Democratic Left

Chris Maisano is the editor of Democratic Left and chair of the New York City local of Democratic Socialistsof America.
Keep Pushing By Chris Maisano

When he campaigned for the White House in 2008,
President Obama spoke admiringly of Ronald
Reagan’s status as a transformational figure who
reshaped the nation’s political order. In his State of the
Union speech and in recent campaign appearances, Obama
has sought to channel the Gipper’s sunny, can-do spirit by
declaring that “America is back.” That’s news to us, and it’s
news to the tens of millions of Americans still grappling
with the devastation the Great Recession left in its wake.
Fifty years after Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)
founder Michael Harrington published his groundbreaking
book The Other America, the poor are not only still
with us; over the last decade, their ranks have grown
dramatically. DSA Vice-Chair Joseph Schwartz surveys
the grim landscape of poverty in the contemporary U.S.,
while the distinguished historian Maurice Isserman reflects
on the ways in which Harrington’s democratic radicalism
resonates in our own time.
Such hardships, of course, are not confined to our own
country. A global crisis has produced suffering on a global
scale, and the comparatively humane countries of Europe
have not escaped its terrible grasp. The eminent sociologist
Norman Birnbaum has been a keen observer of European
society and politics for decades, and in this issue he applies his
characteristic acuity to the contemporary crisis of European
social democracy. From Greece to Spain to Ireland to France
to Germany, the principles of solidarity and social welfare
are under attack. They may not hold up under the combined
pressures of the European Union, the International Monetary
Fund, and the financial elite. Capitalism’s clear inability to
deliver the goods,combined with the passing of the Cold War,
have created clear political openings for socialists. Whether
we take advantage of them is, of course, up to us.
But the story is not solely one of doom and gloom.
As Phillip Logan, an Ohio-based Young Democratic
Socialists (YDS) activist, demonstrates in these pages, the
long economic crisis has made
American youth increasingly
open to progressive political
alternatives. If recent public
opinion polls are to be believed,
a majority of young adults
actually prefer “socialism”
(which the polls leave undefined)
to “capitalism” (also left
undefined). Capitalism’s clear
inability to deliver the goods,
combined with the passing of
the Cold War, have created clear
political openings for socialists to take advantage of;
whether we do so is of course up to us.
YDS has wasted no time in doing so. In February, the
youth section held its annual outreach conference in New
York; it was one of the biggest and most successful youth
conferences in years. Skyrocketing student debt, cuts to
public education funding, and the spectacular emergence
of the Occupy movement have reinvigorated youth and
student politics in the U.S., and YDSers have been on
the front lines of the movement on campuses and in
communities across the country. Temple University YDSer
Beth Cozzolino reports on the conference’s highlights and
considers the prospects for rebuilding a new democratic
Left for the 21st century.
These are interesting times indeed, and if there is to be
a future for our vision and our values, DSAers will need
to settle in for a long-term battle. The challenges are
daunting, but there are signs that the tide may be starting
to turn, however slightly, our way. Let’s keep pushing."

**But beware of the radical right-wing Tea Party**