Visiting Julia Salazar’s north Brooklyn campaign office one warm July weekend, I’m greeted by a volunteer with a spreadsheet. Like nearly everyone else in the converted coffee shop, she’s a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and she asks me cheerily if I’m there to canvass. I’m not, but if I were, I would be instructed to make my way to a training session on the sunbathed patio out back that is scattered with half-full bottles of sunscreen. After that—in the span of just a half-hour—I would know everything I need to know about how to help elect a card-carrying socialist to the New York state Senate.
我在一个温暖的七月的周末拜访Julia Salazar在北布鲁克林的竞选办公室时，受到一名拿着电子表格的志愿者的欢迎。 和被改造的咖啡店里的几乎其他所有人一样，她是美国民主社会主义者（DSA）的成员，她高兴地问我是不是来参与讨论的。 我不是，但如果我是的话，我会被介绍前往晒日光浴的露台上进行训练，那里散落着半满的防晒霜。在那之后—在半小时的时间内—我将知道如何帮助选举一位成为政党一员的社会主义者到纽约州参议院。
If Salazar makes it to Albany, she will join the ranks of 42 DSA-endorsed candidates who are now or will soon be serving in offices from the Moorhead, Minn., school board to Capitol Hill (that is, if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wins the general election as handily as she did her primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District). So far this year, local chapters have endorsed at least 110 candidates.
如果Salazar进入奥尔巴尼，她将加入42名DSA推荐的候选人中，他们现在或即将在明尼苏达州的Moorhead，在从学校董事会到国会山的办公室工作（即，如果Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez在大选中像在在纽约第14届国会区初选中获胜）。今年到目前为止，当地分会已经推荐了至少110名候选人。
DSA may soon have 50,000 members across 200 local groups in all 50 states—up from 6,000 members in 2015. The surge in freshly minted socialists came in three waves: First, those energized by Bernie Sanders’ primary run; second, those brought in by Donald Trump’s election and the Women’s March; and third, those inspired by 27-year-old DSA member Ocasio-Cortez’s primary victory in May over incumbent—and Democratic heavyweight—Joe Crowley.
DSA可能很快将在所有50个州的200个当地团体中拥有50,000名成员—2015年有6,000名成员。新生社会主义者的激增来自三个浪潮：第一，伯尼桑德斯的主要活动的激励; 第二，由唐纳德特朗普当选和女性游行带来的; 第三，受到27岁的DSA成员Ocasio-Cortez在5月份对现任—和民主党重量级选手—Joe Crowley的初步胜利的鼓舞。
So what is DSA, exactly, and what is it doing with this growing army?
所以，到底DSA是什么，以及DSA到底和其正在增长的队伍一起做什么？
DSA’s electoral work has attracted national media attention in the wake of Ocasio-Cortez’s historic win. Yet it’s just one part of a bottom-up approach to politics that sees the ballot box and state power as tools for advancing toward a more radically democratic society. Members—most of them millennials, in small towns and big cities in every corner of the country—are engaged in everything from occupying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices to evangelizing about Medicare for All. Many reporters have tried to divine what DSA believes, be that the group’s policy prescriptions or its ideology. DSA, though—to crib from Karl Marx—isn’t looking merely to interpret the world, but to change it, campaign by campaign, door by door. What’s made DSA’s ascendance remarkable is less its analysis of capitalism than its ability to put people angry about capitalism to work.
在Ocasio-Cortez的历史性胜利之后，DSA的选举工作吸引了国家级媒体的关注。然而，这只是自下而上的政治方法的一部分，它将投票箱和政府权力视为推进更加民主的社会的工具。 成员们—其中大多数是千禧一代，在国家各个角落的小镇和的大城市—从事占领移民和海关执法（ICE）办事处到宣传全民医疗保障。许多记者试图猜测DSA所相信的，即该团体的政策处方或其意识形态。 DSA，虽然—引用自卡尔·马克思—不仅仅是为了解释世界，而是为了改变它，一个又一个竞选活动，一扇又一扇门。 DSA崛起的显著之处不在于它对资本主义的分析，而在于让人们对资本主义感到愤怒的能力。
It’s telling that, unlike most socialist groups, DSA was formed out of a merger—not a sectarian split. In 1982, at the dawn of the Reagan era, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and the New America Movement (NAM) combined forces. DSOC had been founded in 1973 by socialist intellectual Michael Harrington and other members of the Socialist Party who had grown disenchanted with political irrelevance. NAM, founded in 1972 by former members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), was rooted in ’60s counterculture, the New Left and second-wave feminism. (In 1976, members of DSOC and NAM moved to Chicago to found In These Times, and for the next decade the then-newspaper reported diligently on the ins and outs of DSOC, NAM and DSA.)
它告诉我们，与大多数社会主义组织不同，DSA是由合并形成的——而不是派别分裂。1982年，在里根时代初期，民主社会主义组织委员会（DSOC）和新美国运动（NAM）联合起来。 DSOC成立于1973年，由社会主义知识分子Michael Harrington和其他对政治无关感到不满的社会党成员组成。 NAM由民主社会学生（SDS）的前成员于1972年创立，植根于60年代的反文化，新左派和第二波女权主义。（1976年，DSOC和NAM的成员移居芝加哥，创建了“在此时”，并且在接下来的十年中，对DSOC，NAM和DSA的来龙去脉孜孜不倦地报道。）
The 1980s would prove a tough decade for left politics, the 1990s and 2000s even more so. DSA shed members and closed chapters around the country as a few loyalists and a steady trickle of young recruits kept the organization running.
