. 

In my day, I ran into the journalist-kind a time or two, and there are levels by which we can clock each other’s degrees by just making eye contact. The editors are from a different breed of fashionable drunks, and annoying. Reporters are hungry and sweating.

Editorial is easy. And it’s almost always stupid.

Opinions are too easy to produce via the media, and I sometimes wonder why I watch the BBC more than American television. (It still feels like an editorial, but the lack of Americana allows us to take a more honest view of ourselves from across the pond.)  It’s important for American media in print and broadcast to establish, at the beginning, if they’re on air “fit to print” or “fit to profit” before the public consumes it. It feels like most who take on the title these days forgot what journalists do.

Editorials are alright, but don’t tell me you’re hitting the bricks or the pavement to get stories. Reporters are sitting in their cubicles until they get an opportunity through decades of work to get behind a bigger desk or perhaps an office, where you get to close the door. It’s the cats you walk by on the sidewalk, tracking down the scent of a story, who you make eye contact with and just nod. They’re the journalists.

This is an editorial.

What is the cost?

During the late 1900s and early 2000s, the consolidation of newspapers and broadcasters became the focus of ever-growing parent corporations. Local papers (mostly in rural America)—be it dailies, weeklies, bi-weeklies, or monthlies—were sold, and stopped delivering any true journalism to the communities they had previously served.

These corporations sucked up an industry for what? The power of controlling information and disinformation.

Anyone can now put out a piece of literature, even if it goes into the self-published garbage can where it often belongs. 

Everyone deserves space in the contemporary rhetoric of life, but consumers must be able to decipher the difference between editorial, hard and soft news, and the weather while keeping in mind the media conglomerates above still monitoring the flow of information don’t give a shit about you and never did. Reporting those true stories that make the public uncomfortable and risk a corporate tax rate… Is not something they care to do and never did. But you should. The truth doesn’t wait for a pension or a paycheck to pass off as a profitable patron. Truth nods to each other on the sidewalk on its way to get a coffee, quietly.

In college, my priest told me: “I typically walk around and smoke cigarettes. I only go to two classes. I don’t care much about the classes, but I do care about education. And I’ve learned that I learn more by smoking cigarettes and talking to liberal art students, and econ students, and [that] there’s all kinds of students to talk to on campus. And I’ve learned that people are more willing to teach you when they don’t realize they’re doing it.”

What does information cost us now as individuals? An online subscription.

What has the loss of journalism cost us as a society? No one has the money to pay for that. Just enough for a coffee.

Who doesn’t enjoy a masquerade?

We all love to masquerade and boost our self-worth. The newspaper industry is no different, ever since conglomerates started sucking up every local paper in any town of whichever state that put a “for sale” sign up the fastest. 

Newspaper industries stopped flashing their credentials after the cost of card stock was offending the bottom-line and just like that, they realized their reporters preferred to sit at their desks and not hit the bricks anymore because it has been 25 years. Who doesn’t want a seat that reclines? Who doesn’t want a kickback at the end of the day? Social security, a pension, maybe an early/forced retirement settlement seems nice after decades of crumpled notebook papers and ink caked under their fingernails. Let me lick my pen…. God bless America. 

Play it safe. Write within the redefined corporate confines. It’s too soon to hang up the hat.

What’s the move? Masquerade as the journalist you once were while regurgitating the memos sent to you from the police department, the courthouse or any committee to fill up hours on that salary you deserved?

I say, “Move on. Hang up your hat. People out there are thirsty, and you may be dried up. Give us an honest chance to fix this profession and take it back from the click-bait.”

At the end of the day.

Journalism hasn’t entirely killed itself, nor been killed by capitalism. There was never any money in real journalism since Benjamin Franklin expanded his Philadelphia printing network into the first commercial franchise system in America. Journalism is a necessity with little financial gains, while propaganda makes profits. Yet, journalists never do it for money, so we aren’t dead. We are just broke. The well-off ones are no longer journalists. 

Old-school impartial journalism hasn’t been proactive enough in America and has egregiously bent to the will of profits for those that are practicing lower than this unique community’s standards. Editorials now masquerade under a legacy of impartiality, but we aren’t impartial. We bleed emotions.

I can’t predict a positive vision for the future of journalism as much as I can predict my burns are going to heal back to “normal”.

