The reason that ideological purists of any political movement hate their more pragmatic counterparts is that by gaining legitimacy and even popularity in the real world, the pragmatists make the proponents of ideological purity less relevant within the broader movement. In other words, pragmatism becomes a threat to the ideologues' power and influence. This is the crux of the issue in my opinion.
Came here to say the same. In addition to being some of the most tedious people you'll ever meet, they also happen to be some of the most ineffectual. They are so ate up on purity that they lose sight of the overall goal(s). But hey, why bother with things like housing and health care for all when you can quibble over ideological shibboleths?
That's a fair point. It may help to use SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis to decide on broad outlines and goals, and to operationalize the plan. The DSA and progressives need to create and follow a plan of action geared towards accomplishing their long term objectives, as opposed to just focusing on the short term and figuring things out as they go along.
There's an exercise sometimes called the "Jeep in the Mud," and the idea is that the *only* goal for the group is to get the jeep unstuck. That's it. Until that happens, nothing else matters. You can quibble about how to get the seats clean later. It's an exercise I think would be helpful for a lot of folks on the far left.
I agree. We need teamwork and an all hands deck attitude from everyone on the left to get the Jeep of democracy unstuck. However, as I see it, and to use your analogy, the problem is less about "cleaning the mud off the seats" than the fact that some folks don't exactly want to see others in the movement drive away with the Jeep after they help to get it unstuck. So, unless the issue of what comes next gets resolved first, assuming that this is even possible, the kind of cooperation many of us would like to see on the left would be hard to achieve.
It’s just weird that you felt like it wasn’t worth mentioning that prior to this loss, Kshama won 3 consecutive elections without running as a Democrat.
I think this article has many valid points that should be discussed, but I really just wish you were more willing to address nuances that don’t cleanly support your thesis.
And the way you describe Seattle as this deep blue special place that has a “socialist” mayor is honestly really reductive.
There are countless examples of Kshama being the only principled member of the Seattle City Council and winning victories for the working class despite the Democrats on the council.
I’m also a current member of SAlt, I didn’t agree with Kshama and the rest of the members who split with her, and have been really disappointed in a lot of their actions since then, so I absolutely have criticisms. It just bugs me to see so much glossed over.
I'm not taking anything away from her time on city council. But at some point, Sawant and her supporters should recognize that municipal elections are not the same as federal elections. It's not revolutionary socialism to raise the minimum wage. Hell, liberals do that all the time. If she's talking about ending genocide and imperialism, her program needs to work at the federal level. It does not.
You literally are, though, when you refuse to mention any of that work and instead treat this latest electoral defeat as the “nail in the coffin”
No one is claiming that winning reforms under capitalism is revolutionary socialism. You’re cherry-picking and arguing against a strawman.
Re: min wage increases - “Liberals do that all the time” now you’re just showing your ignorance of the history of minimum wage struggles in the US. The 15 Now movement, which forced all those liberals to accept the $15 minimum wage demand, was the result of a grassroots movement that Kshama’s office was instrumental in championing and building support for.
You didn’t even bother giving half-hearted nods to the successes of Kshama’s 10 years in office. The birth of the 15 Now movement, the first ban on caste discrimination outside of India (which made Kshama a huge target of the Modi regime, who repeatedly denied her a visa to visit her sick mother), supporting rank and file wildcat strikes against the wishes of conservative business union leadership, the fact that she was elected to office as an open Marxist before Bernie was even a household name.
You just used her electoral loss as a lazy “dunk” on another socialist. I don’t really see how that’s any different from the sectarianism you chastise ultra-leftists for.
“the inability of ultra-leftists like her to muster any concrete political activity over the last century” this is just objectively false. You can still argue against someone ideologically without ignoring their very real and concrete victories. It just sounds like you’re doing a “my team is better than your team!!” despite claiming otherwise.
Excellent book written by a longtime labor activist who worked in Kshama’s council office for 10 years detailing our accomplishments through that office. In case you want to hear a different perspective on Kshama and modern Trotskyist politics.
There is also zero mention of the media's gatekeeping. I wonder what the election results would have looked like if all candidates were given a platform.
When given the spotlight, Adam Smith digs holes others could bury him in. His Breaking Points interview revealed a shallow weathervane politician who likes to talk over smart women. I wish more attention had been given to this election.
