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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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given that demsoc=socdem=progressive liberal, i agree
@free_casc@hexbear.net @Chana@hexbear.net @purpleworm@hexbear.net
I think a useful essay for this discussion is https://redsails.org/esquerda-reformista/
the gist of the essay (although I really recommend reading the whole thing if you've never read it before) is that so often we are mixing up reformists vs social liberals and it's important to clarify which we are actually fighting against. basically free_casc, I would say sicksemper, chana, and purpleleworm are all arguing that DSA is social liberal rather than reformist as a whole, and you don't even really seem to disagree? correct me if I'm wrong, but you would want us to potentially support the reformists if they gain more prominence in the future, not because reform > revolution, but because we need the "left" to actually become reform vs revolution instead of this social liberalism dominance we see today. Or at least, that is the conclusion from the essay's author, who shares your idea that we need to sharpen our analysis/language
I'm actually referring to a subset of the DSA. DSA does have DemSocs and many other tendencies and I wouldn't say they are all just DemSocs or SocDems. I mean the people who are the topic of this post, the people who are really into electoralism and dedicate their political lives to running and supporting candidates above all else (literally). These folks tend to be highly liberal and are barely even in the reformist discussion because their idea of reformism is something quite vague, it is plainly evident that it is more about gaining power in bourgeois electoralism than actually standing for anything other than there being 7 Bernie Sanders instead of 1. There is no additional game plan, no discipline outside of lashing out at others (pro-Palestine, pro-BLM, none of it matters unless it serves getting elected for these folks), no plan for having real fights and what they will lean on for support aside from having some people in office.
It is not in any way a coincidence that this is identical to how "progressive" left electoralism functions. There is no difference at all except for the aesthetics and trappings and they will abandon even those if it serves the "elected". There is no reform vs revolution debate, there is no real plan to reform anything much beyond dog catcher level challenges, it's all incoherent. The same "strategies" and excuses are trotted out as are used for other liberals. "We can lobby X candidate better than Y once they are in office!" And then once in office, now that is not the priority, keep your criticisms quiet, we need unity. lmao.
It would be much more interesting if it tied into other forms of building power and maintaining momentum, something that requires sticking to clear principles and positions. Maybe defunding police isn't particularly salient for enough people yet in a given city - so work with orgs to (1) agitate and (2) increase the number of orgs making demands. An organizer that wanted to follow through on this would not have any trouble developing a strategic longitudinal campaign to attempt this sort of thing. The SocDem opportunist doesn't know how because that is not how they approach the topic at all, it isn't about building a base that is always there or a larger policy campaign, it is about the getting the person in office and then staying in office. If anything else happens intentionally it is in support of the politician, not the politician in support of the left projects.
I think we may be agreeing with one another but I'm not totally sure lol
we are very much agreeing! I just saw an opportunity to post that article because I thought it was relevant to the discussion, and I have often seen debates about DSA and what not use very imprecise/inaccurate language to call them reformists when often times we are criticizing the social liberal faction in actuality.
This is pretty much the reasoning behind why it would be good for actual reformists to have a resurgence, even if we know it's not enough the framing of reform vs revolution is a lot better for us than this environment where social liberalism* remains king.
*i think people often use this interchangeably with socdem/succdem, but people also use socdem to mean an actual reformist occasionally too so I kind of like using social liberalism like in the speech
I agree with pretty much everything you said here, except I think I'm just somewhat more optimistic about DSA developing a more principled position as time goes on. I don't have a strong argument to support my position except for my (vague) impression that the farther left caucuses are continuing to gain power in the national level of the organization.
I have seen some activities beyond electoralism in Portland and Seattle, but it is not well developed and properly bonded to the electoral front in the way that you and I would like to see.
I think the liberal electoralists within DSA have grown via the electoralism and their recruitment efforts around them. Those groups don't do much political education, they just get people who like vaguely left electoralism to join the org and volunteer in elections, so their political alignment tends to be fairly to the right within DSA aside from those who are committed to specific moral principals that eventually run up against the opportunism of the liberal electoralists - e.g. those who will not accept any level of Zionism regarding Palestine get alienated pretty fast. Which is to say I think a lot of DSA's growth lately is unfortunately not particularly politically educated and is a bit tot the right, though I'd welcome being wrong.
