Two members of the Hamilton faculty made national headlines in recent weeks with op-eds responding to current events, including the Israel-Hamas War and the Senate’s hold on the confirmation process for military personnel.
Maurice Isserman, the Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History who joined the Hamilton faculty in 1990, wrote a piece titled “Why I Just Quit DSA” for
The Nation
, a biweekly magazine.
Professor Isserman is a founding member of the Democratic Socialists of America, but he recently quit to protest its “leadership’s politically and morally bankrupt response to the horrific Hamas Oct. 7 anti-Jewish pogrom,” he wrote in an op-ed. Isserman not only wrote about why he left the organization, but — as a longtime historian of leftist movements — also explained the origin of the group, when members joined largely due to opposition to the Vietnam War in the late 1960s. He then addressed a rapid growth in membership between 2016 and 2020, which impacted electoral politics on a local, state and national level.
Addressing the DSA’s relationship with Israel and Palestine, Isserman noted changing group dynamics within the DSA that made “the issue of Palestine…ever more important in DSA’s internal political culture.” In a manner unlike the organization’s response to other oppressed peoples, “concern for Palestine, entirely legitimate in itself, also served other purposes for DSA’s new sectarian leadership, furnishing a convenient stick to beat DSA’s moderate wing,” Isserman claimed.
The responses to Isserman’s piece have been wide ranging. Another op-ed titled “I’m a Proud Jewish DSA Member. Here’s Why I’m Not Quitting” was published in
The Nation
just two days later. The story was also discussed in articles written by
Fox News
and the
New York Post
.
Professor Isserman shared a statement with
The Spectator
explaining why he wrote the piece and the feedback he has received:
“Within a day of the murderous assault on innocent civilians on Oct. 7 by Hamas, a right-wing fundamentalist terrorist group dedicated to the destruction of Israel (as well as the suppression of women, gays and any expression of dissent in Gaza), both Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the two best-known democratic socialists in America, condemned the attack in the strongest possible terms, with Sanders declaring that there was ‘no justification’ for it, and predicting that ‘innocent people on both sides [that is, Israel and Palestine] will suffer hugely because of it.’ Unfortunately — and unforgivably — the current leaders of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a group I helped found four decades earlier, could not bring themselves to honor the moral values of democratic socialism by offering a similarly straightforward and absolute condemnation of acts that no one, regardless of their political views, should regard as having anything to do with legitimate acts of ‘resistance’ or ‘liberation.’”
Iserman continued, “I resigned from DSA on Oct. 9, and a few days later the
Nation
magazine approached me and asked if I would write an article explaining my decision. I agreed. Since my article’s publication on Oct. 16, I have heard from literally hundreds of DSA members agreeing with my criticisms of the organization. Some, like me, have decided to quit; others will remain in DSA, and try to restore its earlier commitment to a peaceful and humane vision of social change. I don’t have much confidence they will succeed, but I wish them the best in that effort. I remain, as I have been all my adult life, a democratic socialist, like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (and also, like them, a supporter of both Israel’s right to exist and Palestinian rights to statehood) — just one without an organizational home.”
Ty Seidule, Visiting Professor of History and Executive Director of Common Ground, co-wrote an opinion piece with political strategist James Carville titled “Tuberville’s ‘hold’ doesn’t command respect” for
Stars and Stripes
— an outlet that “provides independent news and information to the U.S. military community.”
The piece expresses the gravity of Alabama’s Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville’s eight-month ‘hold’ on general officer promotions. “Tuberville has single-handedly stopped flag officer promotions and reassignments,” Seidule explained, seemingly as a result of a disagreement with Biden’s policy in which “the military pays the travel costs for service members to receive reproductive care (often abortions) if they are in a state that does not allow them to access such care.”
In a statement to
The Spectator
about writing this op-ed, Seidule wrote, “I wanted to put pressure on the U.S. Senate to lift Senator Tommy Tuberville’s cruel and stupid ‘‘hold” on generals’ and admirals’ promotions. I served in the military for 36 years. I know this is hurting military readiness and families. Our military is apolitical, but Sen Tuberville forces senior officers to be political pawns. I went on James Carville’s podcast and wrote an Op-Ed with him to try to put pressure on the Senate. Unfortunately, our work has had no effect, but we aren’t giving up. We will figure out different ways to educate the press and put pressure on the Senate to stop hurting our military at a particularly dangerous moment.”
