I cannot believe there is *yet another* DSA article about working within the Democratic Party vs. forming a workers' party that *yet again* focuses on the 100% irrelevant issue of the ballot line & neglects the fact that the major parties are totally fused with the state. (1/11)

I'm not even going to waste time debating whether or not we should use the Dem ballot line now. Anyone who argues we shouldn't isn't serious about electoralism as an arena of class struggle.

But B+R people keep getting distracted by the question of *when* we should stop. (2/11)

The party is not the ballot line. It's the network of electeds, donors, consultants, think tanks, staffers, unions (sorry) & civil society organs that manage party business. It's fairly easy to make use of the ballot line without engaging with any of that, as DSA proves. (3/11)

The problem is those networks don't just control the state, they *are* the state, locally & federally. See Steve King. If a candidate is elected but totally alienated from the party apparatus, they can't legislate or even transmit patronage. They hold office but no power. (4/10)

If a class struggle candidate is elected on a non-Dem line, they still have to integrate with the party in a much deeper & nastier way if they want to legislate than anything they would have had to do while just campaigning. Campaigning isn't where cooptation happens. (5/11)

Now, there are exceptions.

You could force the party to accept your presence in the state (give you committee assignments, chairs, patronage to dispense) if you have a mass movement behind you, like Kshama Sawant. But that's totally separate from the ballot line issue. (6/11)

As an aside, her success in that endeavor probably also has to do with the small size of the Seattle City Council & the fact it's based in a major city where it's easier to generate movement pressure. More difficult for a small socialist caucus in Albany to do the same. (7/11)

Now, you could say that we shouldn't be doing electoralism to do meaningful work in state institutions as they exist now, that electoralism is merely a way to awaken class consciousness in people where they're paying attention, gives us a platform to spread our ideas, etc. (8/11)

That's a legitimate (though in my view, incomplete) perspective, but once again, not connected to the ballot line issue. It's a question you confront once you're already elected, that has to take into account the perspective of the electorate & their needs/expectations. (9/11)

DSA already has the skeleton of a party - networks of (small-dollar) donors, campaign professionals (vols), governing professionals (staffers), associated media organs. Our problem isn't that we don't call it a party, it's that these elements need to be better developed (10/11)

But even if many socialists were elected, we'd still confront the issue that the major parties are fused with the state. The crisis will come when the number of electeds disconnected from the parties is too large for capital's comfort. The line they won on won't matter. (11/11)