Tuesday, November 3 (8:00 AM – 8:00 PM) Election Day GOTV (1916 McAllister and 558 Capp Street)

Tuesday, November 3 (8:00 PM – 11:00 PM) Election Night Party (in person at Zeitgeist, 199 Valencia)

Wednesday, November 4 (7:00 PM – 8:30 PM) Tenant Organizing Working Group Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Thursday, November 5 (7:00 PM – 8:30 PM) Immigrant Justice Regular Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Friday, November 6 (9:30 AM – 11:00 AM) D1 Coffee with Comrades (in person at Breck’s, 2 Clement St)

Friday, November 6 (9:30 AM – 11:00 AM) D9 Coffee with Comrades (in person at Finjan Qahwa, 3188 Mission St)

Friday, November 6 (6:30 PM – 9:00 PM) Maker Friday: Pal Sol Social Prep (in person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, November 7 (2:00 PM – 4:00 PM) TOWG Film Screening: Home is a Hotel (in person at 1975 Post st)

Sunday, November 8 (12:30 PM – 2:00 PM) What is DSA? (in person at Western Addition Branch Library, 1550 Scott St)

Sunday, November 8 (2:00 PM – 4:00 PM) Canvass Workers with SF EWOC! (in person at Western Addition Branch Library, 1550 Scott St)

Sunday, November 8 (3:00 PM – 4:45 PM) EWOC Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing (in person at 1916 McAllister)

Sunday, November 8 (3:00 PM – 4:45 PM) Tenderloin Healing Circle Working Group Meeting (zoom)

Sunday, November 8 (6:15 PM – 7:30 PM) Working Class Gender Liberation (in person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, November 9 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM) Tenderloin Healing Circle (in person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Monday, November 9 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Homelessness Working Group – Working Session (in person at 1916 McAllister)

Tuesday, November 10 (5:30 PM – 7:00 PM) Social Housing Working Group (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, November 11 (6:45 PM – 9:00 PM) DSA SF General Meeting (zoom and in person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Thursday, November 12 (6:00 PM – 7:00 PM) Education Board Open Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, November 14 (2:00 PM – 4:00 PM) HWG Flyering Event – What to Do Instead of Calling the Cops on Unhoused People (in person at 1916 McAllister)

Sunday, November 15 (12:00 PM – 1:30 PM) Understanding Socialism (in person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, November 16 (7:00 PM – 8:30 PM) SF EWOC Local Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Tuesday, November 17 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Get out the Vote for Our Endorsed Campaigns

TODAY is election day, and we need all hands on deck for our endorsed campaigns. We need YOUR help in this final stretch to make sure San Franciscans don’t fall for the lies being spun by the oligarchs and tech elites. Fill out this form and join us!

Bay Get Ready Pledge

With election day here, we need to be vigilant and make sure that elections across the country go smoothly without interruption and chaos. But we all know that the Trump administration has already tried to stop the vote through various tactics both here in California, Alaska and other states.

As part of the Bay Resistance Coalition, DSA SF is  joining in with organizations throughout the Bay Area, including East Bay DSA, to demand that every vote is counted, that all election results are certified without interruption, and that all congressional members are seated on January 3rd, 2027. 

To that end, we are prepared to join in with our Bay Resistance Coalition partners to stage non-violent, non-cooperation protests throughout the Bay Area if the election is stolen or tampered with. We may have to be on alert all the way through early January.  

Please sign the attached Bay Resistance voter pledge and receive updates about any actions that will be taking place during this period.  The chapter will also send out updates about these actions as well. 

Sign the Bay Get Ready Pledge

Let’s make sure our voices are heard all the way to DC and let the Trump administration know that we will not stand for an authoritarian take over of our elections and country.

Home is a Hotel Screening

 Join us on Saturday, November 7 at 2:00 PM for a film screening of “Home is a Hotel” and a Q&A with Kar Yin Tham, one of the co-directors of the film. Home is a Hotel documents the lives of five single-room occupancy (SRO) residents in San Francisco, the most expensive city in the US, as they fight to keep a roof over their heads and avoid homelessness. SRO residents are often underrepresented when it comes to understanding the material reality of staying housed and homelessness.

This event is free, and all are welcome!

