How DSA Members Can Help Save Regional Services

In the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area, public transportation is in existential crisis. Many of our transit agencies are racing toward fiscal cliffs: By mid-2026, projected revenue for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Caltrain, Muni, and others will not be enough to cover operating costs. Though our transit systems have faced structural deficits before, this time is different: Losing one-time COVID relief funds while struggling to regain pre-COVID ridership has blown a combined $800 million-dollar hole in budgets that have already survived multiple rounds of austerity measures.

To avoid financial collapse, these agencies anticipate massive service cuts that will leave more than one million working class people without safe and reliable routes to work, school, shopping, and loved ones. We previewed this “new normal” on May 9 when a small malfunction shut down BART and stranded 170,000 weekday commuters all around the Bay. Those who couldn’t find a bus turned to predatory ride-share companies, whose services cost 10-20 times more than the usual transit fare.

The financial precarity of Bay Area public transit is the logical result of decades of systemic disinvestment, intentional fragmentation, and unabashed NIMBYism. Each of our 27 transit operators must plan its own infrastructure and negotiate its routes in 101 municipalities, with every project subject to unilateral changes and at risk of last-minute cancellation. Bedroom communities on Peninsula DSA’s home turf are specifically at fault for refusing to participate in regional transit planning. From San Mateo County’s withdrawal from the full BART network in 1961 to filthy rich Atherton’s attempt to weaponize CEQA to block Caltrain's electrification in 2015, our local leaders rarely miss an opportunity to subsidize and normalize car dependency. (Thankfully, their latest pet project, a highway-widening scheme connecting Highway 101 to SR 92 / San Mateo Bridge, is facing stiff public opposition because it would remove homes without reducing traffic or commute times.)

The only way forward is securing sustainable new sources of revenue for the public transit ecosystem as a whole. The state Senate passed Senator Scott Weiner (District 11) and Senator Jesse Arreguín (District 7)’s five-county regional funding measure (SB 63) that would go to voters in November 2026. The measure would rescue transit agencies in the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco by levying a sales tax of at least 1/2 cent over 10–15 years, though the revenue still wouldn’t be enough to preserve the current level of service. 

Though we support any solution that prevents transit apocalypse , this “pragmatic” solution repeats two historical mistakes. First, although San Mateo County and Santa Clara County have the highest median incomes and home values in California, SB 63 allows either county to choose a lower tax rate (1/4 cent) or simply “opt out” of participation, denying access to their robust tax base. Second, no matter how noble the cause, adding yet another sales tax to everyday items will hit working class people the hardest. Adding insult to injury, we’d end up paying more for less service because even the maximum sales tax wouldn’t keep pace with rampant inflation and arbitrary tariffs.

For months, San Mateo County’s transit agency, SamTrans, has declined to support or oppose the regional funding measure that would preserve local BART and Caltrain service. (SamTrans has structural deficits too, but not until fiscal year 2027.) Though the nine-member Board of Directors (BOD) has approved another round of polling, they seem fixated on just how much tax “the public” might accept rather than what awful consequences their riders will face should SB 63 fail. Their hesitancy isn’t surprising: No SamTrans board members regularly ride public transit, let alone depend on it. And some live in communities such as Hillsborough (median household income $250,000+), which is accessible only by car, and Redwood Shores, which has a single bus route that runs only during school dropoff and pickup hours—and takes summers off!

New Polling Provides Hope for Progressive Tax Solution

Fortunately, pro-transit organizations and activists across the Bay Area are uniting to pressure San Mateo County and Santa Clara County to pay their fair share. Our new demand is a gross receipts tax on all business activities, similar to San Francisco’s GR tax. Bay Area Forward, a group of transit unions (including SEIU), operators, and activists, just surveyed likely 2026 voters and found that 61% would support a gross receipts tax. The race is on to build enough public support to pressure other San Mateo County decision makers—San Mateo County Transit Authority (SMCTA), the Board of Supervisors, C/CAG—into advising SamTrans to “opt in” to SB 63 by the August 11 deadline.Once our county is confirmed to be in play, Peninsula DSA and our coalition partners will have a more than a year to boost public support through canvassing, flyering, and more.

Peninsula DSA now organizes with Transbay Coalition, as part of its San Mateo County cadre, and with Seamless Bay Area. Our chapter has promoted regional socials and led flyering events at BART and Caltrain stations to inform riders of proposed cuts. (The coalition’s next big event is a rally for public transit at the Millbrae BART/Caltrain station on July 1.) Every month, we mobilize to make public comments—whether in person, by Zoom, or via email—at the SamTrans BOD meetings. Transbay Coalition members now hold three of eleven seats on the SamTrans Citizens Advisory Committee and are actively recruiting like-minded folks for four vacant seats. 

