We believe there are many avenues that feed into the democratic road to socialism. Our vision pushes further than historic social democracy and leaves behind authoritarian visions of socialism in the dustbin of history.

I would stay away from any organization that is explicitly revisionist and who doesn’t believe in revolutionary action. You should definitely get organized though.

Personally, I did not find that paying dues to a liberal anticommunist organization for the opportunity to do unpaid labor funneling donations to the Democratic Party was a worthwhile investment of my time, effort, or money. Others experiences may vary.

Some DSA branches are way more radical than national, but those cities probably have actual communist parties you can join.

you should be in some org, even if it isn’t the DSA. IWW, PSL, some local anarchist group, etc. Make your own splinter org! join a union!

it’s a great way to meet local comrades, and “organizing” is most of the point of being a communist. it’s a shame DSA does so much electoralism though.

Democrat Sympathizer Assimilation? Where leftism goes to die. They are a de facto captured org of the moderate wing of fascism. The DSA is just more life support for the Does Not Care party.

Is there anything else in your area not tied to the hip to the Democrats?

Yes. Join an org.

For all the criticisms of the DSA, it’s the only remotely leftist org that remotely approaches the scale of a mass movement. There’s at least some utility in a large, nationwide org that is explicitly left of the Democratic Party and has “socialist” in the title. There really hasn’t been anything comparable since, what, before McCarthyism?

Is there literally any better org? If you have a PSL, FRS, FNB or even CPUSA chapter in your city go for that. DSA is better than nothing but worse than most other orgs.

Or join a trot sex cult where you sell newspapers like 1920’s 6 year olds.

If you aren’t part of an org DSA is a good starter org. You aren’t gonna get into any of the cooler orgs if people have no idea who the fuck you are. I mean yeah the DSA itself sucks shit and is full of nerds who can’t put the “social” in socialist to save their lives but definitely join if you have nothing else going on. Good orgs don’t just fall into your lap if you aren’t plugged in at all.

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You’d be wasting your time unless you get lucky with a good branch, and then you’re only wasting some of your time. Join

There are some marxist-leninists who argue for joining

https://redstarcaucus.org/tag/zenith/

https://redstarcaucus.org/dsa-as-a-placeholder/

So yes, join- either your local is good and you can hop on the bandwagon or you get experience making near-miss-left into left.

This is assuming you aren’t in LA or NYC

I personally don’t think you should join a party/org unless you agree with >85% of their party program. For most people on hexbear, DSA is way too reformist to actually take them seriously.

No party/org is going to be perfect, but I would say FRSO is one of the better ones and likely would be worth your time. If you decide you ideologically don’t agree as time goes on, nobody is going to force you to stay.

Some local chapters are good, some aren’t. My local chapter is pretty based and would never dream of supporting any dem candidate, even local ones. Others aren’t. I think it’s definitely worth at least investigating.

And IMO DSA is getting better, not worse. Marxist Unity is making a lot of headway.

if you use it as an opportunity to learn useful skills you can use elsewhere, sure.