RSVP here

Canvass Workers with SF EWOC

The SF local of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) wants more workers to be aware of their power and potential for collective organizing! On November 8th at 2:00 PM we’ll be talking to workers on Valencia Street about their hours, pay, and working conditions and encouraging them to unionize with EWOC. The meetup point is 15th and Valencia.

No experience necessary! We’ll start with a brief training for everyone.

RSVP here

EWOC Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing — November Session

Do you have problems at your workplace or generally have frustrations with the systems governing your communities? Would you like to learn how to talk to people in order to build collective power? Are you interested in discussing organizing strategies with comrades of various organizing levels?

If you said “yes” to any of those questions (or are just a radical person), attend our sessions each Sunday of November 3:00 – 4:30 PM for the EWOC Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing course! Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) is a collaboration between national DSA and the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) to organize unorganized workplaces and build a distributed, grassroots organizing program to support workers organizing at the workplace.

This training course is meant to help you build your union from the ground up alongside workers in your industry. It doesn’t require an organizing background to understand the material, which covers topics including mapping and charting, building an organizing committee, uniting over common concerns, and how to take action. If you’re interested in becoming any level of organizer for EWOC, this course is mandatory.

This course will be in-person, with the group watching the EWOC lectures and the discussion activities occurring at the DSA office (1916 McAllister). If you can’t make all of the sessions, reach out to san-francisco@workerorganizing.org for accommodations.

RSVP here

by Justin W.

What does it mean to win? Why do you want to win? What are you willing to do to answer those two questions? For years, the Democratic Party has taken the position that “winning” is all that matters. As a Marxist, I argue that the reason Democrats run for office is to get into office; no more, no less. Power for the sake of power. At times we will see some platitudes, some rhetoric about making the world better, but we rarely see any movement on issues or legislation that will materially affect our lives. Nothing can be done because Democrats need to win the next election and can’t alienate anyone; but also no one else can take power to do anything because they won’t “win.” Since 2016 the Democratic Party has been the party of “No Trump” and, while trying to be a bulwark against the excessive cruelties of the Republican Party is nice, there is no goal beyond that. We know this because, when pressed on why we should vote for their candidates, the response is “do you want the Republicans to win?” There is always something better on the horizon and we must vote now to secure the chance for that future alternative. What is that alternative, you might ask? Who knows. Whatever you want it to be. So long as it’s not “unreasonable.” 

There is a hollowness at the heart of liberalism in America. In 1992 Francis Fukuyama wrote The End of History and the Last Man. In it, he claimed that we had reached “the end of history”, that liberalism had won out and there was no political change necessary beyond some tweaks to current policy. What we see from the Democratic Party is the end result of that belief. There is no future, only a (supposed) bulwark against those who want to drag us back to the past. A (supposed) protection from fascism. 

Amy Acton is the Democratic nominee running in Ohio’s gubernatorial election. She recently said, “I do not support boys playing in girls sports” amidst a wave of anti trans attacks made by the Trump administration alongside capitulation from organizations like the Cleveland Clinic that have trans people losing access to the healthcare they need. She, as the representative for the Democratic Party of Ohio, has made it clear to trans people that they are not worth protecting. This is considered a strategic move on her part by not just the Democratic Party, but by pundits and consultants as well. It is considered by many a “necessary” move to win the seat. That view, the one peddled by consultants and think tanks, is how we need to view not just Amy Acton’s actions, but those of the Democratic Party she is part of, especially given that the Democratic Party as an organization has funded anti-trans ads. 

The liberal view of power is one marked by distrust in individuals, not systems. “Power corrupts” is a classic example of the liberal view of positions of power doing the corruption, not the system rewarding the corruption. To a liberal mindset, corruption is an aberration, not an end result. It should be noted this is true for all liberal worldviews, neo-liberalism and progressive liberalism just the same. It is a view that nurtures the mentality that simply voting someone out of a seat will solve all the problems of the world with no other work needed. It then follows that winning elected office must always be the goal of every organization, every campaign, and every protest. Ultimately, the end goal is to vote in the correct person, and they will solve all the problems of the world for you. This has two effects. The first is that it allows a person to view only the outward symptoms of the problem. There need not be systemic analysis or deeper understanding of fixing problems if all that is needed to save the world is to switch out leadership. This allows for a very limited understanding of the world, mirroring the anti-intellectualism of American culture. Second, it means that once that person is in power you can “go back to brunch.” Given the lack of systemic analysis and the belief in the “Great Man” theory of change, voting in the correct person means that anyone holding this worldview needs to develop neither militancy or discipline. There doesn’t need to be a sacrifice of anyone’s time (other than voting) nor a dedication to learning (other than who to vote for) to weigh a person down. As said before, you can go back to brunch, and that is more appealing than many would like to admit. This stunted and naive view of power, because it is easier to grasp, is held by most in America, especially consultants. Elections must be won, there are no other alternatives to power. This view must be understood before we ask why Amy Acton decided to throw trans people to the proverbial curb. 

