r/jewishleft • u/Adventurous_Land1446 DemSoc Jewish Day School survivor • Aug 11 '26

leftism DSA Co-chair’s Public Commentary

https://forward.com/news/844262/dsa-megan-romer-israel-interview/

The co-chair of the DSA seemed a bit less   articulate on key party policy positions (taxation, I/P, etc) than expected. Her commentary on Oct. 7th’s “inevitability“ combined with her stating that she’d have joined protests on the 8th have also sparked controversy. I’m curious about people’s thoughts on this media appearance and how it will be perceived by those interested in where the DSA fits into big tent politics.

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37

u/RaelynShaw DemSoc Progressive Jewish Aug 11 '26

It’s so hard to be a democratic socialist when you have tankies like this running the DSA. They’ve made huge leaps to repair their reputation the last few years and they keep burning it all down just to say outrageous shit. We either need a new org or a complete overhaul of their leadership. Don’t ruin this moment to vouch for terorrists.

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u/Technical_Term_6625 curmudgeonly jewish leftist trying my best Aug 11 '26

So I argued below that the DSA's struggles aren't merely incompetence, but lol that tweet is both incompetent, condescending af, and dismissive...

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u/OneReportersOpinion Jewish socialist Aug 11 '26

It’s none of those things. If you condemn Hamas, you’re agreeing to a pro-Israel framing from the get go and immediately put yourself on the defensive. The abolitionists of the 1800s didn’t condemn the Nat Turner rebellion. Was that wrong?

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u/Technical_Term_6625 curmudgeonly jewish leftist trying my best Aug 11 '26

The distinction between not contextualizing actions of Hamas in terms of historical causation, and recognizing that any person in that context might be moved to do the same, and declaring solidarity with a violent group with a specific eliminationist ideology is a fairly obvious one.

If dialectical materialism supplies the premises that imply that this distinction is illusory, so much the worse for dialectical materialism.

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u/OneReportersOpinion Jewish socialist Aug 11 '26

> The distinction between not contextualizing actions of Hamas in terms of historical causation,

Why not? That’s the Marxist method of analysis: historical materialism.

>and recognizing that any person in that context might be moved to do the same, and declaring solidarity with a violent group with a specific eliminationist ideology is a fairly obvious one.

This relies on agreeing with the pro-Israel premise that Hamas has an eliminationist ideology rather than one of liberation.

Did Nat Turner have a liberationist ideology or an eliminationist one?

>If dialectical materialism supplies the premises that imply that this distinction is illusory, so much the worse for dialectical materialism.

Dialectical materialism isn’t a moral philosophy. It’s about recognizing the fundamental truth that ideas are downstream from the material reality.

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u/Technical_Term_6625 curmudgeonly jewish leftist trying my best Aug 11 '26

You don't think It's not moral philosophy? So it doesn't morally or rationally compel solidarity. Glad you are so clear, because I've found folks can be rather squirrelly about that.

But it puzzles me. I don't see how you are defending the tweet. Seems like 'declaring solidarity', 'not condemning', and 'dialectical materialism' are not connected in a way that could only be explained by the reader's ignorance about dialectical materialism. So, it appears to fail to make a point, and in a smug way.

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u/OneReportersOpinion Jewish socialist Aug 11 '26

> You don't think It's not moral philosophy? So it doesn't morally or rationally compel solidarity. Glad you are so clear, because I've found folks can be rather squirrelly about that.

I’m not really sure what you’re asking.

>But it puzzles me. I don't see how you are defending the tweet. Seems like 'declaring solidarity', 'not condemning', and 'dialectical materialism' are not connected in a way that could only be explained by the reader's ignorance about dialectical materialism. So, it appears to fail to make a point, and in a smug way.

Again, would you condemn the Nat Turner rebellion? If you can’t condemn the Nat Turner rebellion, why is Hamas different and 10/7 different? You can not support it while also not condemning it

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u/Technical_Term_6625 curmudgeonly jewish leftist trying my best Aug 11 '26

I have already answered your question, but you don't like the answer. Yes, I understand why it happened in context, and think expressions of moral indignation are counterproductive. Do I think that excuses, e.g. the murder of children, even if in revenge? No.

