The DSA Trap
When it comes to the Constitution, DSA remains torn between two opposing principles. By Daniel Lazare
Luke Pickrell did a fine job in his July 22 article, “DSA Grapples With the Constitution,” analyzing Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) less-than-gripping approach to structural reform. DSA, to put it simply, consists of inveterate moderates who believe firmly in the Goldilocks strategy of not too much structural change, not too little, but just right. Unsurprisingly, as Luke notes, the results are therefore contradictory. The tweet thread that DSA posted on July 15 to introduce its constitutional reform statement does not mince words. “We do not live in a democracy,” it declares. But the statement that follows, drafted by a DSA group called the For Our Rights Committee, merely accuses the Republican right of “building a base that can threaten what democratic institutions America possesses.” So which is it — an America that is devoid of democracy or one that still has a few democratic institutions remaining?
“The Constitution establishes a political order explicitly designed to enshrine rule by elites,” the DSA tweet thread goes on, which suggests that a clean sweep is in order. But the statement limits itself to a small number of demands that are modest, vague, or contradictory and, in any event, have no chance of passage whatsoever given the Constitution’s own barriers to reform.
Let’s go through them one by one. First up is a call for voting rights for convicted felons and noncitizen permanent residents, plus statehood for Washington, DC. Both are commendable. Next is a call to “elect representatives to legislatures through proportional representation.” This raises a red flag because it’s not clear what “legislatures” DSA is talking about — federal, state, or local? Then there is a call for “adoption of the Interstate Popular Vote Mandate in enough states to make the mandate effective,” which is odd since the measure, which would require states to award their electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote, has been stalled for years. The reason is not hard to figure out. Republican states won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole because they think the Electoral College is fine just the way it is, while swing states don’t like it because it would reduce their outsized political influence. The mandate is thus an end-run around the EC that is destined to go nowhere fast. So why bring it up at all?
Finally, the DSA winds up with “limit the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to curtail its power of judicial review ... expand the number of seats in the House and abolish the filibuster in the Senate.” The first is fine, but the second is a mystery. How will increasing the number of seats reduce the rampant gerrymandering that has provided Republicans with a seven-percent electoral advantage in the House on average since the year 2000? As for the filibuster, it is indeed a nightmare that allows 41 senators representing as little as 10.7 percent of the country to veto Congress as a whole. But the Senate is so lopsided that even a 51-vote majority can be gleaned from states representing just 17 percent. So the central question remains unaddressed: why put up with an upper chamber based on equal state representation at all rather than demanding a legislative branch based on one person, one equal vote across the board?
Still, Luke is encouraged because language elsewhere in the statement says that the “ultimate goal is working-class majority rule, through a democratic constitution that establishes a political system with universal and equal working-class voting rights, proportional representation in a single federal legislature, and ending the role of money in politics.” That, he argues, is enough to get a debate going.
I’m less impressed. I’m aware that a lot of Marxists worked long and hard to make the statement as strong as it is. But I still see it as an ungainly compromise on the part of a group caught in a trap of its own making. DSA realizes that something is wrong and, as a result, has begun casting its eyes about for a way out. But it’s unable to make its mind up whether to stay or go, and I doubt it ever will.
The reason is structural. Democrats are unable to extricate themselves from a dysfunctional constitution because the party is itself constitutional to the core. It arose in the first few years after the Constitution was ratified in response to the nationalist program that Washington and Hamilton were ramming through Congress. Thereafter, it functioned as an arm of the Southern white ruling class by using the Constitution’s many minoritarian provisions to strengthen and enhance the Southern elite’s rule. This is a function that Democrats served right up to the 1960s. While that’s no longer the case, the party still serves as a kind of mutual aid society for aspiring politicians whose chief goal in life is to pledge allegiance to the Constitution so they can take office and begin climbing the greasy pole.
The oath — taken not only by presidents and members of Congress but thousands of politicians at the state and local level — is mandated in Article VI:
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution...”
This is the closest thing Democrats have to a formal political program, i.e., a pledge to support the 1787 political framework through thick and thin and to defend and celebrate it at every turn. If you wonder why Nancy Pelosi comes up with inanities about “the beautiful, exquisite, brilliant genius of the constitution,” the answer is clear. The Constitution makes her do it. Singing the praises of a wildly out-of-date political structure is her job. It’s what being a Democrat is all about.
Asking the party to shed its constitutional DNA, so to speak, is therefore like asking a leopard to shed its spots. Asking DSA to come out squarely and forthrightly against the Constitution is the same thing, i.e., asking a party whose raison d’être is to serve as “the democratic wing of the Democratic Party” to turn itself into something completely different. Hence DSA’s paralysis. It doesn’t know what to do.
And make no mistake: where the constitutional structure was formerly locked in a state of frozen immobility, it is now galloping backward with growing speed. For more than a century, the Electoral College seemed to be a dead letter. But it has since sprung back to life, allowing the loser in terms of the popular vote to steal the presidency twice since the year 2000. The Senate is more malapportioned than at any point in U.S. history while filibusters have exploded. Where they formerly occurred just once or twice a decade, they now occur that often per week thanks to streamlined procedures introduced in the 1970s. Here are the numbers (technically the number of cloture votes needed to cut off debate) per decade:
1951-60: 2
61-70: 28
71-80: 160
81-90: 205
91-00: 362
01-10: 477
11-20: 1,024
21-24: 558
The last figure means that filibusters are now running 36 percent ahead of 2011-20. The upshot is a gradual coup d’état that is now reaching the bursting point. The Supreme Court is meanwhile a rightwing horror show that could persist well into the 2030s, and federal-state relations are a mess too. Since January, for instance, Texas Rangers and the Texas National Guard have taken over a section of the U.S.-Mexican border in the town of Eagle Pass, yet the Biden administration has been too afraid to do anything in response. What year are we living in — 2024 or 1861?
This is an emergency, yet all we get are meaningless stunts. There’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling for the impeachment of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, an idea that she well knows will go nowhere. There’s Biden proposing to impose 18-year term limits on Supreme Court justices, to impose a code of ethics, and to abolish presidential immunity, ideas that he, or at least his advisers, know will go nowhere because at least two or possibly all three would require a constitutional amendment, which is even more unlikely.
And then there’s DSA’s call for structural reform that is so half-hearted that it’s guaranteed to infuriate people on both sides of the divide. Liberals are spinning wheels as the system sinks.
This is not to say that Pickrell is wrong to see DSA’s July 15 statement as an opening wedge. If he thinks he can use it to “prepare the ground for a Political Platform amendment in 2025 that puts the fight for a democratic constitution front and center,” then, by all means, go for it. But Marxists should realize that they’re dealing with an organization that is torn between two opposing principles and is, therefore, constitutionally incapable of making up its mind one way or the other.
Frankly, any attempt to cure DSA could wind up killing it — if that is, DSA doesn’t end up killing off its critics first by purging “democratic centralists” like the Marxist Unity Group. It’s one or the other, so be prepared.