Given that elections are the only (to liberals) battleground for power, we must ask what is required to win. What you must be willing to do to be the bulwark against the horror of the other side winning. One might assume that certain principles can’t be sacrificed and some lines must be left uncrossed, but that isn’t true. How many lines we should be willing to cross is directly proportional to how “evil” the opposition is perceived to be. Previous, low stakes elections may have simple decorum tossed aside. Other elections might have some people taking money from unsavory corporations who aren’t on the “right side”. However, with the slide towards fascism and economic ruin constantly on the horizon, the stakes are high, and anyone and anything can be tossed aside for “the greater good”. Every argument of “well they have to say that to win elections” or “that’s what it takes to win an election” are built from the belief that you must win at all costs. Nothing can be left on the table. With a Marxist, systemic view of power in mind we rightly see this as the system rewarding corrupt behavior and politics that care for no one. Given the incentive structure, anyone with a systemic view of power can see that the person with the most “flexible” ethics will win more often. This is not the case for a liberal worldview. A liberal worldview does not view systems as evil nor rewarding to corruption. It does not view the sacrifices of principles, politics, nor posture as inhibiting or even untrustworthy. Merely functional. This is also why politicians receive such uncritical views of their politics, despite all evidence to the contrary. This is best seen in Donald Trump where some of his followers believe he will clear out “The Deep State” despite him clearly being in the Epstein files. Not to leave out the progressives, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is believed to be against Israel and capitalism despite the funding she has given to the iron dome and staunch defense of “free markets.” I have even heard some people say Nancy Pelosi is for universal healthcare despite repeated declarations of opposition spanning more than the last decade. These cults of personality exist because any position taken on any subject can be seen as “campaign promises” or “necessary positioning” and not a reflection of true belief. This unscrupulous behavior works because everyone else is doing it. This is why those deemed to speak their “true beliefs” are admired so much, because it is a reprieve from the “business as usual” politicians, even when some of those people are obvious liars, like Donald Trump. 

We can ask ourselves if “Winning” works, but I do not believe that to be the correct question. The cracks have been forming for some time now and the fact that the Democratic Party lost to Donald Trump, one of the most hated politicians in US history, should make it clear that “Winning” is something that cannot happen forever. The DSA has received the influx we currently see because of the hatred generated by the callous incompetence of the Democratic Party. Instead we should ask why would someone choose to “Win” instead of doing good. Why getting into office must be the ONLY goal. Why Democrats always seek power for the sake of having power. 

Power corrupts, and therefore cannot be used. However, power must be held lest it fall into the hands of the unworthy. This contradiction explains both the reason Democrats will not act with the power they have but also why they must do whatever it takes to win. For Republicans, this flips to those deemed worthy shall use the power of office. It also explains why some politicians have the cults of personality they do. Both views are built from the same premise: whomever is “worthy” should wield that power as they see fit. How do we know who is “worthy”? By “Winning”, of course! 

Returning to Amy Acton and her throwing trans people to the proverbial curb, we now see more clearly why she is willing to sacrifice a certain subset of the population to “save” the rest. While Amy might not make it worse for trans people, she will also not help them. Power corrupts, after all. This makes her victory hollow. When we know there is nothing that will be done, what celebration can there be? It is merely a delay to the horrors the Republican Party might bring forth in the next election. The worst part is that we all know and accept that. We know there will only be a continuation of the demonization of trans and queer people, with the Democrats doing nothing. Democrats continue to make the decision to abandon parts of their base for the goal of keeping power out of unworthy hands, while saving no one with the power they obtain. I frequently wonder how aware the Democrats are of this. 

