Join us for a brief call this Friday at 8pm and find out how we can build a brighter socialist future together! We’ll talk about our working groups and how you can get involved in building real power with your fellow comrades.

You will learn about who we are and what we do. We’ll outline our chapter’s structure and our campaigns, branches, and caucuses. Our chapter covers the DMV area, including the District, Northern Virginia, and Montgomery County and Prince George’s County in Maryland.

On Saturday, several pro-Trump and white nationalist groups are planning to rally down in DC in an effort to further Trump’s baseless claims about a stolen election.

DSA is not endorsing any counter protest of the event, and given DC’s increasing COVID caseload (and that some random confrontation is what Trump wants), consider saving energy for another day. But counter-protesters are planning to meet by the Supreme Court building around 12pm.

If you want to be plugged into our larger election-related protest organizing, you can fill out our electoral affinity organizing group form here. Once on the radar, we will help connect you to our chapter resources (such as our virtual buddy systems) and more secure communications to help keep us safe during protests. We are also using these systems to organize response to election-related outbursts from the president and help coordinate with other organizations in the region.

MDC DSA CALENDAR OF EVENTS

NATIONAL DSA CALENDAR OF EVENTS

November 12 – 13
Meeting the Moment: Building a more resilient nation (a virtual gathering)
Hosted by the Progressive Caucus Action Fund and the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center. Speakers include Reps. Jayapal, Lee, Omar and Raskin plus many movement leaders. Click to register;

Monday, November 16
6:45 PM | Reel and Meal will feature ‘John Lewis: Get in the Way.”
Lewis, Congressman for Georgia’s 5th district since 1987, was a man cast into extraordinary times dedicated to seeking justice for the marginalized and ignored. While the film spans more than half a century of courage, confrontations and triumphs, it also provides a current message of being steadfast, politically engaged and compassionate during vitally interesting times. Discussion leaders include SCLC PG and PG Change Makers reps.

Wednesday, November 18
6:00 – 8:00 PM EST
DC Jobs With Justice “I’ll Be There” Awards“
Virtually this year we’ll honor some of the outstanding leaders in our work, and remind ourselves of our values as a community in our single largest event of the year.

November 17 and 19
Building an Antiracist Economy in Maryland
Virtual reports and panel discussion presented by the Maryland Center on Economic Policy. Info and registration to come. A basically social-democratic think tank on the model of EPI; you can sign up for their email list here.

INFO ACCESS

Interested in helping out with our publications? Or want to help shape the local left-wing narrative? Our Publications Team is having a meeting this Sunday at 11:00am. You can sign-up to participate here.

Publications Schedule: November updates are published Fridays, Nov. 20 and 27 and the December (pre-Convention) issue of the Washington Socialist will be published Friday, Dec. 4.

“You haven’t yet done our Member Survey?!”  

We are once again asking you to do the Member Survey. We just love getting to know you. If you haven’t yet done the survey, please do so now! We are sending invitations and alerts to members based on those responses and you don’t want to miss out! Non-members are also invited. Complete it here!

Are you an MDC DSA member who wonders how to get on our chapter Slack? Just email [email protected] and identify yourself as a member. Put “request for #Slack” in the subject line. Use the email address by which national DSA knows you. If you are a new member, forward the email that national DSA sent you acknowledging your status. Our Slack platform, with numerous channels for all our caucuses, branches, campaigns and working groups, is a great place to get connected with the kind of socialist work YOU want to do in DSA.

The election is over, sort of, but the articles in November’s issue of the Washington Socialist haven’t gotten stale — voter suppression, being prepared for fascist eruptions and the many ways that the struggle continues are, we are bold to say, timeless.

GOOD READS

Left veterans Bill Fletcher Jr. and Carl Davidson take a seasoned look at the enduring illnesses betrayed anew by “this election [which] was about racism and revanchism.” It’s in the increasingly essential “Organizing Upgrade.”

This admonition from Sen. Nina Turner in the WaPo is getting lots of circ among Our Rev folks: “Working people delivered Biden his victory. Now he needs to deliver for them. Or risk another Trump.”

Bernie echoes that sentiment and recommends a familiar battle flag for wins in the Georgia runoffs: a Fight for Fifteen.

AOC will probably have plenty of interview encounters about what’s next in the upcoming weeks. We wonder how many of them will deep-dive into the Dem party structure, inadequacies and foot-dragging tendencies as much as this one, from the NYT .

This, from Popular Resistance; savor it for the headline “US Murder Machine Now Under Competent Management” — “I think we’re all breathing a lot easier knowing that the US government will now be run by grown-ups who murder people instead of emotionally stunted children who murder people.”

Industrial Worker magazine interviews lifelong labor activist and musician, Tom Morello. Mr. Morello discusses how labor has been the theme of his life, and how the various forms of activism he’s pursued have come full circle to inform even more activism. “I want you to go and get exactly 155 donuts and I want you to deliver those donuts to those cops, since they’re not serving and protecting anybody they might as well be enjoying a tasty treat,” he said, inspiring the reader with creative praxis ideas. He notes earnestly that his new photobook is in solidarity with and as an homage to the IWW’s “Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent”, also known as “The Little Red Songbook”.

Naomi Klein: Between a clueless, skill-less party and an unappealing candidate, the Dems in the grip of big money lost a lot and nearly lost it all, when they should have cleaned up like Roosevelt v. Hoover. Time for Democrats To Betray the Donor Class—Not the People

And some same-day takes from final-call Saturday afternoon:

• Tom Frank in the Guardian — “Democrats must confront their own past and acknowledge how their own decisions over the years helped make Trumpism possible. … Biden’s name is virtually synonymous with Washington consensus. His years in the US Senate overlap almost precisely with his party’s famous turn to the ‘third way’ right, and Biden personally played a leading role in many of the signature initiatives of the era: NAFTA-style trade agreements, lucrative favors for banks, tough-on-crime measures, proposed cuts to social security, even.”

• Harold Meyerson from the American Prospect — “What kind of Democratic majority exists remains a question. In the wake of the party’s diminished standing in the House, centrists are blaming progressives and vice versa. It’s certainly true that the politics of the Squad don’t play well in most of rural America, and it’s just as certainly true that, absent the high urban turnout among progressives and the increasingly radical young, Biden wouldn’t have won the presidency. In a sense, the Democrats’ problems are a reflection of their strength. With the leftward movement of tens of millions of their partisans, and with the anti-Trump sentiments of tens of millions of more centrist Americans, the party now spans a vast ideological space.”

Ages have come and gone, kingdoms and powers and dynasties have risen and fallen, old glories and ancient wisdoms have been turned into dust, heroes and sages have been forgotten and many a mighty and fearsome god has been hurled into the lightless chasms of oblivion.

But ye, Plebs, Populace, People, Rabble, Mob, Proletariat, live and abide forever.
- Arturo Giovannitti