Talk:Democratic Socialists of America

Concerning Members

The article says 4 out of the 435 members of the House of Representatives are part of the Democratic Socialists of America, the problem is who are they or which state they represent is indicated nowhere. It would be useful to put these informations because I looked for them but couldn't find any.Maxime12346 (talk) 14:18, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

This was discussed before. Since the DSA is not a political party, the information should not be in the info-box. TFD (talk) 14:33, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Agree. DSA isn't a party. Membership in DSA is about as relevant as a membership at Costco. These elected officials are likely just Democrats. Asaturn (talk) 05:19, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY and obvious inflated membership totals (advertising/promo)

The membership is currently listed as over 90,000. If you do the math, according to the actual income from their leaked 2019 budget (https://twitter.com/socialismtrain/status/1363414130435235841/photo/1), this means each member is only paying $2/mo in dues. According to DSA's own membership application (https://act.dsausa.org/donate/membership2020/) $5/mo is the lowest dues for "low income" members, with $15/mo being the "standard" amount. The average for their claim of 90,000+ members being $2/mo in dues is mathmatically impossible, even if the majority of their members were paying dues at the low income level. Without an independent 3rd party source showing actual active membership, it doesn't seem relevant or cite-able to include membership numbers when other facts contradict the org's own statement(s). Including inflated membership levels is biased marketing or advertising/promotion or autobiographical/spam and has no place on Wikipedia. Asaturn (talk) 05:25, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

This is pure speculation, OR and SYNTH. Find a source that disputes the figures. You'll likely find lots of sources that show increased membership in the past few years. It's almost like 2019 isn't the same year as the penultimate month of 2021 and those figures (which are not an RS) are from 2018 membership dues. This isn't a "gotcha!" operation but an encyclopedia. JesseRafe (talk) 14:10, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Asaturn's point. Using internal membership metrics not backed up by reliable sources and we shouldn't be blindly accepting DSA's claims at face value. Toa Nidhiki05 14:13, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Reliable sources routinely report the membership numbers without qualification. Therefore, just as with political parties such as the Conservative Party (UK), we should include the self-reported numbers in the info-box and provide the source in a footnote.

You are comparing 2020 membership with 2019 revenue. if we use the ending membership for 2019 (56,794)[1], the average dues would be $4.37 per month.[$2,976.946/56,794members/12 months.] That is before taking into account that membership increased by several thousand during 2019.

The DSA also offers annual membership which is $20 for students, $27 for low income and $45 for introductory,[2] i.e., $1.13, $2.25 or $3.75 per month. I imagine a large number of members would fall under one of these categories.

TFD (talk) 17:10, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

The math still doesn't add up. All of their members would have to be paying this amount in order to get the low average you come to by their own admitted budget figures. This isn't about a "gotcha!" I'm actually the user who updated their logo! This isn't a personal beef, just an issue with the quality of information. Blindly accepting a claim of membership growth is not helpful to an encyclopedia. Mentioning that they claimed it would be one thing, but the sources here are 1st party and anonymous Google Documents links, and don't meet the standards for including in Wikipedia. Asaturn (talk) 21:23, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

According to the 2019 report, they raised $2,305,237 from dues. The ending membership was 54,123. That works out to $42.59 per member or $3.55 per month. They had 169 chapters, including 101 high school and college chapters. If we assume that the chapters were of equal size, then they should have raised $647K from 32,000 students [101/169*54,123*$20], meaning they raised $1.858 million from 22,000 non-students, which is an average of $84 per year each, well above the $60 standard annual membership.

As I said, standard practice is to use organizations' self-reported numbers provided that reliable secondary sources consider them reasonable and note in the footnote they are self-reported. If you want to change this practice, I think you should create a centralized discussion. The same discussion has come up numerous times in the Labour Party (UK). Currently the article uses self-reported numbers that were reported in The Times. While we have insufficient information to audit the DSA's membership numbers, a quick analysis shows that they are within expected amounts based on dues revenue.

