Perspectives on the DSA Convention
Editorial note:
We will be publishing further commentary and other perspectives on the Democratic Socialists of America on our website, both before and after the organization’s online national convention at the beginning of August.
The 2021 Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Convention, scheduled to take place online from August 1 to 8, will be the third convention since the organization’s rebirth and massive growth in 2016. (Revealingly, between 2013 and 2017 the median age of DSA membership dropped from 68 to 33.)
1 After a year that has seen the COVID-19 pandemic, a presidential election, and a national uprising against racism, what’s at stake at this convention? I’ll give a little history and context, and then lay out my perspective on several important dynamics.
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The coup that wasn’t: Why Donald Trump failed to steal the White House
Contrary to many expectations President Trump was unable to launch a coup d’etat in order to remain in power. The January 6, 2021 putsch against the U.S. Capitol demonstrated that violent fascists pose an ongoing threat to the left and to protest movements. However, the opposition of the entire Federal repressive apparatus and the capitalist class in the US, allowed a quick clamp down, even after some initial bungling. Put simply, the rioters are a threat to working people, but not to the state.
Despite presidential tweets and lies, culminating in the bungled assault on Congress, the 2020 presidential elections proceeded, and Joe Biden was sworn in on schedule, flanked by 25,000 National Guard soldiers. Trump’s failures offer important lessons about the stability of the capitalist state in the United States and the centrality of the legal and constitutional order to state functioning in the current period.