I agree that Joe does a disservice to Kshama by highlighting her failings and none of her successes. Painting her as a do-nothing member of the intelligentsia is a bad faith characterization, and I say that as someone who's tuned into several WSB meetings and thought "can you shut up about how bad the Democrats are and talk about your ideas for improving workers' rights already?"
A couple thoughts. One, Adam Smith is not merely a do-nothing democrat. He's done awful things like supporting Israel and the military industrial complex. He's bought and sold. He's a dangerous person to the US and to the world.
Do you think that some other socialist or progressive would have done better? Beat out Chaudhry and the Republican and make it to the general? I am not sure that would have happened.
I didn't want Sawant to run because I feel she's much better as an organizer/agitator than politician. That said, I don't think a failed run for office means that "she blew it". I mean it's just one race. Yes it was an opportunity to get rid of that scumbag Smith, however it's completely unclear that any other candidate would have been able to pull that off. Seattle is more rightwing Dem that it's reputation would indicate. Sadly, a good part of Seattle would be very happy to re-elect a warmongering Israel supporting Democrat.
This is my point! If Sawant can't pull voters away from Chaudhry, then her theory doesn't work.
It's also not "just one race." This tendency has been active for over a century. Trots, Greens, etc. run in elections all the time. And what do they have to show for it?
Kshama is a Trot who won elections for a decade straight.
You keep shifting the goalposts - is it about winning elections, or just federal elections? Because Bernie shit the bed real bad on that two times in a row. Many DSA candidates have lost races historically, why are those losses not part of your calculus?
“In her post-election statement, the revolutionary socialist gave herself a participation trophy by stating her campaign was ‘by far the strongest ever by an openly Marxist candidate for U.S. Congress,’ an objective lie given multiple Marxists have been elected to Congress.”
Could you please list these “multiple Marxists” who have been elected to Congress? I’m genuinely not familiar with who you’re referring to.
Workers will never ever get anything in this corporate fascist system through electoralism. Nothing. Ever. She just has the courage to say it. It is pure physics that tells us where things go by "voting harder and complimenting AOC and progressives": MORE FASCISM. It's kind of telling when neoliberals like you continue to blast the left, just as you blame Kshama. Pot calling Stove black?
Of course your story would trigger a bunch of angry sectarians. Sawant really was the most important and effective catalyst behind the living wage movement in Seattle over the last decade or so and at the same time hated and maligned by most mainstream liberal folks in Seattle. A lot of Seattle's elites and professional classes (teachers, lawyers, doctors, etc) are about as reflexively skeptical, if not hostile, to anything "socialist" as anywhere else. It's just that the Trumpy violent bigot faction makes up no more than a quarter of the population, even if they are disproportionately represented in the local police union here as elsewhere. That's the Blue bubble in a nutshell, or in my experience anyway, and holds more or less true for Portland, OR and the Bay Area, where I've also lived. The local liberals can be persuaded to support 'socialized' public goods like libraries and public education and health care and the like but they don't like strident campaigns for socialism, which they perceive vaguely as a threat to their own right to own a home or car or some vacation property. Wilson identifies as a democratic socialist but did not campaign for socialism; she campaigned to fix screwed up stuff in Seattle. Sawant's problem, or at least since the George Floyd protests, as I see it, and which your story offers interesting background history, is that she seemed to stop talking about practical solutions and got caught up in the revolutionary fervor of the protests. Her caustic style then turned against even those that in her living wage fight were her allies. I think solid majorities of Seattleites and the local metropolitan area support good government and govt protections for workers and renters and such but very few want a revolution. They want stuff that makes life easier and fairer, not stuff that will make it harder and likely more violent and divisive. Anyway, enjoyed your socialist party history.
I feel like there is a huge cherry picking bias in this article. Yes Kshama’s performance was not what revolutionary socialists had hoped for. However…
What is to say of all the times tailing liberal capitalist parties had failed spectacularly?
• SPD focusing on gaining electoral seats and suppressing bending over to Hitler or monarchy to maintain those electoral seats and also suppressing the KPD and playing a part in killing Rosa.
• Salvador Allende bless his soul
• Decades of DSA congressional seats being filled but no on the ground militant working class movement being started for national healthcare, rent control, and then them losing these seats.