There’s a chance an older generation might hang up their hats, but it doesn’t feel likely. All our pockets are feeling short, and so is journalism’s. Supporting a media that is honest and true is the only way out of a journalistic desert, but I don’t know the answer. Perhaps I should do the laundry instead?

The gig is what it is now.

What America is experiencing today is not the sophisticated standards nor the task of traditional journalism. Somewhere in the small print there is a declaration protecting your favorite newscaster. It’s editorialized and I wish that was always the lead distinction for every form of journalism under this umbrella.

Journalism is not gone. It’s out there when you can identify your own agenda within yourself.  Sometimes it’s when you unintentionally give that gentle nod to a passerby on the street who’s hitting the bricks.

Hopefully, most Americans will again recognize the difference between News and persuasion, propaganda, or contemporary rhetoric. We can stop being so serious about overhyped nonsense while we’re hanging out at a bar, with friends, with family or the layman. Our sources tend to be not very serious. Turn off the TV, put down the phone, put down the paper.

Let’s just have a chat, maybe get burnt and quietly walk away blistered and a little salty. Relax. It’s all an editorial.

Until next time.

The post It’s Just An Editorial first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

Enjoy your July National Political Committee (NPC) newsletter! Our NPC is an elected 18-person body (including two YDSA members who share a vote) which functions as the board of directors of DSA. This month, catch up with the Green New Deal Campaign Commission, register for a Summer Organizing Workshop, and more. Read on to get involved. 

And to make sure you get our newsletters in your inbox, sign up here! Each one features action alerts, upcoming events, political education, and more.

• From Our Co-Chairs — Seize This Moment to Build Socialist Power
• Green New Deal Campaign Commission July Huddle on July 31
• Summer Organizing Workshops
• International Committee Chapter Liaison Update
• Queer Socialist Working Group Updates
• Call for Pitches for the Next Issue of Socialist Forum
• DSA at Socialism Conference 2024
• Join DSA to Protest the DNC in Chicago!

From Our Co-Chairs — Seize This Moment to Build Socialist Power

As socialists, we do politics year-round, but we have officially entered into Election Season, and it looks like it’s going to be a series of weeks where decades happen, right on through until November. 

• Joe Biden dropped out of the race as the foundations of his candidacy were shaken by demands to end the genocide. DSA helped lead these demands at many levels. Just one example — Alex Birnel, a member of San Antonio DSA, set off a chain of dominos that led to Reps in Congress finally calling on Biden to drop out!
• VP Kamala Harris is the presumptive nominee, but we’re not letting Dems off the hook for the ongoing atrocities, and we are working to demand better by protesting the DNC. It’s time for an immediate arms embargo against Israel — Sign on to demand VP Harris commit to Not Another Bomb! And come Crash the Party with us!
• Hundreds of members of Congress sat in the House Chamber yesterday, applauding a war criminal and genocidaire, and while many progressive Democrats simply boycotted the speech, DSA member and endorsed elected Rashida Tlaib sat bravely alone, holding up a sign that said “War Criminal” on one side and “Guilty of Genocide” on the other.
• Seven major labor unions—the UAW, AFA, SEIU, NEA, APWU, UE, and IUPAT—have announced they are calling on the Biden Administration to halt all military aid to Israel. Many of them have DSA members in leadership and rank-and-file who helped make this major political intervention possible.
• DSA members and allies from a broad number of Palestinian solidarity organizations and labor unions protested Netanyahu’s visit to DC with a variety of actions and tactics, some of which were invariably met with police violence—a stark reminder of how there’s no way to disentangle abolition and international solidarity.

… and that’s just the past few days. Really. (We counted twice.)

Things are going to keep moving fast, which means we need to double down on our commitment to building our organization, growing the socialist movement, and caring for each other as comrades.

Building our organization into a powerful political instrument, capable of taking on the violent military-industrial corporatocracy and organizing a real alternative to capitalism, is something that we believe must happen from the grassroots; this is how we build the mass that a mass movement needs. This means that a huge amount of DSA’s work is happening in chapters, where workers organize in their workplaces, neighbors take on fights in their communities that help grow the organization from the local level on up, developing organizers, growing our numbers, and building power by using power.