对于左翼政治来说，1980s将是艰难的十年，而1990s和2000s更是如此。 DSA在全国范围内分散成员和关闭分部，作为由少数忠诚者和年轻新人的稳定涓涓细流的架构使该组织继续运作。
Enter Bernie Sanders’ primary campaign and his stalwart identification as a “democratic socialist,” a surprise boon for an organization with those two words in its name. DSA’s commitment to being a pluralistic, “multi-tendency” organization also meant it was open enough to accommodate thousands of newcomers.
进入伯尼桑德斯的主要运动和他作为“民主社会主义者”的坚定认同，对于一个以这两个词为名的组织来说，这是一个惊喜。DSA致力于成为一个多元化的，“多趋势”的组织，这也意味着它足以容纳成千上万的新来者。
Democratic socialism itself has always been a heterodox term, encompassing everyone from ideological Trotskyists to New Deal Democrats. The surge of new, mostly 20-something members include anarchists, Marxist academics and—most numerously—political neophytes excited about Sanders’ message and frustrated with the Democratic establishment.
民主社会主义本身一直是一个非正统的术语，涵盖了从思想上的托洛茨基主义者到新政民主党人的每一个人。新的，大多数为20多岁的成员的激增包括无政府主义者，马克思主义学者和——最多的——政治新手，他们对桑德斯的信息感到兴奋，并对民主的建设感到沮丧。
DSA isn’t keen to enforce a strict definition of “democratic socialism”—although mainstream media outlets newly hip to DSA are desperately looking for one. On its website, DSA writes:
DSA并不热衷于强加一个对“民主社会主义”的严格定义—尽管主流媒体机构对DSA非常敏感，正在拼命寻找这样一个定义。 DSA在其网站上写道：
At the root of our socialism is a profound commitment to democracy, as means and end. As we are unlikely to see an immediate end to capitalism tomorrow, DSA fights for reforms today that will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people. …
我们的社会主义的根源是对民主的深切承诺，作为手段和目的。由于我们不太可能在明天立即终结资本主义，DSA今天为改革而斗争，这将削弱企业的力量并增加劳动人民的力量。…
Our vision is of a society in which people have a real voice in the choices and relationships that affect the entirety of our lives. We call this vision democratic socialism—a vision of a more free, democratic and humane society.
我们的愿景是一个社会，在这个社会中，人民在影响我们整个生活的选择和关系中拥有真正的声音。 我们将这一愿景称为民主社会主义—一个更自由，更民主和更人道的社会的愿景。
Members I spoke with took this to mean everything from taking public goods like healthcare off the private market (along the lines of Scandinavian social democracies) to worker-ownership of the means of production. Central Iowa DSA co-chair Caroline Schoonover was among many to say that democratic socialism means “taking power from the few and giving it to the many.” All saw small-d democracy—people having a say in the decisions that affect them—as central, both in politics and workplaces, and in DSA itself.
我采访过的成员认为，这意味着从私人市场将医疗保健等公共产品转移到（沿着斯堪的纳维亚社会民主国家的方向）工人对生产资料的所有上。 爱荷华州中部DSA联合主席Caroline Schoonover和很多人一样说民主社会主义意味着“从少数人手中夺取权力并将其交给多数人”。所有人都看到小民主—人民对影响他们的决策有发言权—无论是在政治和工作场所，还是在DSA本身，都很关键。
The Socialist Feminists of Democratic Socialists of America organize a protest outside of the New York County Republican Office in New York City on July 5, 2017. (Photo by Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
美国民主社会主义的社会女权主义者于2017年7月5日在纽约市纽约共和党办公室外组织抗议。（拍摄者：Erik McGregor / Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty Images）
For this story, I spoke with around two dozen DSA members from chapters around the country. The primary source of their excitement was that DSA chapters seemed to be actively working on something, not just sitting around reading Marx. Like the citizen action group Indivisible, which also exploded after the election, DSA let people shake off a feeling of helplessness about the political climate and roll up their sleeves.
在这个故事中，我与来自全国各地的大约二十几个DSA成员进行了交谈。 他们兴奋的主要原因是DSA的分部似乎正积极致力于某些事情，而不仅仅是坐在那里围着阅读马克思。就像选举后爆发的公民行动组织Indivisible一样，DSA让人们摆脱对政治气候的无助的感觉，然后卷起袖子。
DSA also offers a community. Chapters host regular beach days, parties, fundraisers and social events, like Metro D.C. DSA’s recent “No ICE Cream Social.” If Indivisible was able to connect many alienated, middle-class suburbanites jarred out of their political comfort zone, DSA has provided a home for tens of thousands of downwardly-mobile, debt-ridden millennials grappling with a system that simply isn’t working for them.
