Local chapter member Sam G has some suggestions on the Metro DC Democratic Socialists' strategy. How can the DC chapter expand its political base? Some proposals...
WHEN I MOVED TO DC in late 2022, I immediately noticed red posters plastered all over my new neighborhood. I had long been aware of the DSA and, although I had never been involved with the organization, I took these as signs of an active chapter worth checking out. Since then, I’ve participated in and even helped facilitate a variety of MDC–DSA events, from walking tours to reading groups, solidarity pickets and protests, to our classic and frequent happy hours. There are a lot of great people in this chapter, and above all I think the friends and acquaintances I’ve made have motivated me to get more involved.
However, as time went on it became clear to me that there was a fundamental narrowness to our DSA chapter’s base. Almost everyone I have met in the chapter has a white-collar job in the government (encompassing both legislative staffers and agency employees), a nonprofit or thinktank, or union staff (as opposed to rank-and-file membership) with a smattering of graduate and undergrad students (many of whom are on track to work in one of those fields). Furthermore, most chapter members—myself included—initially hail from outside of the area, who specifically came to DC in search of such jobs.
Professionals may come from a variety of income and class backgrounds, but they are not the only residents of the DC area. There are thousands of people here working in the trades or public transit, the service sector, performing cleaning or janitorial labor, or in blue-collar government jobs: DC runs on plumbers, baristas, janitors, and Metro workers. But the times that I’ve met workers outside of the professional fields at a DSA event have been rare. Aside from occasional collaborations with other groups, I have often found myself the lone service worker at DSA events. This manifests into what I might call a “class cluelessness” within our chapter. One reading group I participated in last February was initially joined by a very friendly union member. But when the group asked him a series of technical and wonky questions regarding energy policy, he was unable to answer them and appeared uncomfortable. This union member was notably absent from the following meetings.
The problem of MDC–DSA’s class separation became most acute for me when I began a full-time job at Starbucks. Service work, particularly for larger corporations like my previous employer, can have physically and mentally draining moments. Large companies also increasingly have “flexible” work schedules—which in practice means that employees must bend their lives to the preferences of their employer. When I started at Starbucks, I wanted to facilitate a reading group within the chapter, but when my manager decided to have me close almost every night for two months straight—while I was also working a second job—I struggled to even stay involved with DSA. And my experiences pale in comparison to the veterans of the DMV proletariat: my conversations with bartenders working 50+ hours at multiple jobs, immigrant construction workers who stifle in the heat and struggle to find work in the winter, and Teamsters formerly forced to work 12-hour shifts six days a week all demonstrate how capital devours our time and energy for anything other than work.
However, it seems that few in the chapter are aware that our class separation is a problem—let alone that it exists in the first place. The end result is at best an unconscious disconnection and at worst, what I consider a latent elitist attitude that infects our organization. Our professional members express sympathy and support for non-professional workers in the area– but do they talk to them? Do they make an effort to get to know them as people, what their lives look like, and what they’re concerned about? And does our organization build lasting connections beyond brief organizing conversations?
This is not meant to attack those who work professional jobs and are members of DSA. I recognize that DC is a desirable city for those seeking professional work, especially in politics or labor. These professional jobs can offer upward mobility for people from working class and low-income backgrounds who are already on such a trajectory from attending university. Furthermore, white-collar jobs in government, union staffing, and progressive organizations don’t necessarily pay well, especially when compared to organizations on the political right. (In fact, I took a pay cut from one service sector job when I accepted an internship at a climate justice group for three months.) And as if low pay weren’t enough of an issue, the very stability of many professional jobs is far from guaranteed, due both to the fluctuations of grant funding and to the concerns many have of a second Trump presidency’s impact on local staffing at federal and nonprofit agencies. In short, white-collar and blue-collar workers share the fundamental instability that comes from being a worker– though there is a very significant difference in degree and manifestation.¹
In fact, I believe that our professional members are an invaluable asset for working-class residents seeking to take action. Our professional members have knowledge and connections that most other working people lack—whether understanding how aspects of our government work, serving as staff for unions representing various industries, or working for organizations that directly assist working class and lower-income people.² It is precisely because this chapter is a huge potential resource for the DMV’s working class that we cannot remain insular. Though many of our active members originate from working-class backgrounds and may consider themselves such, our neighbors in the city are wrestling with the horrors of capitalism every day. David Schwartzman’s article in the Washington Socialist does an excellent job of chronicling some of the problems that DC residents face—which we would do well to pay attention to. DC is also unique in that it is a majority-minority city: up until 2017, DC was majority Black, and many of our core wards have a significant Hispanic population. Yet in addition to its class insularity, my recollection of most DSA events I’ve been to are largely white– a change observed by an original DSOC/DSA member upon returning to the chapter. Although I’m initially from a mostly white rural area, I recognize the working class when I see it. DC’s working classes and working poor are primarily Black and Brown, and we would do well to rebuild meaningful, lasting connections with them.
