Grass Roots Tendency

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The Grass Roots Tendency is an organized political tendency (or caucus) within the Socialist Party USA, supporting a revolutionary socialist politics. Its main goals are maintaining the independence of the Socialist Party from the two-party system and preserving the SP's multi-tendency internal democracy.

In 2002, members of the Socialist Party sent out a call for the creation of "a new caucus based on internal democracy/feminist practice, revolutionary analysis, independent politics, and radical labor." The next year the Grass Roots tendency was organized around a brief list of Points of Unity, which is reproduced below since it is currently unavailable online.

Grass Roots Tendency Points of Unity

1. We support democracy within the Party. We work to ensure that the Party's constitution is upheld and that the will of the convention -- our highest decision-making body -- is pursued.

2. We believe independent electoral action creates a platform for our politics that helps build the Party. We oppose supporting candidates from the Democratic or Republican parties and any action that undermines the politics or electoral independence of our Party. We work to ensure that the Party organizes a vigorous and radical presidential campaign as well as other electoral candidacies, wherever they may be feasible.

3. We believe that habits and systems of male dominance need to be changed within our Party and throughout society, and that democratic socialists worldwide should take action against the interrelated causes behind the dire circumstances continually confronting so many women and men, namely global capitalism, militarism, and patriarchy. We support gender balance for all SP national offices, editorial boards, convention delegations, and the chairing of meetings. We support a budget line for Socialist Women^[1] as part of increased efforts to recruit and retain more women members.

4. The Socialist^[2] magazine must promote the Party and provide a voice to its members on a regular and timely basis. We advocate that The Socialist represent the views of the Party and the diversity of its members in terms of politics, geography and identity.

5. We believe the labor movement needs to break from the Democratic Party and discard its parochial traditions. In exchange, the labor movement must adopt immediate demands that go beyond the existing system's parameters and point the way toward socialism. Workers and oppressed peoples around the world must unite in the struggle for peace and equality. We encourage the Party and its members to actively support rank and file militancy, workers' rights, union democracy, and international labor solidarity.

6. As globalization spreads economic power, military force and corporate culture around the world, we must take an equally international approach to combat it. Imperialism has taken new forms to maintain old hierarchies. The Party must push anti-corporate and anti-war movements to understand the connections between imperialism, war and capitalism.

7. The Party must constantly push for complete democracy in the name of socialism. A socialist society will empower workers and communities to manage production, consumption and governance. To achieve this society, we must build a mass movement through educating and emboldening the working class. When such a movement challenges power however, we are under no illusions that the ruling class will refrain from violence or capital flight. We must build a movement with the revolutionary fortitude to overcome these challenges and embrace the possibilities of an egalitarian society.