DSA, meanwhile, thrived between 2016 and 2020—because it proved it could win victories in the here-and-now, give-and-take world of electoral politics. And that, ironically, was intolerable to the entryists (who preferred to refer to themselves as “partyists”), because they didn’t want socialists to remain as a wing of, or even a loyal opposition within the Democratic Party. They wanted a break, in the not terribly distant future, from the intolerable compromises required to appeal to mainstream voters and to compromise with mainstream politicians. And they also believed that DSA members elected to public office were, first and foremost, obliged to follow the positions adopted by the organization, rather than their constituents or their own conscience, as if they were already subordinate to the dictates of an old-fashioned Marxist-Leninist central committee.

What’s the point of supporting and fundraising for a candidate if they don’t even have any obligations to you? Sounds like that strategy was remarkably bad at “winning victories in the here-and-now, give-and-take world of electoral politics.”