General information
SOCIAL DEMOCRATS, USA - The SD-USA has only fielded candidates for local office, and has been only nominally active since the 1980s. The SD-USA is a small group more ideologically centrist, staunchly anti-communist leftists who were more directly aligned with the Democratic Party in the 1970s-1980s than the more traditionally leftist Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). In fact, the views of the SPUSA in 1972 caused the DSA (then named the DSOC) to splinter away in a ideological rift. The SD-USA refused to support George McGovern for President that year because of his opposition to the Vietnam War -- versus the DSOC, which supported McGovern and an immediate end to the war. An event that went down in Socialist Party history as the “the split of 1972.” SD-USA also disputes the claims of DSA and SPUSA to be the true heirs to the legacy of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas, claiming instead that the SD-USA "is the only legitimate successor" to the party of Debs and Thomas. Allegations of the SD-USA supporting Richard Nixon and eventually Ronald Reagan, are also heavily disputed by the organization. However, by 2010, SD-USA eventually ceded all rights to the name "Socialist Party USA" to the SPUSA. The Socialist International stripped SD-USA of full member status in 2007, deeming SD-USA to be a defunct organization. The SD-USA remnant which still functioned was a mere shell of what it once was several decades ago. SD-USA began a reorganizing process in 2009, with a new leadership team, led by national co-chair Rick D’Loss. Michael Mottern, the new youth chairman of YSD, was elected two years later. "Modern" as he is known to some, is the organizations liaison to the Working Families Party in New York State. Other official SD-USA site: Socialist Currents (blog).
[politics1.com]