Through this, “Winning” becomes the only goal. “Winning” is the only position one can have. “Winning” is the only strategy, the only thing that matters. From all this we see a “Politics of Winning.” If you are to criticize Amy Acton, ask her not to throw trans people under the bus, you are giving up the race. If you ask Kamala not to bomb Palestine, you are hurting our chances to win. If you criticize any Democrat, in any way at all, you are criticizing victory itself. What will they do with elected office? Doesn’t matter. They’ve proven themselves worthy of power, therefore nothing they do can be wrong. 

As socialists, we should all reject the belief of corrupting power, but we also need to reject the “Politics of Winning” as well. We reject the idea that power corrupts, because we know that systems incentivize certain actions and behavior. Through a materialist lens we understand why certain behaviors are selected for and elevated over others. We understand that it is easier and simpler to be unprincipled in a system that rewards shortcuts and lies. Unscrupulous decisions, “campaign promises”, and strategic jettisoning of certain members of the population are rewarded, not punished under the current system. We can know and understand that this is a problem, but that does not make us immune to the trap of that mentality. We must hold our principles of democracy and accountability even closer, because we understand how easy it is to give in. We must act in good faith because we know how much bad faith is rewarded. We must build structures of organizing that do not replicate what has come before because we know what it incentivizes. We must believe in our fellow workers, our comrades, and in the future we can build together. There can be no shortcuts for us to take in building this new world. We must be more willing to lose with our principles than to win with our compromises. Say no to hollow victories, and the politics of winning.

The post The Politics of Winning appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

By: Travis Wayne, Fiona P

CAMBRIDGE – Grad workers unionized with MIT-GSU (UE 256) rallied with custodial staff of 32BJ SEIU this week to warn the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that the university faces its last chance to avert a strike wave. The struggle has now openly unified two sections of the workforce, both blue-collar and academic, into conscious alliance against their shared employer.

Recognizing its academic excellence once again, U.S. News named MIT the top university in the United States in September 2026. Apparently, their rubric for institutions does not include treatment of the staff that run the university, since two different unions are fighting for a living wage and a fair contract stonewalled by MIT.

MIT holds a $29.2 billion endowment.

MIT Backtracking at the Bargaining Table

“The General Counsel and University President got double digit raises, while for us, they want to give us raises below inflation,” one fourth-year grad worker reported to Working Mass.

As with all “raises” below inflation, such offers are de facto pay cuts.

The university has also attempted to claw back gains already won band enshrined in MIT-GSU’s contract won in 2023, like healthcare packages: “the most essential things to even function as a community and a union,” in the words of one rank-and-file member to Working Mass, the day of the “Last Chance” rally. Workers before 2023 had no comprehensive healthcare at all, which seems to be the reality MIT prefers. Since returning to the bargaining table, MIT backtracked on items decided years ago in an attempt to cut healthcare completely.

MIT-GSU has made some advances in bargaining. For example, MIT has since agreed to maintain healthcare packages in contract language. But some progress is still far too little. Even though the university may finally not be fighting their workers on the question of whether they deserve healthcare at all, the institution is still arguing for steep premium hikes on insurance plans.

Workers are also fighting for non-citizen protections.

ICE off campus is one cardinal demand for a ban on federal forces invading the campus itself, as well as an international fund to fund necessary expenses faced by non-citizen workers. This fight echoes the same themes in higher ed workplaces exposed to federal intervention across Boston, from Boston University and its students’ crusade for a sanctuary campus to Harvard Graduate Students’ Union (HGSU) fight in Old Cambridge for the same demand as their union siblings in East Cambridge.

About 40% of MIT grad worker ranks are international.

The Open Shop in a Union State

Massachusetts may be one of the only states with a positive unionization growth rate, but that has not stopped the Bay State from harboring anti-labor employers: Starbucks, MGB, even MIT. In an interview with Working Mass, one bargaining committee member stressed:

They still have this ridiculous open shop proposal on the table, which is nothing but a disguised attack to gut our union and kill us… it makes sure the union can focus on what matters to our members, to focus on improving this campus, not on signing people up…. we know the history of these laws. They were made to segregate white and Black workers.

MIT has resorted to utilizing a strategy common to right-to-work states: the so-called “open-shop.” A system heavily benefiting the employer and legal since the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, the “open shop” is a workplace design where workers can opt-in instead of opt-out of union dues. That cuts off unions’ access to their own workforces’ sustained funds in ways that can severely hamper unions’ financial capacity while leaving the bosses’ entirely unaffected. Meawhile, bosses can persuade individual rank-and-file workers under this arrangement to not join the union with far more ease. The open shop means “workers reap the rewards of union contracts without paying any of the cost of their upkeep,” aiming to starve the union till it becomes irrelevant to workers as a machine intent on signing workers up just so they pay dues just so the union can continue to exist.

