An Interview with Rhode Island DSA member Kinverly Dicupe.
The Rhode Island chapter of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), has moved away from being part of reforming the Democratic Party, drawing the conclusion that DSA should instead organize independent electoral campaigns.
The Independent Socialist Group (ISG) supports these efforts and is also planning to run an independent electoral campaign to help build political independence for working people. ISG interviewed a Rhode Island DSA member about their change of strategy in how they engage with electoral politics as socialists.
ISG: How have you come to the conclusion that the Democratic Party is a dead-end, including the strategy of running as Democrats, reforming the Democrats, etc?
It was a long road to get to this point. Years ago, our chapter was really dedicated to reforming the Democratic Party and electing progressive politicians. For a mid-size DSA chapter, we were very successful in helping elect progressives, but after the success the problems began cropping up immediately. Turns out most progressive Democrats don’t have the backbone to stand up to Democratic leadership locally or nationally. You help elect these progressive champions on the promise of fighting for the everyday man and then they turn around and claim, “actually DSA isn’t that important to my decision-making process — I have to listen to X non-profit, Democratic leadership or conservative unions.” All those aforementioned groups were almost always firmly in the camp against progressive candidates, but of course they come around the moment they win. These groups tend to form the inner circle of these progressive politicians, in part because they never demand the politicians risk their political power in any way. Meanwhile, the group of radicals who actually gave their labor uplifting these campaigns, like the DSA, get left behind and tagged as unserious. It’s either that or “I have to play the game otherwise I won’t get anything done and you just don’t understand the way things work.” For example, in the first two months of electing these “champions,” they didn’t even want to take a vote against Democratic leadership, despite winning their races by proclaiming they’re running against that same leadership. Not to mention these progressives never actually worked together to push working-class priorities. They all acted as individual agents and would often abandon each other on important votes and refuse to endorse upcoming progressive candidates. The movement in essence did not exist outside of hyped-up speeches.
When we asked progressive politicians why they weren’t taking an aggressive stance against the Democratic leadership like their campaign rhetoric suggested, they would say there just weren’t enough progressives to take that approach. As mentioned however, many of them were refusing to endorse new progressives as they didn’t want to anger the leadership with primaries, so it became a self-fulling prophecy that left-wing politics would remain an ostracized minority, since new candidates couldn’t even count on the support of their ideological comrades. The truth is once in office, a progressive politician’s biggest priority is not pissing off the leadership enough to lose their seat, not necessarily fighting for their values. They view their presence within these chambers of power as the end itself and not a means to an end for the kind of world they claim they want to build.
ISG: What are your thoughts on the current “Dirty Break” strategy that dominates most DSA chapters?
It’s a dead-end politics as proven by the fact that the left is backsliding. The short-lived progressive era came about because millions of people believed a better world could exist. That all came crashing down once Biden got into office and most of the left liquidated their movements in order to work alongside the Democratic Party. As the Democratic Party continued to break their promises, the left made every excuse to not go on the attack on behalf of everyday people. Instead of attempting to force the Democratic leadership to make concessions, they spent time defending progressive politicians who made strike-breaking votes among other betrayals. While the left was pretending it could work with liberal capitalists, the Democrats were busy at work recruiting AIPAC to primary progressives in the House. You can see this same effect locally but with other big-money donors playing AIPAC’s role. By the end of it all, progressives helped build the Democratic Party but didn’t move the needle on any major policies for working people. Many progressives were noticeably getting more conservative as time went on. We went in with the hopes of pushing the party to the left but it’s been clear for a while now that much of the left has been pushed to the right.
ISG: How has the national DSA leadership responded to RI DSA’s decision to break with Democrats and run exclusively independent left candidates?
National leadership hasn’t said much, but when we first took that decision many folks in large chapters like NYC-DSA were incensed. They said we were destroying our chapter and some folks even called to de-charter us. Since the progressive movement has collapsed and their major star, AOC, has mostly abandoned confrontational politics, they’ve left us alone. We were one of the earliest chapters to ring the alarm on the right-wing shift of the Squad. That wasn’t popular at the time but now that it’s undeniable, our detractors don’t have much to stand on, so they’ve mostly disappeared. We have also gained support from smaller chapters around the country even while the big chapters remain wedded to the clout points that come with associating with politicians like AOC or the Democratic Party.
ISG: What is your strategy for reforming DSA or pushing your position on independent politics in DSA? What’s the internal landscape look like in terms of other DSA chapters who may be coming to similar conclusions?
There’s been growing support for independent politics in some quarters of DSA, and several DSA members from other chapters have reached out asking to collaborate. Boise DSA rejected the Democratic ballot line before we did, and a couple other small and mid-sized chapters are friendly to our position. We’re now giving presentations to other DSA chapters on our electoral strategy.
On the national level, it’s unlikely that DSA will stop endorsing Democratic candidates in the near future. However, there’s been increasing discussion, even within large caucuses like Bread & Roses, about the need to begin running independent socialists. So there’s a good chance that RI DSA could help build a national effort to run independent DSA candidates for office, even while most chapters continue to also endorse Democrats.
ISG: What are your thoughts on the state of DSA, the health of the organization, how democratic the organization is?
DSA is quite democratic compared to most political organizations. If you win the majority of your chapter to your position, you can carry out your plans without interference from the top leadership. There’s also healthy and wide-ranging political debate across the organization.
There are some problems, however. In the past, national-level staff have neglected to put effort into implementing the decisions of national conventions. Most of the meaningful work happens on the chapter level, making the organization pretty decentralized. This can be good for chapters like ours who want to break out in a new direction, but in the long term, DSA will probably need more cohesion to be effective.
ISG: What are your plans going forward for your upcoming campaign in Providence 2026? What about more medium and long- term goals?
We plan to use this electoral campaign to bring our political program to the public, win more people to socialist politics, and start building a movement to break from the two-party system. We’re trying to run a campaign that’s really capable of winning, but the main purpose is to organize people.
In the medium term, we want to run more independent candidates, both in Rhode Island and in collaboration with socialists in other states — hopefully building a nationwide movement. Our ultimate goal is an independent socialist party.
ISG: What sort of organization(s) do you think the working class and left need to build for electoral work?
We need a democratic, mass-membership socialist party that brings in the majority of the working class. This isn’t a prerequisite for running in elections, but it’s the goal all our short-term tactics should be aiming for. And of course, our capacity to do effective electoral work will increase as we begin to build a real party with broad membership. We’ll also need to build deeper connections with the rank and file of labor unions to bring the socialist and labor movements together.
Independent Socialist Group 