What is to say about all the gains (even in America) of working class having their own organizations when they break away from the democrats, having coming so close to revolution that the capitalists capitulate out of fear?
At the end of the day, is our goal as socialists to build working class consciousness and organizations by fighting for reforms and coming in direct conflict with capitalists? Or is it to get an electoral seat in hopes we can vote in socialism one day without parallel militant working class organizations, and hope the capitalists have enough integrity to not use fascism?
While I agree with some of your points, such as the complaining and criticizing without action are worthless, I think there is a bigger issue here than just that Kshama's campaign was unsuccessful, and the issue is in the spending chart. Did she spend more than the republican and lose? Sure. But ALL candidates were outspent drastically by Adam Smith's campaign. Sawant did do good things in Seattle before this campaign, and while it did fall short, that doesn't mean that her criticisms of the DSA are unwarranted. I'll concede that they more than likely did not have a place in this campaign (especially since she asked for their endorsement), but we as a people have to push our elected leaders to be better. You write: Palestine is being ethnically cleansed, the world is on fire. This is true; it is now or never for us to change, or it will be too late. We need radical leaders who are going to force legislation to drastically reduce carbon emissions by the end of tomorrow, not by 2030. We need leaders who are going to say no aid to Israel under any circumstances, not no offensive aid.
We are almost certainly on the same side when it comes to these issues, but pragmatism means living in reality, and the reality we are living in is calling for immediate change and cooperation. I think the lesson of Sawant's campaign and the idea of "revolutionary parliamentarism" (what an absurd idea) is that electoral politics are getting us nowhere, and we need to start organizing on a labor and anti-consumption basis.
I know this may seem highly critical, but I did enjoy your writing, and I look forward to more of this dialogue in the future.
It seems to me that purists move the Overton window (15 Now), while pragmatists who run as socialists within the Democratic party win elections. Bernie would have won in 2016 were it not for the DNC bringing in the unelected superdelegates.
I looked through Kshama's FEC filing and compared them to Matt Little's FEC filing (who raised slightly more money, was in competition with 2 other democrats, and won by 17% today). By my count, Kshama spent at least $556,588 on payroll and payroll expenses/taxes out of the $606,631 total she spent on the race. That is 91%. Matt Little spent at least $153,747 on payroll and payroll expenses/taxes as well as at least $246,772 on consulting/ consulting acquisitions, totaling $400,519 out of a total $759,789 spent. That is 52% if you include the consulting and only 20% if you do not.
I don't understand how Kshama thought it wise to spend 91% of her campaign cash on payroll, unless she wasn't trying to win. It's not clear to me what work her campaign staff actually did, since they spent so little on ads/websites/shipping/etc.
Ah gotcha so now you’re just straight up calling her a grifter.
The fact that the campaign focused on their (very well-known, effective, and creative) ground game instead of buying billboards and other advertising does not immediately equate to the campaign being a “grift.”
This means that the campaign heavily emphasized paying their staffers who were all no doubt engaged in non-stop canvassing/tabling/door-knocking in the communities voting in the election.
I’m not even saying there isn’t anything to criticize about how the campaign prioritized their expenditures. It’s just very clear you have a preconceived idea of Kshama/the political ideology she represents, and you set out to write an article with the intention of writing them off wholesale.
I simply encourage everyone reading this to interrogate Joe’s sweeping claims and decide for yourself if Kshama’s track record points to a grifter looking to enrich herself.
The fact that she donated a majority of her salary as a Seattle councilmember and only took the average worker’s wage in her district is a great indication of where her interests lie.
(Take what I say with a grain of salt since I didn’t work/volunteer with Kshama’s campaign. Just an outside perspective as a member of SAlt who worked on the 2021 right wing recall campaign against Kshama)
The reason that ideological purists of any political movement hate their more pragmatic counterparts is that by gaining legitimacy and even popularity in the real world, the pragmatists make the proponents of ideological purity less relevant within the broader movement. In other words, pragmatism becomes a threat to the ideologues' power and influence. This is the crux of the issue in my opinion.
Came here to say the same. In addition to being some of the most tedious people you'll ever meet, they also happen to be some of the most ineffectual. They are so ate up on purity that they lose sight of the overall goal(s). But hey, why bother with things like housing and health care for all when you can quibble over ideological shibboleths?
