Framing Our Electoral Strategy

The DSA National Political Committee voted to include 8 political addenda drawn from Refoundation Caucus’ national electoral strategy proposal into the National Electoral Committee’s electoral strategy. We believe that a number of changes and suggestions outlined in Refoundation Caucus’ proposal (written/edited in part by local caucus member Ed G.) can be implemented locally to positive effect as well:

1. In Boston DSA, our electoral work last year regarding endorsements was divided into two levels of support: volunteer endorsements and paper endorsements. We should reserve the highest support (volunteer endorsements) for candidates who are members of DSA, other socialist organizations or self-identified socialist candidates and are running as explicit socialists. Running as an explicit socialist means more than just calling yourself a socialist when you seek Boston DSA’s endorsement: candidates ought to profess an intentional approach to campaign and issue stances that demonstrates their socialist commitments, and they ought to be willing to explain to the voters what their vision of socialism is and how it corresponds to the needs of their constituents and the office they are running for.
2. Building infrastructure for a future when DSA runs political candidate means generating candidates from within the local that are accountable to our membership.
3. As a tactic for base-building, political education, and winning reforms, ballot questions (also known as measures) allow for direct engagement on an issue consistent with Boston DSA’s goals and principles. This makes ballot questions a key part of our vision for successful and strategic electoral work; we can better organize around individual measures rather than a single individual who will hold public office in a sea of capitalists. This year, there are a number of measures on the ballot in Massachusetts that align with the interests of our coalition partners. Our chapter’s Electoral Working Group has worked hard in 2017 on those initiatives’ campaign, and we as a caucus would encourage and support devoting resources to past and future candidate campaigns in electoral work for these ballot questions as a way to center our socialist politics.

Any group, and especially a socialist one, engaging in electoral politics has to be able to answer two questions before they set out involving themselves in any electoral campaign: first, what their capacity for conducting a campaign is; and second, what they hope to achieve if they meet their electoral aims in a given campaign. For Boston DSA, the answer for the first question is that at the present moment it possesses the proven capacity to run (and win!) local city-level campaigns, but we lack the resources to run state or national races. Fortunately, operating within this limited scope aligns with the answer to the second question: that Boston DSA as a chapter should be aiming to build our socialist base within Boston and raise political awareness through its electoral campaigning.

Local races deal with local issues, and are most likely to demonstrably affect the lives of those who participate in them. By demonstrating to the constituencies of the communities we campaign in that socialist politicians and policies have a tangible positive effect on their lives, Boston DSA should have no trouble securing a growing membership outside of the current mood of political reaction the American left is currently benefiting from. As a newly reinvigorated organization now coming into its own, Boston DSA’s electoral strategy has been a bit unfocused up until now. While our previous electoral work should be lauded for proving our mettle and helping to sharpen our skills at campaigning, Boston DSA could win a hundred such elections and be no closer to achieving real political power here in Boston. At the end of the day it is the political candidates themselves or the entities that propose measures on ballot issues that reap the political power that comes with electoral success, and Boston DSA must in part seek to create the candidates and ballot initiatives within our own organization.

Up until now Boston DSA’s electoral efforts have focused on finding candidates or ballot measures that align, at least in part, with our socialist vision and throwing our volunteer labor and organizing skills behind them. This is perhaps the best that could have hoped for in the short amount of time we had to coalesce between the recent influx of membership and the 2017 election season. Our task now, however, is to take stock and look within our ranks to develop the political and policy know-how to generate political candidates with a solid socialist platform and sponsor progressive ballot measures from within Boston DSA itself. Before we can be the authors of our own political destiny, we need to achieve three goals:

1. Create a politically informed membership by establishing a strong program of political education.
2. Develop an internal electoral platform ratified by the general membership through a vote.
3. Enact means of keeping elected officials accountable to the membership of the chapter.

