u/TannerLyfe

As someone who finds myself on the left of DSA, I’ve been thinking of ways to find common ground with my DSA comrades who are primarily focused on winning reforms. I believe the easiest way to find this is looking at Medicare For All. Whether you are on the DSA Left and support this as a Minimum program, or the DSA Right and support this as an end goal, it remains something we can agree on. It also is something we all recognize as a moderate Social Democratic reform for a developed nation. The issue we all need to acknowledge about M4A is I don’t think it’s possible. At least not as things stand.

Let’s say the DSA continues its electoral success within the Democratic Party, gets rid of the filibuster, and wins enough support for M4A in Congress and the White House to get it passed. That seems great, but we can’t ignore the impact of the current Supreme Court. The court is overwhelmingly conservative and is unlikely to let something even as admittedly moderate as M4A happen. And if somehow it does get upheld, it won’t matter because we won’t govern forever. The Republicans will inevitably win back power in a few years no matter how well we govern. A newly birthed national healthcare system will not survive a Republican government. The ACA was nearly killed and that was not half as threatening to the capitalist class that the Republican Party serves. Additionally, as a national service, the Republican government will have a much easier time hamstringing it until it is politically acceptable to do away with it entirely.

Where does this leave us? What is the future of this movement if even our most basic of Social Democratic demands is made impossible by the system of government we have? To me, it is clear the only way forward for any ideology in DSA is the remaking of the government itself. There is no M4A with a far-right party sitting in wait to undo every bit of progress made. That is why even SocDems cannot support M4A while rejecting the calls for radical changes in our government. Unfortunately, the US Constitution is written in a way to make passing any of the amendments we would need infeasible no matter how popular they are. There is no path for us through the US Constitution.

With that in mind, I think all of us need to back a new Constitution that does not allow parties to undo the gains of the working class in favor of corporations, and that is truly democratic and accountable to the people. Because if we do not accomplish that, we can’t accomplish anything.

This is a pretty rough write up, but I wanted to hear what people think. Even if you disagree with my final conclusion, I hope it can get us all thinking about what will be necessary to create the changes we want to see beyond winning elections. Let me know why you agree or disagree and I hope to take that in to refine my argument.

The memories are foggy but I read this around 2014. It was about a boy who lost his father, and goes to live in his father’s hometown. The theme of the book is mainly him overcoming the grief of losing his father, but there is a mystery element where there is a mysterious man who he believes to be his father. After trying the entire story, he eventually finds out this man is not his father and has to grapple with the fact that his father is really gone. There is some theme with painting I can’t quite remember but I believe the father was a painter and the boy begins painting too as he tries to move on. The cover also features a black silhouette of a man against a blue landscape, who you would assume to be his father. I wish I had a clearer memory because this book was really meaningful to me when I read it as a child. If this sparks any memories for you please let me know.