As another rank-and-file worker underscored to Working Mass:

If we don’t get our union shop, then every win we get at the bargaining table is kind of meaningless because we can’t enforce our contract across grad workers.

It’s the sweeping nature of the “open shop” on workers’ lives that make MIT bosses’ demand for it so chilling.

Parallel Struggles and Strategies

“At MIT, an alliance between property service workers and graduate students shows the power of wall-to-wall organizing for living wages and workers’ rights against a shared, well-resourced management,” proclaimed Higher Ed Labor United as the simultaneous strike began to loom. 32BJ SEIU began to organize alongside MIT-GSU in late 2025, when both unions discovered their contracts, while not perfectly aligned, were separated by one month: strike shooting distance.

Custodial staff, which includes electricians and groundskeepers as well as other essential workers, have faced deep thinning of the ranks. Wages are stagnant even as every single department has faced varying levels of dramatic workload increases exacerbated by MIT not filling any new positions. 20 positions are vacant in Custodial Services and 16 unhired in HVAC.

Each unfilled position, each worker missing, means just that much more work for the remaining workers making stagnant wages forcing them to second or third jobs. The deal dealt to custodial staff ends up similar to that dealt to grad workers, one where time with people you love is routinely robbed by an institution who does not believe your dignity is worth a living wage.

The simultaneous strike is the same strategy employed now by the labor movement at Harvard, as HGSU and HAW and UNITE HERE Local 26 all form one contract-aligned strike force. If unions take strike action when their contracts expire, aligning those actions together, can unions in the United States mimic or surpass the power generated by the sympathy strike — illegal in the United States since Taft-Hartley, the same law that legalized the “open shop” for the employers?

In the words of one fourth-year grad worker:

By dividing us as a workforce, by dividing us as a community, it’s easier to control us.

According to him, 700 undergraduates signed a pledge to student strike (stop attending classes) if either 32BJ SEIU or MIT-GSU strike, even as other unions in the wider movement off-campus have been galvanized to support the alliance of the two unions. Tufts workers and Harvard workers have joined MIT-GSU and 32BJ SEIU on the picket line; the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Local 25 has also indicated their intent to honor any strike, if the university refuses to reach an agreement that honors their workers’ needs. The union organized across logistics of the supply chain intends to stop all deliveries to campus.

Who will emerge most transformed — MIT, or its workers?

Travis Wayne is the managing editor of Working Mass.

The post Grad Workers Rally With Custodial Staff to Warn MIT Time’s Up: “We Are Prepared to Strike” appeared first on Working Mass.

The following op-ed was written in response to an op-ed published by the San Francisco Chronicle on 10/5/2026, “Endorsement: Prop I is a cocktail of poison pills masquerading as a housing fix.” written by The Chronicle Editorial Board. The Chronicle Editorial Board refused to publish this rebuttal.

Last month, Mayor Daniel Lurie announced a $23 million commitment from his Office of Housing and Community Development for the rehabilitation of Freedom West, a storied housing cooperative in San Francisco’s Western Addition. 

Freedom West is exactly the type of housing that Proposition I is designed to create, scaled up to begin to lower San Francisco rents. Strangely, the Mayor has come out strongly against the measure. Similarly, Michael Moritz (presently bankrolling many of the mayor’s other measures), large property developers, and the firefighters union sent out mailers proclaiming that “communes don’t work”, dismissing the promise of social and cooperative housing with a baseless smear. 

Massive spending by these groups makes Prop I the most hotly contested measure on the San Francisco ballot this year. Prop I aligns with the Mayor’s commitment to resolve what he recently declared our city’s “rent emergency”, so why all this controversy?

It can’t be because the measure is a novel or untested experiment, as opponents claim. There is nothing experimental about housing cooperatives, which already exist in SF, throughout the rest of the country, and around the world. 

Cooperatives are one form of social housing – a model providing permanent affordability and a share in ownership for residents who can’t afford multimillion-dollar market-rate properties. This is the model employed at Freedom West, which Mayor Lurie celebrated even while his allies lambasted the model as unworkable and unserious.