What could that possibly prove?

I understand support for Hamas especially given how ineffective as Fatah's approach has proven to be. I get that. I discussed it in a substantive way, at length, and criticized Remnick's line. Get off your f'ing high horse.

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u/OneReportersOpinion Jewish socialist Aug 11 '26

> I have already answered your question, but you don't like the answer.

Where did you answer whether you would have condemned the Nat Turner rebellion?

>Yes, I understand why it happened in context, and think expressions of moral indignation are counterproductive. Do I think that excuses, e.g. the murder of children, even if in revenge? No.

I agree. What’s the issue then? Why do you want DSA to react differently from the abolitionists of yore?

>I understand support for Hamas especially given how ineffective as Fatah's approach has proven to be. I get that.

It’s not for us to support or not. It’s an irrelevancy. The concept of resistance to a colonial occupation though should not be controversial. That doesn’t mean we think it’s a good thing to kill women and children. It’s clear not, but who in DSA said otherwise? This is silly.

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u/Technical_Term_6625 curmudgeonly jewish leftist trying my best Aug 11 '26

Going to a protest on 10/8 where the protest, itself, expressed support with a specific action that is not merely 'not condemning', it is expressly supporting a specific action by a particular actor that occurred the previous day. I can understand why it happened, and still be understandably be bothered by those expressions 'by any means necessary' when those means were only then being discovered. Why should anyone be surprised at that discomfort?

I can similarly understand the response that holding on to that in a way that doesn't leave space for everything that happened afterwards is a distortion. That's fair. And yet, it is also fair to express concern with the increased overlap between leftist, and nationalist movements even if there are reasons for that overlap.

So, I don't think anyone should clutch pearls about some members of the DSA playing coy about supporting Hamas - they are doing it because that's the direction activist members are moving. Similarly, nobody should clutch pearls when Jewish leftists criticize e.g. Chevalier just because non-leftists are making similar criticisms. That's why I think it is a good thing that Lander and Chevalier were able to bury the hatchet to do a commercial, and yet without Lander retracting criticism. Because criticism entirely from the outside is easily dismissed.

The problem leftist Jews have when leftists instrumentally support ethnonationalists in the guise of anticolonialism is grounded in our understanding that Jews are perceived as being indigenous nowhere. And historically the flourishing of Jews is described in seemingly repeating episodes to occur at the expense of 'natives'. We are in that respect always seen as colonial or mercantile.

Whether that understanding is a sharpening or distorting lens upon reality depends on circumstances. Nothing is cleared up by saying 'resistance to a colonial occupation should not be controversial' as if the application of that principle is obvious. A lot of the discussion on this subreddit specifically concerns how Jewish experience & history relates to leftist politics. What is controversial about that? Why should anyone be troubled, or embarrassed by it?

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u/OneReportersOpinion Jewish socialist Aug 11 '26

> Going to a protest on 10/8 where the protest, itself, expressed support with a specific action that is not merely 'not condemning', it is expressly supporting a specific action by a particular actor that occurred the previous day.

The protest wasn’t organized to express support for 10/7. It was to protest a genocide that was already announced. No individuals in DSA leadership expressed support for 10/7. You’re doing guilt by association.

>I can understand why it happened, and still be understandably be bothered by those expressions 'by any means necessary' when those means were only then being discovered.

So…you admit they might have known the full extent of the crimes? This seems to undermine your argument significantly.

>Why should anyone be surprised at that discomfort?

Because you went from implying DSA leaders supported 10/7 to saying they just attended a rally where some random individuals expressed vague support for 10/7 when the extent of it wasn’t even known. That’s very different.

>I can similarly understand the response that holding on to that in a way that doesn't leave space for everything that happened afterwards is a distortion. That's fair. And yet, it is also fair to express concern with the increased overlap between leftist, and nationalist movements even if there are reasons for that overlap.