We call on our fellow socialists to join our fight for public transit in four ways:

1. Push your chapter to use public transit. Like public libraries, public transit budgets rise or fall with public demand. If the coordinated Montgomery bus boycott ended racial segregation, a coordinated bus-riding effort by California DSA chapters could force more public investment. A great place to start is making all chapter meetings, socials, and events fully accessible by transit!

2. Join your local transit coalition so we can fight on a unified front. There are pro-transit organizers already at work near you; see this joint letter that Move California sent to Sacramento legislators for 100 different organizations!

3. Make public comments at agency board meetings. Because the monthly BOD meeting of your local transit agency is probably underattended, your public comment can directly influence decision makers. Use your two or three minutes to air socialist perspectives and solutions! You can show solidarity with Peninsula DSA by commenting in person or via Zoom in favor of SB 63 at the next SamTrans meeting on Wednesday, July 2. (Details at peninsuladsa.org/public-transit.)

4. Support your local transit workers (e.g, ATU, SEIU, TWU AFL-CIO). Santa Clara County’s Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) workers proved so essential that a Superior Court judge ordered them back to work on March 26, 2025. Imagine the transit we could win when we stand in solidarity with the workers who provide it.

Transit coalitions

Bay Area

Bay Area Safe Routes to School

People’s Transit Alliance

Seamless Bay Area

Transbay Coalition

Voices for Public Transit

Transit Riders Unions

East Bay Transit Riders Union

San Francisco Transit Riders (includes Transit Justice Coalition)

Silicon Valley Transit Users

Bicyclists

Bike East Bay

California Bicycle Coalition
Marin County Bicycle Coalition

Napa County Bicycle Coalition

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

Silicon Valley Bike Coalition (includes San Mateo County)

Sonoma County Bike Coalition

The biggest city in America will be choosing its next mayor this month on June 24, when the Democratic primary election for the New York City mayoral race takes place. But with summer heating up on the west coast, and our chapters facing a slew of local issues and conflicts, some of us might not care too much about what happens in the Big Apple. However, this race has the potential to be one of the most important events for DSA and American socialism in years. It’s the first time in over one hundred years an open socialist is running for mayor in NYC. Zohran Mamdani—DSA member and representative for New York’s 36th State Assembly district—has built a fiery campaign that has catapulted him to a close second in recent polling. He has a real chance of winning this mayoral race, and California democratic socialists should take notice.

Incumbent mayor Eric Adam’s first term has been fraught with scandal, corruption, and working class antagonism. His rule saw the return of several ‘tough on crime’ policies like renewed plain-clothes policing and adding two police officers to every subway train at night. With calls for a ceasefire in Gaza ramping up across NYC over the past two years, Adams has also maintained firm and uncritical support of Israel while refusing to call for a ceasefire. 

Adams and big money corruption

Last year, Adams was charged with taking bribes and soliciting illegal campaign contributions, including from foreign nationals. This made him the first sitting NYC mayor to be indicted on federal criminal charges. But while the investigation was on-going, Trump—who Adams refused to call a fascist—instructed prosecutors to end the corruption case. The same month Adam’s case was dropped, he joined the Independent party and told critics at a town hall that “all those who are just saying ‘just fight him, resist, resist’ — I’m not part of the resist movement.’ Adams now cooperates with HSI and ICE to kidnap the same undocumented migrants he has long housed in his sanctuary city. 

Adams is another example of how big money corruption and liberal capitulation to fascism has continued to erode the foundations of our democracy. But with Adams condemned to political irrelevancy, there is a new chance for New Yorkers to choose someone who represents their interests.

Mamdani’s program

Zohran Mamdani is known in NYC for his activism and legislation. He participated in a hunger strike with taxi drivers to help them win access to debt relief; years later he joined another hunger strike in front of the White House to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. His “Fix the MTA” campaign saw  a $100 million increase to NYC metro services and the founding of a successful free bus pilot program. 

On top of Zohran’s public transit reform and other progressive policy proposals is a bold initiative for freeze the rent for all stabilized tenants. NYC has long been one of the least affordable cities to live in, with renters paying close to 30% of their income on rent. Zohran is also putting forward a public works project to build 200,000 “permanently affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes” over the next 10 years. These policies aim to give the children of NYC today the option of staying in their city tomorrow. Zohran’s campaign promises appear to be gaining popularity, and scaring the hell out of New York billionaires and their candidate Andrew Cuomo.

