this was a self-inflicted wound on philly momentum's part. they did win 7/10 seats on the steering committee (including 1 sympathetic independent). they won the co-chair position in spite of losing by 8 votes (out of some 350) because the opposition had, ironically, successfully forced through a gender quota that made their own candidate ineligible

the thing to note here is that momentum won a massive majority of the people who actually showed up at the meeting - of which there were about 150. it was only close because the opposition managed to win a disproportionate share of the 200+ (!!) absentee voters

philly, unlike most major chapters, had no rule in place to prevent new members who'd never been to a meeting before from casting absentee votes at the convention. this allowed the opposition and their allies in the local democratic machine to recruit large numbers of spurious paper members to manipulate the vote

the lesson to be learned here is this: identitarians will always have the support of the democratic party establishment, and as the DSA becomes a known quantity it will have to prepare itself for inevitable meddling and ratfucking. the DSA is only marginally capable of political activity outside the sphere of democratic party politics, and the class vs identity politics debate will very rapidly become an independent socialism vs democratic machine conflict in major urban areas throughout the country