In a recent interview on ABC, Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez publicly proclaimed that she is not a member of DSA nationally, and is only a local member of the New York City DSA chapter. DSA’s membership is not a part-in-part-out system; all members of our organization are members at the national level, with chapters being the local expression of our nationwide socialist organization. This discrepancy – intertwined with the previous fight over attempts to establish a local-only category of membership in NYC-DSA, further distancing members from our national efforts – undermines our democratically decided organizational model and DSA’s Constitution and Bylaws.
In addition to this, she also publicly contradicted several items of our democratically decided and Convention-authorized program, Workers Deserve More, opposing efforts to support abolitionist work and uplift indigenous communities by calling these and other aspects of the program “Woke 1”. This occurs as several tendencies in DSA have begun to push for an endorsement of an AOC presidential campaign, despite her not having even opened an exploratory committee yet as she is still currently in an active Congressional race.
Members of DSA from across the country have been rightfully outraged about this, and we stand with them in calling for democratic accountability. Rather than fuel factional disputes and sow division among the membership, AOC should make her orientation to DSA clear. This is not the first time we have seen this type of underhanded conduct in relation to our organization from her, as she opposed basic democratic reforms and distanced herself from DSA’s electoral projects. Given her repudiation of our democratically decided program and structure, how can we expect her to uphold any socialist principles at all if elected into office?
We stand in opposition to these actions and statements from AOC, as well as her litany of disagreement with our policies and principles, including her vote to block the railworkers’ strike, opposition to the cutting of Iron Dome funding used to defend Zionist military forces conducting the genocide in Palestine, and refusal to comply with basic programmatic demands with regards to Palestine leading to the withdrawal of her national endorsement. We believe our involvement in electoral work should focus on strategic interventions to benefit the working class, not tailing capitalist politicians who refuse to submit to our democratic decisions. Further, we call for true organizational accountability for our candidates, electeds, and leaders, who should be fighting for the working class on our democratically decided platform rather than pursuing their own personal goals and interests within the establishment.
Further, we call on the National Political Committee to investigate and clarify whether AOC is currently a member of DSA. If she is, the NPC should engage in a dialogue with her about public claims of non-affiliation and her contradictions of the Workers Deserve More program; if she fails to come back in line with our democratically decided positions, we call on the NPC to investigate and determine whether her positions, actions, and statements are in substantial disagreement with DSA’s policies and principles.
If you agree with these points and our other Points of Unity, and want an organization that holds our elected leaders accountable, we urge you to join LSC here. We further encourage all comrades critical of AOC and her behaviors demonstrated here to plan to run as delegates to the 2027 National Convention to ensure we have an organization that holds our elected officials accountable.
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