I always wonder, is the intent to make a better world? Or, is it to talk about making a better world?
That's a fair point. It may help to use SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis to decide on broad outlines and goals, and to operationalize the plan. The DSA and progressives need to create and follow a plan of action geared towards accomplishing their long term objectives, as opposed to just focusing on the short term and figuring things out as they go along.
There's an exercise sometimes called the "Jeep in the Mud," and the idea is that the *only* goal for the group is to get the jeep unstuck. That's it. Until that happens, nothing else matters. You can quibble about how to get the seats clean later. It's an exercise I think would be helpful for a lot of folks on the far left.
I agree. We need teamwork and an all hands deck attitude from everyone on the left to get the Jeep of democracy unstuck. However, as I see it, and to use your analogy, the problem is less about "cleaning the mud off the seats" than the fact that some folks don't exactly want to see others in the movement drive away with the Jeep after they help to get it unstuck. So, unless the issue of what comes next gets resolved first, assuming that this is even possible, the kind of cooperation many of us would like to see on the left would be hard to achieve.
Well siad.
“The Left looks for traitors; the Right looks for converts.”
It’s just weird that you felt like it wasn’t worth mentioning that prior to this loss, Kshama won 3 consecutive elections without running as a Democrat.
I think this article has many valid points that should be discussed, but I really just wish you were more willing to address nuances that don’t cleanly support your thesis.
And the way you describe Seattle as this deep blue special place that has a “socialist” mayor is honestly really reductive.
There are countless examples of Kshama being the only principled member of the Seattle City Council and winning victories for the working class despite the Democrats on the council.
I’m also a current member of SAlt, I didn’t agree with Kshama and the rest of the members who split with her, and have been really disappointed in a lot of their actions since then, so I absolutely have criticisms. It just bugs me to see so much glossed over.
I'm not taking anything away from her time on city council. But at some point, Sawant and her supporters should recognize that municipal elections are not the same as federal elections. It's not revolutionary socialism to raise the minimum wage. Hell, liberals do that all the time. If she's talking about ending genocide and imperialism, her program needs to work at the federal level. It does not.
You literally are, though, when you refuse to mention any of that work and instead treat this latest electoral defeat as the “nail in the coffin”
No one is claiming that winning reforms under capitalism is revolutionary socialism. You’re cherry-picking and arguing against a strawman.
Re: min wage increases - “Liberals do that all the time” now you’re just showing your ignorance of the history of minimum wage struggles in the US. The 15 Now movement, which forced all those liberals to accept the $15 minimum wage demand, was the result of a grassroots movement that Kshama’s office was instrumental in championing and building support for.
I seriously encourage you to read even the first couple chapters of WCFYAYRS - it talks about this in greater detail than I ever could https://orbooks.com/catalog/we-re-coming-for-you-and-your-rotten-system/
You didn’t even bother giving half-hearted nods to the successes of Kshama’s 10 years in office. The birth of the 15 Now movement, the first ban on caste discrimination outside of India (which made Kshama a huge target of the Modi regime, who repeatedly denied her a visa to visit her sick mother), supporting rank and file wildcat strikes against the wishes of conservative business union leadership, the fact that she was elected to office as an open Marxist before Bernie was even a household name.
You just used her electoral loss as a lazy “dunk” on another socialist. I don’t really see how that’s any different from the sectarianism you chastise ultra-leftists for.
“the inability of ultra-leftists like her to muster any concrete political activity over the last century” this is just objectively false. You can still argue against someone ideologically without ignoring their very real and concrete victories. It just sounds like you’re doing a “my team is better than your team!!” despite claiming otherwise.
https://www.joewrote.com/p/dsas-electoral-strategy-works-a-response/comment/231108102?r=4025u&utm_medium=ios
https://orbooks.com/catalog/we-re-coming-for-you-and-your-rotten-system/
Excellent book written by a longtime labor activist who worked in Kshama’s council office for 10 years detailing our accomplishments through that office. In case you want to hear a different perspective on Kshama and modern Trotskyist politics.
There is also zero mention of the media's gatekeeping. I wonder what the election results would have looked like if all candidates were given a platform.
When given the spotlight, Adam Smith digs holes others could bury him in. His Breaking Points interview revealed a shallow weathervane politician who likes to talk over smart women. I wish more attention had been given to this election.
