IN THE LAST ISSUE of the Socialist, I wrote a tidy roundup of the Metro DC DSA chapter’s local convention that took place last December. That review will satisfy most who want to know the basics of what went down at the convention. But prudent readers will pick up on some deeper questions left unsettled by that accounting.
Why was there such wide participation in this year’s convention? How did the final resolution around the anti-Zionist resolution develop and resolve so neatly? Why were the vote tallies on BA3: For Mass Orientation and BA4: Single-Transferable Vote for Steering Elections so cleanly divided? And do these convention results reveal anything about the current political trajectory of the chapter?
The easy answer to the mass participation question is that the DSA — and especially the Metro DC chapter — has seen a surge of re-engagement following the American general election. Disillusionment with the Democratic Party has created a groundswell of attention for the DSA through 2024, with the election results leading to the Democratic Socialists’ largest post-Bernie membership bump. This factor no doubt drove attendance at convention. However, the production of the “Unified” anti-Zionist resolution, along with the results of bylaw amendments BA3 and BA4, suggest a deeper level of ideological maneuvering at play among members eager to funnel this new energy towards restructuring the chapter. Interrogating the convention outcome is useful for those interested in understanding the current (and future) ideological structure of the chapter.
Reviewing factional dynamics like this may seem pedantic, but they are important for charting the history of this political organization and reveal the DSA’s capacity for developing synthesis among diverging viewpoints and positions. My goal here is to try and answer these questions from my vantage, and provide some historical context into our archives for future distillation.1
2024 began with a leftover resentment stemming from governance of a broad caucus — which formalized into an affiliate of Groundwork, a national DSA caucus, late last year — that had been in charge of the chapter’s elected leadership and general political direction for some time.2 Although the bloc has been described by detractors as “right-wing,” in truth its unifying focus is on electoralism and fine-tuned external policy campaigns with mass engagement potential. Caucus members often claim to be Marxist (it is a running joke that all caucuses in DSA claim this) and it’s not a claim I find insincere, but an honest investigation will show they are a mostly pan ideological-group with a focus on pragmatism over any acute form of doctrinaire socialism.
The group’s prioritization of practical organizing over dogmatism was laudable in producing effective pipelines of engagement for chapter members and the working-class base in the region. But this mode also produced a preoccupation with electoralism that often manifested in the hushing of working groups whose campaigns opened risks to the chapter’s electoral ambitions. This programmatic preoccupation dovetailed with a style of mass organizing in the chapter that leveraged bureaucracy and policy to maintain control and carry out its political program. Although efficient, this style made navigating the internal life of the chapter dry and overly procedural, particularly for members who were newer or less tethered to the computer. Many members — or at least, myself — saw in this bureaucracy a deep discomfort in navigating the messiness of mass politics socialists aim to provoke. That, coupled with the bloc’s aggressive whipping of a thin majority of voting members to secure democratic decision-points in the chapter as became apparent in the 2023 delegate elections, sowed a distrust in the central democratic structure of the chapter and summoned tensions. These tensions often simmered into internal fights over structure and control of chapter resources, eroding trust (and consequently, participation) in the central democratic structures of the chapter.3
Desperate to address deterioration of mass participation, a counter-hegemonic bloc developed formally in late 2023, summoned by the Community and Solidarity Caucus (CSC). This caucus, although organized by a collection of ideological anarchists, believed that a strong and trusted chapter core was valuable not only to socialist reformists but also to those seeking to stoke more revolutionary currents. The caucus stressed rehabilitation of the chapter’s internal culture through transparency, accessibility, internal community building and reduced top-down control of chapter operations. This ambition quickly found a deep base among working groups that felt ignored by the chapter’s electoral-heavy focus, members of the branches who felt ignored by the DC-heavy emphasis and by those who had been burned out in interfacing with the aggressive bureaucracy constructed by the chapter. CSC benefited from its network of internal organizers — based in the Administrative Committee, branch leadership and Publications working group — to develop its reputation quickly. The logistical orientation of these organizers allowed the CSC to deftly navigate through and around the bureaucracy to incubate desired reforms.4 Deployment of anarchist organizing principles, too, made the CSC comfortable onboarding rank-and-file members into its project.
Although the CSC was only able to grab one seat on the steering committee (disclosure: that was me), reforms raised by the caucus were adopted by the body over the following year: a commitment to hybrid meetings, better resolution tracking and record keeping, a more forgiving timeline for resolution statement participation and a revival of internally focused discussion and education. To credit, many of these reforms found sympathy and support among leaders of Groundwork’s bloc who had come to quietly acknowledge the drawbacks of the chapter's prior organization. There was a desire to address declining engagement in central chapter life and resolve past tensions.
Further, in the process of organizing a new direction for the chapter, the CSC also identified a new crop of members and primed them for the nuts-and-bolts of internal organizing. These new organizers — many of whom were younger and broadly skeptical of the DSA for its hyper-focus on electoralism and pragmatism over more ideological approaches to socialism — would fan out across the chapter’s core working-groups and committees to embark on the broad set of reforms charted by the CSC long after its formal expiration. Although CSC ended amicably as a formal caucus in Spring of 2024, the reforms and redirected new energies set in motion satisfied the caucuses intentions. Rather than dissipating, CSC members melded back into chapter workgroups (old and new) to take advantage of revived spirits.
There were also new structures (all of which CSC members engaged with in some way) that developed fresh connections across the chapter. The development of a new Street Team, which advocates for chapter positions and working groups in public space, compelled working groups to clarify their external position. A renewed Member Engagement Department, operating under the Administrative Committee, had also taken great care to weave tethers and familiarity across the chapter, hosted events to build camaraderie among members, and renewal of the onboarding program to educate members on participation in internal chapter life. And all chapter formations — leery of avoiding the internal tensions which marked the prior few years — took greater care to engage and educate on the history of the chapter and its operations, which included open disclosure of active political tensions and recurrent debates.
These reformist currents, which leveraged the new structural investments pursued by the chapter, enabled a new, enthused type of local socialist — radicalized by the national election — to dive head-first into renewed organization of the general body.
Following Israel’s escalation of the Palestinian genocide in late 2023, solidarity actions erupted across the country and among politically conscious lefties. Although members of Metro DC DSA would organize in alliance with Palestinian solidarity coalitions in the region, there were still some awkward political tensions lingering around DSA’s electoral organizing. Some Palestinian organizations who were leading solidarity efforts across the country had declared a boycott of DSA some years back, as a result of decisions made by elected politicians associated with the organization at the national level.
There was a latent desire to smooth over these tensions, and passing some kind of anti-Zionist resolution at the chapter level became imperative for restoring confidence in the organization among partners. Passing a resolution also became a matter of conscience for members new and old who wanted to rededicate themselves to the DSA with confidence in the socialist vision being charted. And so early in 2024 a collection of members — I’ll call them the Internationalists — began organizing a resolution to address these old outstanding tensions. Although based out of the Internationalism working group, the cliques’ core organizers spanned the chapter’s geography and working groups.
The Internationalists surmised that a proper resolution would need to contain three things: (1) clearly identify a break with DSA founder Michael Harrington’s Zionist leanings; (2) create a new set of expectations on our elected program (by clearly identifying the process for resolving disputes with candidates, including disendorsement); and (3) create an expectation among the DSA membership to avoid association with liberal Zionist groups and the Israeli government. There was, however, a reluctance to adopt these points among the Groundwork caucus and their constituencies in the chapter.5 In fact, resolutions to impose tougher, tighter electoral restrictions on endorsed candidates had failed at both the local and national level in the past. Would this time be different?
An article circulated prior to Convention, which was reformatted for publication in the last issue of Washington Socialist, summarized Groundwork’s opposition. In summary: That we should be focusing on mass work rather than kowtowing to outside groups, that we shouldn’t be passing chapter policy that curtails the democratic will of the membership, and that unifying a vision of socialism would require political education instead of just purging problematic members. This opposition was less positional and more practical — acknowledging that real electoral accountability would be truly conducted through the chapter’s electoral program, not as pablum on a convention floor. In the run-up to convention, the Groundwork side drafted a counter-proposal to the Internationalists. This introduced tension with the Internationalists, who were already moving their own proposal forward.
These arguments against the anti-Zionist Resolution made sense in the past, but had grown stale by time of convention. The desire to resolve tensions with external groups was not an outgrowth of indignant prefiguration, as alleged by the Groundwork side, but came from struggles organizers faced in planning and conducting mass work. Clarifying endorsement protocol would build our democratic processes and evolve our electoral program, not subvert them. That the majority of members organizing for this resolution were new members — outraged by Democratic support for Israel’s flagrant genocide and open to seeing democratic socialism as an ideological panacea — suggested that adopting this resolution would grow and solidify the DSA’s renewed rush of members, rather than scare people away.
Sensing the frailty of these old arguments, the Internationalists felt confident pushing forward with their own resolution. This cadre connected to the old CSC bloc, which maintained lateral affiliations across a wide bloc of members experienced in navigating the internal life of the chapter. Chapter reforms to governance and transparency provided members with greater awareness of the chapter functions and operations, which translated into confidence in developing and pursuing a winning resolution. The new social formations in the chapter familiarized organizers with the wider membership, creating new vectors for solicitation and outreach to rank-and-file and unorganized members. All of this enabled the Internationalists to pursue an aggressive and persuasive campaign in support of their resolution in the run-up to the convention.
Most impressive is that the Internationalists’ core leads were mostly newer members organizing themselves and their new political home for change. But the support of several older blocs in the chapter enabled these newer currents to glue together a majority and shouldn't be understated. The Abolition working group, which had been organizing support for protests and actions in DC and had felt burned by endorsed candidates’ approach to their own policy goals, saw in the Internationalists' proposal a way to strengthen the chapter’s broader political program. The Northern Virginia branch, which had also been currying good favor with Palestine solidarity efforts in the region, also became a well of support for the proposal and conducted a vote of its active members on endorsement, which passed. The chapter’s Publications working group, whose writers and editors had quietly been cataloguing the contradictions in our chapter’s timid approach to electoral accountability, imparted a stronger desire for clarity of our political approach. Notable in this alliance is that it seemed to form organically from long-time working groups experiences in their own organizing projects. By convention, the Internationalists’ proposal felt like a natural evolution of the chapter, rather than as a reactionary current.
The Internationalists had built an impressive campaign over the year. Aggressive listwork allowed the bloc to power map most of the chapter — which produced a confident whip-list. The Internationalists launched a series of internal political education events to soothe concerns raised about the proposal in the past. Rather than demanding doctrinaire adherence to their proposal — an error that had sunk similar resolutions in the past — the Internationalists seeded interest in their ideas early and encouraged wider discussion, creating comfort and promoting inquiry from the general membership.
By time of convention, the Groundwork bloc would sideline their original proposal and instead introduce an amendment to the Internationalists’ proposal. It would water down some things — removing some de-endorsement clarifications and deemphasizing what they saw as adherence to external groups who had called for boycotts of DSA chapters during the 2022 squabbles. But it was clear the “common sense” of the chapter changed drastically in the last year. People who used to be opposed to the Internationalist's more daring proposals (myself included) were won over with proactive outreach. As I was watching this unfold, it had appeared to me that even Groundwork members were inspired by the resolve and organizing depth of their opposition, which inspired productive cross-caucus negotiations on the matter.
Still, the Internationalists and Groundwork both came to convention ready to square off. However, just as the resolution was being raised, negotiators from the Internationalists and Groundwork had announced a brokered unity resolution. The resolution was raised. One member proposed a floor amendment to remove J Street from the resolution’s list of Zionist organizations, but this was voted down 35–228. The final vote on the Unity Resolution occurred: 267–5 with 6 abstentions. When the results were announced, the chapter body broke into cheers and applause — something I had never seen before at a local convention — which signaled broad approval of the synthesis.
The anti-Zionist resolution was the primary fight — other successful resolutions passed with over 95% of the convention vote. However, two proposals — each raised by these two dueling convention blocs — both failed on the floor. They represent clear proxy fights between the two groups. Tellingly, both proposals failed along close margins, demonstrating an extant structural rift within the chapter.
BA4 (For Conducting Elections Through STV) became widely supported by the Internationalists. Fights over ranked choice voting are consistent in most DSA chapters — at this point a meme among long-time DSA members. Local distrust of approval voting was seeded from the historic dominance of the proto-Groundwork bloc, which wielded its thin majority to bloc out all but the most steeled competitors. Bad blood spilled during the 2023 delegate election also created a wider opposition and aversion to majoritarianism. The proposal won a majority (133–119) but failed to reach the 2/3rds threshold necessary for passage.
BA3 (For the Mass Orientation of Working Groups) would have established stricter reporting requirements for working groups and, more controversially, restrict working groups from discussing things in meetings that could change the chapter's political position. Although some were enthused by the amendments' call for stronger WG reporting, there was clear intent with this resolution to stop the style of internal organizing engaged by the Internationalists in pursuit of their anti-Zionist resolution. BA3’s proposers argued that the internationalists’ strategy of soliciting support for their convention proposal, while procedurally not forbidden, amounted to a type of internal politicking that risked polarizing new or lay members from the chapter. The changes proposed in BA3 sought to clarify this sort of “internal” organizing as forbidden.
The positive vision outlined by BA3 is hard for me to summarize. From what I was sold, proponents believed working groups should be carrying out a predefined set of tactics with the larger ambitions or objectives decided by the chapter structure. For anyone organizing in DSA with clear objectives (like electoral campaigns), this proposal seemed natural: the working group’s job is to get members and fellow-travellers to do what’s needed to “win” a campaign, so structuring mass work is much easier. But for working groups with less clear paths to success — abolition and the chapter’s public power campaign come to mind — discussing the DSA’s larger structure and operations are not errant considerations. In fact, understanding the composition of the wider political vehicle that a project is attached to is vital in accounting for the range of strategic assets available and liabilities concomitant with work pursued. (This is what the Internationalists experienced with their work trying to restart the chapter's Palestine solidarity efforts, and its why they focused on updating the chapter's internal position as part of their larger political project.)
The debate that played out before and during the convention was particularly tense. Some saw the proposal as a personal affront to the way they had built up to majority support for the victorious anti-Zionist resolution. The aggrieved argued that their style of organizing conducted was both appropriate and worthwhile in its own right, given that it developed many newer members into political leaders within the chapter and compelled working groups to pay closer attention to how they were integrating members into the wider democratic socialist project. There were also fears that implementation of BA3 would require the steering committee to adopt a more litigious posture towards the chapter’s working groups — policing internal discourse and scrutinizing working group activity.
A proposed amendment to this change was not considered seriously, with those arguing for it bluntly calling it a protest amendment designed to call attention to the lack of care taken in developing this proposal. Proposers of BA3 saw it as a poison-pill, given that it struck most original language in the proposal (in addition to priority-campaign funding as outlined in the bylaws). In the end, a thin majority voted for the unamended BA3 (120–118) — not enough to adopt change.
The results of these two proposals was the clearest demonstration of the structural split that exists in the chapter. The majority of voters in support of one proposal opposed the other. Neither bloc had the numbers — even with abstentions — to change the structure of the chapter without appeal or buy-in from the other. Going forward, reformists on both sides should be aware of this reality.
The post-convention energy from members in the chapter were more jubilant than I have seen before. Most members felt enthused by the mass participation, the debate and organizing capacity. At a bar following convention, I had watched members who were yapping at each other for months slurp down liquor together. I wonder if the capacity for goodwill across the chapter would have been possible without the deep investments made in internal life and community building embarked by internal facing formations — the Administrative Committee, Publications, Political Education, Street Team and Member Engagement teams.
The new year began with a more focused chapter — all members emboldened in the fight against the orange emperor’s mafia state. But internal political questions remain — will the Internationalist bloc stay organized into a formal caucus, or will they putter out into just another oppositional political bloc? Will Groundwork’s bloc return to a style of aggressive proceduralism that boxes out alternative visions?
Two chapter events will likely contain the answer to these deeper questions. First is the outcome of the 2025 delegate elections, which will determine the way different ideological fronts in the chapter will negotiate and maneuver with each other to steer the national DSA. The second, and perhaps more consequential, will be found in the development of a chapter program this year, as outlined by CR5. Developing points of unity, demarcating a program, and solidifying local socialists’ political posture are difficult but important; unanimous passage of CR5 reflects a desire from all chapter-members to see a tighter ideological line reflected in chapter work and organization. But there are two big risks in this — in creating too weak a chapter program that the body does not feel obliged to follow, or in spending too much time developing a program that “external” work falls by the wayside. Identifying this balance is hard, and will force the ideological, factional and structural differences to the forefront of this collective project.
Can the region’s democratic socialists synthesize these divergent political forces, philosophies, and strategies into a coherent long-term political program? Time will tell. The sophisticated maneuvering that played out at last year’s convention, from all sides of our membership, left me with high hopes.
1 For those interested in my qualifications — I have been part of our Chapter’s Publications team, writing and editing the weekly story of the chapter with my team for years. I have certified several internal elections, been a chapter convention delegate, and been a part of several wider infrastructural projects of the chapter.
2 The Groundwork Caucus locally has its roots in the ex-Collective Power Network caucus, whose ex-members (including myself) held significant sway in the contemporary design and structure of Metro DC DSA. Despite this ideological genealogy, contemporary leaders in Groundwork — as both a formal caucus and among their greener constituency in the chapter — had little formal engagement with CPN. In my opinion, the CPN association is better seen as an inherited, rather than continuous, project.
3 I was a supporter of this model and certainly participated in its development. My analysis here is less sour on the chapter’s bureaucratic model than most. But I want to acknowledge that overtime, its perpetuation became less suited to the aims and whims of the membership following the post-Covid years.
4 CSC also benefited from a sea-change in national leadership, which subsided the electoralist bent on the NPC. Caucuses operating at the national level that did not have enough members to spur formal caucuses in Metro DC DSA at the local level. However several caucuses (the Marxist Unity Group, Red Star, Communist Caucus and Libertarian Socialist Caucus) directed local cadre and interested prospective members in the DC area to join the reform path being charted by CSC.
5 To be clear, the opposition to this sort of resolution was not just stemming from Groundwork — but for prose sake, I am referring to this broad bloc as the Groundwork bloc here.
