“The animal is immediately one with its life activity. It is not distinct from that activity; it is that activity. Man makes his life activity itself an object of his will and consciousness. He has conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he directly merges. Conscious life activity directly distinguishes man from animal life activity.” – Karl Marx, “Estranged Labour,” Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

Writing is one of the most important inventions in human history. It allowed us to build civilizations, to coordinate social structures across vast distances, and to fuel humanity’s social, political, and scientific development into the modern age. Thanks to the written word, we can read the exact thoughts of scholars who lived many thousands of years ago, communicate complex ideas to millions of people, and build the democratic political movements capable of remaking society for the benefit of working people.

It has never been more important to preserve and expand our ability to write and communicate clearly. Original writing is now being severely devalued by a current of anti-intellectualism, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, and an unprecedented public disinvestment in education. This is why Midwest Socialist wants to encourage Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members in the greater Midwest to develop their own skills at writing and communication.

Learn, Learn, and Learn Again

During the heyday of the democratic socialist movement in the first two decades of the twentieth century, deep engagement with Marxist theory was considered a prerequisite to leading workers in their struggle against oppression. Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Eugene Debs, Antonio Gramsci, and countless others spent years developing tomes of political theory while they organized tirelessly to overthrow capitalism. They did not see organizing and theorizing as two separate activities, but as two integral parts of the same effort.

In the twentieth century, socialist governments considered mass political education an essential step in building a post-capitalist society. In 1961, Cuba sent 250,000 educated people into the countryside to teach millions of poor workers and campesinos to read, virtually eliminating illiteracy on the island within a few short years. The methods developed during this campaign served as an example for the entire Global South, and the model was successfully implemented in other countries around the world.

Socialist states with highly literate populations took this idea a step further. In East Germany, government-sponsored programs established spaces to encourage workers to express themselves creatively, including through prose and poetry. These programs would have been considered wasteful and useless in a capitalist society, but the socialist government of that country saw value in the political development of the working class through creative pursuits.

Closer to home, universal public education is one of the greatest surviving accomplishments of the working class movement in the United States. The collective knowledge of humanity is our birthright as working people, and it is our responsibility to engage with these ideas and educate ourselves.

A Hollow Education

The relevance of political broadsheets and hand-printed pamphlets has declined precipitously in the last hundred years, but the necessity to write clearly and convincingly has not. We live in a time when a significant percentage of young Americans are falling behind in school, when college students at our nation’s most prestigious universities are incapable of reading a whole book, and when AI is taking away the livelihoods of creative and intellectual laborers on an unprecedented scale. In this context, reading, writing, and learning have taken on new significance.

Public schools are under attack in the U.S. Compounding the damage of decades of chronic disinvestment, Republicans and Democrats alike have established charter school systems across the country that take state money to fund academies – often with reactionary pedagogical mandates –  and predatory, unstable for-profit schools through “school voucher” programs. These efforts take away resources from public schools and leave students behind. This is in addition to the current administration’s broad anti-intellectual right-wing attacks on science, history, tolerance in the classroom, and the basic principle that education should serve students rather than the state’s extremist political agenda.

Furthermore, all modern forms of mass media are deliberately constructed to turn working people into passive consumers of carefully curated political messages that shut out the possibility of radical change. They shamelessly promote unjust and insane wars, give billionaires and their servants unlimited airtime and space to advance their own agendas while marginalizing progressive voices, attempt to smear left-wing candidates for public office, and turn people away from transformative social and political structures.

AI is just the most recent extension of the centuries-long effort to control what working people know, think, and feel. A recent meta-study by the Brookings Institute highlights the dangers of using this untested technology in classrooms. Evidence is mounting that students and adults alike suffer a “cognitive debt” when they over-rely on chatbots to perform intellectual tasks, rendering them incapable of the basic skills needed to function in society and sharply limiting their ability to develop any kind of meaningful political consciousness.

This is why Midwest Socialist does not accept AI-generated writing and strongly discourages the use of AI writing programs. For too many, an ‘AI-assisted’ piece of writing is the end of a conversation rather than the beginning of one. It is an excuse not to engage with ideas, a way to treat essays and creative writing projects as problems to be solved, published, and put away as quickly as possible rather than an exercise in critical thinking and creativity. In this context, the adage “if you couldn’t be bothered to write it, I can’t be bothered to read it” takes on new meaning.