TFD (talk) 05:30, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Asaturn published on the DSA website does not mean "leaked." TFD (talk) 08:56, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

It wasn't published on the DSA website. It was leaked from an internal meeting. The "official" numbers were not released in 2019. The 2020 and 2021 numbers are not released on the website either. They are cited in this article as a Google Docs link, which may or may not be legitimate. To my knowledge, there are no primary confirmed sources for DSA's yearly budget. If we want to include up to the minute membership counts for a random political club (which seems unnecessary and promotional IMO), perhaps they should be included with footnote that these claims of numbers are based on random unsourced Google Docs links? Asaturn (talk) 15:35, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Our source in the article for the membership count is an official DSA publication. We don't mention their budget, nor do I think we should, unless there's secondary source coverage. I also don't think we should doubt the official numbers based on OR, or unreliable twitter sources. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:42, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Asaturn, no, it was published on their website. See p. 26 of Democratic Socialists of America: The Momentum Continues 2019 Annual Report to Membership The report was issued to members on March 31st, 2020.[3] According to Google, the report was either posted or last updated on the website on May 10, 2020.[4] Since your source is time stamped "4:03 AM · Feb 21, 2021," it cannot be a leak. Common sense anyway tells us that Reports to Membership are not closely guarded secrets of the politburo.

I am surprised you missed the elephant in the room: where is the money from George Soros? Where are the plans to indoctrinate children with critical race theory?

TFD (talk) 00:00, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

FYI, The Four Deuces, the now non-existent Andrew Saturn account was blocked between the post you replied to and your response, and is no currently editing as "Renamed user f73EZFoGLNfsepbYlj" so you might not get those questions answered, but moreover it looks like this issue is now moot unless Toa wants to dispute the litany of RSes below since they seemed to only agree with not "blindly" taking DSA's numbers without actually arguing for OR and SYNTH as Saturn had. JesseRafe (talk) 16:40, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with TFD that membership is always going to ultimately come from the org itself and that that's standard, because where else would it come from? But while it should be OK to use the primary source, do note that reliable sources are also found, but won't always be up-to-date because they're not writing about membership but just including the publication date tallies when writing about the org as regular journalism, such as:

1. 2021 - 95,000 In These Times "DSA, the largest socialist organization by far in the United States, now clocks in at about 95,000 members — a growth of 1,400% in six years. (In 2015, the group numbered about 6,500."
2. 2020 - 66,000 The Atlantic "Membership in DSA chapters around the country has surged in the past eight weeks. An estimated 10,000 people have joined since March, bringing the group’s total membership to roughly 66,000"
3. 2019 - 50,000 The New Republic "With more than 50,000 members"
4. 2018 - 43,000 NPR "DSA's explosive growth nationwide. Membership has grown sevenfold since 2015, from around 6,000 then to 43,000 as of early July"
5. 2017 - 25,000 Vox "In the last year alone, DSA’s membership has ballooned from 8,000 to 25,000 dues-paying members"

References

However, to my initial comment, the complaint is a clear coatrack due to ASaturn's perceived beef with DSA and admonitions to "do the math" are cut-and-dry OR, you're literally asking other editors to do their own research! As well twin bad faith arguments of 1, the apples-to-oranges comparison of 2019 numbers (alleged, terrible source) to 2021 claims and 2, the logical fallacies in the argument such as "let's assume all the chapters are the same size and synth and OR our way from there".
To claim you don't have an ax to grind because you updated the logo (OK?) does not match the incendiary tone of this talk page header. You have a dull ax, but this is not the place to wield it. JesseRafe (talk) 17:14, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Also, some DSA members only pay as low as $1/year to be a member. It is part of the organizations policy not to make the dues a barrier to joining. Members can choose how much to pay. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 17:01, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@Asaturn: lol! and it is not a leaked document. It is not exactly a secret. I can get you their 2021 budget as well, if you want to see it. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 17:07, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Far left in the infobox

We obviously cannot cite Fox on whether something is far-left in an infobox; in addition to being of generally dubious reliability when it comes to politics, they are particularly WP:BIASED for left-right American politics in particular. Therefore, even in the rare situations where someone feels they might be reliable enough to use when better sources are available, they still cannot be cited on it without attribution - and they can't be attributed in the infobox. The Politico source, which would be the strongest one, doesn't actually say that the DSA are far-left, just that Masto is far-left, which is not the same thing. That leaves only a passing mention in Forward (on an article that isn't about the DSA), which isn't sufficient to justify a descriptor in the infobox on its own. --Aquillion (talk) 17:26, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

I posted essentially the same thing a couple days ago [5] and then self-reverted because I decided it might not be worth taking a stand over. I did find other sources associating the DSA with the "radical left" but that is a slightly different shade of meaning. For now I'm just popping in to say that I share Aquillion's concern. Generalrelative (talk) 17:41, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Would you prefer any of:

