Proposition 50: A Race To The Bottom
Comrade Luke P argues for a democratic republican strategy in the face of gerrymandering
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The Gerrymander, Elkanah Tisdale
A recent Jacobin article allowed me to indulge in a guilty pleasure: calling out the Democratic Party's hypocrisy and tarring it as democratic in name only. It’s almost too easy. Barack Obama bled out homeowners, bailed out the banks, and assassinated citizens by executive decree. Joe Manchin used the Senate to single-handedly kill the Build Back Better Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act (fellow Democrat Krysten Sinema helped with the latter). Joe Biden shut down the border in a move called “excruciating and likely deadly,” flipped on DC statehood, and supported the genocide in Gaza. More recently, House Democrats thanked ICE for its service.
Last month, it was good ‘ol Gavin Newsom — blue tie, hair slicked back with L'Oréal — arguing that Proposition 50 is urgently needed to “push back on Trump’s attempts to shred democracy” and “bring accountability” to his administration. The initiative, which would gerrymander California’s congressional map for the next two elections, isn’t another example of overt political corruption, Newsom argued: it’s “fighting fire with fire.”
Thanks to Newsom and the Democrats, we Californians supposedly have an opportunity to “level the playing field and give power back to the people” (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), take the “responsible…smart, measured approach” (Obama), and “meet and balance Texas’s outrageous power grab” (Eric Holder). For the umpteenth time, something called our “democracy” is supposedly hanging by a thread. And once again, the Democrats claim they’ve come to the rescue.
One might think that Democratic Socialists of America — looking to create some separation from the mainstream of the Democratic Party; with no ability to sway the outcome of the November 4 vote and, therefore, in a perfect position to make a principled stand against gerrymandering; and with at least some institutional knowledge and historical memory of previous Democratic Party gimmicks — would want nothing to do with the Democratic Party initiative of 2025. That DSA might, in fact, use the Texas fallout and the Prop 50 hubbub to indict our undemocratic system, call out the Democrats’ latest stunt, and agitate for what we actually need: nationwide multimember districts with proportional representation.
Instead, many California chapters have supported Newsom’s move. California DSA, a council composed of delegates from chapters across the state, was the first to endorse it. The discussion on its website exemplifies two political tendencies within DSA. One seeks to downplay criticism of the Democratic Party in hopes of removing Republicans and electing DSA members or DSA-supported progressives. The other consistently condemns the Democratic Party and aims to build a working-class movement by calling for class struggle and a socialist revolution. The first believes the United States is sufficiently democratic to bring about meaningful change if the right people are in power. The second argues that issues of political equality are secondary to demands for a socialist economic system. The main flaw in both positions is the absence of the democratic republic, which serves as both a strategy for taking power and an ideology and programmatic demand around which an independent party can form.
Two Tendencies
The arguments put forward by Chris Kutalik Cauthern, Fred Glass, and Mark Gaynor are examples of the first tendency. Cauthern argues that gerrymandering is “the right’s most powerful weapon for locking working people out of politics.” In addition to taking the fight to the Republicans, he supports Prop 50 endorsement because it will supposedly help socialists “agitate and push beyond the rigged two-party system” and make demands for “fundamental reforms in CA,” like proportional representation, multimember districts, and ranked-choice voting. Finally, a gerrymandered map will help DSA by “opening space” for us to run our own members for Congress.
Glass is not a fan of Newsom. But all is fair in love and war. For him, going all-in on Prop 50 is a chance to “build alliances with progressive forces” and fight fascism — a threat “far worse for the working class” than “working with the class-betraying Democratic Party.” Nothing can be worse than fascism. It's a hard reality to accept, but to “retain basic democratic rights,” DSA must support the Democrats. To say otherwise shows a “rigid belief in [a] party line combined with hallucinatory expectations for revolution around the corner.”
Gaynor reiterates many of the previous points. Opposing Prop 50 is equivalent to sitting on one’s hands. A gerrymandered House map could allow DSA to elect more socialist sympathetic Democrats to Congress. Endorsement is part of a longer-term strategy that will help us connect with the working class and build something called “collective power.” And no one likes Newsom — but a Republican-controlled House in 2026 means fascism.
The arguments put forward by Andrew T. and Ian H. are emblematic of the second tendency. Both are skeptical of the supposed benefits of endorsement, support organizational independence, and recognize the Democratic Party’s base is “shrinking and demoralized.” They want nothing to do with Newsom, use terms like “capitalist politics” versus “socialist politics,” and argue workers need an independent socialist party and a “new kind of political system entirely — one in which workers control their workplaces, communities, and government directly.”
