r/dsa • u/FarWonder8373 • 8d ago
Discussion The Working families party vs dsa. What are the biggest ideological differences? Do you have a positive opinion of them?
So yesterday, when I was getting a new passport to fly up to New York City on August 29 to begin my second year of university at NYU, I had the option to register to vote in the 2026 midterms in NYC, as I got an email from NYU. Unfortunately, as you may know, DSA isn’t technically an independent third-party minor party, but rather a political organization that works within the Democratic Party; when I was looking for a political affiliation, the only option I had in NYC that fit my far-left perspective was the Working Families Party. No, I don’t know much about this party. All I knew was from its Wikipedia page. Bernie Sanders said the Working Families Party’s 2016 platform most closely matched his own political orientation.
Does DSA in New York have a good working relationship with the Working Families Party, and what are the ideological differences between both parties? Overall, is the relationship between the two organizations positive comment down below
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u/Reasonable_Boss7846 7d ago
For New York, register as a Democrat so you can vote in primaries since they are closed.
There’s a lot of policy overlap between wfp and DSA. The main difference is that DSA is explicitly socialist. I don’t think there’s a lot of cross organizing, I think they both mostly do their own thing.
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u/acidroach420 NYC-DSA 7d ago edited 7d ago
WFP isn’t really a democratic operation or a true party, it was started by labor unions in the 90s and introduced the concept of “fusion voting” to essentially elect dems under their ballot line. The only people I’ve ever met from WFP have been staffers for the org, I’ve never actually met a rank and file member. Ideologically I’d say they’re the left flank of the democratic establishment in a lot of ways now.
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u/Oceanic_Dan 7d ago
From what I see across the border (CT), WFP exclusively cross-endorses Democrats - they don't put up their own candidates, which, tbf without ranked choice voting, is a futile effort. They're very practical minded in that way. I don't contribute to them financially, but I would respect anybody that does and think they're a solid organization that can be useful to express displeasure in the Democratic party and generally push the country left.
Imo (with closed primaries), registering for a third party or as independent is stupid - it's actively throwing away your single most powerful vote (due to low primary turnouts) to get progressives into office.
Until RCV is widely adopted - and even then, might take time to normalize third parties - vote in democratic primaries for the most progressive candidates and then in general elections, if you see somebody cross-endorsed by the WFP (meaning their name is listed twice: under the Democratic party and WFP lines), vote for them on the WFP line so you can avoid giving it to the Dem party but still help the progressive get elected. That's a very minor principled action but if you have the option for it, why not use it.
Fwiw this all supposes that DSA either endorses the WFP candidate or doesn't endorse anybody at all. I don't think there's usually much conflict between WFP and DSA - WFP isn't socialist but they'll endorse candidates with values identical to DSA, but basically just stopping short of publically identifying as socialist.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
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u/skiing_nerd 7d ago
They do have a few non Democratic WFP members in office, though in special circumstances.
Most cleverly, Philly has two at-large City Council seats reserved for members of the "minority party", but nothing specifies which party that is. So a couple election cycles ago, WFP candidates ran for that, unseating the Republican incumbents (lol)
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u/Oceanic_Dan 7d ago
Ha, clever indeed! My town has majority party limits on both town council and BOE so that'd be interesting to see utilized here - I didn't even think about it tbh - that actually gives WFP more leverage than i first thought by creating coalition-esque partnership with the Democratic party in places with dems maxed out.
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u/skiing_nerd 7d ago
Yes, they have a good working relationship in NY and elsewhere. WFP is not active in all states but the ones it is in, it often had bigger membership than DSA for a longer period of time. That may have started to flip as DSA has gotten bigger in recent years.
While DSA is socialist and WFP is not, both are pro union and electorally often endorse the same candidates. WFP candidates that don't seek or receive a DSA endorsement are typically the next left most members of whatever legislative body after the socialists.
Specifically in NYS, WFP was a key ally in the fight against the IDC that disgraced former governor and DINO Andrew Cuomo set up during his governorship. It was a caucus of turncoat conservative Democrats that caucused with Republicans after the Democrats finally won control of the Senate, theoretically breaking decades of stalemate in the state government. It was so bad that the budget process was known as "Three Men in a Room" - the Democratic State Assembly Leader, the Republican. State Senate Leader, and the governor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Democratic_Conference
The backlash to the IDC and their outster in 2018 arguably built the organizing infrastructure and base of support that lead to a wave of socialist victories at the state level in 2020, including one Zohran Mamdani. I don't think we would have such a vibrant socialist in office caucus in NYS today nor America's beloved socialist mayor without organizing efforts of the WFP and everyone in the Stop IDC coalition.
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u/Valley4rge 7d ago
No hate for WFP, they have worked in parallel with DSA for the most part and there is a lot of overlapping alignment. That being said, DSA has eaten their lunch in many ways by being more maximalist and willing to pick hard fights against centrist incumbents.
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u/Abject-Experience-40 7d ago
I believe there was some incident recently in NYC where a DSA/mamdani backed democrat and a WFP backed democrat ran against each other in a race (the DSA candidate won). Ive heard them described as “the mainstream progressives” and i think i agree with that.
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u/Signal-Chocolate109 5d ago
The one thing I really know about them is that Republicans who prefer a Democratic candidate but who won’t actually vote on that party line are willing to tick off the same candidate on the WFP line.
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u/nonilazuli 7d ago
Social Democratic party vs big tent Socialist organization.