• Associated Press an organization that, until recently, operated on the fringes of the liberal movement's farthest left flank
• The Times of Israel far-left groups like the DSA remain on the fringes of American politics
• Washington City-Paper Over the past couple of years, the DSA—the largest organization of far-left progressive and labor-centered socialists in the country—has significantly boosted its profile
• Texas Observer With about 37,000 dues-paying members spread across 200 local groups, DSA now dwarfs all other far-left organizations in America

— Mhawk10 (talk) 23:21, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes. The latter three look good to me. The AP source doesn't quite work, as is clear from the quote. But three should be sufficient. Generalrelative (talk) 23:47, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good. I've re-added it with the TOI, WCP, and Observer sources as citations. — Mhawk10 (talk) 00:00, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate the extra effort. Generalrelative (talk) 00:05, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

If we look at the sources, it's clear that the DSA is "far-left" only in the context of US party politics, where conservatives often use the term as a pejorative for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Per WP:GLOBAL and WP:NPOV that type of parochial use of the term "far-left" should not appear in wikivoice. The Times of Israel article uses the term "far-left" once, where it is clearly referring to common perception in the US but not in other countries. The Times of Israel says that DSA was inspired by Bernie Sanders' campaign and describes a DSA activist who was elected to Virginia's state legislature on the Democratic Party ticket. The article says that DSA "has nowhere near the clout of sister movements elsewhere such as Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in Britain, or Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain". None of our articles on the "sister movements" in other countries -- Labour Party (UK) (where the infobox gives its political position as "centre-left"), Syriza (where the infobox says "centre-left to left-wing"), or Podemos (Spanish political party) (where the infobox says "left-wing") -- uses the term "far-left". NightHeron (talk) 03:27, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree with NightHeron and Aquillion. This issue is something which is present in the UK based articles I have researched and written too. In researching the article Momentum (organisation)- an organisation very similar to the DSA- it was common to find right-wing local and national press that described them as far-left. That included the term being applied by political opponents in the Labour Party ([6]). This also receives occasional vandalism of people adding the term to the article. The aims and policy proposals of both organisations are hardly describable as far-left. My concern is that by using the term "far-left" we are regurgitating a pejorative wording on what should be a balanced encyclopaedia. Jonjonjohny (talk) 06:21, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

My 2¢ is that the distinction between "left-wing" and "far-left" isn't actually substantial. The real difference it makes here is that "left-wing" links to Left-wing politics, which is a solid article that paints a fairly positive picture, whereas "far-left" links to Far-left politics, which states: Similar to far-right politics, extremist far-left politics can involve politically-motivated violent acts, such as radicalization, genocide, terrorism, and the formation of far-left militant organizations. Of course associating Bernie Sanders or Cori Bush with that kind of thing is preposterous. So I'm sympathetic to the idea of removing the description in this case –– indeed, that was my initial reaction. On the other hand, though, we do have at least a few instances of reliable sources using the term "far-left" to describe the DSA, and I think many DSA members would have no problem with that as a self-designation (though "radical left" may be a more common way to say it). On Wikipedia it all comes down to the sources, and in the case of the three that are used here it is pertinent to note that they are in no way unsympathetic hit-pieces. Indeed, none seem to use the "far-left" designation in a pejorative manner. They may be a small minority of sources, in which case one might be able to build a case for removal on the basis of WP:DUE balance, but they are definitely in and of themselves decent sources. Generalrelative (talk) 15:52, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

The "far-left" designation has been debated in other cases of people in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, for example, in the case of Ilhan Omar (see [7]). The DSA, as a non-violent organization that is involved in electoral politics within the Democratic Party, is not what is internationally considered to be "far-left". Terminology in the US is skewed relative to international usage, with otherwise reliable sources identifying moderates as "leftist" or even "far-left". Is there any other non-US-based source besides The Times of Israel (whose coverage does not actually support a "far-left" designation on Wikipedia, as I discussed above) that routinely identifies the DSA (or, more generally, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party) as "far-left"? I do think that "far-left" is a pejorative, and certainly would be perceived that way by everyone I've met who's a moderate left-winger. NightHeron (talk) 16:45, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

left-wing not far-left, for the above stated reasons especially vis-a-vis cohesion with WP's own articles they link to and for a globally relevant use of terms. Moreover, the initial sources cited above were not really the standard-bearer of American political journalism, and if those 4 were the only instances found using the term, given the 1000s of mentions of DSA in the past 5 years, that demonstrates this as an undue categorization, perhaps even fringe. JesseRafe (talk) 17:28, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

