A Magazine for Radical Insights

Mission

We re-launched Organizing Upgrade in 2017 to serve as a space where left organizers can discuss strategy and share organizing models that respond to the profound dangers and the real opportunities of this political moment.

Despite our defeat of Donald Trump’s bid for a second term, white nationalist authoritarians built on their 40+ years of political primacy under his administration. And the broader racist backlash gained power.

There are a number of other dangerous possibilities in this moment: the elimination of environmental regulations and the inadequate addressing of climate devastation continue to have irreversible impacts on the planet; the public sector is still being dismantled and privatized; women and LGBTQ people are facing threats to a series of basic rights; endless wars continue and the threat of new wars is growing ever stronger; and the federal judiciary, including the US Supreme Court, has been tilted hard right. Left organizers need a space for deep discussion and debate over strategic responses to these threats, and Convergence will serve as one forum for that debate.

But this is not a moment to only focus on defense. There are also a number of significant opportunities for expansion and real advance in this moment. The broad-front effort that defeated Trump, and our movements’ critical role in that, give us a lot to build on. The uprisings in the spring and summer of 2020 showed the depth of resistance to and breadth of support for racial justice. The success of movement-backed left candidates for local and Congressional seats invigorate the possibilities for inside-outside strategies. The resilience and militance of communities organizing in the COVID pandemic point to new possibilities for working people and people of color, especially as the pandemic has foregrounded systemic racism.

Everywhere from the base of progressive movements to progressive institutions and even well into the liberal world, there is new openness to left analyses and to radical race and class politics. The dynamics of our moment have created real possibilities for rebuilding a left based on multi-racial class solidarity, a holistic and internationalist vision and a determination to break out of the margins and get to the center of national politics.

To respond to these dangers and threats, left organizers need space to step back and reflect on these threats and possibilities. We need to understand the long-term trends that are shaping our political context, including: the decline of US power in the world; demographic shifts; the deepening climate crisis and the disasters it brings; and the growth of inequality rooted in the ways capitalism has been restructured over the last four decades. This necessitates moving beyond critical “think-pieces” and starting to answer the hard strategic and practical questions of this moment, like:

• How do we convert the energy we see in the streets to electoral power, and vice versa?
• How do we fight racism, defend immigrants, and work for gender justice while setting a strong class pole?
• What are effective tactics for conducting the fight against corporate Democrats on Democratic Party terrain?
• What are the possibilities for other electoral instruments?
• How can our work continue to build the broad front against white nationalist authoritarianism, and an anti-racist, anti-capitalist core within that?

Convergence will address these issues by gathering strategic reflections and case studies from left organizers around the country. Our editorial team places the struggle against racism at the center of building a powerful multi-racial working class movement in this country. We think that the left and social movements cannot work in isolation; we need to prioritize building broad fronts in opposition to the emergence of the right. We are all part of the political trend that is working to build left inside-outside projects that enable us to wield mass people power both at the ballot box and in the streets.