Break with Illusion

A Line Struggle Brews Over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Future of Democratic Socialists of America...

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Within Democratic Socialists of America, the question of whether to continue endorsing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not a question of loyalty or personal affinity. It is a struggle between two fundamentally opposed political lines.

One line holds that socialism in the United States can be advanced through deepening engagement with the Democratic Party, electing better representatives, and leveraging their positions to win reforms.

The other line holds that the Democratic Party is structurally incapable of serving working class interests, and that any strategy subordinated to it will ultimately be absorbed, neutralized, and turned against the very people it claims to represent.

This is the line struggle we are already living through. AOC is simply where it becomes unavoidable.

We cannot resolve this question at the level of rhetoric. It must be evaluated through practice. AOC’s record provides clear examples of how participation in the Democratic Party reshapes political actors:

• In 2021, she voted in favor of additional funding for Israel’s Iron Dome system, aligning with U.S. imperial policy despite widespread opposition from Palestine solidarity movements.

• In 2022, during the national rail dispute, she voted to impose a contract on railroad workers and block a strike, siding with state intervention against labor militancy.

• On multiple occasions, she has voted in line with Democratic leadership on procedural and budgetary measures that sustain the broader functioning of the U.S. state, including military and enforcement spending embedded within larger packages.

Each of these moments reflects the same pattern. When forced to choose between the demands of mass struggle and the discipline of the party, she has chosen the party.

This is not incidental.

The Internal Debate in DSA.

These contradictions have already surfaced within DSA.

Following the Iron Dome vote, multiple chapters and members called for the withdrawal of DSA’s endorsement. The organization entered into a period of internal conflict over accountability, political standards, and the limits of electoral strategy.

The National Political Committee was forced to confront a question it has long avoided: what does endorsement actually mean if it does not carry consequences?

Similarly, the rail strike vote sharpened tensions between those who see elected officials as instruments of struggle, and those who see them as constrained actors whose primary function becomes maintaining institutional stability.

In both cases, the outcome was hesitation. Criticism was issued, but no decisive break was made.

This hesitation is not neutrality, but a reflection of the continued dominance of a line that prioritizes maintaining access to elected officials over maintaining political clarity.

The role AOC plays within this framework is not simply that of an individual politician, but of a stabilizing force.

Her presence allows DSA to maintain the belief that it has a foothold within the Democratic Party that can be expanded. This belief justifies continued investment in electoral work under Democratic ballot lines, even as evidence accumulates that such work leads to compromise rather than confrontation.

At the same time, her rhetoric absorbs and redirects discontent. Anger is acknowledged, but ultimately routed back into electoral cycles and legislative timelines.

What appears as representation functions, in practice, as containment.

What Line Are We Advancing?

To continue endorsing AOC is to affirm a specific political line:

That integration into the Democratic Party is a viable path to socialism.
That compromise within state institutions is a necessary stage of struggle.
That elected officials can serve as the primary drivers of transformation.

But the evidence of the past several years points in the opposite direction.

Every major test has demonstrated that participation in these institutions leads not to their transformation, but to our adaptation to them.

Breaking with Revision.

A break with AOC is not about punishing deviation. It is about rejecting a line that has repeatedly shown its limits.

If DSA is to develop into an organization capable of leading real struggle, it must draw clear boundaries. It must be willing to say that alignment with imperial policy, suppression of labor militancy, and adherence to party discipline are incompatible with its stated commitments.

Without that clarity, “endorsement” becomes meaningless, and strategy collapses into habit.

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Toward a Different Path.

The alternative is not abstention. It is reorientation.

It means shifting our center of gravity away from elected officials and toward the masses themselves. It means prioritizing organizing that builds independent capacity rather than dependence on representatives.

It means developing structures that can confront power directly, rather than seeking proximity to it.

This is not an easy path. It offers fewer immediate wins and less visibility. But it is the only path that does not lead back into the system we claim to oppose.

Conclusion.

The question of AOC is already a question of line.

To continue endorsing her is to continue down a path of integration, moderation, and containment. To break is to begin the process of clarifying what kind of organization DSA intends to be.

We cannot carry both lines forward indefinitely. One will define us.

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