That’s right, the same Cuomo who was accused by eleven current and former New York State employees of sexual harassment. After a five-month investigation that mounted credible evidence against him, Cuomo resigned in disgrace. Risen once more by his Wall Street backers, Cuomo has been coasting on name recognition back into politics. While leading by double digits for most of the campaign, his checkered past has continued to haunt him on the campaign trail. 

Encouraging polling

During the first Democratic primary debate, Cuomo was at the bottom of a savage dogpile, with Zohran landing some of the best punches of the night. Claiming to be “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare,” Zohran stated that “the difference between myself and Cuomo is that my campaign is not funded by the very billionaires that put Donald Trump in D.C.” Post-debate polling is now showing Cuomo’s double digit lead shrinking to single digits. 

With endorsements from multiple unions, progressive representatives, organizations (including NY-DSA), and a recent tap from AOC, we gotta keep the momentum up. While NYC may be on another planet for us, a socialist mayor in NYC could be the spark that the progressive left desperately needs. Putting an immigrant, Muslim, socialist mayor in the heart of American capitalism—in Trump’s home city—would be a huge blow to the fascist oligarchy gripping our nation.

The first thing was the visceral body-memory of what it felt like the first time this president roiled the nation. The repulsion. The dread. The fear.

I don't want to go through this again, every cell of me said last autumn, as I imagined 2025 and beyond. The temptation to pull up the covers and hide, or stay frozen, doomscrolling, was familiar and strong.

Then I remembered how horrible I felt when I could do pretty much nothing but doomscroll, due to how very sick I was during much of Trump’s first term. I knew nothing would feel worse than doing nothing at all. Better frontline than sideline. 

Good medicine and care had been making me stronger since then. Perhaps I could blow the dust off my at-large DSA membership and do something useful with that?

In Search of a Real Socialist Organizer

So I started looking around, figuring I would just pitch in wherever Real Socialist Organizers had already decided to respond. I combed through national DSA's website and started slogging through a few of the (many) emails I'd previously ignored. The more I read, the more evident it was that working class-focused DSA chapters were core units of necessary political power.

Only problem was, the closest DSA chapter was...five hours away? Gulp.

Surely somebody more capable was forming a chapter nearer to here? I showed up at a few virtual gatherings of California DSA and the national organization to find who they might be. By happenstance, on one of the California DSA zooms I saw someone identify themself as local to my area. I reached out. We connected. We knew some of the same people from the Bernie campaigns. I learned there had been previous efforts to get DSAers organized locally. So I dug out some old contacts, begged for a few more, and started making calls.

I called people I knew who might have a connection to those prior efforts, or might fancy a new one. I asked who else might be interested. I called, messaged, read, asked questions, and tried to take it all in. Doomscrolling would start to seize me again. Then I’d stop and make some more calls.  

Through weeks of this, I kept looking for the Real Socialist Organizer who would SURELY materialize with a poof to assure me that they—competent, valorous, and presumably abled—were already ON IT, making a DSA chapter magically appear.

Meanwhile, as the president's malice befell the world again, something weird was happening. In between doomscrolling relapses, my conversations with all these other people who cared about working class power the way I did prompted a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. In spite of the onslaught of devastating news, I was feeling actually...hopeful? 

Eventually, I had to face facts. The local Real Socialist Organizer I sought was not going to materialize at my convenience. Improbably—absurdly even—it was going to have to be mostly-housebound, introverted, middle-aged, cranky, chronically ill, disabled me. Not because I was an ideal person for the job nor particularly wanted it, but because sometimes, I could do some part of this work somewhat competently, and it so very much needed to get done. I was the organizer now. 

All Hail the Real Socialist Organizers

All those calls and messages brought me into contact with actual Real Socialist Organizers who lived far away. Each time I found one, I begged them for help. No dignity here! This is fascism, not a drill.

They said, absolutely! We'll help! Because, after all, that's what a Real Socialist Organizer does. They get people doing socialist organizing -- that's the whole point! California DSA leaders were particularly gracious and helpful, and as I got better plugged in I found folks at the national org were, too. 

Next thing I knew, DSAers and DSA friends were regularly meeting locally, because I, of all people, invited them to! We were quiet and loud, new to politics and multiply burned out, young and not-at-all young. Everybody brought something different to the room, and it felt fresh, somewhat scary, invigorating, comradely and rich. I managed to revive a few useful skills from my pre-sick political life and started sharing them where I could. I drafted agendas, cooked meals, got others doing both, and kept making calls. Little by little, others stepped up and together, as a group, we started to bloom.

