Contentious debates rage among socialists over how to meet the MAGA moment—but three organizations have developed points of unity. They shared their perspectives in a webinar called “Marx Over MAGA: The Socialist Left in the Fight Against Fascism,” which was hosted by Convergence and live-streamed on Oct. 16.
You can now watch the full panel here.
We are in a moment of intensifying contradictions. The manifest failures of neoliberalism are multiplying, while the neo-fascist MAGA movement threatens to replace our flawed democracy with something fundamentally, frighteningly worse. Now more than ever, the Left needs socialist strategy. Yet the socialist Left is both historically weak and deeply divided, mired in internecine debates about the political moment and what it calls for.
Amidst these debates, the socialist groups Liberation Road, North Star Socialist Organization, and DSA’s Socialist Majority Caucus have developed points of unity about how we can fight the Right while building the power of the Left. Representatives from these three organizations spoke on the Oct. 16 panel.
- Socialist Majority (SMC) is a caucus within the Democratic Socialists of America that was founded in 2019 by DSA members across the country who cohered around major points of unity.
- Liberation Road is a cadre socialist organization formed in 1985, as a merger of socialist groups that came out of the radical movements of the 1960s and ‘70s.
- North Star Socialist Organization (NSSO) is a brand new revolutionary socialist organization, whose membership is intentionally super-majority people of color and women and gender-oppressed peoples.
These three organizations have different structures, focuses, and histories. Yet they are united in their conviction that MAGA represents a clear and present danger to our movements that must be combatted at all costs. We encourage other leftists and socialists to view and share the webinar, as it discusses how socialists can engage in the fight against MAGA, even as we build the power and initiative of the Left and advance the long-term struggle towards socialism.
Panelists included Renée Paradis (SMC), Jayanni Webster (NSSO) and Bennett Carpenter (Liberation Road).
- Renée Paradis is an elections attorney living in Oakland, California, where she works as Associate General Counsel for the Working Families Party. She is currently a member of DSA’s National Political Committee and a founding member of the Socialist Majority Caucus.
- Jayanni Webster currently serves on the leadership committee of North Star Socialist Organization. A committed socialist, Black feminist, and internationalist with 13+ years of experience in student, labor and community organizing, Jayanni is based in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.
- Bennett Carpenter is a queer Southern trainer, organizer and movement strategist based in Eastern North Carolina and a member of Liberation Road’s National Executive Committee. Kristian Hernandez of the Convergence Editorial Board moderated the conversation among the three panelists. Discussion focuses on how today’s MAGA movement dangerously differs from but draws on 20th-century conservatism; how leftists can both cooperate with centrist Democrats against a common enemy and contest with them for leadership in that fight; and how these struggles play out differently in red, blue, and purple states and contexts.