The Wall Street Journal opinion page is known for taking occasional potshots at liberals and leftists, and I suspect its editors agreed to send a young writing fellow, Kendall White, to visit meetings of New York’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter with the idea that she would make fun of the fanatics and whackos who gathered at these meetings. Instead, she found convivial gatherings. “From a book club to a hootenanny, it wins over the young by putting the ‘social’ into socialism,” her article was subtitled.
White spent a month attending “Coffee with Comrades, a Socialism 101 course, a new-members social, a book club and even a hootenanny. The DSA also hosts board game nights, running clubs, World Cup watch parties, a softball league and birding trips.” At the “New Member Social,” White found that “many of the attendees were charming and funny, and all were friendly. I left with a few phone numbers and an invite to their group chat and upcoming meeting.”
I looked at the weekly newsletter for DC Metro DSA, where I live. If my wife and I had the interest, we could attend not only a “New Member Community Cohort,” but also a “Spanish Club for Socialists,” “The People are not One Book Club,” and the “Leftist Baking Club.” My wife also discovered a knitting group. In offering these kind of activities, DSA is not veering from the deadly seriousness of the older socialist left but emulating its earlier most successful parties. Eugene Debs’ Pre-World War I Socialist Party held days-long encampments that were modeled on religious camp meetings where thousands heard talks and sang and socialized. It had book clubs and sports leagues for its members.
The pre-World War I German Social Democratic Party, the most important party of its day, had choirs, gymnastic associations, sports leagues, and schools and reading groups. It owned cooperative grocery stores and even funeral parlors. These activities offset the anomie of daily life. They are probably even more important now when many forms of daily association -- neighborhood bars, company sports teams, and even unions -- are disappearing.
The Republican right addressed the problem. In the last decades, Republican success has been predicated on megachurches, gun clubs, business associations, and a host of smaller political groups around the Tea Party. But and where political organization among mainstream Democrats has disintegrated.
Kendall reports, “If you’re a young moderate Democrat wanting to meet like-minded friends, good luck. I filled out the New York State Young Democrats interest form two weeks ago and have yet to hear back. There aren’t any events listed on their website. Even if there were, I doubt they would have as much folk music and free beer as the DSA shindigs I attended.
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Making politics fun is a key to organizing...
And in one of their publications, Socialist Forum, I find one of the main articles is how a 'coalition' of countries is uniting against U.S. pro-facism. But knitting! "Beijing buzzed with excitement on September 3, as leaders of friendly countries poured into the city from around the world. They came to celebrate China’s 80th anniversary of defeating Japanese fascism in World War II and to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) Summit meeting. It was an impressive display of “unity in multi-polarity” featuring Russian President Putin and Indian Prime Minister Modi, as well as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, among about two dozen others." The Southern Baptists of my youth were also good at the 'social' part.