Welcome to The Dig, a podcast from Jacobin Magazine.

My name is Daniel Denver, and I'm broadcasting from Providence, Rhode Island.

We're taking a break halfway into our four-part series of interviews on Latin America,

because as I was heading back from Tijuana and Point South, it occurred to me that next week

is a big week for the American left. Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, is holding

its first national convention, August 3rd through 6 in Chicago, since the organization has undergone a

massive explosion in size. Hundreds of delegates from all over the country will make a lot of

important decisions about the direction that the organization and, by extension, the American

left as a whole, will take in the coming years. In the wake of Bernie's inspiration and Trump's depredations, DSA quickly became the nation's largest socialist organization.

At face value, that might not seem like much.

After all, the U.S. hadn't had anything but very small socialist organizations for quite a while.

But DSA is actually pretty big by the standards of membership of political organizations in general, at least those that involve more

than responding to email action alerts. There are now 24,500 members or so. That's up from

6,500 in early 2016. It's an exciting time for the left, and also

with the far right in power, a really terrifying one. Whether you're in DSA or not, this convention

will be consequential, and I hope this episode can help shed some light on why in advance.

My guests both come from within the Jacobin fold, but are also both running for DSA's National Political Committee

on two rival slates. Elamahoney is an assistant editor at Jacobin, with a background in

labor organizing. She's the co-founder of the Brooklyn DSA branch's

electoral politics committee and a member of the National Political Education and Internationalism

Committees. Ella is running for a seat on the NPC on the momentum slate. R.L. Stevens

is the A. Philip Randolph Fellow at Jacobin, co-host of another Jacobin podcast called

...