If our chapter doesn’t actively try to engage and build meaningful connections with DC’s working classes, what makes DSA different from other progressive nonprofits in the area? Are we effectively a social club for predominantly white millennial and Gen Z childless professionals to express radical views together– and then do little to spread those ideas, or connect with people most impacted by the horrors of capitalism? Will we continuously show up to protests that other groups organize, and sink resources into electing candidates from outside of our ranks—many of whom break from us on key issues and will distance themselves from us at the first convenient moment?³
I believe many of our chapter’s efforts are moving in a more positive direction– which is why I think it is time to openly ask these questions. I’ve outlined a few steps below that I believe can alleviate this problem and allow our DSA chapter to build its base.
1. Conduct regular surveys of our membership and event attendees to know where they’re coming from.
If we want to expand our chapter, we should know who our members are—and who they aren’t. A regularly updated survey is a no-nonsense way of tracking our engagement, and understanding how we can improve and grow. While DSA itself has a brief intake survey for new members, I think it would be valuable for our chapter to develop a separate one. Since DC draws in a significant amount of childless young transplants such as myself, our chapter would do well to account for our members’ status as parents and their residency in the DMV area. Employment is also a key question to ask about, as well as whether one receives government benefits such as SNAP, WIC, and DC Medicaid. Finally, questions about the relevance and quality of our chapter’s work would also be necessary—as well as a way of encouraging members to become more active and make the changes they would like to see.
2. Prioritize bilingualism. Offer information and resources in Spanish as well as English. Build up greater connections with DC’s immigrant working-class communities.
A great deal of our chapter’s members live in Ward 1, in neighborhoods such as Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant. This ward is home to the greatest concentration of DC’s Latine population, with an especially large Salvadoran cohort—the largest immigrant population in the city. Though Salvadoran immigration to the District dates back over fifty years, many of these families initially came due to the country’s US-funded civil war in the 1980s, meaning many of our neighbors are refugees of American imperialism. While El Salvador’s demagogic populist president, Nayib Bukele, is supported by many local residents, there are also some who have fled his regime’s law-and-order crackdowns on dissent. There are also many Ethiopian residents, and while Ethiopia is home to multiple different ethnolinguistic communities, Amharic is widely spoken in the District.
Furthermore, immigrants, especially those who are undocumented, often work in crucial industries where they face incredibly exploitative conditions. Yet they are far more vulnerable to workplace abuses from their employers due to differences in language ability, difficulties getting public support, and threats of deportation.
If our chapter is located in a given community, I believe we should develop and strengthen connections with people who have lived here before many of us arrived in the area. Offering and advertising events in both English and Spanish is a crucial first step that could significantly boost our turnout. It would also be tremendously useful for MDC–DSA to connect members to Spanish and Amharic classes, or even offer them ourselves—otherDSAchapters have held events to improve on their members’ language abilities. Finally, DSA could hold educational events about the history and culture of these communities. Such cultural and educational exchanges could be conducted formally or informally: we could collaborate with experts and local organizations, or we could give residents who are willing to share their own stories an opportunity to do so. If internationalism is a core value of our chapter, then we should understand how capitalism and the US has impacted our immigrant neighbors—by learning from and engaging with them.