DSA还提供了社区。 分部定期举办海滩日，派对，筹款活动和社交活动，如Metro DC DSA最近的“No ICE Cream Social”。如果Indivisible能够将许多相互疏远的，中产阶级的郊区居民与联系起来拉出他们的政治舒适区，DSA为成千上万的向下移动，债务缠身的千禧一代提供了一个家，他们正在和一个根本不适合他们的系统扭打。
Adam Shuck and Arielle Cohen, 32 and 29, joined Pittsburgh DSA in its infancy; Shuck was among the seven people who first met at a bar in 2016 to talk about getting the chapter together. Each was energized by Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign but disillusioned by his presidency. “I thought we were going to see some kind of New Deal,” Shuck says. The frustration led him at first to join the International Socialist Organization before the Sanders campaign brought him to DSA. While a student at SUNY Purchase, Cohen grew disillusioned with the sausage-making and compromise that created the Affordable Care Act, and organized with Occupy Wall Street before moving to Pittsburgh and finding her way to DSA. Now, Shuck and Cohen co-chair the Pittsburgh chapter.
Adam Shuck和Arielle Cohen，32岁和29岁，在其初期就加入了匹兹堡DSA; Shuck是2016年第一次在酒吧和我见面的七个人之一，他们谈论将这一分布组合在一起。巴拉克•奥巴马的2008年总统竞选活动激励了他们，但他的总统任期令人失望。 “我以为我们会看到某种新政，”Shuck说。在桑德斯的竞选活动将他带到DSA之前，这种沮丧使他首先加入了ISO。在纽约州立大学当学生期间，Cohen对“平价医疗法案”的和稀泥和妥协感到失望，并在前往匹兹堡之前与占领华尔街合作并找到了通往DSA的道路。现在，Shuck和Cohen共同担任匹兹堡分部的主席。
Pittsburgh DSA held its first general meeting in December 2016 with around 100 people. Now it has a dizzying number of working groups: a health justice committee campaigning for Medicare for All; reading groups tackling Marx and Engels; an anti-imperialism committee lobbying for legislation criticizing Israel’s occupation of Palestine; a socialist feminist working group exposing crisis pregnancy centers; an ecosocialist group fighting the privatization of the city’s water and sewer system; a housing rights group pushing for protections for renters; and a number of inward-facing groups handling tasks like recruitment and communications.
匹兹堡DSA于2016年12月召开了第一次大会，约有100人参加。 现在，它拥有令人眼花缭乱的工作组：健康正义委员会，为全民医疗保障开展活动; 阅读小组拥抱马克思和恩格斯; 一个反帝国主义委员会为了通过批评以色列占领巴勒斯坦的立法而游说; 暴露危机怀孕中心的社会女权主义工作组; 一个与城市供水和下水道系统的私有化作斗争的生态社会主义小组; 一个住房权利组织，推动对租房者的保护; 以及一些面向内部事务的小组处理征募和沟通等任务。
The chapter also brought the newly revived DSA one of its early electoral victories, rattling the local Democratic machine. In December 2017, the group threw its weight behind Summer Lee’s campaign to represent House District 34. In the May primary, with the help of DSA and groups like Our Revolution and the Sierra Club, Lee, 30, a recent law school grad, beat Paul Costa, 57, a 19-year incumbent and member of a dynastic Pittsburgh Democratic family.
这一分部还为新生的DSA带来了早期选举胜利之一，震撼了当地的民主党机器。 2017年12月，该组织支持的Summer Lee的竞选活动代表众议院34区。在5月的初选中，在DSA和我们的革命和塞拉俱乐部等团体的帮助下，Lee，30岁，最近从法学院毕业，击败现年57岁的Paul Costa，他当了19年的主席，也是一位匹兹堡民主党家庭王朝的成员。
Lee had experience working on school board races and on a coordinated campaign to elect Katie McGinty governor and Hillary Clinton president in the 2016 general election, and she was impressed with DSA’s electoral work on Mik Pappas’ judicial campaign. Pappas ran on a platform of ending cash bail and working to end mass incarceration, and won in a landslide, with the help of a dedicated grassroots turnout effort staffed in part by DSA members.
Lee在2016年大选中有过参加学校董事会比赛和协调Katie McGinty的州长竞选活动和希拉里克林顿的总统竞选的经验，她对DSA在Mik Pappas的司法竞选活动中的选举工作印象很深刻。Pappas在一个结束现金保释并努力结束大规模监禁的平台上运行，并且在一次由部分DSA成员专职负责的基层投票工作的帮助下以压倒性优势获胜。
“They were running 20 or more canvassing shifts a week,” says Lee. “I had never seen that type of energy around magistrate elections. I realized that ideologically we aligned.” She joined DSA shortly thereafter and sought them out as her first endorsement.
“他们每周进行20次或更多次的拉票，”Lee说。 “我从未在县长选举中看到过那种能量。 我意识到在意识形态上我们是一致的。“她很快就加入了DSA并将其作为她的第一推荐目标。
It wasn’t easy. DSA’s candidate endorsement process is a microcosm of its baked-in commitment to direct democracy. For every decision, at every level, there’s deliberate space for members to duke things out, combined with a commitment to ultimately supporting the group decision rather than splitting off into rival factions. The very question of whether to engage in the electoral process—and in particular, to work within the Democratic Party—remains fraught, with many members skeptical of investing limited organizational resources into elections rather than base-building.
