A Year of Mobilizin’

Before I begin this essay on my experience as a mobilizer coordinator, I want to clarify that this is not a subtweet. This is my experience that I offer to other mobilizer coordinators in Locals across the nation. I hope to offer some strength to those struggling to get their network off the ground, experience of how it has gone for me, and hope for the future.

My name is John White and I am the mobilizer coordinator of the BUM branch of the New York City Local of the DSA. I have been a member of DSA since December 2016, but a socialist since I learned of Bobby Sands, James Connolly, and Bernadette Devlin McAliskey as a child. Socialism is the air I breathe and the blood in my veins. When DSA began to explode, I was recruited by comrades in the Anti-Fascist movement. DSA has allowed me to feel a control of my political life in a way I have never experienced. The opportunities to be of service to my community have multiplied since I have joined the movement.

I began going to Brooklyn meetings of the DSA until the creation of the BUM branch in January of this year. I was bored to tears by the conversations on by-laws but today I am happy that I was given a chance to be a part of an essential process in and branch or Local. I was informed of the mobilizer program by our branch steering committee representative, Sarah, and she trained me in the program. I was fortunate to get in on the ground floor of our branch.

The crux of the mobilizer program is that a member is given the contact info of ten people in their branch and they are to arrange coffee with them. During this coffee, the mobilizer is asking their comrade about what has brought them to DSA, what makes them angry about capitalism, what their skills are, and what they would like to do within the movement. I was given my ten names and off I went.

Of my ten names, I only had three coffees. Some didn’t want to meet, some didn’t respond, but the three that did really give me hope for the work that I was doing. I won’t mention these comrades by name, but each has gone on to make essential contributions to our cause. The three folks that I mobilized have gone on to leadership positions within the branch in some capacity, and one went on to become a mobilizer himself.

By luck, I was successful as a mobilizer. I was still very insecure of my position as a socialist. I never doubted what I was, but I was afraid that I was going to say the wrong thing. I knew that I was the first representative of the DSA some people would meet, and I didn’t want to reflect poorly on the movement. Fortunately, one of the names on my list was a veteran union organizer. While I was there to mobilize him, his kindness and experience gave me the confidence to keep making calls even when I wasn’t getting a response. We had coffee and spoke about all the required things, but then continued speaking and he and I had a frank conversation about what we were up against as socialists, inner class divisions within DSA, and what organizations had been doing the work on the organized left before I joined. My next meeting was with a comrade who worked in a not-for-profit in lower Manhattan. I went down to Wall Street, and assumed I was about to meet with a financier! She and I had coffee and she told me she worked in housing, but had experience in event planning. As fate would have it, I was asked if I knew anyone with event planning experience. I connected her with the OC of my branch, and she helped organize the first delegated conference of the NYC DSA since the explosion. My final coffee was in Midtown and there I met a comrade who later went on to become a mobilizer and a great help to the DSA. My success was ordinary, many mobilizers in the BUM branch have similar stories.

In March I was elected to be the Mobilizer Coordinator of the BUM branch. This is a position that makes me a member of the branch OC. I was given the data of all the branch contacts, mobilizers, and lists that had already been cut. The branch has 300 active members and maybe 700 members all together. I thought I was going to meet with all the mobilizers one on one much like I did with my list and come up with a plan. Fortunately, I was supported by an OC who did nothing but pester me to reach out for help. One of my mobilizers was constantly biting at my heels for more work. Sarah, my SC rep, the same person who recruited me, kept asking me if I felt the position was a lot, and if I needed help. I tried to shrug it off but the truth was I overwhelmed. I have learned that if someone asks you if you need help more than a few times it’s because you need help and just can’t see it. You can’t save your face and ass at the same time. I accepted the help of my SC rep and that mobilizer who was snapping at my heels, Matt. We created a triumvirate. March was a long month of work.

In April, I set up a dinner with all the mobilizer coordinators, but I forgot to remind them and only 4 of 15 showed up. Of that 4, one showed up only to tell me that she couldn’t be a mobilizer any longer because she was moving. I was embarrassed. It was myself, my deputy Matt, and another mobilizer. We sat there and talked socialism, what we thought the program should look like, and ate wings. It wasn’t a success but gave me a reminder that people do not just show up because you ask them, or because you have any sort of title; you need to create relationships even with people who are deeply committed to the DSA.

