MUG on the NPC Vol. 4: Putting Political Governance in Command
Sup comrades!
The December NPC meeting demonstrated the need to speak on our approach to governance on the NPC. To us, governance is primarily about making political decisions. Assessing the following questions can help determine the NPC’s governance practices:
Are we agendizing political decision-making?
Are we making timely decisions?
Unfortunately, our newly elected co-chairs' original agenda was too light on political decision-making. The proposed agenda allotted a total of 40 minutes for open discussion. Meanwhile, the new business section had 60 minutes for eight items that could take up to 15 minutes each.
On making NPC meetings politically substantive.
To ensure the NPC spent its time making political decisions, we motioned to cut the political discussion on the 2024 elections and add time to the new business section, which carried with majority support. Later in the meeting, we also motioned to move two items more suited for email to create even more time for new business without extending the meeting length.
We put forward these motions because:
We introduced our Federal SiO resolution over a month ago, yet this is the first opportunity the NPC has had to consider it.
The NPC could’ve ensured the opening up of the National Electoral Committee.
The NPC needs to talk with LA DSA about their local endorsement of Nithya Raman. Raman is an elected official and candidate for the LA city council. DSA Members have called for the NPC to expel Raman and for LA DSA to disendorse her campaign because of legislative actions.
With the amended Agenda, the NPC was, unfortunately, unable to pass any of the above resolutions; however, the NPC did consider and thankfully pass the following resolutions below:
A password manager request from the National Tech Committee to create a simple org-wide password management solution so chapters and national bodies can stop purchasing or implementing their own password manager.
Approving an experienced multi-tendency Editorial Board slate, including MUG’s own living legend Donald—the outgoing founding editor of Cosmonaut. Additionally, it included representatives from tendencies not represented on the NPC, like our comrade Faye from the Libertarian Socialist Caucus.
Opening the books on the inner workings of the NEC by getting the full picture of how and why the body makes its endorsement decisions.
On making concrete decisions as the 2024 election approaches.
Our strategy for the Presidential election season must prepare the working class for the inevitable reality of a right-wing president in 2024, either in the form of a Republican challenger or the re-election of Genocide Joe. Given the magnitude of this task, we will not develop our intervention for the 2024 election through 20- to 60-minute open-ended conversations. Instead, the NPC must begin deliberating on tangible solutions.
Thankfully, the NPC has already mandated the For Our Rights Campaign (FORC) to shape our 2024 electoral intervention. Led by Co-Chairs Frances and Rashad, this group of multi-tendency NPC and rank-and-file members from across the country have spent the past month deliberating on proposals about creating a program and united nationwide 2024 intervention. Going into the 12/17 FORC SC meeting, our MUG member on the steering committee, Lois, worked with Rashad and proposed the committee to recommend the following program and united 2024 intervention to the NPC.
The exchange between Sam from the Socialist Majority Caucus and MUG’s own Annie and Curtis in Socialist Forum was a key influence on Lois and Rashad’s proposal.
Sam’s first piece suggests that “If DSA pulls away from candidates following in Sanders’s footsteps without a proven alternative, we risk returning DSA, and the nation, to the pre-2016 wilderness of an irrelevant left.”
Our proposals don't tail Sanders because if we keep following someone late to support a ceasefire, we risk being irrelevant to a working-class majority who has supported one. Additionally, we have a proven alternative - focusing on the House, where Rashida is showing workers socialist leadership.
In Annie and Curtis’s response, they share, “We [shouldn’t] abandon the fight for reforms and focus solely on establishing a constitutional convention…In fact, because of the oligarchic system [we’re] clashing with, the logical conclusion [of reform] struggles…is to fight for democracy so that the capitalist class can’t overturn them unilaterally, which also means that the struggle for reforms will be the best means of pushing for a new constitution. Where once they may have seemed completely separate, increasingly single-issue reforms and anti-constitutional revolution are connected at the hip.”
Our proposals put this theoretical insight into practice by connecting a program calling for a democratic constitution to enshrine majority rule with a campaign to pressure the House to pass Medicare for All legislation that guarantees abortion and gender-affirming care and cutting aid for Israeli occupation from the budget.
On Bread & Roses’ concrete proposal to help defend Rashida.
In Sam’s response, they share that when they wrote their original piece, “the stakes were more academic,” and now “they are more serious. [The] NPC...has a governing coalition led by the Bread and Roses caucus [where] MUG [has] a substantial voice.”
We agree that the stakes of our electoral strategy are more serious now, so we hope members of Sam’s caucus SMC support our concrete proposal for united 2024 intervention, bring amendments, or vote it down and bring their own original proposal.
Additionally, Sam is right about B&R’s leadership, considering they brought a resolution to support Rashida against AIPAC to the December NPC meeting that we supported.
Rather than the “disciplinarian impulse” Sam suggests we have in the same response, our concrete proposals and support for B&R’s resolution demonstrate that we have no sudden strong and unreflective urge to lead with a stick vs. carrots. Instead, we’ve thoughtfully focused on principled and conditional carrots!
On MUG’s official perspectives following our annual Congress.
The perspectives document passed by MUG at our annual Congress, which outlines our analysis of the current political situation and DSA’s role in it, informed our FORC proposals via the following outlook on the 2024 election season:
The 2024 presidential election will be a centerpiece of US politics for the next few years. The undemocratic political system, “winner take all” electoral college, and dominance of the Democratic and Republican parties create a highly hostile terrain for independent working class politics in the contest. The potential for a repeat of the 2020 race with Joe Biden and Donald Trump as the major party candidates looms, with the added element of escalating constitutional crisis due to the legal charges against Trump and his attempted self-coup to overturn the results of the election on January 6, 2021.
Marxist Unity Group advocates for DSA to use the election to expose the anti-democratic nature of the two-party system, the Electoral College, and the presidency. Through the For Our Rights and Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy campaigns mandated by the 2023 Convention, DSA should intervene in public discourse around the election to indict the system itself, building a constituency for mass democratic socialist politics. DSA should organize our elected representatives around shared messaging in opposition to Biden and Trump, carving out a base among non-voters and left-leaning Democrats and independents.
DSA should also mobilize against instances of voter repression and intimidation, defending suffrage while openly working toward a new republic. Using intervention around the 2024 election, DSA can build capacity for future elections on the national stage, including running cadre members for Congress and uniting local and state-level electeds around shared messaging.