• In St. Petersburg, FL, this looks like Pinellas DSA and DSA-endorsed elected Council Member Richie Floyd standing up against a massive corporate handout for a new sports stadium; funds that could have and should have gone to expanding access to safe, affordable housing, which is desperately needed.
• In Louisville, KY, this looks like Louisville DSA punching hard against underdeveloped transit systems with their priority campaign Get On The Bus, which will expand public transit in the city and make it easier for the city’s working class to get around, while lowering overall carbon emissions.
• In Nashville, TN, this looks like Middle Tennessee DSA building a program called Q.U.I.L.T. (Queers Uniting in Liberating Tennessee), which just abolished one million dollars of medical debt held by Tennesseans.

There is so much amazing work happening in chapters big and small from coast to coast and imperialist border to imperialist border, not to mention the big and crucial fights we’re taking on at the national level. This movement needs all of us, and we all need this movement. If you’re not yet involved in DSA’s work, we hope you’ll do it today! And if you’re not yet a member, what are you waiting for? We have a world to win, and we’ll see you in the fight.

Green New Deal Campaign Commission July Huddle on July 31

Calling all ecosocialist organizers! Have you ever wondered how to develop attention-grabbing, persuasive messaging for your campaign? Or maybe you’ve wanted to write an op-ed or pitch the media but don’t know where to start? This monthly GNDCC huddle is for you! On July 31, we’ll be chatting interactively about how to run an effective comms shop for your campaign. Join us—even if you’re not on an ecosocialist campaign—and bring a friend!

Summer Organizing Workshops

Summer is a great chance to get out into your community and enjoy the weather, so it’s also a great opportunity for your chapter to meet people & bring them into DSA. Take your chapter outreach, planning, & member development work to the next level this summer by working with our Field Organizers at the DSA Summer Organizing Workshops Series!

At these trainings and workshops, organizers will go through the fundamentals of organization and planning. You’ll also get a chance to discuss your perspectives and organizing challenges with fellow chapter members from around the country. Bring your whole chapter for fun in the (virtual) sun!

International Committee Chapter Liaison Update

The International Committee’s chapter liaison program is growing! Since its launch in January, the International Committee has onboarded chapter liaisons for almost 20 different chapters and has more coming down the pike. Chapter liaisons will work to connect your local chapter’s international work with the International Committee’s subcommittees and campaigns. Interested candidates can read more about the program and its expectations here.

Sign up to be a chapter liaison here.

Queer Socialists Working Group Updates

The Democratic Socialists of America’s Queer Socialist Working Group (QSWG) is working on a campaign to stop the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). This bill would give individual attorneys general the power to decide what is and what is not safe for children to access on the Internet. While this might seem like a good idea, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has stated her intent to use this to protect against “the transgender.” She also would consider topics such as racism, the civil rights movement, and slavery to be dangerous for children. QWSG will be launching a campaign soon as a member of the stopkosa.com coalition, pending NPC approval. While we wait for approval, let your Senator know what you think.

If you want to be a part of the working group, join here.

Call for Pitches for the Next Issue of Socialist Forum

Socialist Forum’s next issue will focus on elections in 2024, not just in the United States but abroad. We are looking for articles covering the recent Mexican and Indian elections, elections in France, the UK, South Africa, and more. Articles may use any methods of analysis – data-driven, historical, on-the-ground perspective, etc – but should feature analysis from the standpoint of a left observer (as opposed to a purely neutral perspective). It is not necessary, but it may be helpful to include analysis of how this election affects the left struggle in the United States. For articles focusing on the United States, it is useful to draw comparisons to elections abroad.

We also welcome pitches on any other topic of potential interest and use to DSA members. Please submit pitches to socialistforum@dsausa.org by August 5th.

DSA at Socialism Conference 2024 

DSA is a sponsor of Socialism Conference 2024, coming up in Chicago this Labor Day Weekend! We will have exclusive time set aside for DSA on the morning and afternoon of Friday, August 30th. Register today, and be sure to click the DSA member button on the registration page so we can send you more information! Student rates are available. Register here!

Join DSA to Protest the DNC in Chicago!

The National Political Committee (NPC) has voted to join the anti-war protests at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), which will be held in Chicago from August 19th-22nd. We must make clear that working-class people do not support the United States’s active complicity in the ongoing genocide in Palestine. DSA will be organizing and mobilizing thousands of people in Chicago and across the country to make this message loud and clear. If you’re interested in attending the DNC protest in Chicago, want to help with the planning, or host a solidarity action in your local chapter, please fill out this form!

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