这并不容易。 DSA的候选人推荐程序是其直接民主的承诺的缩影。对于每一个决策，在每个层面上，都有一个有意识的空间让成员们相互辩论，同时承诺最终支持团队决策，而不是分裂为敌对派系。是否参与选举进程—特别是在民主党内工作—的问题依然没有确定答案，许多成员对将有限的组织资源投入选举而非基础建设持怀疑态度。
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is joined by New York gubenatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon at her victory party in the Bronx after upsetting incumbent Democratic Representative Joseph Crowly on June 26, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Scott Heins/Getty Images)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez在2018年6月26日在纽约市战胜了现任民主党众议员Joseph Crowly后，在布朗克斯的胜利派对上加入了纽约州的候选人Cynthia Nixon。 （拍摄者：Scott Heins / Getty Images）
New York City DSA hotly debated whether to endorse Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s challenger from the left, Cynthia Nixon, after she declared herself a democratic socialist. Several dozen DSA members signed a “vote no” statement arguing that universal healthcare and rent control will be won not by electing candidates to office but by “building working-class power that holds [them] accountable,” citing the successful teachers’ strikes in Republican states. In late July, NYC-DSA officially endorsed her after an extended series of debates.
在她宣布自己是一名民主社会主义者之后，纽约市DSA热烈讨论是否支持州长Andrew Cuomo的挑战者左派Cynthia Nixon。 数十名DSA成员签署了一份“投票说不”声明，认为全民医疗保障和租金控制不是通过选举候选人到办公室里来赢得，而是通过“建立让他们自己负责的工人阶级权力”，并引用在共和党州发生的成功的教师罢工。 在7月下旬，经过一系列辩论，NYC-DSA正式决定支持她。
“We have folks who distrust electoral work, and even among those that don’t, there are different ways of thinking of how to approach it,” says DSA National Director Maria Svart, 38, a former SEIU organizer. “Everybody appreciates that electoral success only comes when you have an organized base. Having all these tendencies in conversation means that everybody learns from each other.”
“我们有些不信任选举工作的成员，即使是那些不信任选举工作的人，也有不同的思考如何接近它的方式，”DSA全国总监Maria Svart说，她38岁，是前SEIU组织者。“每个人都认可选举的成功只有在你有一个有组织的基础时才会出现。在谈话中拥有所有这些倾向意味着每个人都在互相学习。“
While the endorsement process varies from chapter to chapter, in some cases—including Lee’s—the first step is filling out a lengthy form with questions from each of the chapter’s working groups. Typically, one is whether the candidate identifies as a socialist. Members weigh that alongside specific policy questions (“Do you support universal rent control? Abolishing the police?”) and a range of other concerns: How much of an impact could the chapter have on the race? How will it build the chapter’s capacity and the movement to challenge the capitalist class?
虽然推荐进程因分部不同而有所不同，但在某些情况下—包括Lee在内—第一步是填写一个冗长的表格，其中包含来自每个分部的工作组的问题。通常，一个是候选人是否是社会主义者。 成员们会根据具体的政策问题（“你支持普遍租金管制吗？废除警察吗？”）以及其他一系列问题来衡量：分部在种族问题上有多大影响？ 分部如何拥有能力和发动挑战资产阶级的运动？
Next comes the interview process. After filling out Pittsburgh DSA’s questionnaire, Lee was interviewed by a roomful of members. The group voted to endorse both Lee and Sara Innamorato, a state representative candidate, and the two supported one another’s campaigns.
接下来是面试过程。在填写匹兹堡DSA的调查问卷后，Lee接受了一些成员的面试。该小组投票支持Lee和Sara Innamorato，一位州代表候选人，还有两人支持另一个人的竞选活动。
Ocasio-Cortez, in New York, jumped through even more hoops. Because her congressional district spans the Bronx and Queens DSA chapters, she had five interviews: with the electoral committees and membership of each branch, and then the citywide convention. “We put her through hell,” jokes Michael Kinnucan, a DSA member now co-managing the state Senate campaign of Julia Salazar (whom the organization endorsed alongside Ocasio-Cortez in a parallel process).
纽约的Ocasio-Cortez跳过了更多的环节。因为她的国会区域跨越布朗克斯和皇后区的DSA分部，所以她进行了五次面试：先是选举委员会和每个分会的成员，然后是全市范围的会议。 “我们让她通过地狱，”现任DSA成员Michael Kinnucan开玩笑说，他现在共同管理Julia Salazar的州参议院竞选活动（该组织同时支持Ocasio-Cortez）。
Abdullah Younus, co-chair of NYC-DSA and a member of DSA’s National Electoral Committee, explains that the extensive endorsement process isn’t just a means of vetting candidates, but of building members’ commitment to them. “It makes it a lot easier to have the same folks who write the questions come out and knock for those candidates,” he says. “They’re talking about work they’re invested in.”
NYC-DSA联合主席，DSA全国选举委员会成员Abdullah Younus解释说，大规模的推荐程序不仅是审查候选人的手段，而且是建立成员对他们的承诺。“这让那些写出问题的人出来并为那些候选人敲门更容易，”他说。 “他们谈论的是他们所投资的工作。”
Salazar, 27, estimates that some 800 DSA members live in and around her district, which has translated into hundreds of volunteers spreading the word about her September primary. Even in her short time with the group (she joined in late 2016), she’s seen a change in how fellow leftists relate to electoral politics. “I think part of it is people seeing the term ‘democratic socialist’ normalized in the electoral realm, through Bernie mostly, at least initially, and so seeing it as an actually viable strategy,” she told me between knocking doors.