Not a Glide Path

As we get to know each other, we identify our shared political dreams, what we are into, and what we aren't. We keep gathering and a sense of coherence slowly emerges, keeps emerging. We start out a hodge-podge of isolated, worried, interested, idealistic folks, and gradually become comrades. When it felt like we had enough of this groupness together, we applied to be a DSA Pre-Organizing Committee.

Do we know what we're doing? Sometimes! A little! We are learning. We've had challenges around matching our skills and experience to the very big lift of building local working class power. Five of us spent a weekend in a DSA leadership training and came out with renewed cohesion and resolve. Now we're an interim steering committee! So much to learn, connections to make, campaigns to lead. 

Sometimes it seems harder than it should be to figure out the obvious things we need for this process. Like, where is the universal, easy-to-read introductory DSA literature for tabling, flyering, and working the ever-growing protest crowds, which could make it so much easier for a new DSA group like ours to rapidly grow? We had to look high and low to find materials to adapt for our purposes, hindered by the fact our local members aren't very experienced creating such lit. Meanwhile, in California, 28% of adults struggle to read English at the most basic level. This is the working class we all say we care about, and people marginalized in this way need power -- and accessible materials -- even more than those of us who take reading for granted.  

The deadliest places in California

The deadliest places in California for people aged 15-44 are all up here in the fabulously gorgeous rural north, and none have DSA chapters. "Deaths of despair" here are commonplace. According to a December 2024 state Legislative Analyst's Office report, "The counties with the highest young adult death rates are all in the rural northern part of the state." The untimely deaths correlate to our widespread poverty and have been on the rise, particularly for people of color and for men. We are lucky to have many strong Native Tribes in the region, but life can be exceedingly difficult because of the genocides and ongoing trauma brought by settler colonialism, and hard for other working class folks too in the wake of the collapse of multiple extractive industries. Yet Shasta is currently the only county in this region with a DSA Organizing Committee (shout-out and huge props to them!).

Many of our communities have either no broadband Internet, or its availability is very uneven. On-camera zoom meetings can only get us so far (not to mention spotty public transit and our landslide-prone rural roads). Where is the network of other DSA organizers who are also overcoming these things? How can we easily find, get to know and support each other?

So many rural people share our socialist values but don't come with a background (or interest) in dense political theory and jargon. Some are too busy cobbling together a living, caregiving and generally staying alive, to be interested in fractious online DSA spaces. Meanwhile, we are constantly weathering climate and economic disasters together. The same face-to-face community relationships that hold small places tightly together through thick and thin are also essential to the power-building work socialists believe in. Marginalized rural peoples' shared connections are as valuable as any other kind. Calloused hands hold precious keys to our collective freedom.

I find myself wondering what we can do to keep every new and aspiring DSA organizer and group from having to navigate daunting challenges in isolation. It would be great to have a DSA Rural Network and Skill-Share!

Coming Together

In spite of the challenges, earlier this month nine members joined together to submit an Organizing Committee Application for Humboldt DSA! We know it's a humble start but we're proud of it, because every single name on that application reflects trust we've earned with and extended to each other amid frightening times.

Now, just a few months after I first paused my doomscrolling habit, a whole room full of determined Real Socialist Organizers gather regularly here. We draw on the moral and practical support of our comrades afar. Our movement is only beginning. Our solidarity is strong and is deepening. Onward we grow.

At this moment you might be forgiven for asking, “So where are we at now with the fascism thing?” My answer: “Well on the way.”

Think of the moment after World War II, with fascism crushed, and the allies—Capitalist Democracy and Soviet Communism—standing briefly side by side over its inert body, each believing with differing forms of relief that this thing had been put away for good. Then imagine the big screen slo-mo in reverse of something broken in pieces at first slowly and then with a rush coming back together, whole again. 

That’s what the past few months have felt like to me here in MAGA America. The elements have been coming together steadily. Let’s summarize: the president freeing convicted violent right wing insurrectionists; a furious scapegoating of immigrants, in a formerly proud nation of immigrants, to draw attention away from the looting of the public sector and destruction of government services by billionaires; armed masked men seizing people off the street, in workplaces, shopping centers and courtrooms, and taking them away in unmarked vehicles to privately operated detention centers, or to their countries of origin where they face harm, or to countries they hadn’t come from—more than fifty thousand people newly behind borders, bars and fences; a judge arrested; a union leader arrested; a mayor from the opposition party arrested; a U.S. Senator from the opposition party arrested—each while peaceably defending immigrants against state-sanctioned kidnapping; and a massive ongoing chorus of right wing media spewing a toxic smokescreen of lies to reshape reality into a public narrative greasing the skids to fascism. 