Less Than Convincing
DSA’s Prop 50 endorsement will continue squandering a valuable opportunity to advocate for nationwide multimember districts and proportional representation and won’t bring us any closer to the working class. Even if the Democrats did win the House, it would have no real effect on the Republicans’ ability to steamroll over the majority of Americans with the trifecta of the executive, Senate, and Supreme Court.
Cauthern, Glass, and Gaynor are unconvincing. Cauthern mistakes the symptom for the disease. Gerrymandering isn’t the central means by which the right locks workers out of politics — the constitutional order is. The Electoral College, where a few hundred thousand voters in swing states choose the president; the malapportioned Senate, which underrepresents Californians and blocks progressive legislation, including gerrymandering reform itself; and the unelected Supreme Court, which has been striking down emancipatory projects since Reconstruction — this system is what disempowers working people. And Democrats defend it just as fiercely as Republicans.
Glass, meanwhile, thinks the only way to “earn” workers’ attention is to tail labor unions. But that logic treats working people as if they could never be wrong or persuaded by an argument. At the same time, Glass argues workers outside of DSA won’t “stand in judgment of our actions anytime soon.” By that logic, supporting an undemocratic ploy while representing a democratic socialist organization is an acceptable contradiction because no one is paying attention.
I disagree. Workers are paying attention, and many are frustrated with the Democratic Party and our political system. We must talk directly to those people and win them to our ideas. It’s our job to organize the advanced section of the working class — those who know the United States isn’t a democracy, understand the Democratic Party is a dead end, and are ready to fight for change. Talking about democracy while supporting gerrymandering and Newsom only alienates the people we want in our organization.
It’s DSA’s obligation to unite the working class and lead the democratic struggle against our oligarchic government — to be the “vanguard fighters for democracy” and wrest political and ideological leadership from the two-party duopoly. That project demands education through agitation and exposure. Workers need to understand how the ruling class operates. One section of the bourgeoisie makes appeals to the workers to further its own power struggle against other sections, just as the Democrats appeal to the masses against Trump in the name of democracy and protecting the Constitution.
The bourgeoisie are opportunists who thrive on fear, confusion, and obfuscation. Creating a viable party for democracy and socialism demands honesty and clarity. We must take advantage of every opportunity, including those provided by sections of the ruling class in their own struggle for power, to foster a “Social-Democratic point of view” through timely and all-sided political indictments. Agitating for proportional representation and an end to our oligarchic government in the face of Democratic and Republican Party gerrymandering schemes is one such opportunity. This perspective can teach workers to “analyse how various institutions and laws reflect this or that interest,” and recognize “the catchwords and the sophisms” by which “each class and each stratum conceals its selfish desires and its actual essence.”
Like Glass, Gaynor warns us about fascism. But as with gerrymandering, the rise and persistence of right-wing authoritarianism is a symptom of the constitutional regime. Trump first entered the White House despite losing the popular vote. Once in office, his Supreme Court justices were confirmed by a Senate majority that represented a minority of Americans. In return, the Supreme Court has expanded Trump’s already broad powers. Impeachment is the Constitution’s final safeguard against a rogue president, and charges were twice leveled against Trump. Both times, the senators who voted for impeachment — forty-eight for abuse of power and forty-seven for obstruction of Congress in 2019, and fifty-seven for incitement of insurrection in 2021 — represented more Americans than those who voted against it. But the Senate represents states, not people, and it would have taken an unimaginable sixty-seven votes to convict.
Like his first campaign, Trump’s second and third runs were fueled by the fears, resentment, and disillusionment of a population ravaged by poor government policies which originate in the Senate, where Republicans and Democrats have blocked efforts to expand voting rights, improve healthcare, restrict guns, protect the environment, raise the minimum wage, and advance many other issues favored by the left. Far from fighting fascism, the Democrats have allowed its growth by sticking to the constitutional system that created this crisis and keeps us stuck.
And a point of clarity. Cauthern argues chapters can support gerrymandering while advocating for “more fundamental reforms” in the state, including proportional representation, multimember districts, ranked-choice voting, and political pluralism. However, anyone hoping for a local solution has it wrong: federal law prohibits states from implementing proportional representation for congressional districts. The changes we need must come from a national law applied universally — something consistently blocked in the Senate. To create a new national political system, we need a nationwide party united around a program for democracy.
I’m also not convinced by Andrew and Ian. Socialism is too narrow an appeal to create a mass political movement in the United States. Agitation that centers on socialism while dismissing the struggle for proportional representation and political rights more broadly as a “liberal assumption” won’t go very far. And their discussion of “capitalist politics” versus “socialist politics” tells us nothing about what kind of state the working class needs and, therefore, what concrete political demands DSA should be putting forward.
Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue III, by Barnett Newman
What’s Missing
Contrary to Cauthern, Glass, and Gaynor, the United States is not a democracy based on universal and equal suffrage. Contra Andrew and Ian, that absence is crucial. Missing from both tendencies is the demand for a democratic constitution that — paraphrasing DSA’s Workers Deserve More program — establishes civil, political, and democratic rights for all, and is based on proportional representation in a single federal legislature. This is an orthodox Marxist position applicable in all countries lacking universal and equal suffrage. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Kautsky, Luxemburg, Debs — everyone understood that to make inroads on capital and create a socialist economy and fend off threats from the far-right, the working class needed to win the battle for democracy by achieving a democratic republic.
The democratic republican strategy has a political component. Condemning the constitutional system explains how a capitalist minority dominates the majority and why Trump has been able to accumulate such immense power. Demanding a democratic alternative provides a concrete vision of the kind of state we need — one capable of placing the working class in command — and clearly distinguishes us from the Democratic Party.
It also has an ideological component. The strategy draws on the ideas and language of justice, equality, and universal rights — the animating values behind the country’s greatest mass movements, from the Civil War and Reconstruction to the civil rights and anti–Vietnam War movements. We cannot allow the Democrats to co-opt these ideals. Socialists have always fought against every social injustice and, in the words of Jean Jaurès, struggled to preserve the “pitiful progress of humanity, the modest guarantees that [the working class] has little by little conquered through centuries-long effort and a long series of revolutions.” The Democratic Party’s legitimacy and Newsom’s growing stardom depend on playing Trump’s foil by posing as defenders of democracy while crushing any dissent within their ranks. But the bourgeoisie has always hated democracy and fought tooth and nail to preserve the system of unequal rights.
There’s a programmatic component, too. As the Workers Deserve More program notes, “Relying on the Democrats to defeat Republicans isn’t working. An independent political party, rooted in the working-class majority, is necessary to build a future free from exploitation and oppression.” Without a party, we have nothing. The demand for a democratic republic creates a point of unity — a minimum demand around which socialists of all persuasions can rally behind in the name of creating a favorable political playing field and bringing much-needed light and air to our movement.
The Alternative
Newsom’s gerrymandering scheme is a race to the bottom. Endorsing it spoils a chance to argue for a nationwide system of proportional representation and brings us no closer to resolving the issue of political independence from the Democratic Party. One tendency within DSA, represented by Cauthern and company, struggles to imagine challenging the whole Constitution. It ignores the issue by working within the Democratic Party’s orbit to finagle the rules and elect better people to high positions. Another tendency, represented by Andrew and Ian, also doesn’t know what to do with our obstructionist and immovable political system. It too ignores the issue, choosing instead to shun the language of equality and democracy and demand full communism. Both tendencies attempt to hide the crippling flaw in their respective strategies — the rejection of democratic republicanism — behind empty slogans like “collective power” and “socialist politics.”
Instead of endorsing Prop 50, we should seize the opportunity to advocate for proportional representation and a new constitution. Chapters can host public discussions and political education night schools, as East Bay DSA did in 2024 with its two-part event on the Constitution. Members can also advance resolutions, as San Diego DSA did with its “For a Democratic Constitution” resolution last year. Signs should be made, and t-shirts should be printed. Following YDSA’s “Winning the Battle for Democracy” resolution, elected officials should be encouraged to stand as tribunes for democracy. We demand our electeds be socialists — but they must also champion proportional representation and constitutional change. Because single-member districts are federally mandated, none of this advocacy can be restricted to California. DSA must lead a nationwide campaign for proportional representation and a democratic constitution.
Ultimately, the direction of DSA and the American left more broadly will be determined by both debate and action. Discussion has its place. Lenin’s What is to be Done?, a book-length polemic against other Social Democrats, lies at the heart of the critique I’ve presented in this article. But while Lenin tried to win people over to his ideas, he also pursued an independent path of action to build a movement for democracy.
Marxist Unity Group members are already convinced democratic republicans. The best response to Prop 50 — and to the broader tendencies we’ve observed in DSA — is to continue winning people to our ideas and increase our democratic agitation. Let’s lead by example and fill Light and Air and the monthly bulletin — two growing, indispensable projects — with sharp, fearless arguments for democracy. When it comes to indicting the Democratic Party and connecting every social abuse to the need for a new political system, no opportunity should be wasted.
The American left is slowly — oh, so slowly — returning to socialism’s democratic republican roots and everything that entails. Let’s use this moment to assert what Marxist Unity Group stands for and connect with others who agree.
