The People’s Petition: What DSA Must Do to Meet the Political Moment
Harlei Morenci presents the People's Petition
“In all my years of covering politics, I don’t remember a time like this, when people not only hold different views, but in many cases, can’t stand those who disagree with them.” This quote from long-time journalist Judy Woodruff as part of her hour-long documentary, America at a Crossroads, is emblematic of a common refrain espoused by politicians, pundits, pollsters, and politicos here in the United States. In their examination, America is split between two extreme and equally powerful political tribes overwhelming our two major parties that are making consensus, compromise, camaraderie, and common ground impossible as a result.
Upon closer examination, there’s a huge hole in this line of thinking. On issue after issue after issue, including protecting abortion rights, raising the minimum wage, and supporting labor unions, the American people favor progressive policies. Yet, 21 out of 50 states in the Union have in place abortion bans. The State of Texas, with over 30 million residents, has in place a near-total abortion ban, with no exceptions for rape and incest. Just last week, the Arizona Supreme Court revived a dormant law from 1864 that bans abortion in nearly all cases. Policies such as protecting the right to abortion in all or most cases, raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, and passing the PRO ACT are popular with a clear majority of Americans. Yet, as of now, none of these proposed policies have a snowball’s chance in hell of passing through the Republican-controlled House to be passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate to be signed by the Democratic President. The fact of the matter is that on issue after issue after issue, the collective will of the American people does not translate into policy outcomes. The problem that America faces today isn’t a division between two extreme camps; it is that the will of the majority of the American people rarely prevails. The natural result is political apathy, cynicism, and extremism.
As DSA’s political platform states with clarifying brevity, “The nation that holds itself out as the world’s premier democracy is no democracy at all.” What is to be done about this lack of democracy? One would be hard-pressed to find an answer as coherent and straightforward as the one listed above in the rest of DSA’s platform. That's what the rest of this article is designed to do.
I want to lay out a coherent and straightforward political vision for all of DSA to unite around, a vision steeped in the storied socialist tradition that allows us to cast our gaze toward the uncertain future. DSA must take its democratic demands seriously and follow its own words to their logical conclusion. We must rediscover the insights of intellectuals like Marx, Engels, Paine, Debs, Wollstonecraft, Lenin, and Luxembourg. We must unite, agitate, and organize for a democratic constitution that enshrines universal and equal suffrage for all adult residents and citizens and a unicameral legislature elected by proportional representation. Then, in the aftermath of the 2024 Presidential Election, DSA must publish and circulate the People’s Petition with the following six demands:
All legislative powers to be vested in a unicameral legislature elected by universal and equal suffrage of all adult residents and citizens using a proportional representation system.
Abolish the presidential veto.
Abolish the Electoral College.
Public financing for all elections.
Lower the voting age to 16.
Form a democratically-elected constituent assembly to draft a democratic constitution containing these demands.
Signing this petition would also entail becoming a dues-paying member of DSA. Now, I can already hear the objections from fellow DSA members to this proposal. Most of them are sure to miss the point: without first establishing a democratic constitution enshrining universal and equal suffrage for all adult residents and citizens, our immediate and long-term demands, such as passing a Medicare-For-All single-payer healthcare system, rebuilding the power of the American trade union movement, and establishing a mass working-class political party independent from the Democratic Party are nearly impossible. The first step towards establishing a government of the people, by the people, for the people is for DSA to take up the People’s Petition and organize to bring about the Petition's demands. The United States is undergoing a political crisis that could very well threaten its viability as a unified entity. The American people have faced existential crises before, including the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Great Depression, and the Civil Rights Movement. After every one of those crises, America has always come out the other side of those crises a more democratic nation. Still, America has yet to overcome the greatest barrier to democracy: the 235-year-old Constitution established with the explicit end of enshrining permanent minority rule. In the uncertain future, there will surely be crises that will call our current constitutional arrangement into question, which will open the door to alternatives.
Who better than DSA to lead the struggle for American Democracy? And what better way to lead the struggle for American Democracy than by first taking up the mantle of a democratic constitution? Thomas Paine’s timeless pamphlet, Common Sense, first put the idea of American independence on the map. Today, it reminds us, "We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now.” The country that overcame the power of the British Crown, the power of the Southern planter, and the power of Jim Crow can surely overcome the power of the Constitution. If we take up the People’s Petition and unite, agitate, and organize for a Democratic Constitution, we will triumph in time. From the moment a democratic constitution is ratified by a democratically-elected constituent assembly, the notion that every person should have a say in their place of work, as well as their political system, will be regarded just the same as the notion that all men are created equal. Both of these assumptions will soon become little more than plain-good common sense. So, let's get to it.