And now, the murder of elected leaders of the opposition party. No, I’m not fantasizing this act resulted from a direct order from Trump; it didn’t need to be. It’s the logical outcome of his continuous encouragement of violence within his MAGA movement base and amplification in the conservative media ecosphere.

[Note: I wrote this article a week ago. So the “now” of the last paragraph is too old, because “now” the United States has gone to war, and this new step pretty much completes the fascism checklist. (Is there such a thing? Sort of. See my previous articles on the topic here, here, here and here.)]

Throughout, some of us have kept thinking, “There’s a path out of this nightmare. We have four tests. If the courts don’t hold, there’s the 2026 elections. If the elections don’t hold, there’s mass action in the streets. And finally, if the streets fail us, the American military won’t let their old enemy—fascism—prevail…will they?”

The question of the military

The question of the military, however, is a fraught one. Although legally and (mostly) historically neutral on American soil, it is the foundation of American imperialism abroad and has never been constrained in that role by the democratic pieties to which it proclaims allegiance here. Since the end of World War II and about-face on former ally Soviet Union, during which Communism was essentially refashioned as the replacement ideological “ism” for vanquished fascism, every international military adventure by the United States has been draped in the robes of Democracy against Communism or some other form of authoritarianism—even when all too obviously it was democratically elected forces that the US itself was overturning. 

So that’s a key question: what does democracy mean to US military forces inside the country today? Despite local (city and state) government objections, including a star turn by Gavin Newsom on prime-time national TV, muted oppositional muttering within the National Guard, and a temporary restraining order by a judge (on hold at the moment), we have yet to see the reversal of Guard deployment to L.A. Trump’s dispatch of a contingent of Marines—as if Los Angeles were Iwo Jima—has pushed the boundaries of acceptable military usage on American soil (along with our willing suspension of disbelief) out to the vanishing point. Juxtaposed with that you have the president encouraging soldiers on duty to jeer his hallucinatory perceived enemies (including a former president) and cheer as if they’re at a campaign rally—which, due to the presence of a vendor selling MAGA paraphernalia to the soldiers—it was. 

All of this is real, in real time. 

Dumpster fire of a Reichstag fire

The fascist president of the United States and his followers have been working overtime to set up a plausible illusion of lawless chaos and rebellion—a right wing media-fueled dumpster fire of a Reichstag fire—in order to justify bringing the iron fist of the state repressive apparatus onto downtown Los Angeles. But what Trump is trying to do is much bigger than that singular local action.

In a political democracy that sits on top of a coercive economic foundation—capitalism, which does not require political democracy to reproduce itself—the fragile edifice of control by the people over the plutocrats has always faced deep challenges and in fact can never be fully realized. People power versus money power, especially after Citizens United, has become a race against time, and with Trump in the White House and MAGA control over the other branches of federal government, we—the people, the climate, the future, the immigrants who built and continue to build America—are at this moment losing that race.

Well on the way to fascism

Trump and MAGA are testing how far they can push the membrane of political democracy before it breaks. Ultimately, he can ignore the courts, and he may be able to shut down the 2026 elections. But if they are large enough, he cannot ignore the demonstrations in the streets, at which point he needs know about the military’s inclinations. He is probing now, with his illegal military deployments and his immoral political speeches to the troops and sickening encouragement of MAGA violence, whether that key portion of the membrane is his or democracy’s. 

This is no longer an early stage of the process. We are well on the way to fascist America. History says that it’s not inexorable. The direct action of thousands of ordinary people—as we saw on April 5, May 1, and June 14 on “No Kings Day”—establishes a bump in the road that, with continued organizing, can enlarge itself to millions of people and thus a powerful barricade to the dismantling of our incomplete but essential political democracy. It takes me and you; there’s no one else, and now is the time. It will continue to be time until the job is done.

Note: posts by individual GMDSA members do not necessarily reflect the views of the broader membership or of its leadership and should not be regarded as official statements by the chapter.

Below is a speech made by Green Mountain DSA labor chair, Andy Blanchet, on June 10th, 2025 at the Burlington, VT ICE OUT protest. The protest brought together people across the Vermont community - from union & migrant workers to retirees and community organizers - to stand in solidarity with the community of Los Angeles, CA in their resistance to government repression. 