All I'll say is that this is a case where I would be happy to be out-voted. :) Generalrelative (talk) 17:30, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

The DSA is not the equivalent of Momentum or Syria, it is the equivalent of the UK Labour Party and other social democratic parties. In most developed countries, there are two political groups: a social democratic party and its right-wing opposition. The United States is unique in having no major left-wing party. So the DSA is only "far left" in a U.S. context. i would remove the field. At best it tells us where Wikipedia editors place social democracy. TFD (talk) 17:33, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

The DSA is obviously not a generally overall far-left organization, but for good or bad some of its foreign policy-positions in recent years are far out of the American mainstream (against the existence of Israel, against NATO, etc). Your comparison to the UK Labour party may not be as flattering as you think, given Labour's recent problematic history with respect to antisemitism... AnonMoos (talk) 21:47, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

i was not being flattering, I was being honest. Both Labour and the DSA are broad tent and historically related. The other things you mentioned aren't inherently left-wing. Unlike the DSA, Iran, for example, which does not have a left-wing government, has promoted holocaust denial, literally opposes the existence of Israel and sees NATO as an enemy. The DSA's policy of non-interventionism has had support among the American right as well, such as Taft Republicans. You will note also that some in the DSA want to expel DSA members of Congress for supporting military cooperation with Israel, but they are unlikely to succeed. TFD (talk) 22:06, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I think describe the DSA as far-left. I do not think that DSA's economic policy is much different from European social democracy, I don't agree that the DSA is a center-left in other countries. Among developed countries, European social democracy is not popular in South Korea and Japan. Their left-wing anti-establishment rhetoric and class struggle characteristics, they are perceived as far-left side in South Korea and Japan than their own centre-left/left-wing social democrats. Japan has better labor rights than the United States, but it is a conservative country, so even the Japanese Communist Party does not support class struggle. Labor rights in South Korea are worse than in the United States. Mureungdowon (talk) 23:26, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

TED user seem to argue that the DSA is a center-left social democracy. But it is not only accurate, and it deliberately ignores that there are developed countries whose political environment is more conservative than the United States. In short, South Korea's main two parties are more conservative than the main two parties in the United States. South Korea's Justice Party is more conservative and class collaboration, unlike the U.S. Democratic Party's CPC. Mureungdowon (talk) 23:32, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

To sum up my position, the infobox is a left-wing to far-left party. The DSA's economic policy is similar to European social democracy, but it is much more populist and intransigent on class issues than Europe's centre-left. DSA may not far-left by European standards, but it can be seen as far-left by South Korean and Japanese standards. Mureungdowon (talk) 00:04, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I said, "in most developed countries." Obviously there are exceptions, particularly outside Western Europe. Since you agree that the DSA is the same as social democratic/democratic socialist parties in Western Europe, it wouldn't be seen as far left outside Fox News Channel. In any case, you would need sources for this. TFD (talk) 00:07, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

A point that has been raised above is that there should be a clear understanding of what far-left politics are. It is often used as a pejorative term in liberal-conservative media to denounce people with a different political analysis to them. If the definition of "far-left" is its proclivity to violence, then that neither summarises democratic socialism, the DSA or its successful candidates at all. Users have also suggested DSA is both a social democratic group and yet far-left (‽) because of specific policies that you have neither cited (as I don't know what they are) nor displayed public opinion on those issues. The determining views in the main is ambiguous.

As for their politics being far-left as a relative term rather than objective. That doesn't really make sense when states running referendums on abortion rights, living wage and expanding healthcare all pass, policies which the DSA and its candidates campaign for. In a way, using far-left on this page is massaging a truism that there is no space for socialist politics in America. Jonjonjohny (talk) 05:30, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

The "European social democracy" I am talking about now means classical social democracy, that is, democratic socialism. I'm not talking about center-left social democracy like Olaf Scholz or Magdalena Andersson. Right now, Bernie Sanders is closer to the Left Party (Sweden), according to a Swedish Social Democrats. # Europe's classical social democracy is on the same line as Bernie Sanders, but in the case of a center-left position among modern European social democracy, it may be more moderate than Elizabeth Warren. If what Jonjohnny user calls "socialist politics" means European center-left social democracy, it has nothing to do with the DSA. Mureungdowon (talk) 07:16, 16 November 2022 (UTC))

