Issue 63: Letters

Finish the American Revolution

Jacobin’s latest print issue is a welcome addition to the growing conversation about the need for a new and democratic constitution. The constitutional system frustrates the working class’s struggle for freedom, equality, and self-rule.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) also has a part to play in building that movement. I’m a member of the Marxist Unity Group, which places an emphasis on these demands and stands behind DSA’s Workers Deserve More program, which calls for the drafting of a new constitution that abolishes the Senate and subordinates the executive and Supreme Court to a unicameral legislature elected by universal and equal suffrage. Let’s keep pushing.

­ — Luke Pickrell, Richmond, CA

Still in the Fight

I very much enjoyed Bhaskar Sunkara’s critique of Jonathan Chait’s Atlantic article [“Jonathan Chait Doesn’t Understand the Socialists He’s Attacking,” jacobin.com, July 2, 2026].

But I was mostly struck by this line: “Our organization even declined to expel a member who had been arrested and convicted years earlier as an East German spy, on the grounds that the man had become, by the end of his life, a committed democratic socialist.” I would phrase that differently, but I appreciate the sentiment. I would only add that, though born in the year of Willie Mays’s basket catch, I don’t think of myself as being at the “end” of my life, remain a member of Metro DC DSA (in Prince George’s County), was thrilled by Janeese Lewis George’s and Aparna Raj’s primary wins, was cheered by Zohran Mamdani’s election and mayoral initiatives to date, and — with my Bronx roots never forgotten — have been and remain a big supporter of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

­ — Kurt Stand, Greenbelt, MD