I agree that Joe does a disservice to Kshama by highlighting her failings and none of her successes. Painting her as a do-nothing member of the intelligentsia is a bad faith characterization, and I say that as someone who's tuned into several WSB meetings and thought "can you shut up about how bad the Democrats are and talk about your ideas for improving workers' rights already?"
A couple thoughts. One, Adam Smith is not merely a do-nothing democrat. He's done awful things like supporting Israel and the military industrial complex. He's bought and sold. He's a dangerous person to the US and to the world.
Two, I think Sawant could have done better if Chaudhry were not in the race. Chaudhry fills some of the progressive leaning spots for those who cannot stomach supporting a warmonger like Smith. I believe Chaudhry would have done much better if she hadn't come out lacking support for LGBTQ community https://www.thestranger.com/news/the-washington-stonewall-democrats-want-organizations-to-revisit-their-endorsements-for-district-candidate-melissa-chaudhry/
Do you think that some other socialist or progressive would have done better? Beat out Chaudhry and the Republican and make it to the general? I am not sure that would have happened.
I didn't want Sawant to run because I feel she's much better as an organizer/agitator than politician. That said, I don't think a failed run for office means that "she blew it". I mean it's just one race. Yes it was an opportunity to get rid of that scumbag Smith, however it's completely unclear that any other candidate would have been able to pull that off. Seattle is more rightwing Dem that it's reputation would indicate. Sadly, a good part of Seattle would be very happy to re-elect a warmongering Israel supporting Democrat.
This is my point! If Sawant can't pull voters away from Chaudhry, then her theory doesn't work.
It's also not "just one race." This tendency has been active for over a century. Trots, Greens, etc. run in elections all the time. And what do they have to show for it?
Kshama is a Trot who won elections for a decade straight.
You keep shifting the goalposts - is it about winning elections, or just federal elections? Because Bernie shit the bed real bad on that two times in a row. Many DSA candidates have lost races historically, why are those losses not part of your calculus?
Really well said
“In her post-election statement, the revolutionary socialist gave herself a participation trophy by stating her campaign was ‘by far the strongest ever by an openly Marxist candidate for U.S. Congress,’ an objective lie given multiple Marxists have been elected to Congress.”
Could you please list these “multiple Marxists” who have been elected to Congress? I’m genuinely not familiar with who you’re referring to.
Workers will never ever get anything in this corporate fascist system through electoralism. Nothing. Ever. She just has the courage to say it. It is pure physics that tells us where things go by "voting harder and complimenting AOC and progressives": MORE FASCISM. It's kind of telling when neoliberals like you continue to blast the left, just as you blame Kshama. Pot calling Stove black?
Of course your story would trigger a bunch of angry sectarians. Sawant really was the most important and effective catalyst behind the living wage movement in Seattle over the last decade or so and at the same time hated and maligned by most mainstream liberal folks in Seattle. A lot of Seattle's elites and professional classes (teachers, lawyers, doctors, etc) are about as reflexively skeptical, if not hostile, to anything "socialist" as anywhere else. It's just that the Trumpy violent bigot faction makes up no more than a quarter of the population, even if they are disproportionately represented in the local police union here as elsewhere. That's the Blue bubble in a nutshell, or in my experience anyway, and holds more or less true for Portland, OR and the Bay Area, where I've also lived. The local liberals can be persuaded to support 'socialized' public goods like libraries and public education and health care and the like but they don't like strident campaigns for socialism, which they perceive vaguely as a threat to their own right to own a home or car or some vacation property. Wilson identifies as a democratic socialist but did not campaign for socialism; she campaigned to fix screwed up stuff in Seattle. Sawant's problem, or at least since the George Floyd protests, as I see it, and which your story offers interesting background history, is that she seemed to stop talking about practical solutions and got caught up in the revolutionary fervor of the protests. Her caustic style then turned against even those that in her living wage fight were her allies. I think solid majorities of Seattleites and the local metropolitan area support good government and govt protections for workers and renters and such but very few want a revolution. They want stuff that makes life easier and fairer, not stuff that will make it harder and likely more violent and divisive. Anyway, enjoyed your socialist party history.
I feel like there is a huge cherry picking bias in this article. Yes Kshama’s performance was not what revolutionary socialists had hoped for. However…
What is to say of all the times tailing liberal capitalist parties had failed spectacularly?