At a time when it appears possible to offload every intellectual exertion to an unthinking machine, engaging with ideas seriously and honestly is quickly becoming a revolutionary act in itself. Despite all the hype from tech companies, working people are still quite skeptical that AI will benefit society in the long run. We can consciously reject the implementation of technologies that don’t serve the needs of the working class.

Why We Write

“Our task is to make thinkers out of fighters and fighters out of thinkers.” – General Gordon Baker, revolutionary educator

All progressive transformation finds its energy from the creative labor of working people. To give an example from American history, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the face of the New Deal and arguably its most important champion, but he did not implement it. It required legions of skilled, educated, and competent artisans, craftspeople, engineers, laborers, administrators, artists, writers, and countless others working toward the unified goal of transforming society. We are going to need millions of engaged, curious people eager to work to better society. We will build the future we deserve through a combination of organizing, community building, and unshakable solidarity.

Right now, none of those efforts are where they need to be. In the context of economic stagnation and repression at home and abroad, the fight for a better world can at times feel hopeless. Individual action is not enough to reverse the long-term trends of illiteracy and intellectual shortcutting that have plagued our society for decades. We need robustly funded schools, mass political education, a media not beholden to private interests, and an economy that fosters creative pursuits as more than products to be packaged for consumption. But that effort starts by building our own capabilities, collaborating with others, and working tirelessly to create and sustain the kinds of unapologetically socialist institutions that will build a better society.

There’s a reason every child is taught to write essays in school. Writing teaches us to organize our thoughts, to engage with primary sources, and to express ourselves clearly and succinctly to a wide audience. These skills are essential to any political movement. We cannot rely on capitalist-controlled media and obsequious AI to do our thinking for us.

If it is indeed true that every cook can govern, as the old saying goes, then any DSA member can write. Not every single person must become a journalist, theorist, or polemicist. There are a million ways to contribute to our struggle. But if you wrote stories on lined notebook paper in the fifth grade, composed multi-paragraph social media posts in response to articles you see online, or simply have had ideas and perspectives on our work and movement, we want to hear from you. 

If you would like to write for Midwest Socialist, contact us through our Google form. Be sure to read our Editorial Policy before submitting. We publish op-eds, articles about leftist history, interviews, left-wing reviews of recently released media and leftist classics, and other forms of writing, and we are particularly interested in original journalism about events happening in the Midwest.

If you have an idea that you need help turning into an outline, an outline you need help turning into a draft, or an article you’re wrestling with, our Editorial Board offers Zoom appointments to discuss your ideas and help you build them into a publishable article. The editorial board doesn’t guarantee that every individual article will be published, but we will work with you to build your project into a piece we can all be proud of. Once you’ve submitted a draft, we will make edits and send a final draft ready to be published.

Writing is a skill that takes time and practice, just like learning a language, mastering a trade, or playing an instrument. The only way to improve is to jump right in, and Midwest Socialist is a great place to get started. We look forward to reading your work.

The post Why You Should Write for Midwest Socialist appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

By: Joseph Green

The Membership Engagement Committee is putting forth this resolution, Continuing Towards Mass Membership Activation, for the 2026 MDDSA convention. We have spent the last 4 months developing our goals and visions for the chapter with the swell in membership and the growth we expect.

Last year we surpassed our goal of 1,200 members with months to spare. This year, we want to 1) push our chapter to over 2k and 2) have 20% of our membership actively engaged in the campaigns, projects, and events. This is the crux of our vision for the chapter over the next year.

To achieve that goal we have developed 3 core priorities for our committee. Our main focus will be on recruitment, engagement, and leadership and organizing skills development.

To reach our goal of 2,000 MDDSA members and build a future socialist party in Metro Detroit we must meaningfully connect with new and potential members.With this resolution we will grow our relationships to fellow committees and working groups with the specific goal of connecting new members and non members to our chapter writ large. This will look like targeted outreach to organizers and canvassers involved in our electoral campaigns, online engagement, and public tabling opportunities to develop MDDSA’s recognition in the community.

DSA has been developing ongoing coalitions and relationships throughout the country and specifically in the Metro Detroit area. It is time that we begin to invite those we organize alongside to join our ranks and fight for socialism in our lifetime. Not only will this increase our membership base but it will also mean we are recruiting from highly motivated and politically engaged comrades.

MEC plans to work in conjunction with our Electoral committee to expand DSA’s presence and reach in our endorsed campaigns, and to work alongside our Labor committee to expand our outreach and recruitment to organizing work places and our partnering organizations. MEC plans to support each of our committees and working groups in their organizing efforts with the expressed interest of growing our chapter’s membership and inviting those we organize alongside to join our ranks.