Social housing is clearly defined in the city code. Prop I adds one stipulation to this: “Residents shall have the right to participate directly and meaningfully in decision-making concerning the operation and management of the project.” This should be uncontroversial. This sort of tenant participation is proven to lead to better outcomes, such as greater housing stability and improved mental health for residents.

Studies have shown that having a robust public development pipeline can significantly bring down private rents as well. In Vienna 60% of all rental stock is decommodified social housing, and residents face the lowest rent burden in the EU. The city of Paris has set a goal to bring 40% of all housing stock under public control by 2035, with the intention of protecting Parisians from “real estate speculation” and being priced out. New York City has a long tradition of limited-equity cooperatives that its mayor, Zorhan Mamdan, is seeking to expand upon. Around the world, expensive cities are turning to social housing to address a cost of living crisis. It’s high time that San Francisco – the least affordable housing market among major US cities – did the same.

What do Prop I’s opponents see as the correct use for the substantial amount of money brought in by the transfer tax voters passed in 2020? To believe the inescapable ads featuring city firefighters and union tradespeople, the roughly $120 million a year should be used to fund things unrelated to housing, including record amounts of police overtime. 

At the same time, developers say this tax should be cut entirely and returned to private landholders to encourage further development. The Mayor and Supervisor Bilal Mahmood proposed such a cut just months ago, but were stymied by political headwinds. Supervisor Mahmood has expressed an interest in bringing the tax cut back, and the Mayor hasn’t said whether he still supports it. Prop I would make it nearly impossible to deliver this tax break to corporate landlords and commercial developers. Indeed, many of the opposition’s largest donors are the very commercial property owners fighting transfer taxes all over California.  Obviously, we can’t cut the tax and spend it too.  

Transfer taxes have become a boogeyman preventing real estate development. Much of this argument relies on a RAND Corp study of Los Angeles’s Measure ULA, but researchers at Occidental College found that this study is rife with methodological errors undermining its conclusions. A measure like Prop I, which exempts new multifamily development from the transfer tax, would disincentivize gut-and-flip transactions while promoting new construction. Though opponents claim the 5 year exemption is not long enough, it follows the model proposed by UCLA researchers and implemented by Culver City. Developers often sell a building after it is fully leased, which usually takes much less than 5 years. 

We, the proponents of Prop I, have brought this measure to voters because City Hall has refused to spend the tax on luxury real estate transactions the way voters intended. The Mayor and Board of Supervisors can and should be using these revenues to build and protect affordable housing for all San Franciscans. Our measure would force their hand. Housing and homelessness are the issues San Francisco voters say matter most. The City’s investments should reflect that priority. 

This money was used well during the first two years after the tax was raised, and can go even further towards addressing our current “rent emergency” when combined with other sources of money, like the Housing Trust Fund, which would be increased by the passage of Proposition C.

Prop I revenues can also provide debt service for standard financing options. Community Land Trusts and other forms of social housing regularly receive loans from traditional financial institutions. San Francisco can use revenue bonds, certificates of participation, or the public bank proposed by Prop B to multiply Prop I money and greatly expand the amount of affordable housing we produce. We have fallen gravely behind our affordable housing goals and the results are readily apparent.

Opponents’ claims about Prop I are contradictory, inaccurate, and misleading. And they are everywhere, thanks to a $2.6 million opposition campaign. Nuanced conversations about tax policy and affordable housing are crucial, but so too are solutions to the housing crisis that continues to diminish San Franciscans quality of life. The Mayor has declared an emergency but stopped short of offering any solutions that could realistically bring housing within reach for San Francisco’s working class. Proposition I does just that, no matter how much money is spent to convince you otherwise. 

Aditya Bhumbla and Matthew Pancia are organizers with the San Francisco Chapter of Democratic Socialists of America.

DSA is running candidates tonight for at least 62 state legislative seats and 50 seats on city councils and county legislatures.

The post Election Live Blog: DSA Chapters Weigh in on Their Campaigns appeared first on Democratic Left.

No Queens “Cop City,” fighting Amazon’s sub-contracting scam, Atlanta City Council votes to boycott Starbucks, and more in this edition of “Chapter and Verse,” Democratic Left’s round-up of chapter news.

The post As Elections Loom, DSA Chapters Push on Campaigns On and Off the Ballot appeared first on Democratic Left.