I really felt like I was getting the hang of the system in June. Matt, Sarah, and I along with our comrade from South Brooklyn, Joe, began doing trainings together. We were doing trainings in apartments, bars, union halls; if there was space, we were training folks. By July we decided it was time to try a mass training. We trained 45 mobilizers from all over New York as well as Nassau and Suffolk County DSA on Long Island. The trainings were exhausting, but was more important was what came after the trainings, the lists. We stole a line from Glengarry Glen Ross “always be closing” and started to say, “always be cutting”. Like many members of the DSA this year, I have become intimately acquainted with google sheets and excel. After each training, I tried to get lists out to new mobilizers within a week of training. Sometimes I failed. However, I always reached out to inform them it was taking longer than usual. I knew it was my job to model the same behavior we asked of our mobilizers. We taught them the main role of a mobilizer was to follow through, and if there was something I couldn’t do, or didn’t know, I had to tell them. At the end of the summer our city-wide team had trained well over 100 mobilizers.

The national convention was an amazing experience. The team helped put together a mobilizer training and packet that we were asked to present to people from around the country. I was on calls with other members of the DSA and it was incredible to connect with Locals as far as San Francisco or North Carolina. We attempted to pack a 3-hour training into less than an hour, and it was a struggle. I know I did not do my best work that day, but I did the best I could. I gained insight into how other Locals viewed the trainings, and I think we have been receptive her in New York to some of the constructive criticism that we received from that weekend.

In October, the mobilizer trainers of New York City were invited by Providence DSA to facilitate a training of New England Locals. Joe, Matt, and I drove up to Lowell, Mass where we spent our Saturday training 20 members on how to become mobilizers, and how to set up their networks. A key insight I gained that day was that what works in New York may not and will not work in other places. I listened to my comrades from rural, and small city New England speak of their success and struggles of organizing in their communities. I know in any future trainings I conduct in the future, I will stress that what works for my Local may not work for others. I hope that any MCs’ in rural or smaller communities will share their experience so that we as an organization can gain insights into what works in their Local and allow it to influence our work.

I have learned a ton about DSA, the members of my local, my cadre of comrades, and myself this year. I have concluded that my work as a MC is more important than any supporting role I will play in any working group across my Local. When I first joined DSA, I became heavily involved in our electoral work, and was a part of the candidate recruitment team. I was excited to spend most of my time working to elect socialist City Councilors. I also became was a lead organizer on a project for our Strike Solidarity Working Group. I drew a ton of joy (and frustration) from these commitments. As I dug into this MC position, and leadership of the BUM branch as an OC member, I realized that I needed to focus on what was important. My first commitment was to my branch. BUM meetings are like church on Sunday, you don’t miss it. It is essential that I tend to the work of my branch before I entertain any notion of helping or taking on a project in a working group. In New York City, without strong branches, we have no foundation to draw from in our work. I saw the work that needed to be done, and didn’t want to let my comrades on the OC down, so I dialed back my commitments citywide and focused on my work as an MC.

This does not mean that a Mobilizer Coordinator is to become a hermit. I needed to keep my finger on the pulse of what was going on. A key role of the MC is the soliciting and assigning of branch and Local “asks”. These can be as small as asking mobilizers to reach out about a branch meeting, a medium ask like searching their networks for members with certain skills, or large asks like turnout to branch campaigns. Our largest success to this date was the Mayday March. Our network was tasked with driving turnout to the Mayday March. It was our first Mayday March since the Trump election, and it was essential that DSA in New York set the tone for the left in the coming year. Our mobilizers from all branches were tapped and we provided. Mobilizer coordinators from Brooklyn, Queens, Labor and BUM worked as marshals. Over 300 DSA members from across New York marched as a solid red block. We were led by our own people, moved as one force, and set the tone for the day. We had no arrests, our older members were provided for, and while it was tiring, it was my best Mayday since Occupy. We may not have taken the streets due heavy NYPD presence but we demonstrated that NYC DSA was a force to be reckoned with.

