They have seen a meteoric rise in recent years. Their sister/front organisations like ANSWER, Codepink, People’s Forum, BTnews have all become household names. When I look at protests in the U.S., it seems so many of them are organised directly, or indirectly, by them. In comparison, organisations like the CPUSA or the DSA are lacking behind.
How and why?
I don’t think Codepink is a PSL front. PSL have been around for a while, I’ve followed them since they first formed from their their split with WWP . They’ve just been very active and consistently Anti-Imperialist in their stand, the ANSWER coalition was all over the place during the Iraq War. They are definitely the best Communist org in the belly of the beast.
DSA basically got all their momentum from the Sanders campaigns, because they were the least threatening and easily digestible for new leftists that are just waking up from their Democratic Party delusions.
I don’t think Code Pink is a PSL group, either. I think it started as a pretty liberal antiwar group, but drifted in a more consistently anti-imperialist direction due to working closely with ANSWER for so long.
The biggest reason is Sanders called himself a democratic socialist repeatedly and those two words are in DSA’s name.