27岁的Salazar估计约有800名DSA成员住在她所在地区及其周围，这已经转化为数百名志愿者，宣传她9月份的初选。即使在她与该小组一起的短暂时间内（她于2016年底加入），她也看到了左翼同伴与选举政治有关的变化。 “我认为部分原因是人们看到”民主社会主义“这一术语在选举领域正常化，至少在初期通过伯尼，因此将其视为一种切实可行的战略，”她在敲门之间告诉我。
Though she’d worked on legislative campaigns as a staff organizer with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Salazar only recently began to consider electoral work. “It’s not something I ever thought about before—not just for myself, but in seeing leadership development in community organizing as a path toward seizing state power,” she says. “That sounds like a jump, right? But ultimately that’s the goal.”
尽管她作为犹太人种族和经济正义的工作组织者参与立法活动，Salazar最近才开始考虑选举工作。“这不是我以前想过的事情—不仅仅是为了我自己，而是将社区组织中的领导力发展视为夺取政权的途径，”她说。 “这听起来像一个跳跃，对吗？ 但最终这就是目标。“
New York state senate candidate Julia Salazar (R) knocks doors in Bushwick, N.Y., with a fellow DSA member in July. (Photo by Raul Coto-Batres)
在7月。纽约州参议员候选人Julia Salazar（R）在纽约州布什维克与DSA成员一起敲门。 （拍摄者：Raul Coto-Batres）
Thanks in part to the Sanders campaign and Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning upset, that goal feels more within reach now than it has since the days of the Socialist Party’s Eugene Debs. Big, universal programs like a federal job guarantee or Medicare for All draw overwhelming popular support. And small, local races offer an opportunity for the grassroots to tip the balance.
感谢部分由于桑德斯竞选活动和Ocasio-Cortez引发的惊人不安，这个目标现在比社会主义党的Eugene Debs时代更容易实现。像联邦工作保障或全民医疗保障这样的大型通用计划吸引了压倒性的大众支持。小规模的本地竞赛为基层提供了进行平衡的机会。
Establishment candidates in Democratic-controlled cities effectively depend on low turnout. Their political consultants tend to rely more on advertising and glossy mailers, and less on actually talking to people—particularly people who don’t usually vote. Mobilizing even a few thousand new voters in that context, then, is a fairly straightforward formula for victory. When DSA member Lee Carter won a seat in Virginia’s House of Delegates in November 2017, he beat his Republican opponent by 9 points—a margin of 1,850 votes.
在民主党控制的城市中建立候选人有效的取决于低投票率。他们的政治顾问倾向于更多地依赖广告和有光泽的邮件，而不是真正地与人交谈—特别是那些经常不投票的人。因此，在这种情况下动员甚至几千名新选民，是一个相当直接的获得胜利的方案。当DSA成员Lee Carter 在2017年11月赢得弗吉尼亚众议院席位时，他以9分的优势击败共和党对手—边缘的1,850张选票。
“Our party structure protects incumbency, and relies on an ignorant electorate,” Summer Lee says, noting how much time her campaign spent educating voters about the election itself. “If everybody were voting, we’d have a completely different system.”
“我们的政党结构保护在位者，并依赖于一个无知的选民，”Summer Lee说，并指出她的竞选活动花了多少时间教育选民关于选举本身的内容。 “如果每个人都投票，我们就会有一个完全不同的系统。”
Depending on the city, DSA can offer a large, self-organized volunteer base to candidates who navigate its endorsement process. Pittsburgh DSA estimates that its volunteers knocked on some 70,000 doors through the course of Lee’s campaign. Turnout in Lee’s district was 14 percent higher than in others around Allegheny County and 54 percent higher than in the last midterm election.
根据城市的不同，DSA可以为那些在其推荐过程中进行导航的候选人提供一个庞大的，自组织的志愿者基地。匹兹堡DSA估计其志愿者在Lee的竞选期间敲了大约7万个门。 Lee的区域的投票率比阿勒格尼县周围的投票率高出14％，比上一次中期选举高出54％。
Still, it’d be nearly impossible for DSA-endorsed candidates for higher offices to make do with only DSA’s support, and they often work alongside other organizations like Justice Democrats, Our Revolution and the Working Families Party—especially for bigger races. Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress, for example, convinced Ocasio-Cortez to run and helped staff her campaign, and she gained the backing of Black Lives Matter-Bronx and People for Bernie Sanders, among others. Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign reached 120,000 doors overall.
尽管如此，DSA推荐的争取进入更高级的办公室的候选人几乎不可能只接受DSA的支持，他们经常与正义民主党，我们的革命和工作家庭党等其他组织合作—特别是对于更大的竞赛。 例如，正义民主党和全新的国会，说服Ocasio-Cortez参与并帮助她的竞选活动，然后她获得了黑人的命也是命—Bronx和支持伯尼桑德斯的人民等人的支持。 Ocasio-Cortez的活动总共敲了120,000扇门。
By being an organization that does much more than campaign for candidates, DSA hopes to upend the notoriously transactional, short-term nature of electoral work, enabling its members and elected officials to build relationships with and commitments to their communities that extend beyond election day. DSA is still figuring out how to build independent political organizations to hold the politicians it helps elect accountable. Thus far they’ve relied on their close ties with dyed-in-the-wool DSA members-turned-candidates like Lee Carter. DSA, Carter says, has “been the core of my support since I’ve been in the legislature. I still go to meetings whenever I can, and they help me get in contact with other groups.”