GMDSA’s Labor Committee recently worked with rank and file union members in putting on a Union Power organizing training in April 2024, and was a key organization in coordinating and organizing the May Day 2025 March in Williston, VT where 2,500 people came out to celebrate international workers’ day and stand in solidarity with Vermont migrant farm workers in their Milk with Dignity picket line at Hannaford Supermarket. 

---

Repeat after me:  An Injury to One, is an Injury to all! (x3)

Hello! My name is Andy Blanchet and I am a full-time worker at Howard Center, and speak today as president of our labor union, AFSCME Local 1674, and as chair of the Green Mountain Democratic Socialists of America Chapter’s Labor Committee. I come with an urgent message for fellow working class people and our role in combating Trump’s Authoritarian cruelty as witnessed in LA and beyond. I first want to state clearly: AFSCME Local 1674 stands in solidarity with all who have been kidnapped by ICE and DHS and we demand the immediate release of those currently detained. We stand in solidarity with every Union member on the streets exercising our right to freedom of speech in calling for an end to the cruel ICE raids. These unacceptable state sponsored acts of kidnapping are both horrific and unsurprising from this administration. Unsurprising, considering capitalism’s fundamentally authoritarian nature. 

We currently live in a world where bosses who run corporations have full authority over workers. This is an ugly dictatorship of capital - where those who make profits from the blood, sweat, and tears of workers can decide exactly what kind of lives we are allowed to live by exploiting our time and energy for the sake of profit. Not only that, but the capitalist landlords, who pay for their new pools and 2nd homes with our meager wages we break our backs for, decide exactly how much to extort from us in exchange for shelter. Workers have historically worked to combat this dictatorship of the bosses by forming our own labor and tenant unions.

And with that collective organizing, working class people have tried to exercise our natural rights to free speech, organizing, freedom of association, and collective bargaining to win both better wages and working conditions, as well as political change. However, every step of the way, the rich have fought us tooth and nail for even the most meager of wins. They hire union busting lawyers from an industry that reaps profits by convincing employers to keep them on retainer in order to fight their own workers simply pursuing dignity and respect in the workplace. They call the police on striking workers, like they did to Starbucks Workers’ United members during their sit-down strike earlier this year. The rich have even gone so far as to OUTLAW the ability to strike, to withhold our labor, in different industries. That didn’t stop unions like the Newton Teachers’ Association of Newton Massachusetts from organizing a successful, and illegal, strike to win their demands. 

But now, it seems, the rich bosses want more. They criminalize working people from speaking out in support of Palestine through the critique of our own country’s complicity in the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people. ICE beat & detained the President of SEIU California, David Huerta, while he exercised his freedom of speech. The rich are willing to target unions, union workers & leaders, and immigrant workers to maintain their full control over our economic, political, and social lives. And it is essential that every union, be they local or international, answer the question: Which side are you on?

The time for fence-sitting apolitical unionism must come to an end. There are numerous examples of unions trying to play-nice with overtly hostile political administrations, thinking this would save them, and it never has. All this does is allow those in power to exercise their will over organized labor and know they can get away with it. Worse than that, the do-nothing Democratic party has used the plight of working class people as their political platform for decades. Workers are not pawns to be used in rhetoric and then discarded when it’s time to make good on policy promises - working people are who have built and sustained society and we deserve money for healthcare, prenatal & child care, education, housing, and food, not money for bombs and deportation! It is well past time for unions, big and small, to recognize these trends and organize to win the future we all deserve.

We can win these demands, and more, if we recognize and internalize that when we are divided, and alone, we are at risk. But when we practice safety through solidarity, we are unstoppable! Look at what organized labor did to energize the working class of South Korea in 2024. By organizing workers in huge companies into strike-ready unions and collaborating with farm workers, Korean workers were able to mobilize and fight back against President Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration of martial law in a fight for democracy. We, the workers and organized labor, must find the political will to commit to this version of organizing for the common good in order to have a lasting impact. We deserve lives of dignity, honor, love, and justice!

The workers, united, will never be defeated! (x3)

Thank you! Solidarity Forever!

Columbus DSA condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the actions of President Trump and his administration, the United States armed forces, ICE, and the LAPD in their relentless brutality against peaceful protestors fighting to protect their communities from the thugs abducting their friends, family, and neighbors. We condemn the violence of ICE and their campaign of mass deportations that has come to our city of Columbus. On June 3rd ICE arrested Leonardo Fausto at a court hearing for a dismissed misdemeanor traffic violation. Fausto has lived in Columbus legally for 4 years while waiting to be granted asylum. Ohio senators have also passed a bill that will require public officials to allow the arrest of suspected undocumented immigrants with or without warrants, while other Ohio lawmakers have proposed the “America First Act”, making it a felony to be in Ohio undocumented. We stand in unshakable solidarity with our undocumented neighbors: no one’s existence is illegal.