Monthly Newsletter of the Rochester Chapter of Democratic Socialists of America

Welcome to the November issue of Rochester Red Star, ROC DSA’s monthly newsletter. This month, find essays on navigating the American health insurance system, NYS farm legislation, developing chapter members, and more. You’ll also find upcoming events and coverage of chapter activities.

Interested in contributing? Send submissions to bit.ly/SubmitRedStar, or get involved with our Communications Committee. Reach out to steering@rocdsa.org and join DSA today!

The post Rochester Red Star | November 2026 | (Issue 31) first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

Impressions is where ROC DSA members can share what they’re reading, listening to, viewing, or otherwise experiencing. If you have two hundred words about the culture at large you’d like to share with your comrades, submit to Rich J on Slack or to the Red Star at steering@rocdsa.org.

Trans, Punk, and Somehow Legal?

Abigail J watched: The People’s Joker

I recently stumbled upon what is easily one of my new top 5 movies, The People’s Joker by Vera Drew (2022). This movie is an insane transgender coming of age story set in an unofficial DC Comics universe and presented in a psychedelic mixed media format (complete with live action, stop motion, and 2-D animation). The production and editing were completely crowd-sourced, and I’m genuinely not sure how this legally got made.

As a (very recently out) trans woman, this movie hit me in a way that almost no other movie or show has before. During production, this movie morphed from simply being a compilation of Batman satires to a semi-autobiographical narrative of Vera Drew’s life and transition up to that point (the creator and main star). While my story has definitely been different than both Vera’s and the ritual People’s Joker’s, I finally saw aspects of my life represented on film that I had never seen before, and connected to on a visceral level. How would my life be different if I’d seen this five, ten, fifteen years ago? I’ll never know, but I hope some not-yet-aware trans teens get as much (or more) out of this movie than I did.

For those interested, the film is available for free at: www.thepeoplesjoker.com

Real Americans

Isabella D watched: The Americans

Elizabeth and Philip Jennings are the quintessential family in Reagan’s America — two kids, a nice house in the suburbs, respectable careers. Their neighbors, and certainly not the affable FBI agent across the street, would never suspect that the two are KGB spies, committing gruesome acts of espionage to tip the scales of the Cold War in the Soviet Union’s favor. Over the course of six seasons, audiences suffer Breaking Bad-esque tension over if and when the Jennings will be found out in The Americans. 

I mostly enjoyed the series, but with a disclaimer: while the show is a well-crafted drama with four Emmys under its belt, the acute viewer may discern the tint of anti-Communist, pro-western ideals. This gripe is not just paranoia; the creator and showrunner Joe Weisberg is a Reagan-admiring former CIA agent. The Jennings are depicted as destroying themselves for a vague cause, their Marxist convictions never fully elucidated, and dogmatically resisting the prosperous American way of life for an oppressive, decadent Soviet Union. The cinematographic dichotomy alone relays this bias — the US is colorful, vibrant, abundant, and the USSR bleak, dismal, and bureaucratically stifling.  

To give credit where credit is due, the narrative imparts a great deal of empathy and relatability to Elizabeth and Philip as Soviet illegals before a predominantly western audience. The couple’s dynamic is deeply compelling, tempering my ideological frustration with the show, but the narrative is dragged down by clunky plotlines and a clear predilection for the American way. 

Rooting for the Underdog.

Greg LH watched: Coyote vs. ACME

In Coyote vs. ACME, our ever-floundering Wile E. Coyote, and his billboard lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte), become the face of underdogs confronting the corporate behemoth ACME over the thousands of malfunctioning products sold to the Coyote. Coyote vs. ACME has a convoluted production history – In 2023 Warner Bros. shelved the fully-made film to obtain a $30 million tax write-off. The film was only released in 2026 following backlash and its subsequent purchase by another production company. 

On opening day at The Little Theater, Dan Sendker, author of Dance of the Comedians – 75 Years of the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote gave this context prior to the showing, echoing the content of the film and highlighting the perverted incentives of capitalism.

The film delivers the laughs and delights of the original cartoon, with the fun element of live-action overlap. A tale of the little guy going after the corporate behemoth, the Coyote manages to poke his snout at corporate malfeasance. But his revenge is individualistic – there is no moment of organized unity with the other injured members of his class (of cartoon characters). I was hoping for a class action lawsuit, at least. A montage of FBI arrests also places the ideology of the movie within the Mueller-led resistance of Trump One. Don’t think about it too deeply though, just go have a good time.