I think you are misinterpreting what I am trying to say with my comments on the use of far-left. The policies in the main that they might be talking about might well be radical social democratic policies, but a short-term political strategy =/= long-term goals. Goals which they are very transparent about. In addition, there is no official source that Sanders & Warren are members of the DSA, so the alignment of looking like "European Social Democrats" needs separate sources. TrangaBellam has the right idea to use scholiastic sources to support the claim, there isn't consensus and would be better than relying on presentations in the media. Jonjonjohny (talk) 10:32, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

In fact Warren identifies with liberalism as it is understood in the part of the world outside the U.S., although she is closer to social liberalism than classical liberalism. TFD (talk) 23:04, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• These labels shall be sourced to high quality academic sources; not random news-articles or our views on DSA's policy positions. Do better, please. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:50, 16 November 2022 (UTC))

• Let me suggest a compromise. The political position of the infobox in the article is to keep it 'Left-wing' but footnote it. It's like a Progressive Party (South Korea, 2017) article. I'll write the footnote: "The DSA is considered an academic "left-wing" party, but it has also been specified by some media as "far-left"." I'll edit it as an example. Mureungdowon (talk) 07:23, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• I looked up the latest decade of data on the DSA and saw more cases of describing the organization as far-left than left-wing. Mureungdowon (talk) 08:16, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  academic "left-wing" party - What? That line makes no sense. We defer to peer-reviewed scholarship in case of anything controversial provided such scholarship exist. I will create a new section on academic sources and start quoting from them. Fwiw, I am not yet certain about whether scholars bin DSA into the left or the far-left. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:13, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• Then I'll remove this phrase: academic "left-wing" party Thanks. I think the DSA is a 'left-wing to far-left' party. I think the DSA is not far-left by European standards, but can be far-left without using violence. Because American politics is different from European politics. Mureungdowon (talk) 11:01, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  What you (or I) think of DSA's location on the left-right spectrum is irrelevant. I keep on asking for academic sources for either label and you keep on introducing your original research. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:55, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• These are books that depict the DSA as far left. You can bring additional book and data if you want. Mureungdowon (talk) 21:51, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Books by academics - not rw (or lw) hacks, endorsed by Tucker Carlson. Haven't you heard of university presses? TrangaBellam (talk) 11:25, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

If books are endorsed by Carlson, should not they be listed as unreliable in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources? That endorsement is a good reason to blacklist them. Dimadick (talk) 12:01, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

It was a mistake to get any source through Google without properly checking the author. The problem is that few books describe the DSA's political position. Most of the sources describing the DSA's political position are media like The New York Times, and academic data are not available. Mureungdowon (talk) 22:39, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Even though U.S. politics is different from politics elsewhere, we still need to use terms that are readily understood, per guidelines. TFD (talk) 23:06, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

2023

You don't have a clue what you're talking about, the DSA has nothing in common with UK Labour 194.80.168.100 (talk) 08:30, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

One thing they had in common was that both were long term members of the Socialist International and they were one of three successor groups of the Socialist Party of America, which had also been a member. TFD (talk) 01:16, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

The DSA left the Socialist International as part of its modern far-left turn. 194.80.168.100 (talk) 08:09, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

References

Academic sources that describe the politics of DSA

[To add.]

Please do not tamper with this section. Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 10:15, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

James S. Robbins's was actually published by the right-wing publishing house Regnery Publishing, not Simon and Schuster. Robbins writes for the National Review and Washington Times and worked for Donald Rumsfeld as he was pushing misinformation in order to justify a war in Iraq. Robbins book defends keeping up statues of confederate leaders. TFD (talk) 23:19, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Handshake and rose

If someone has reliable sources on the party’s emblem and its local or sectorial derived versions, do contribute to Fist and rose#United States. Keriluamox (talk) 11:04, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Reverts to Caucuses & Elected Officials

As has been discussed previously evidently, DSA is not a political party and so the infobox should not have information on elected officials etc. There was also recent changes to include internal politics such as caucuses, most of which is inaccurate and incorrectly cited, can someone please revert these changes Blocky858 (talk) 17:47, 3 June 2023 (UTC)