Chapotraphouse

I have not had to much luck unfortunately, but I have had some notes I've been waiting to compile so may as well do it here. (and funnily enough I think those that show up and do some type of work have mentioned being DND players before).

I can't speak towards the progressive/outright lib orgs due to a lack of personal or even second hand experience but can speak on our resident socdem collective: DSA

The big thing I've seen in DSA spaces is due to its "multi-tendency" nature before you even start creating discipline, you essentially need to note the political landscape internally for the local chapter you'd be working in. Some of the ideological strains/caucuses are going to actively rail against discipline or try to enforce socdem demcent (NYCDSA tried to implement unity of action behind Zohran as a continuous project, which yes elected support continously isn't an action as Lenin pointed out, but this is socdem stuff). There is also going to be various levels of chauvinism etc. you'll have to discover and combat.

Most DSA members are fairly ideologically unaligned due to the numbers focus, so working towards educating them when relevant is often the most overarching goal but it's slow considering all the tasks required likely starting it by yourself or with 1-2 other members etc.

Frankly, from discussions I have some of the chapters that are more chauvinistic or try to force unpopular principles onto their membership body are easiest to organize within as it is required to do projects they don't want. I haven't done it personally and have only talked to people who have but it's a semi-frequent way local caucuses form.

For chapters that are just generally ideologically unaligned, you'll need to canvas the chapter and see who can be agitated, as well as who may most efficiently be agitated. Often this would be working group/committee leads if you don't take up the mantle of one of those yourself.

I find a lot of chapters have a political education committee but they often are a bit under utilitized since no one ever shows up, but a decent amount of people do read assigned books for their working groups, and often highly active membership/leadership can be agitated into reading whatever as long as you're patient and personable about it (and frankly if it's a bit short it helps).

Doubling back, you'll want to consider the idea of caucusing or working with caucused people. You'll probably want to find someone that is closer aligned with your politics and start organizing with them and branch out from there. Got a Red Star contingent in your chapter? Great, they best match our brand of tankie from what I've seen. If not you'll probably want to eye for the Maoists in Liberation. MUG is decent as well and supports the idea unity of action in particular, they are vary pro-factionalism so some here might disagree with their idea of DemCent, and there is the LeftComms in the Commie Caucus, who generally want to focus on labor and tenant militancy. And if not them, then you'll probably want to check for Emerge members (multi-tendency focused on abolitionism, etc. unlikely outside of NY, but atp I would just try a different org, NYCDSA sucks in particular IMO). And if none of the above you'll likely want to keep an eye out for the Trots (RnR and BnR in that order generally). Other hand you'll probably struggle with Groundworks and SMC since inside the org they'll function as ideological foils and when they do enforce discipline a lot of the time it's for like straight electoralism. The libertarian socialists vary a lot and on principle oppose some of the type of organization we'd desire so I don't have much to say on them. Ofc there is also looking out for uncaucused Marxists/MLs. All of this is very ymmv but I'm trying to keep things as generally applicable as possible for a variety of areas.

From there a mix of increasingly cooperative work, resolution work and cooperation, and anything else could be used to increase unity and discipline. You may want a formal or semi-formal caucus with points of unity of some kinds to make things simpler for recruitment until there is a type of chapter critical mass.

Technically, with the repealing of the DemCent ban, I don't see why an ultimate goal is transforming a DSA chapter into a DemCent structure couldn't be done, (though difficulty heavily varying based on chapter and liable to lock you into socdem unity of action in some cases) essentially doing the goals Red Star outlines on a local level.

This is a mix of experiences and speculative so adapt accordingly ofc. Also side note, I do think this org if moving towards something effective will likely require a split at some point (maybe that bumps the Trots up, huh? LMAO).

I did make a bit of a big assumption of them doing some type of work, even if it's electoral canvassing, meaning people are willing to do tedious tasks with friction to some extent but if your chapter doesn't even meet that bar you might be better off starting a Marxist reading circle or a post-post Maoist circle.