作为一个做为远远超过为候选人组织竞选活动的组织，DSA希望颠覆选举工作中的臭名昭着的短期的交易性性质，使其成员和民选官员能够在选举日之外与社区建立关系并做出承诺。 DSA仍在研究如何建立独立的政治组织来控制那些它帮助选举和负责的政客。到目前为止，他们依靠与染色的DSA成员—像Lee Carter这样的候选人的亲密关系。卡特说，DSA“自从我进入立法机构以来一直是我的支持的核心。我仍然可以随时在我可以的时候去参加会议，他们帮助我与其他组织取得联系。“
DSA member, Hawai’i state representative and now U.S. House candidate Kaniela Ing says he hopes that DSA remains “part of an independent Left, and does not get too caught up in electoral and legislative politics”—and that it holds politicians to account, himself included.
DSA成员，夏威夷州代表和现在的美国众议院候选人Kaniela Ing说，他希望DSA仍然是“独立左派的一部分，并且不会过于陷入选举和立法政治中”—并且它让政治家们负责，包括他自己在内。
“I’m a movement candidate,” Ing says. “Hopefully my role is to help push whatever movements are building over the finish line. Elected officials really like to take too much credit for bills they pass that are really the result of the public waking up and forcing politicians to act.” He says he hopes to have regular check-ins with DSA should he make it to Washington.
“我是一名运动候选人，”Ing说。 “希望我的角色是帮助推动能够达到终点线的任何运动。民选官员真的喜欢将他们通过的法案的功劳太多的归功于他们，但这些法案实际上是公众觉醒并迫使政治家们采取行动的结果。“他说他希望能够定期和DSA一起检查，如果他成功去了华盛顿。
Electoral work also feeds into DSA’s other campaigns. Pittsburgh DSA’s membership swelled in the wake of Lee and Innamorato’s wins. “[Email] list building, data tracking, how to talk to people at the doors—that all helps build the muscle that can also help with canvassing for housing justice,” Shuck says.
选举工作也适用于DSA的其他活动。 在Lee和Innamorato的胜利之后，匹兹堡DSA的成员数膨胀了。“[电子邮件]列表建立，数据跟踪，如何与门口的人交谈—所有这些都有助于建立力量，也可以帮助拉票促进住房正义，”Shuck说。
“When we canvass an area, we’re often knocking a door many times, whether for a candidate, for Medicare for All or for housing justice,” Cohen adds. “At this point, people know us when we come to the door, and they know what DSA is.”
“当我们在一个区域拉票时，我们经常多次敲门，无论是为了候选人，还是全民医疗保障或住房正义，”Cohen补充说。 “在这一点上，当我们走到门口时，人民就会认识我们，他们知道什么是DSA。”
NYC-DSA’s Abdullah Younus sees electoral work as a training ground. He says that canvassers for the New York Health Act, legislation to create a statewide single-payer system, “got skilled on this kind of work by going through the electoral working group.”
NYC-DSA的Abdullah Younus认为选举工作是一个训练场。 他说，“纽约州健康法案”——这是一种建立全州单一付款人制度的立法—的宣传者，“通过选举工作小组熟练掌握了这类工作。”
For all the recent attention to DSA’s upstart electoral success, it’s only one part of the group’s work nationwide. Many chapters don’t engage at all with elections, or are just starting to think about whether they would like to run candidates. Michael I. Esealuka, co-chair of New Orleans DSA, says, “It would be difficult for us as a small chapter to develop the type of accountability mechanisms we need to hold people [we elect] accountable to our socialist vision.”
对于最近对DSA新兴选举成功的关注，这只是该组织在全国范围内的工作的一部分。 许多分部根本不参与选举，或者只是开始思考他们是否想要运作候选人。新奥尔良DSA联合主席Michael I. Esealuka说：“我们作为一个小分部，很难发展出我们所需要的问责机制，让人（我们选举的）对我们的社会主义愿景负责。”
Prior to the victories of Carter, Lee and then Ocasio-Cortez, DSA was perhaps best known for agitating to push Medicare for All into the national spotlight—a campaign adopted by delegates from around the country at DSA’s biennial convention in August 2017 as one of three national political priorities, alongside building electoral power and stronger and more militant unions. Forty-five chapters across 20 states held a weekend of action for Medicare for All in April, tabling at farmers’ markets, hosting public events and, as always, canvassing. On the labor front, DSA chapters in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma raised money for strike funds to support the militant teacher walkouts this spring, and the national DSA sent an email encouraging members around the country to contribute what they could.
