Hi comrades,
I’ve officially recovered enough from convention weekend to be able to put together my thoughts, at least a little bit. You don’t need a long essay from me – if you’ve heard anything about the convention, you probably know that Friday morning was frustrating because of proxy fights via procedural Roberts Rules-ing and, while things got much smoother after that morning, there were still lots of contentious decisions to be made.
To me, the central tension was about the relationship the locals should have to the National and vice versa. (This is not a particularly unique or insightful take.) If you haven’t already read it, Current Affairs published an extremely sweet essay about the whole weekend (and they’re looking for DSA members to interview, so reach out! Let’s make sure our big tent is well-represented). My primary takeaways, though, were the same as they always are: “if you’re going to do something, do it well” and “if we want something to happen, we need to build the infrastructure for it ourselves.” (Join us at an operations meeting!!)
Below is an airtable that details how I voted and the results of each vote (though I think I stopped forming meories out of exhaustion by the end, so…this is as well as I can remember for now!). Don’t forget to check the views by clicking where it says “Grid View” on the left – there are some different formats that help with understanding the data.
I’ve invited the eighteen other delegates to share their votes as well; if they asked to be included, their name is listed, and any votes are ones they chose to add to the airtable themselves. They will probably add more info over the course of the next few days and weeks.
Please feel free to talk to any one of us about the convention – we were elected by you to represent you, after all (as Ian R. so accurately put it, I have an earnest commitment to democracy – it’s good, y’all)! And you’re extra welcome to talk to us if there’s a vote that surprises you or you have questions about – I know I for one have a few choices in there that might not make sense without context (amendments, strategy, obstinacy…..).
Some more helpful links: go here for detailed meeting minutes put together by collaborators from the forum (which is good, actually, and you should be on it and relentlessly kind to one another); go here for full text of the constitution & bylaws proposals; go here for the full text of the resolutions; go here to see our new National Political Committee.
???? solidarity forever ????
– Anne B
PS: Though we did make our minimum goal to reimburse delegate registration and travel expenses, plenty of comrades still paid quite a bit out of pocket to represent you in Atlanta. You can still donate to support them, and of course, snag yourself some limited-edition swag!