Talking Strategy, Making History
Aug 13, 2026 · 55 min · 10 segments
#59 Daraka & Dick Discuss DSA"s Electoral Effort Both of us have long history in the earlier days of DSA--and are both excited and have worries about the remarkable electoral project DSAers are…
Dick FlacksHostWell, yeah, but before I jumped into that, which in my experience, you know, in DSA was mostly in the nineties.
But I think one of the things about your story that's important to emphasize and, and clarify is that the, the organization that was active at the democratic convention in 1980 and 82 was, Because at that time, the Democratic Party nationally had conventions every two years with the off the non-presidential year being for policy discussion.
which is a really important thing to think about in terms of how much the party apparatus that was built by activists in the Democratic Party starting in the 60s that was really trying to make it function like a normal political party, including having national conventions that highlighted policy discussion and what the party was for and what its values were, And that was very brief time period because these were eliminated in the mid 80s.
You know, spearheaded that Democratic Agenda Coalition, which was very successful, actually, in platform fights in 82.
And that was the organization on whose behalf Harrington reached out to the first generation of the new left that you were so much a big part of to try to repair things.
And that in between that time period that you just described and me getting involved, DSOC merged with the New American Movement to become DSA in the mid-80s.
I would argue a sort of second rapprochement, a sort of second union of different left forces because NAM had come out of the later student movement, the later New Left movement.
that was more, that was communist, you know, and that was like, if, if the old anti-communist social Democrats of DSOC make them a caricature, we're like afraid of the first generation of SDS leaders for being too soft on communism.
And so, so that was a kind of even more significant in a way that, political reunion or union or reckoning or something.
And so the organization that I joined was one that had both a tradition of we should work inside the Democratic Party, we're part of the left coalition of the Democratic Party, along with the actually existing trade unions, which were not always super progressive, but we would work with the ones that exist and that are.
And then there was one that was much more movement-based, student activist-based, radical, influenced by revolutionary and radical movements abroad, interested in American foreign policy from a critical lens.
So I got active in DSA through the youth organization in the early 90s at the University of Chicago.
Well, yeah, but before I jumped into that, which in my experience, you know, in DSA was mostly in the nineties.
But I think one of the things about your story that's important to emphasize and, and clarify is that the, the organization that was active at the democratic convention in 1980 and 82 was, Because at that time, the Democratic Party nationally had conventions every two years with the off the non-presidential year being for policy discussion.
which is a really important thing to think about in terms of how much the party apparatus that was built by activists in the Democratic Party starting in the 60s that was really trying to make it function like a normal political party, including having national conventions that highlighted policy discussion and what the party was for and what its values were, And that was very brief time period because these were eliminated in the mid 80s.
You know, spearheaded that Democratic Agenda Coalition, which was very successful, actually, in platform fights in 82.
And that was the organization on whose behalf Harrington reached out to the first generation of the new left that you were so much a big part of to try to repair things.
And that in between that time period that you just described and me getting involved, DSOC merged with the New American Movement to become DSA in the mid-80s.
I would argue a sort of second rapprochement, a sort of second union of different left forces because NAM had come out of the later student movement, the later New Left movement.
that was more, that was communist, you know, and that was like, if, if the old anti-communist social Democrats of DSOC make them a caricature, we're like afraid of the first generation of SDS leaders for being too soft on communism.
And so, so that was a kind of even more significant in a way that, political reunion or union or reckoning or something.
And so the organization that I joined was one that had both a tradition of we should work inside the Democratic Party, we're part of the left coalition of the Democratic Party, along with the actually existing trade unions, which were not always super progressive, but we would work with the ones that exist and that are.
And then there was one that was much more movement-based, student activist-based, radical, influenced by revolutionary and radical movements abroad, interested in American foreign policy from a critical lens.
So I got active in DSA through the youth organization in the early 90s at the University of Chicago.
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