The post Impressions (October 2026) first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

DSA is on the rise, Trump’s polls are sinking fast, voters brace for Election Day, and more in this edition of “Red All Over,” Democratic Left’s occasional news roundup.

The post Trump Polls Tank, DC’s DSA Mayor, Voters’ Scary Halloween appeared first on Democratic Left.

This speech was delivered by Jenny HB on October 3rd at CDSA’s Field Day event. The text has been edited for clarity.

Comrades, we stand today in a moment unlike anything our movement has seen. Capitalism has developed itself into such a state of chronic dysfunction that even those most deeply committed to the status quo find themselves completely unable to articulate a path forward.

As the political mainstream continues to lose the consent of the people, our party grows stronger with each passing day and with the deepening crises we face.

We are able to offer a credible alternative to the status quo because, unlike the unprincipled liberal and reformist progressives, we have the ability to understand and engage with the world through a Marxist framework. This gives us not just moral clarity but a coherent structural critique.

We are able to identify the exploitation that capitalism inherently creates via the theft of the value created by our labor. We are able to identify the instability created by capitalism’s concentration of power in a tiny fraction of the population, and we see how this concentration leads to wars of imperialism as this class of oligarchs searches for excess profits and new markets.

While liberals have been blindsided by the rise of American techno-fascism and its atrocities at home and abroad, we know that this is the inevitable result of our economic system. As collapse approaches, our model of the world holds strong as liberalism falls to pieces.

DSA has found unprecedented success by addressing these realities head-on, and our growth is cause for celebration. But it isn’t simply because of our worldview and structural critiques. Change and success come from understanding the material circumstances in which we organize, recognizing our strengths and advantages, and planning a strategy accordingly. By acting in the interests of the whole of the working class, we create the potential for a coalition that encompasses the vast majority of people. That scale and broad appeal is our key structural advantage. Our task is to realize this potential and plan how to harness it to fundamentally change the systems that govern us.

Our political system is unequivocally a tool of class oppression, yet it is also terrain on which we can struggle. It can be a tool to harness our mass politics toward building working-class power and a working-class party. The power we gain through political struggle, through electoral victories, is more than just a trophy or a show of strength. It is real, material power. It allows us to change the rules and make the terrain more advantageous for our organizing.

We know that elections alone cannot win socialism. We do not and should not limit ourselves to electoral work. Instead, we use political power to strengthen our other efforts. We use it to support, expand, and radicalize labor unions. We use it to organize tenants. We use it to bring our message to the public and raise awareness among the working class of their natural antagonism towards the owning class and inherent solidarity with each other. We use it to make our political system more democratic and more representative.

Above all, we use it to build a working-class party that can be an agent for revolutionary change. Make no mistake, though we seek to build power for our party, we stand in service to the working class. That means we also have the responsibility to use the power we gain to visibly and materially improve the lives of the working class. The public has spent decades watching idealistic progressives who promise change and largely fail to deliver. We build and legitimize our party when we harness power for the public good.

When socialists make the buses run faster, or hold landlords to account, or freeze the rents, we achieve more than just clout — we earn the chance to change minds and raise class consciousness. When government delivers, people listen.

From every position we find ourselves in on the path to liberation, we must take stock of all the avenues of struggle available to us, use the power we have gained along the way to advantage our party in those struggles, and redouble our efforts.

Along the way we must also solidify what we have built, building durable institutions that can outlive any individuals. Just as capital creates a self-reproducing superstructure, we must build organizations as clearly defined structures of relations, not ad-hoc efforts of overburdened organizers.

Our party is strong precisely because of its potential to sustain and grow itself outside of cults of personality and rigid dogmas. We instead place our faith in the only force that merits it: in the radical participatory democracy of the working class.

It is of paramount importance that we guard and protect our internal democracy and culture of openness.

Radical democracy also means hearing the voices of those most disadvantaged under capitalism, centering them and their struggles. There is no socialism without Black liberation and an end to racism in every form, and there can be no mass politics without a truly multiracial party.

Comrades, we have our work cut out for us. I cannot promise socialism in our lifetimes or that we will win. But I truly believe if real change comes, it will be led by DSA. Being a part of this organization is the honor of a lifetime.

Thank you. Solidarity forever!

The post One Step, Then Another appeared first on Midwest Socialist.