在Carter，Lee和Ocasio-Cortez取得胜利之前，DSA最有名的可能是将全民医疗保障推向国家聚光灯—一个全国各地的代表在2017年8月的DSA双年度大会上采取的作为三个国家政治优先事项之一的运动，以及建立选举权力和更强大和更激进的工会。在20个州的45个分部为4月份的全民医疗保障举行了一个周末行动，向农贸市场提供服务，举办公共活动，并一如既往地进行拉票。在劳工前线，西弗吉尼亚州，肯塔基州和俄克拉荷马州的DSA分会为今年春天的激进教师罢工筹集了罢工资金作为支持，然后全国DSA发送了一封电子邮件，鼓励全国各地的成员尽其所能。
Many individual chapters have their own priorities, reflecting local concerns and political climates. Providence DSA, for example, is campaigning for more democratic control over investor-owned electric utilities. New Orleans DSA has focused on base-building work that includes running clinics to help people deal with medical debt, coordinating with the AFL-CIO in developing young rank-and-file labor leaders, and mending broken brake lights, an excuse used by police in the traffic stops that can be “especially perilous and life-disrupting to undocumented immigrants and PoC [people of color],” as the chapter explains on Facebook.
许多个体分部都有他们自己的优先事项，反映了当地的关注点和政治气候。例如，普罗维登斯DSA正在争取对投资者拥有的电力公司进行更民主的控制。新奥尔良DSA专注于基础建设工作，包括运营诊所以帮助人们处理医疗债务，协调AFL-CIO发展年轻的普通反对派劳工领袖，修补破损的刹车灯，这是警察在交通站点使用的借口，会成为“特别危险和扰乱无证移民和PoC [有色人种]的生活，”分部在Facebook上解释。
Because there are big DSA chapters in cities with expensive housing stock—Los Angeles, Chicago and the Bay Area, for instance—the fight for affordable housing has emerged as a major priority. “Housing justice is probably the biggest issue in Los Angeles; the homelessness crisis is at a tipping point,” says Arielle Sallai, a member of DSA Los Angeles’ steering committee. DSA-LA and other California chapters are canvassing to pass Proposition 10, an initiative on the ballot in November that would loosen a statewide limit on rent control. Similarly, Chicago DSA is supporting a campaign to overturn Illinois’ rent control ban, with the backing of Alderman and DSA member Carlos Ramirez-Rosa.
因为在拥有昂贵住房的城市中有大型DSA分会—例如洛杉矶，芝加哥和湾区—为可负担住房而战斗已成为一个主要优先事项。“住房正义可能是洛杉矶的最大的问题; 无家可归危机正处于临界点，“DSA洛杉矶指导委员会成员Arielle Sallai说道。 DSA-LA和其他加利福尼亚州的分部正在试图通过第10号提案，这是会在11月进行投票的一项举措，将放宽全州范围内对租金控制的限制。同样，在Alderman和DSA成员Carlos Ramirez-Rosa的支持下，芝加哥DSA正在支持推翻伊利诺伊州的租金控制禁令的运动。
On many issues, including housing and homelessness, DSA chapters are well aware that their members often don’t look like the populations most directly affected. Although DSA does not have up-to-date member demographics, it has historically leaned white and male.
在许多问题上，包括住房问题和无家可归问题，DSA分部都清楚地知道，他们的成员往往看起来并不像最直接受影响的人群。 虽然DSA没有最新的成员人口统计数据，但它历来倾向于白人和男性。
Coalition-building is one way to correct for this. “Housing work is a great chance to be part of a radical coalition and talk to as many individuals as possible,” Sallai says. DSA-LA has teamed up with local groups like the LA Tenants Union that have been working for years against gentrification.
联盟建设是纠正这个问题的一种方法。 “住房工作是一个很好的机会，可以成为激进联盟的一部分，并与尽可能多的人交谈，”Sallai说。DSA-LA与洛杉矶租户联盟等本地团体合作，这些团体多年来一直致力于反对住房高档化。
Esealuka, a black woman, is frank about the fact that New Orleans DSA is a majority white organization in a majority black city. “It’s a problem, obviously, but it’s nothing that can’t be overcome,” she says. “It’s not like we have to write DSA off because it’s majority white and majority male. … Because we have 45,000 members [nationwide], we have so much potential to do good in this country. It’s just a matter of being more intentional about embedding ourselves into things that matter to working-class people.”
Esealuka，一位黑人女性，坦率地说新奥尔良DSA是一个在黑人占多数的城市的白人占多数的组织。 “很明显，这是一个问题，但没有什么是无法克服的，”她说。 “这不是说我们必须将DSA写在耻辱柱上，因为它是白人和男性为主的组织。 ……因为我们在全国拥有45,000名会员，所以我们在这个国家有很大的潜力做得更好。这只是一个关于如何更有意的将我们自己融入对工人阶级至关重要的事情的问题。“
Noting the high proportion of women taking on leadership roles in her chapter, Esealuka suggests that all chapters equip members with the organizing skills to develop the leadership of women and people of color. Internally, many chapters have also created specific spaces, such as the national Afrosocialist Caucus or Socialist Feminist working groups, for DSA members who aren’t white or male to feel welcome and build community.
