Why I Am Resigning from the Socialist Party USA

Is there any genre of writing more tiresome than the leftist letter of resignation? The protagonist and narrator is always more sinned against than sinning, a paragon of good judgment mired in others' groupthink, and world-historical import of the decisive conflicts is inflated to a degree inversely proportional to the actual stakes of the disagreements. This will not be such a document. I almost decided not to write this, but since I did announce my decision to first join four years ago on this blog, and have defended once or twice since then even when I adjusted my own political outlook from that which first led me to join, it seemed to me appropriate to register my departure. That way, any regular readers--if I have any of those--might not be left with out-of-date impressions of my affiliations.

The fact of the matter is that the decision as to whether or not to renew my membership has been an annual agony. It has not helped matters that the time for me to decide whether or not to renew always, until this year, seemed to coincide with what one comrade whom I like has referred to as "the annual spring schism." The word "schism" implies more in the way of substantive political differences, though, than is appropriate. The general contours of these fights, played out primarily over social media, create an impression of a more or less homogeneous ideological old guard that is comfortable with the party as it is, and more heterogeneous groupings of relatively new members who sense that it is or must be changing. But that is an oversimplification. Close examination of the lines of demarcation usually reveal them to be fractally intertwined, with enclaves and exclaves embedded into one another.

In three prior years, I renewed either because of the combat--it seemed to reveal that things were broadly moving in what I considered the right direction--or in spite of it, because of promising developments on the local level. Indeed the comforting myth repeated by party leaders of longer standing is that the people who get most embroiled in the online fights are least involved in building the party on the ground, and that one should focus on working in one's local area. This year, for precisely this reason, I did not hesitate to renew: There seemed to be no "spring schism" (in fact, there is, but delayed), and things seemed to be going well for socialists here in Maine.

Well, they're not going that well in Maine. And if any local journalists have clicked looking for dish about local activists, sorry, you're not going to find that here. What I will say is that, in the Southern Maine local at least, the things I found repeatedly troubling at the national level about the culture of the SPUSA have been faithfully replicated: An aversion to political discussion and debate, and an emphasis on patching things up interpersonally (or scapegoating individuals when that proved impossible) in lieu of attempting to resolve political disagreements through a combination of argument and action. The new Eastern Maine local, which is less stagnant, seems not quite as uniformly prone to these faults, but there's a real danger of them succumbing to it as well. The notion that there was, in the party, a clear differentiation between online kibitzers and on-the-ground organizers, or that local efforts are an antidote to national malaise, has now become clear to me as what I referred to it above--a comforting myth. Knowing that it is a myth deprives it of all comfort. And lacking any apparent contradiction between what I find banal about the local party and moribund about the national one, there appears to me no available lever for change. At least not internally.

In my initial post announcing my decision to join the SPUSA, I referred to it, tentatively, as appearing "flexible." I recognize now that, coming from a political background of organizations that mistook rigidity for durability, what I mistook in the SPUSA for flexibility was mere softness. The organization is no more flexible than a marshmallow. Subject to pressure, it will nonetheless retain and return to its pre-existing shape. Rigid organizations grow, if they grow, by scaffolding themselves a piece at a time. Marshmallows grow, if they grow, through the amorphous accretion of fluff. In a tumultuous political situation, rigid organizations will shatter; if a marshmallow survives, it does so only by way of being crushed underfoot rather than set ablaze.

And so for the good of my mental health and family life, I will no longer allow myself to be fruitlessly exasperated. There are, within the SPUSA, people who strike me as being quite serious about the need for revolutionary transformation of society. Those I am sure I will see around in other contexts. For those for whom it functions as an ego-boost, a pink-shaded version of Kiwanis, or a secularized church, we're probably mutually better off parting ways.