My failures as a MC have been many. There have been a few months where I have neglected the network and things have fallen through the cracks. One of my goals for the following year is to make sure that I am giving mobilizers who want to learn how to create their own network or cut lists get the chance to do so. I took the role and didn’t guard it to hide information, but because sometimes it’s easier and faster to do something yourself rather than teach a comrade. As a MC I need to constantly be training my replacement and making space for future leaders to step up. As a MC, it is essential to check on the mobilizers. I didn’t do enough of that and some of the network fell off as a result. I allowed mobilizers who neglected their lists to coast for a few months before handling it. Had I been on top of some of my mobilizers, they may have done a better job of reaching out to their lists and we would have a strong Local. I think it is important for DSA members to feel free to share their failures as often as their successes because it is in failure where we learn to grow. I find that if I am open with what is wrong with my projects, the surrounding community will come and aid me rather than criticize me.

I underestimated how much time this commitment would take. I didn’t think I would be spending Fridays cutting lists or weekends training. But this is what is required of someone who is going to take on this commitment. When it’s busy its around 10 hours a week. However most weeks, I can do everything (emails, phone calls, lists, etc.) in 3 hours. This leads me to what has led to my success as an MC. I asked for help. I asked early and I asked often. When my comrades at BUM saw that I wasn’t moving quickly enough they offered to aid me in my work, and I put my pride to the side and accepted. For anyone with a large to medium Local or even a small one, accepting a partner in this process will make success possible, and avoid possible burnout.

In terms of where I need to work on the system currently, I will be frank. I, along with my comrades, spent a good portion of the year just setting the system up. I have no scientific metrics to judge my success or failure as an MC. I hope to change that in the future. I want to push for the professionalization of the position so that MC’s do not work off hunches or feelings, but have facts that can be measured. I have had no time to come up with anything, and I plan to reach out to my comrades across NYC DSA to brainstorm and create something that will benefit us in the future.

I have anecdotal evidence that the system has been a success, and I want to share that here. BUM Branch has at least 30 trained mobilizers. Of that 30, 27 are on the roster:

· 17 are active in their work, judged by their spreadsheets

· 6 have had their lists atrophy due to planned shrinkage

o This happens when a mobilizer moves up to a leadership position

o They are no longer given new names, and inactive members are removed

· 2 mobilizers have asked to have their listed assigned away to focus on other commitments

· 2 have been asked to move on from the program due to inactivity

· 12 have been in or have at some point been in leadership at some level of the NYC DSA.

· 4 are members of the BUM City Leadership Delegation

· 1 is a member of DSA National Leadership

· The member who was biting at my heels (Matt) is now the Membership Development Coordinator of the NYC Local and a Steering Committee member

The mobilizers in the system currently are doing great work. I believe this to be true because the Bronx/Upper Manhattan branch accounts for 15% of the NYC Local, but we have rates of active membership with the three Brooklyn branches that make up 58% of the Local. Of our 11 branch meetings this year, 10 had attendances of over 100. I ask at each meeting by a show of hands who has been mobilized, and half the room tends to raise their hand. This is all anecdotal. In the coming year, I hope to develop a system of metrics for the BUM mobilizer system that is repeatable and replicable when I am no longer MC due to term limits.

I want to stress that part of the reason that the mobilizer system has been successful in my branch is luck and timing; I am not important. The work that I have done has been in concert with my comrades in the BUM branch and I was given support by many people. Without the tools given to me by my OC, and the steering committee of the NYC Local, our branch system would not be where it is today.

I believe that the Mobilizer System is an exciting advancement for DSA. The shop steward model has been effective in building work place democracy, creating relationships that lead to solidarity in struggle and create healthy unions. The appropriation of this aspect of union culture into DSA has been a great tool for BUM Branch. My work this year has been difficult, but rewarding. If you will allow me a moment to be political, I believe that we are in the twilight of capitalism and the dawn of reaction. The struggle for socialism will be long and arduous. I am a believer of revolutionary spontaneity and the mobilizer system gives us the tools to model what radical democracy looks like to the wider world. The DSA will not be the Vanguard but one of many vanguards when the next revolutionary moment arrives. Our internal organization will help us retain members and create leaders that will rise organically to lead any movement. Capitalism will fall, be it 50 years or 500, and this system will play a part in its downfall.