3. Hold events and prioritize campaigns that directly cater to working peoples’ needs.
DSA consistently supports labor struggles in the DC area, and does a great job of boosting awareness of them. The first DC DSA event I attended was a celebration of the I-82 victory (which has become especially important to me as a tipped worker), and as the bill’s gains have come under attack, DSA has stayed vocal. Last June, I attended the Union Kitchen boycott and a Strike Ready rally in support of the Teamsters, which was an incredibly valuable evening to connect with workers in a sector that I rarely interact with. And this May’s Labor History Walking Tour was a phenomenal event which drew a tremendous crowd and offered pathways to labor organizing.
But many working-class people are undereducated—if not miseducated—about what unions are and what they do. Even when workers do want to unionize, they may lack the support to succeed in their efforts. It can be difficult to figure out who your allies are in the workplace, especially when your livelihood is on the line and you don’t have anything else to fall back on. When I worked at Starbucks last summer, most of my coworkers were in agreement about the problems with our store’s management but weren’t sure what to do next. Some had been with the company for a long time and didn’t trust anything they viewed as a threat to their job security—and a few didn’t even know what a union was!
Luckily, MDC–DSA is well poised to support workers who want to take action and are looking for a place to start. DSA could hold “vent sessions” or comedy nights for working people to collectively gather and quite simply discuss what they dislike about their respective jobs. These events could not only allow people to blow off some much-needed steam with one another, building trust and community, but can also allow workers with an interest in unionizing their workplaces to connect with our members. Our survey could also be helpful for learning which sectors of workers we can best engage with at crucial moments. If we experience an uptick in members who work in certain fields—the service sector for example—we can prioritize education and support for the issues that they face, providing resources and knowledge they can then share with their coworkers.
4. Build social connections with non-professional working class people, and encourage our members to actively engage with one another
In my opinion, the most important thing we can do as a chapter is to build a culture of interacting with the working people we meet.
Our happy hours are “happy” precisely because of the bartenders and servers that host us. I think these events would be even happier if we fostered a culture of engaging with these workers, as well as others with whom we come into contact. Whether for potential recruitment or simply getting to know the people in our community, DSA can only gain if our members make an effort to put the “social” back in socialism—by meaningfully socializing with workers outside of the demographics already overrepresented in the chapter. Quite simply, it will go a long way if more people outside of the organization know us and like us, especially working people who aren’t politicized. Our organization can become more responsive to our neighbors’ needs, and our independent power can truly flourish. At the end of the day, “socialism” doesn’t mean speaking for working people—it means fighting together to change our community.
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The concerns I outlined above have weighed on me for some time, and as a result I was unsure if it was worth joining a socialist group that seemed to have little working class presence. But in addition to longstanding campaigns such as Stomp Out Slumlords, our chapter has taken promising steps in this regard, such as the translation of our website into Spanish, the recent “Know Your Rights” trainings conducted by the Labor working group, and the creation of the Street Team, which regularly tables at local events to serve as a community face for DSA. The steps I have proposed may not be perfect solutions, but I know there’s a problem here. And I look forward to working with others in our chapter to address it.
Notes
¹ Sam Dee’s excellent article in this month’s issue is an exceptional case study of how the professionalized practices of the union bureaucracy can hurt the very workers they are meant to support– even other professionals, as in the case of graduate students.
² Some of the best events I’ve attended in this regard are Socialist Night Schools and Walking Tours. I learned a tremendous amount from the February 2023 SNS on sex work with HIPS, and from the June 2023 SNS on the Federal Reserve.
³ This is incredibly pertinent given that both of the Councilmembers who have been endorsed and electorally supported by our chapter voted for the Secure DC “Criminibus” bill that our chapter opposed.
⁴ The Labor Working Group has already developed a survey for chapter members who are also in unions. This is a step in the right direction and I believe is a foundation off of which a more rigorous survey can be built, one which accounts for non-unionized workers and takes one’s industry into account.