Esealuka注意到在她所在的分部，女性担任领导职务的比例很高，因此Esealuka建议所有分部都要使成员具备组织技能，以发展女性和有色人种的领导能力。在内部，许多分部还创建了特定的空间，例如国家非裔社会主义核心小组或社会女权主义工作组，帮助不是白人或男性的DSA成员感到受欢迎并建立社区。
Though Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) infamously said after Ocasio-Cortez’s primary win that socialist politics can’t work in the Midwest, they’ve certainly found an audience in the heartland. Iowa, for instance, has the highest number of DSA chapters per capita of any state. Members in chapters outside of big blue coastal cities may talk about socialism a little differently than their counterparts and run different campaigns, but they agree on the basics of what they’re fighting for. Chapters in blue cities like Denver are quick to say they don’t automatically find a warm reception just because they’re talking to Democrats, and chapters in red or purple states note they don’t necessarily face open hostility. For the past two years, Central Iowa DSA has marched in the state fair parade through Des Moines, flanked by Trump floats and those from local businesses. “You get thumbs up about Medicare for All and everybody needing healthcare,” says co-chair Joe Ellerbroek. “You might get a middle finger at an ICE protest every once in a while.”
虽然参议员Tammy Duckworth臭名昭着地说，在Ocasio-Cortez的初步胜利之后，社会主义政治不能在中西部地区发挥作用，但他们会明确的在中心地带找到一个观众。例如，爱荷华州的人均DSA分部数量最多。大蓝色沿海城市之外的分部中的成员可能会谈论与他们的同行略有不同的社会主义，并开展不同的活动，但他们同意他们正在为之奋斗的基本价值观。像丹佛这样的蓝色城市的分布很快就说他们不会因为与民主党人谈话而自动找到热情接待，而红色或紫色州的分部指出他们不一定面临公开的敌意。在过去的两年里，爱荷华州中部DSA在德梅因州的州公平游行中游行，被特朗普花车和当地企业围绕。联合主席Joe Ellerbroek说：“你通过全民医疗保健得到了所有需要医疗保健的人的赞美。” “你可能会偶尔在对ICE的抗议中获得一个中指。”
Eleven-year House of Delegates incumbent Jackson Miller sent out a red-baiting flier about his DSA challenger, Lee Carter, in 2017. Carter won anyway.
当了11年的众议院众议员Jackson Miller于2017年向他的DSA挑战者Lee Carter发送了一个红色诱饵传单。无论如何，卡特赢了。（纳粹们抹黑社会主义的套路都一样，中国的纳粹们也是如此抹黑，无耻的把挂羊头卖狗肉的国家资本主义苏联和中国说成社会主义。）
After decades of socialism being nonexistent in mainstream political debates, however, most people simply are not familiar with the term itself. “I didn’t know I was a democratic socialist when I decided to run, and I didn’t know that this group existed,” says Summer Lee. “I just knew that these policies are policies that we need. When you go to black communities, we really are more inclined to socialism. We don’t always have that language in our communities, but we know that these policies are what’s needed for our communities.”
然而，在主流政治辩论中社会主义几十年都不存在之后，大多数人根本就不熟悉这个术语本身。 “当我决定参选时，我不知道我是一个民主社会主义者，我不知道这个群体的存在，”Summer Lee说。 “我只知道这些政策是我们需要的政策。 当你去黑人社区时，我们真的更倾向于社会主义。我们社区并不总是使用这种语言，但我们知道这些政策是我们社区所需要的。“
Asked how they talk about democratic socialism with voters, all seven DSA-endorsed candidates I interviewed offered some variation on the same answer: “I don’t lead with that.”
当被问及他们如何与选民谈论民主社会主义时，我采访的所有七位经过DSA认可的候选人都提出了有一些不同之处的同一个答案：“我不会领导这一点。”
Ocasio-Cortez says she opts instead to “show people what we’re fighting for. What I talk about is Medicare for All, tuition-free public college and housing as a human right. In my interpretation of what democratic socialism is, it is the fight for a basic level of dignity that our society refuses to violate.”
Ocasio-Cortez说，她选择“向人们展示我们正在为之战斗的东西”。 我所说的是全民医疗保障，没有学费的公立大学和住房作为一项人权。在我对民主社会主义是什么的解释中，这是为了争取我们社会拒绝违背的基本尊严水平的斗争。“
Ing says, “Usually, when I talk about money in politics or the government not representing us, that transcends any left-right values. Most people see the world from bottom versus top: Are you with us, or them?”
Ing说，“通常，当我谈论政治中的金钱（政治献金）或没有代表我们的政府时，它超越了任何左右价值观。 大多数人从底层到顶层看世界：你是和我们在一起，还是他们？“
DSA candidates running for office and DSA members knocking doors, then, articulate socialism as a common sense set of practices and beliefs: swearing off corporate donations, supporting big, universal programs that promise to redistribute society’s resources more equitably, and returning decisions to the hands of the people most directly affected. As DSA makes inroads selling the public on the virtues of democratic socialism and infiltrating the halls of power, it will also figure out what to do once it gets there.
DSA候选人进行竞选公职，DSA成员去敲门，然后，将社会主义阐述为一套常识性的实践和信念：终结企业献金，支持大型的，普遍的计划，这些计划承诺更公平地重新分配社会资源，并将决策权还给那些最受直接影响的人。 随着DSA向公众宣传民主社会主义的美德和渗透进权力的大厅，它也将弄清楚一旦到达那里应该怎么做。
For the moment, DSA members and candidates are making the road to a 21st-century American socialism by walking it—and knocking on a few hundred thousand doors along the way. 
目前，DSA的成员和候选人正在走向21世纪的美国社会主义之路，并沿着这条路敲了几十万个门。