The left formations in DSA are much better organized (electoralism itself is what organizes the electoralists) and have indeed gotten leadership positions and are overrepresented at conventions, which of course I think is a good thing. They tend to do political education, event organizing, solidarity work, etc in their local groups, they distinguish themselves.
We'll need to see how things shake out in the next few years, but I appreciate that we are both hoping for the best
I am indeed saying that they seem to mostly be social liberals, though there are many genuine reformists as well. I don't have census data on the matter though, and I do think the factions of genuine reformists have been growing overall.
I appreciate the recommendation and will read the essay.
The one thing that I would add to your summary of the issue is that there are different kinds of reformists, the genuinely counterrevolutionary electoralists vs the people seeking to advance socialism by every means available, having chosen pushing for reform as their particular job at the moment. I think this latter camp can be helpful and have historically been important (revolutionary organizations historically have often had both legal and illegal wings), the biggest problem with this distinction in my perception is that members of the first camp, counterrevolutionaries, will often pretend to be members of or at least strong allies to members of the second camp, when that is false and they are roughly as dangerous as any other kind of liberal.
for an example of an actual reformist the author/speaker (apparently this is a transcript of a speech, i have never noticed despite reading the essay a few times before lol) chose Hugo Chavez, which i think maps well with this distinction between genuine electoralist and a reformist who is actually willing to change their tactics.
Really appreciate yout contribution to the discussion! The article is very interesting (redsails is almost like the xkcd for the left haha)
I am not an insider, but based on my understanding the DSA encompasses both typical social liberals, but has been moving in the direction of reformist, especially at the higher levels of leadership. The org is not sufficiently centralized (it is not even a party, for instance), so it has a ton of flaws and contradictions that make it less effective, but in my view, it is largely moving in the direction of reformism.
I like that the author of the article highlights how reformism "gets the masses in motion" so they can actually develop their understanding of things like reform v. revolution and similar topics, just like you pointed out.
The article also highlights the political stagnation that is offered by social liberalism. I think it is important for the masses to be politically activated to defend the gains of the working class (whether from reform or revolution). I know this is something the DPRK takes seriously, for instance. USians aren't ready for all that, and sort of need "baby steps" until reformism has its own momentum. In my view, either "reformism works and we voted our way to communism for the first time ever" or it will force people toward a more revolutionary stance when it fails.
This does not resolve the contradiction of "what if your reformism delays back to social liberalism and nothing happens". I still wrestle with that often. I dont think "just discard reformism and only take the revolutionary angle" is the answer, but maybe im just wrong about that and im fucking it up for everybody idk.
I would say my impression is similar about DSA having an internal struggle between reformists and social liberals. I do not have a ton of hope about the reformists winning with how much momentum DSA right is getting from these electoral wins.
and I'm glad you found the article/speech interesting
I think flattening definitions like this reduces the level of conversation and analysis. Ancom=syndicalist=mutualist, Marxist-leninist=MLM=CPC would also flatten the conversation around relevant topics on our left-wing discussuon forum.
I wouldn't disagree that these factions currently have a lot of alignment in the current US political context. We see this demonstrated with AES being a "unity candidate" between the left and even part of the liberal establishment.
I would phrase it differently, but it's very hard to contest that the bulk of "democratic socialists" in America are literally socdems ("Nordic socialists" or whatever) which literally is a type of liberal.
There are also genuine democratic socialists, who are incorrect but for different reasons, but I think they might be in the minority of people using that title.
If we are discussing from a perspective within the US, I think that flattening our vocabulary weakens our analysis. I think there is a chance (though not overwhelmingly likely) that the differences between these factions will become more pronounced in the future, rather than less. I would like our community to retain the vocabulary to identify it if it happens.
I dont expect discussions from a non-US perspective to care too much about it, though.
I agree that we shouldn't flatten our vocabulary, but consider that treating all self-identifying demsocs as just being "demsocs" is flattening the distinction between actual demsocs and "Nordic socialist" socdems.
I think the conflation is fairly accurate in this case, as the "DemSocs" in question don't believe in (and therefore constantly contradict) forwarding and defending socialism, but maintaining and moderately reforming capitalism. This means they are actually SocDems at best and SocDems are just a kind of "progressive" liberal.