The recent protests in Los Angeles and other cities demonstrate that the American people are aware of the cruelty that this administration inflicts upon our families, our neighbors, and people in our communities, and we demand that these abuses stop.

Left unchecked, this administration, alongside ICE and local law enforcement, will continue to hide what the ‘land of the free’ has become from the world. They obscure their names and faces so that no one knows who to hold accountable for their crimes, all while they vanish our neighbors, family, and friends. ICE has only existed since 2003 but is being used like the Gestapo of Nazi Germany to create terror among us. We have lived without their presence for most of our existence, and we don’t need them now. To that end, we demand the following from our own community of Columbus:

We demand ICE be abolished. We demand that undocumented citizens be given amnesty and a swift path to citizenship. And we call for the immediate release of every person that ICE has arrested in LA and across the nation.

We demand that Columbus City Council end their contracts with ICE, make Columbus a sanctuary city, and protect its residents from these illegal abductions.

Columbus DSA will continue to fight for the power of the working class and the freedoms of people all over the world, immigrants or not. We will not stand by as the people of our community are abused by state violence. An injury to one is an injury to all. Free the prisoners, abolish ICE, and end the authoritarian regime currently in power.

On Thursday, June 19, we celebrate what began as Jubilee Day, and what we now recognize as Juneteenth. This year, it marks 160 years since Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to finally enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and deliver the word of freedom to some of the last enslaved Black Americans.

Boston DSA is proud to endorse Willie Burnley Jr. for Mayor of Somerville! Willie has been a voice for working people, tenants, and marginalized communities — and we’re ready to fight alongside him for a Somerville that works for all!

We are experiencing the most sustained and broad attacks on US democracy since the McCarthy period. MAGA has put together a fascist coalition of white supremacist, reactionary nationalists, Christian fundamentalists, libertarians, and techno-authoritarians, and they are on an offensive against the 20^th century. All the gains of labor, civil rights, women, and the LGBTQ community are under assault. The fascists intend to fundamentally restructure institutional democracy and to impose a straitjacket on civil society. This closely parallels the McCarthy period, and there are important similarities and differences between now and then, and lessons we can draw.

My uncle (Fred Fine) was on the leading committee of the Communist Party (CP) and closely involved in discussions about organizing an underground apparatus of safe houses for Party leaders. Fine himself was assigned to the underground, and was there for four years. During that time, he was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, and never once spoke with his wife or young son. My father, who had fought in the Spanish Civil War, was threatened with deportation, and the FBI threatened to declare my mother “unfit” and told her they would have her children (ages 6 and 11) put into foster homes without visitation rights. Thousands suffered similar threats and intimidation, key leaders were jailed, some cadre turned informant, and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed.

When the Party leadership discussed how to respond to McCarthy, there were two key assumptions: fascism was imminent and war with the Soviet Union inevitable. The similarities to today are striking. Many people feel fascism is imminent and war with China inevitable. The CP drew a number of conclusions from these assumptions that had drastic consequences for its members and mass organizing.

First, they purged members they considered untrustworthy or politically weak. And perhaps more damagingly, the Party concluded repression would be worst in the South, and so shut down all its southern districts and withdrew its organizers after 25 years of outstanding work organizing the South. When my parents divorced, my mother left Chicago and went to Florida with my brother and me to join a close friend—a woman who had been a nurse in the Spanish Civil War, working with the world famous doctor Norman Bethune. My mother was kicked out of the Party for moving to the South, and was only let back in when we moved to California. That didn’t stop the FBI from following her to Florida and getting her fired from several jobs.

My mother kept a journal of her time in Florida. Here is one short excerpt of her experience:

TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY…35 years. Nobody knows except the FBI. My gift from them
was once again being fired. This time from a job short lasted.
But I truly enjoyed working as proofreader on the St. Petersburg Times.
Well, at least I was let go early in the day. So now I’m home with enough time to
change into my waitress uniform. And time enough left to wait for Paulie to come home
from school. Young Jerry is only 4 and Paulie 9. The best birthday.
We’ll be playing a few games of baseball before I take off for my night shift.
There sits the limousine of the FBI. Another obstacle of fears,
confusion of what the future holds. This is the time for courage and bold adventures.
For it is now, I have come to understand, and someday so will my sons.
Of that I’m confident. For my mother’s heart tells me so.

