Southern Illinois Democratic Socialists of America (SIDSA) condemns Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent vote against withholding iron dome funding (as opposed to members such as Rashida Tlaib); as well as her broader history of capitulation to the zionist occupation. She has since employed her “right to defend herself” on twitter, doubling down on these pro-genocide stances. As an MSR-12 chapter we find this especially unacceptable, but would like to point out that this conduct is in flagrant violation of the DSA’s broader anti-militarist and anti-imperialist platform. SIDSA believes it is important for our national organization to be able to exert control over our endorsed elected officials. While we recognize that DSA national pulled their endorsement recently, the NYC chapter did not. To remedy this issue SIDSA supports chapters forming “Socialists in Office” policies based on solid Marxist principles on electoralism which clearly lay out plans and processes for endorsed elected officials as well as expectations for retaining endorsements.
In light of these circumstances, SIDSA is in favor of the immediate expulsion of AOC from any and all access to our organization at any level. On a national level, DSA has condemned AOC’s recent iron dome vote, however we do not think this is far enough. SIDSA also urges all our supporters to sign Reform and Revolution Caucus’ petition calling for a National Political Committee meeting to discuss AOC’s conduct.