• SPD focusing on gaining electoral seats and suppressing bending over to Hitler or monarchy to maintain those electoral seats and also suppressing the KPD and playing a part in killing Rosa.
• Salvador Allende bless his soul
• Decades of DSA congressional seats being filled but no on the ground militant working class movement being started for national healthcare, rent control, and then them losing these seats.
What is to say about all the gains (even in America) of working class having their own organizations when they break away from the democrats, having coming so close to revolution that the capitalists capitulate out of fear?
At the end of the day, is our goal as socialists to build working class consciousness and organizations by fighting for reforms and coming in direct conflict with capitalists? Or is it to get an electoral seat in hopes we can vote in socialism one day without parallel militant working class organizations, and hope the capitalists have enough integrity to not use fascism?
While I agree with some of your points, such as the complaining and criticizing without action are worthless, I think there is a bigger issue here than just that Kshama's campaign was unsuccessful, and the issue is in the spending chart. Did she spend more than the republican and lose? Sure. But ALL candidates were outspent drastically by Adam Smith's campaign. Sawant did do good things in Seattle before this campaign, and while it did fall short, that doesn't mean that her criticisms of the DSA are unwarranted. I'll concede that they more than likely did not have a place in this campaign (especially since she asked for their endorsement), but we as a people have to push our elected leaders to be better. You write: Palestine is being ethnically cleansed, the world is on fire. This is true; it is now or never for us to change, or it will be too late. We need radical leaders who are going to force legislation to drastically reduce carbon emissions by the end of tomorrow, not by 2030. We need leaders who are going to say no aid to Israel under any circumstances, not no offensive aid.
We are almost certainly on the same side when it comes to these issues, but pragmatism means living in reality, and the reality we are living in is calling for immediate change and cooperation. I think the lesson of Sawant's campaign and the idea of "revolutionary parliamentarism" (what an absurd idea) is that electoral politics are getting us nowhere, and we need to start organizing on a labor and anti-consumption basis.
I know this may seem highly critical, but I did enjoy your writing, and I look forward to more of this dialogue in the future.
It seems to me that purists move the Overton window (15 Now), while pragmatists who run as socialists within the Democratic party win elections. Bernie would have won in 2016 were it not for the DNC bringing in the unelected superdelegates.
I looked through Kshama's FEC filing and compared them to Matt Little's FEC filing (who raised slightly more money, was in competition with 2 other democrats, and won by 17% today). By my count, Kshama spent at least $556,588 on payroll and payroll expenses/taxes out of the $606,631 total she spent on the race. That is 91%. Matt Little spent at least $153,747 on payroll and payroll expenses/taxes as well as at least $246,772 on consulting/ consulting acquisitions, totaling $400,519 out of a total $759,789 spent. That is 52% if you include the consulting and only 20% if you do not.
I don't understand how Kshama thought it wise to spend 91% of her campaign cash on payroll, unless she wasn't trying to win. It's not clear to me what work her campaign staff actually did, since they spent so little on ads/websites/shipping/etc.
There’s a lot of grift in these independent campaigns.
Ah gotcha so now you’re just straight up calling her a grifter.
The fact that the campaign focused on their (very well-known, effective, and creative) ground game instead of buying billboards and other advertising does not immediately equate to the campaign being a “grift.”
This means that the campaign heavily emphasized paying their staffers who were all no doubt engaged in non-stop canvassing/tabling/door-knocking in the communities voting in the election.
I’m not even saying there isn’t anything to criticize about how the campaign prioritized their expenditures. It’s just very clear you have a preconceived idea of Kshama/the political ideology she represents, and you set out to write an article with the intention of writing them off wholesale.
I simply encourage everyone reading this to interrogate Joe’s sweeping claims and decide for yourself if Kshama’s track record points to a grifter looking to enrich herself.
The fact that she donated a majority of her salary as a Seattle councilmember and only took the average worker’s wage in her district is a great indication of where her interests lie.
(Take what I say with a grain of salt since I didn’t work/volunteer with Kshama’s campaign. Just an outside perspective as a member of SAlt who worked on the 2021 right wing recall campaign against Kshama)
Well said Joe. If I ever have any Benjamins again, I throw some support your way. Meanwhile I'll work with the DSA to effect meaningful change.