In order to pursue our electoral objectives, it is imperative to understand the political landscape in which we operate. While Boston DSA as an organization should obviously seek out policies and candidates that present themselves as socialist, in our current climate politics has become marketing by another name, and there is no shortage of mediocre political talents who merely gesture at socialism as a branding exercise. By developing a commitment to political education, we create an informed membership that can sniff out fairweather socialists and propose stronger, farther reaching policies than those that just happen to be on offer at the moment. This is not to suggest that it is in Boston DSA’s best interest that all of our members spend the whole of their time in political education trainings, or that the voices of those just being introduced to socialist theory get drowned out by those who have “read more”. The point in developing a strong culture of political education is to raise the group knowledge of the political landscape we must operate in, and make every member feel able to find a knowledgeable comrade to turn to for advice no matter the issue. For electoral work, this means developing a critical understanding of our history, as socialists engaged in electoral politics in the US, and making time to discuss strategy together as part of our day-to-day activity.

A politically literate membership will also aid immeasurably in developing an electoral platform for the local chapter. Elections take a lot of organizing work and volunteers, hours spent planning and coordinating, long nights phone banking, and days knocking on doors to get out the vote. This work, while fulfilling, is exhausting and comes with no guarantee of success, and every day a canvasser must face the reality that their candidate or ballot measures might ultimately lose. These volunteers need to be motivated by working towards something they both believe and have a stake in, and the best way to foster this involvement is to have them working towards a political goal they chose themselves. An electoral platform developed within Boston DSA would allow the general membership to choose electoral aims that they are passionate about, creating consensus among the membership and likely attracting more election volunteers from among the rank and file come campaign season. Further, having an electoral platform in writing is an excellent way to publicize our activities, drawing in potential members interested in working towards similar electoral goals. Buy in from within the membership being the stated object, having the membership vote to formally approve the platform during a general meeting is of particular importance. By presenting the platform for approval we dispel any doubts of transparency and can address any issues the membership have with the proposed platform.

Having a firm electoral platform in place is critical to the final goal of our electoral program, ensuring those we elect are accountable to the membership of Boston DSA. By having a platform in place, those we elect to office know exactly what is expected of them while in office. The one remaining problem to solve is how to hold elected candidates to task should they stray from the platform. The simplest answer is to make electoral volunteer support contingent on being a Boston DSA member in good standing and approved by a vote from the general membership, if only to weed out candidates who attempt to join on a month or two before they announce their candidacy. By tying endorsements to membership, Boston DSA gains important leverage and access over candidates we support. Elected officials who ran on the Boston DSA platform and begin to stray can be brought to account at general meetings with votes of no confidence, revoking future volunteer commitments and the threat of expulsion from the local itself. Having our candidates among the membership also has the added benefit of giving us access to elected officials, as to remain in good standing they must attend at least some of the general meetings where they can be addressed and given further instruction regarding the will of the local.

These forms of leverage count for very little if our candidates view us as merely a supplementary form of volunteers and electoral organizing, and as such we should insist that candidates we campaign for accept no aid from larger national political bodies. While it’s fine if Boston DSA acts as a large partner amongst a coalition of local political organizations within a candidates elections team, we will cede the lion’s share of the political power by acting as auxiliaries for established national organizations like Democratic National Committee or the Green Party. Boston DSA is now a proven force in local politics and must negotiate its electoral commitments aggressively to carve out a base of political power in Boston. A full assessment of Boston DSA’s present political resources may show we are not yet prepared to make this aggressive break, but it should be our foremost goal moving forward.

By implementing this programmatic approach to electoral work, Boston DSA stands to gain immeasurably. These reforms will not come easy, but we’ve achieved great things so far, and this is well within our collective capacity. If we achieve this program, Boston DSA will be transformed from a political unit that nips at the heels of larger more established electoral organization to a political power in its own right. Securing a political powerbase independent of other political organizations is the first step towards a larger political role. Local success could possibly open the doors for county or state races in the near future, or open the door for collaboration with other DSA chapters in the state. But before we arrive there, we must establish ourselves at home, and this program is an outline to do exactly that.

Read the rest of Boston Refoundation’s 2018 platform here.