Historically, our chapter has had less than 10% engagement from our membership in terms of campaigns support and meeting attendance. We want more. We want all of our members to feel empowered to jump directly into the work that most inspires them. MEC will support this effort by promoting our endorsed campaigns at all social events to encourage members to take the next step in engaging with our work. We will also be partnering with the other committees and working groups to effectively connect interested comrades with the appropriate organizers.

As our membership has grown we have seen groups of all demographics crop up and get to work in their fields, such as our Ferndale comrades, or the cadre of DSA teachers organizing in their districts. With this resolution MEC has developed a robust collection of resources to support these groups and help guide membership to them. These resources include an ongoing FAQ page, event planning guides, and membership development lists.

Our chapter and the national organization has seen a large swell in our membership in the recent past and with that immense growth comes the need for strong on boarding, guidance, and transparency. Our goal in engaging our members is to provide support, opportunity, and connections throughout MDDSA. With this resolution MEC is preparing for an even greater swell of membership in the future and planning for how we can manage and connect our comrades to the work at hand.

This vision of the future includes a greater reliance on group organizing and personal empowerment. MEC, with our growing log of resources and information, wants to empower our comrades to develop their ideas into actionable plans. Have you been looking for a sports social in the chapter (or a movie group, regional organizing group, etc.)? MEC will provide you with the resources you need to make it happen and the organizing leadership to support it in development. Our goal in changing our organizing structure is that it cuts through the administrative hurdles, and gives all of our members the tools for organizing success.

Finally, we want to give our membership a pathway to become organizing leaders. By developing strong processes and information logs we support the future strength of our socialist movement. Rather than resigning our membership to find their own way through our organization, MEC wants to develop clear and concise ways to develop our promising new comrades into strong socialist leaders. Our first way of doing this is by providing a clear ladder of engagement for each of our committees and working groups. This allows us to offer opportunities to up and coming comrades to take ownership of their role in our chapter.

How can a new comrade quickly and easily jump into the work of our Eco-soc working group? What would their next steps to leadership look like? MEC has developed an outline of how we can honestly assess the work and engagement of our comrades to more effectively identify leaders, opportunities for growth, or gaps in support. We will work with committee leaders to adjust this outline to better suit the work and expectations of each committee and group as needed.

As our chapter grows it is critically important that we systematize how we engage our membership and how we plan for our future and develop our future leaders.

Our goal with this resolution and for MEC over the next year is to grow our membership, get that membership plugged into our campaigns, and develop future leaders. To do this we want to expand our presence and influence in our partnerships and coalition campaigns, offer freedom to organize within our chapter, and provide intentional opportunity for growth, education, and leadership. Without growth, knowledge and opportunity our chapter risks stagnation in a period of political turmoil and we cannot let that happen. Please vote yes on our resolution Continuing Towards Mass Membership Activation, so we can make this a reality.

Why We Need “Continuing Towards Mass Membership Activation” was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Amendment for a Radically Democratic General Meeting

By Chris W

What should a DSA member be? Ideally, if you were to meet individual members of a chapter, one by one, you would find very little in common in terms of basic demographics. You would meet people of various races, ages, and gender identities, different levels of education, different jobs, and — because this is a “big tent” socialist organization — different ideas for what a socialist future will look like and the way we as DSA get to that future. But there are certain characteristics that all DSA members must have.

An experienced DSA member should be a socialist organizer in the fullest sense of the term. They should be able to organize a workplace for a union drive, or organize a campaign to elect a socialist to office, an international solidarity campaign, a social meetup, a reading group. Ideally, they’d feel confident organizing any of these. Their skill and confidence in organizing would come from a firm agreement on strategy and aims along with a high degree of flexibility on tactics and fields of struggle within DSA.

Our ideal DSA cadre would have helped craft this program, drawing on a knowledge of socialist theory and history, deliberating and debating with comrades in democratic forums, confident in their ability to articulate their position in front of their comrades while willing to listen to other members when a better position is offered, or when their position fails to carry the vote. This DSA member, when asked by a friend, coworker or family member, “what is socialism?” can share the dream of a future free from exploitation, domination and war, and how DSA is the party to win that future.

One place where new and experienced DSA members are refined into socialist organizers is the General Meeting (GM). The Agitation, Deliberation, