For Jane
Some Notes On Mass Democratic Socialist Organizing in Political Crisis
by Sophia Nova
In the last two days, eulogies and memoriams have poured out for Jane McAlevey from all corners of the progressive and socialist left. Reading her first book a decade ago during another intense election season spent on the road my first summer in Chicago, I started to learn how to take the frantic energy from bus rides to Iowa and sleeping on dorm room couches and compress it into the energy and analysis and instinctual trust necessary to organize through a crisis and come out more powerful in the long run.
I remember tweeting about tearing up at the worker showdown in the last chapter and tagging Jane in a post about it, even though we had never met or even interacted online. A couple hours later I came back to a tweet responding to me and encouraging me to fight on, and I’ve never forgotten that. Jane’s writing style has inspired my own with its flawless weaving together of personal experience and hard-won analysis. Please share your own stories of organizing too, in whatever way is best. We need more of that - Jane would want it from us. We hope you’ll join us for a discussion circle on Wednesday evening for how to take action together in the face of this political crisis.
In any political crisis, one of the hardest things to do is to keep up with what’s happening with the world at large and identify how to intervene to push things the direction we want. Right now, we are witnessing the real-time collapse of institutional legitimacy and the tension between base loyalty and decision-maker loyalty within the Democratic Party. There’s been consolidation behind a former President that has been convicted of crimes and now been granted absolution by the highest courts of justice. Things are bad!
As we watch our chats explode, social media polarize, and the status quo gasp for air to hold on, the question remains the same as the one posed by a young RSDLP organizer named Lenin over 100 years ago - What Is To Be Done?
In order to answer that question, we need to determine a shared goal, as one DSA, that will flood our ranks with new members, develop new skills, and create leaders within our ranks to grow our power. Most importantly, we need to intervene in the broader world to create more favorable conditions for us to organize and build the mass working-class organization we need to survive the crises to come. This piece will use three examples - the emergency response to COVID-19 lockdowns; the strategic planning process that led to the PRO ACT campaign and its replication in No Money for Massacres; and current emergency campaigning to pressure Democratic targets to call on Joe Biden to drop out - in order to articulate how we can use the goals-strategy-tactics framework of organizing in the midst of political crisis to build lasting organization and power for our long-term vision of democratic socialism.
It’s March 2020, and the world is looking grim. Mass lockdowns, curfews, and other emergency measures to get people inside are moving fast, but not fast enough. GOTV operations for Senator Sanders are completely uncertain, and he just lost two of the most important states needed for a primary win. We all watched in real time as markets crashed, hospital beds filled, and politicians dithered about what to do. On the NPC, our groupchats were popping off faster than we could keep up with. What the hell were we going to do? Forget electing the first democratic socialist to be president, what was going to happen when our entire base got furloughed and weren’t able to pay dues anymore or, most importantly, survive what was feeling like a world-ending crisis?
But we knew that we had to step up and lead - to put aside our quarrels and factional differences and step in to articulate a vision of the world and how to get there to our members and the world at large. So we called a meeting. Multiple meetings, in fact. On a Friday, the Steering Committee of the National Political Committee (NPC) meets and decides that the most important thing right now is mass absorption into DSA in order to give people a sense of hope and forward motion. We need to make that happen by calling together chapter leaders to strategize as soon as possible, and host a mass call soon after that for anyone to attend and plug in to specific work that can put their chapters and the larger organization in motion.
Two days later, we’ve got most of the NPC, staff, and more than 50 elected chapter chairs and other leaders on a zoom meeting together to process, strategize, and divide up tasks. We float the plan about a mass call, ID some potential speakers from chapter work and prominent Bernie surrogates that we think can pump up the crowd. We also commit to setting up a COVID Slack space where this work can start to move, that will serve as a mass absorption mechanism for any member looking to accomplish work. We hear updates on the ground from people running groceries, brainstorming remote GOTV tactics, the very beginnings of the google form that will become the basic tool for the Emergency Worker Organizing Committee, and other pieces of work.
Four days after that, I’m opening a Zoom webinar, that will reach 1600 attendees at its peak, with an invitation to breathe, to stay grounded, to listen to what the speakers have to say, and most importantly to join in the struggle and collectively identify paths forward. Linda Sarsour, Phillip Agnew, and multiple chapter leaders rally the troops, we post the link to Slack and social media toolkits over and over again in the chat while frantically making sure our follow-ups are in place - we are in motion. We put a daily morning standup meeting for any NPC and staff members available on the books and rest a little easier knowing that our goals make sense and that leaders across the organization are rising to the challenge before us.
The question of how to move a mass democratic organization into action quickly and effectively, while continuing to respect and strengthen its democratic norms and forms, is one that will become increasingly central to democratic socialist politics as the climate crisis accelerates, institutional legitimacy breaks down, and unprecedented moves are made politically by the ruling class.
We need deliberate and effective democratic strategy formulation with buy-in, democratic mechanisms, and patient organizing in slow times - which can be replicated and mirrored quickly by existing leaders in times of crisis. We also have a responsibility as socialist militants to stay laser focused on ‘never letting a crisis go to waste’, as our opponents in the ruling class understand so well. Our strategies must always focus on how we will build the organization to be stronger no matter what happens with our tactical interventions in the midst of crisis, so that our base feels more unified in the long run.
It’s May Day 2021. We’re riding high on a 100 day run of sustained mobilization to establish our power in the new tripartite Democratic administration and take a material step forward on the democratic goals and 5 year strategy established by a team of militants committed to meeting weekly for 2 hours and working through a Midwest Academy chart process until we have an actionable strategy based on the goals set by 80+ chapters moving forward the 2019 convention resolution passed by nearly unanimous consent to execute a Green New Deal based on the ecosocialist Green New Deal principles which were signed on to by nearly every active chapter and every informal ideological caucus at the time.
This mobilization in question, the PRO Act Campaign, accomplished multiple strategic interventions while laying the groundwork for broad movement buy-in to the vector proposed by DSA ecosocialists. With this campaign, we were going on offense for sustained mobilization based on work that had been done already, giving us a foundation to make snap decisions. Based on this, our campaign leadership decided that the most strategic move was to make a decisive, single-bill based intervention into the first 100 days of the Biden Administration that would accomplish our larger goals of building mass organization and advancing a program of labor-centered ecosocialist demands that we believed were winnable.
What this looked like in practice was a rapidly scaling federal pressure campaign, focused on having DSA members phone-bank one another to leave a voicemail with their congressman, get their chapter in motion for a sustained mobilization through May Day, and grow their organizing skills no matter what happens.
The PRO Act didn’t pass, but the strategy that the PRO Act Campaign kicked off has remained central to DSA politics. Many of the people activated and developed through these strategic processes and tactical mobilizations have gone on to lead DSA in many local chapters and the national organization, reproducing the crucial functions that we need - both in slow times and crisis times. And sometimes, we’re able to see the literal infrastructure we built get utilized over again as we learn how to apply tactical skills to a crisis moment based on our previous experience.
2 and a half years after the PRO Act campaign, on 10/7/23, the most serious escalation in decades from Palestinian armed factions occurs. Thousands of Israelis are killed - including civilians, no matter what definition of combatant one holds - and the many factions of the Palestinian national movement and the global solidarity movement have sprung in to emergency response, knowing what will be coming next from the Israeli apartheid regime. After a set of emergency rallies and mobilizations that immediately polarize electeds and activate millions of confused and angry people, many leaders have a fundamental contradiction to work through: how do we get our members and the broader working class in sustained action to build our power for the long-haul around this?
The answer comes from a series of phone calls with people that built PRO Act infrastructure - we copy/paste the tactic, target congress members to move on the question of support for Israeli apartheid, and stay focused on external mobilization. We’re not ignoring the NPC’s authority to put the whole organization in motion, but we are acknowledging that deadlock is a problem and getting people in motion that want to move together, inside and outside of DSA. NYC-DSA members have infrastructure, two days later Cori Bush introduces a ceasefire resolution, and we suddenly have a target list for pressure.
We copy documents, structures and outreach tactics - the goal is to get dsa members calling dsa members, activating them into action around the crisis, get them on a centralized call to do political education on the basic history of israeli apartheid, and connect a low-intensity tactic like leaving a voicemail for a congress person to leadership development around getting in motion for BDS work in the long term. After days straight of phonebanks every evening with some of the best attendance I’ve ever seen, we get confirmation that USCPR wants to partner. JVP is also interested but they’re sending literal busloads of anti-Zionist Jews in to the Capitol Dome to be arrested. The numbers are climbing on non-DSA registrants, and we have decisions to make about whether we want to continue the high-security vetting we’ve been doing because there are thousands of phone numbers to call and nearly everyone’s leaving a voicemail and staying on to hear more about the toolkit and how to get their chapter in motion or participate in the democracy of the local. We’re organizing.
The goal of crisis organizing, whether offensive or defensive, is to put something in motion that can move collective goals forward and recognize every conversation as an opportunity to move something forward. In moments of crisis, it is very normal to freeze and not know how to move forward. But, if a plan can be articulated, there will always be opportunities. The point is always how to find a way to move and make sure to set something that moves your goals forward whether as a a faction, an organization, or a set of organizations. Everything is an opportunity especially in moments of crisis.
This period demands our focus, our unity, our drive, our power, and our willingness to take action and leadership in the face of fear, inertia, tension, and all the other things standing in the way of forward motion. Our job is to liquidate the old ideas and assumptions of what to do, melt it down into a ball of energy, and go.
It’s Wednesday July 3rd. Four months from now, we will know whether the party of Christian identitarian fascism has triumphed or whether the party with the ballot line of the institutions of the working class has won out. In the meantime, the coronated nominee, Joe Biden, is facing a legitimacy crisis with electeds in safe districts deciding to come out and say it’s time for him to go. Time to start a group chat and up the pressure.
Two days later, we’ve got some movement. There’s a website (built by DSA and non-DSA), more and more folks from Uncommitted are joining - we have things in motion that are helping build DSA but aren’t taking up DSA time and energy. We’ve subdivided into a comms team where we’re generating memes and brainstorming canva images highlighting the slogan and website being built frantically in another group chat. I unfocus my eyes from the rapidly moving chat and listen to my inner monologue.
4 or 5 people at a time join the group, you can almost see the real-time motion of information traveling from group chat to group chat. There’s some chatter but not as much as needs to happen to move everyone in to a plan of action as a collective body in the flow of rapid mobilization and absorption, rinse and repeat, the next 6 people join and it’s time to send the intro messages again here’s the basic plan and why it’s so important here’s where the different flows of currently moving work are join (copy the link for the right chat this time don’t forget) this chat to work on op-eds and (oh next time I can make sure and ask the people in the chats to have one of them give the welcome that will help ID who can lead this chat and i can dm them about taking up space and asking for confirmations on who’s going to get a task done) and this chat to work on website development and we don’t have a chat for this one yet but I think we’ve almost got enough people to make an offline organizing chat. Again, don’t forget to check the group description for our power map, main points of off ramp work and most importantly, for new folks and those who have been here, don’t forget to add more people! The onramp is (ugh we need a shortlink to make it snappy and easy to paste I’ll get to that when i have time need to send to this universe of folks and then also get some writing done on the crisis organizing piece.
PS:
This sketch of some rules for crisis organizing is directly inspired by the SEIU 1199 “Advice for Rookie Organizers” that Jane McAlevey included as the epigraph for her first book, Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement. I return to those rules often in my own organizing work, and hopefully these rules are useful for others in crisis times now and in the future.
Rules of Crisis Organizing
If there’s a plan, stick to the plan unless it all went out the window.
If you need a new plan, get it on paper (or a spreadsheet) ASAP with details about decision-makers and division of labor.
The number 1 priority is low-barrier onramps to get as many people as possible in motion.
Every single contact in your phone, follower on social media, coworker, drinking buddy, classmate and so on is part of a universe that you can politicize more during a crisis.
Speed Is Key.
Ask questions, make side chats, keep the focus on the task at hand and don’t be afraid to tell others to do the same if they get off track
Taking Action is better than questioning the direction of where we’re going
Asynchronous communication that subdivides people while maintaining central places for chit chat is crucial.
Less statements, more action. Full stop.
Toolkits with pretty formatting are meant to be copy/pasted and adapted for your own purposes.
Stay focused - there will be many shiny objects in motion and your goal is to make your bid for power the shiniest one.
Drink water (and let your boundaries out like a pair of high-rise jeans - there’s more important things at stake right now).
We can organize anything into reality with the right amount of power.
Activate and absorb, then rinse and repeat. Win the goals, and build organization to do it faster and better next time.
Every single task in crisis organizing is an opportunity to develop the skills and leadership of newer organizers. Ask them to take risks, make sacrifices, and they will catch the bug and stay in it for life.
Settle your quarrels and factional/caucus/inter-organizational beefs if possible. Action will help.
Treat each other with a bit more kindness, grace, empathy, and curiosity than normal - a crisis will exacerbate everyone’s tension points more than usual.
Identify other people that can take over when the crisis passes so there’s room to breathe and rest.
Make a plan for longer than the next week, and start again.
