In recent weeks, comrades have asked us many questions about Build: Is Build a caucus?  Is it political?  Does it have a platform?  Will it run slates?  How does one join?  Where does it fit in DSA?  How does it relate to DSA’s caucuses?  While we’ve answered these questions in various places and published our values on our website, we haven’t issued a policy platform—nor will we.  However, because we believe our own actions should be a model for the transparency we wish to see in the national organization, we must clearly explain what Build is, what our shared values and goals are, and what we’re working on. 

So here’s what we’ve got. 

Build is an organizing project within DSA dedicated to the multi-year task of growing and nurturing the base the socialist movement needs to win.  We don’t call Build a “caucus” because most in DSA define “caucus” as a group with a defined policy platform or prescription for political action.  We very intentionally don’t have a defined platform, so we don’t call ourselves a caucus. 

Instead, Build is a team unified by the political belief that DSA can only succeed in this particular historical moment if socialists of all stripes collaborate on projects ranging from electoral work to direct action to building counterpower, without one tendency dominating or restricting the work of others.  For this reason, we’ve sometimes called ourselves a “meta-tendency”—each of us have a constellation of questions about political action and theory that we believe we can only effectively explore in a pluralist environment, without prematurely attaching ourselves to one of the existing tendencies within DSA. 

Build is the product of many things, but it primarily arises from our perception of DSA’s current limitations.  In mid-2018, Build’s founders came together from diverse backgrounds and tendencies, united by their personal experiences with the Momentum faction’s toxic behavior and weaponization of majoritarian proceduralism.  We attempted creating a new caucus with a unified set of beliefs and tactics—and failed.  Our politics were a microcosm of the wide variety in DSA, and cohering around one tendency was impossible. 

Yet, in analyzing this failure, we realized something transformative: we’re stronger working together around our shared values while maintaining and learning from our differences.  When we stepped back, this realization helped make sense of the wild, wonderful, sometimes infuriating organization we call our political home.  We realized many DSA members are new to the movement and still forming their politics.  We realized the harsh fact that the American Left as an organized movement with a durable base is still in its infancy after decades in the wilderness, and we thus lack the evidence needed to categorically declare which strategy is best.  Most of all, by working across tendencies, we realized, in this particular moment, genuinely embracing the diversity of beliefs and tactics in DSA is a strength, not a weakness, and friction created from diversity can and should be generative rather than harmful. 

Why is DSA’s pluralism its strength?  It encourages our organization to experiment, and to synthesize new strategies and projects through tactical combinations impossible in single-tendency organizations.  Theory and debate are vital, but political divergences shouldn’t be resolved with overwrought thinkpieces and factional squabbles.  Most DSA members don’t fall into hardline factions.  Our politics are in constant motion.  Many of us want to develop our theoretical knowledge and organizing projects, rather than become Robert’s Rules experts or subscribe to a single socialist blog.  This fluid dynamic is why many of us joined DSA.  The organization’s pluralistic energy enables DSA to be a hub for radicalization and building a mass movement. 

Build unified around these realizations, and with our formation came obvious follow-up questions: what does a functional, sustainable, multi-tendency (or “big tent”) organization look like in practice and theory?  Where do we go next?  How can we present a unified front against capitalism and create a culture focused on doing the work, while also encouraging comradely, good-faith political discussion?  Before we can proclaim what DSA must work on or where we ought togo, however, we must first determine who we are and what we want to be—not just now, but five and ten years in the future.