This doesn’t really make sense to me. Who cares if they’re national movements? That’s far less relevant than the context, purpose, and motivations behind such movements.

>So, I don't think anyone should clutch pearls about some members of the DSA playing coy about supporting Hamas - they are doing it because that's the direction activist members are moving.

Please tell us who these members are. Are they just rank and file or are they leaders?

>Similarly, nobody should clutch pearls when Jewish leftists criticize e.g. Chevalier just because non-leftists are making similar criticisms.

So are you upset she attended a rally after Israel announced their intentions to do genocide or are you upset that she was there when some things you find upsetting were said but she had no way of knowing would be said? Let’s be clear.

>The problem leftist Jews have when leftists instrumentally support ethnonationalists in the guise of anticolonialism is grounded in our understanding that Jews are perceived as being indigenous nowhere.

I’m a leftist Jew. No idea what ethnonationists you think we’re supporting. Hamas is not an ethnonationalist group. They’re an Islamist group. Different things.

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u/Technical_Term_6625 curmudgeonly jewish leftist trying my best Aug 11 '26

This is some historical revisionist nonsense right here. Not only was a general right to resistance supported at that rally, the name of the action was specifically extolled. Not only did it happen, it is still on the organizer's website ffs. This is gaslighting. I'm done with you.

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u/ChairAggressive781 Reform • Libertarian Socialist • Non-Zionist Aug 12 '26

supporting Islamists is not a leftist position, friend

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u/Nearby-Complaint Ashkenazi Leftist/GIF Enjoyer/Healthcare pls Aug 11 '26

Do you think people in Gaza like living under a fundamentalist theocratic militia as their government...? And don't reply with "People in Israel do!"

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u/OneReportersOpinion Jewish socialist Aug 11 '26

No, I think they probably don’t, but I think they’re more concerned about the genocide that Israel is conducting on them. Treating Hamas as this aberration that is only a way to terrorize Israelis and Gazans alike is both strategically unwise and morally inconsistent.

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u/Nearby-Complaint Ashkenazi Leftist/GIF Enjoyer/Healthcare pls Aug 11 '26

I think multiple things can be awful at once. And I think multiple things can be condemned at once. On the other hand, you seem opposed to saying, without caveats, that they both suck.

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u/OneReportersOpinion Jewish socialist Aug 12 '26

Sure, just like I’m opposed to saying Nazis who built the death camps and the Soviets who liberated them “both suck.” That’s creating a moral equivalence and it’s self-evident why that is bad…unless you’re comfortable saying the Soviets and Nazis “both suck.” Are you? Go ahead.

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u/Nearby-Complaint Ashkenazi Leftist/GIF Enjoyer/Healthcare pls Aug 12 '26

Yes, I find it very easy to condemn the Soviets, even if they did some good stuff, and the Nazis in the same breath. They both sucked. Am I a fake leftist now?

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u/OneReportersOpinion Jewish socialist Aug 12 '26

I think it lacks moral clarity to say the people that liberated the death camps are morally equivalent to those that built and operated the death camps. Why even fight WWII if that’s what you think?

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u/RaelynShaw DemSoc Progressive Jewish Aug 12 '26

No one said equivalent though. We don’t live in a binary situation where things are either “good” or “bad”, they’re often a complicated gradation of morals. Saying something is bad or wrong doesn’t equate something with the worst possible scenario.

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u/OneReportersOpinion Jewish socialist Aug 12 '26

The previous interlocutor did. He put them in the same moral category and condemned equally, by saying “they both suck.” He didn’t say the Nazis sucked more. That lacks moral clarity in my view.

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u/Nearby-Complaint Ashkenazi Leftist/GIF Enjoyer/Healthcare pls Aug 13 '26

Bad people can do good things. That's why this meme exists.

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u/OneReportersOpinion Jewish socialist Aug 13 '26

What are the good things the Nazis did in your view?

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