The author’s mother, Rose Fine, (center) at a protest in Chicago (c. 1955)

The Party went to great lengths to set up an underground apparatus. This had at least two levels: the most secure, in which eight national leaders were sent into hiding, and a less secure state and city underground into which hundreds of local leaders were assigned. This eliminated many of the best organizers from doing mass work. Moreover, local underground networks were largely penetrated by the FBI. Even at my uncle’s level, four of the eight leaders were captured by the FBI. Although he had a number of close calls at different safe houses, he held out until the Party decided to come out of hiding and he eventually stood trial with several other leaders in New York.

When the Party’s first line of leadership (William Foster, Eugene Dennis, and others) went on trial, they tried to defend themselves by educating the jury about the true meaning of Marxism-Leninism. The result was prison time for all. On my uncle’s wanted poster (up in post offices throughout the country) was the following charge: “unlawfully conspiring with other persons to knowingly teach and advocate the duty and necessity of overthrowing and destroying the government of the United States by force and violence.” Of course, the Party never told members to arm themselves, they never organized armed cells, nor did they have plans for an armed insurrection. They did teach about the armed revolution in Russia, the history of capitalist violence, and the ultimate need to defend any socialist electoral victory from a reactionary counterrevolution.

FBI “Most Wanted” Poster for the author’s uncle, Fred Morris Fine

By the time my uncle stood trial, the Party had switched its defense strategy to asserting the freedoms of speech, association, and assembly. There is a difference between speech and advocacy and actively organizing acts of violence. This focus on civil liberties proved more successful with the courts. In 1957 the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protected radical speech, overturning the conviction of 14 Communist Party officials and effectively ending the use of the Smith Act to target leftists for their political beliefs. A series of subsequent rulings forbade the use of blacklists and other methods of political persecution, which helped bring about the end of the Second Red Scare. However, the proceeding period of internal debates and bitter feelings resulted in about half the remaining members leaving the Party by 1957.

Lessons for Today

During the McCarthy period the ruling class was united in its efforts to destroy the left. From conservatives to liberals, Republicans to Democrats, a united front was made impossible. Even the ACLU purged Elizabeth Gurley Flynn from its board for being in the CP. Furthermore, social democratic union leaders like Walter Reuther were more than happy to rid labor of Communists. Loyalty oaths were demanded at universities, public schools, unions, Hollywood, and various industries. Public show trials were held by the House Un-American Activities Committee in cities across the country. Many former friends of the Party were running scared.

But while the persecution the Party faced was real, “the almost fatal blow,” as Party leader Peggy Dennis later wrote in her Autobiography of an American Communist, “was self-inflicted.” The decision to shutter its Southern districts and take the Party leadership underground anticipated a level of repression far greater than that which materialized. Designed to protect the Party from the advent of fascism and world war, it instead deprived mass struggles of thousands of their most militant organizers and activists, weakened the labor movement, cut off key linkages with the Black freedom struggle, and contributed to a decline of CPUSA membership from 80,000 in 1945 to less than 15,000 by 1957.

Today, conditions are in some important ways more favorable for us than during the McCarthy era. The ruling class is split. Already we see mass rallies and protests. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Bernie Sanders, Hands Off, and May Day marches have already gathered millions in opposition to fascism. Courts as of yet have often ruled against Trump. A united front is not only possible, but is in early formation.

In this moment, many leftists are concerned about safety and security – understandably. The harms caused by Trump’s repressive regime are real. But a key lesson from the McCarthy Era is that we must not let our fear of persecution isolate us from the masses and from mass movements. We can and must continue to organize, even as we take measures to help keep ourselves and each-other safe. The following are some suggestions for this period:

• Stay rooted to mass work, defend our friends and allies, and ask them to defend us.
• Defend the Bill of Rights, civil society, civil liberties, and civil rights for all.
• Stay calm but be aware of security.
• Make sure your financial records—particularly organizational finances—are in order.
• Organizations should have a house counsel, and individuals should always keep the number of a lawyer with you.
• Never write on social media or in email what you don’t want read back to you in court.
• Vocally reject all proposed violent acts at public meetings
• NEVER TALK TO THE FBI. Legally you don’t have to, but if you lie, you’re committing a federal crime. So, NEVER TALK TO THE FBI.

This is the time for courage and bold adventures. Collectively, our actions now will help determine what the future holds.

The post Lessons from the McCarthy Red Scare appeared first on Midwest Socialist.