Jason Reynolds

Jason Reynolds is a member of the Portland Democratic Socialists of America.

Organize for Power Platform

Supporters of the Organize for Power Platform

Jason Reynolds is listed as a supporter of the Portland Democratic Socialists of America Organize for Power Platform:

Preamble

"In order to win material gains for the working class, we need to build a mass movement. We believe this occurs through widespread participation in campaigns (electoral and non-electoral) rank-and-file labor organizing, robust political education, chapter-wide debate and discussion, and community organizing. By building a strong socialist wing within working-class movements, we can expand class consciousness and organize workers and the oppressed to further the goal of replacing capitalism with socialism. We want our chapter to be the engine of organizing in the Portland metro area and we need an inclusive, big-tent, but focused organization to achieve these goals.

Excerpt from the platform:

• Orient strongly towards popular movements that comport with our aims as democratic socialists to provide an organized socialist influence within such movements.
• Enthusiastically and sensitively orient toward anti-oppression movements such as BLM and #MeToo in a way that builds solidarity in an anti-capitalist framework. Make racial justice a central tenet of our work.
• Focus on rank-and-file, bottom-up, member driven strategy in existing unions and organize workers to form unions and promote worker militancy. Motivate members to organize in their workplace and to choose jobs/careers in strategic industries with other socialists. Build relationships with influential unions locally, both big and small.
• Orient to and initiate campaigns that boost the consciousness, confidence, and fighting capacity of the multiracial working class. Advocate for class-struggle strategies that maximize prospects of victory and strengthen the political and organizational capacity of the working class.
• Use campaigns to promote messaging that raises the profile of socialism in Portland.
• Commit chapter resources toward winnable campaigns such as UP Now: turn out members for events through internal phone-banks, text-banks, canvassing, and chapter-wide communication; create a culture of universal participation toward winning these campaigns.
• Pursue electoral work that proactively lays the groundwork for a dirty break with the Democratic Party and to the development of a socialist party.
• Work to make DSA more party-like with a robust internal nomination process for running DSA candidates (as opposed to restricting ourselves to endorsing candidates who have already decided to run) and holding those candidates accountable to the membership.
• Build our chapter by engaging in organizing drives. Hold frequent tabling, canvassing, and events in the community that focus on poor, working class, and marginalized communities, and use these events to diversify our organization.
• Prioritize recruiting Black and Brown members on a clear political basis and develop diverse leadership internally.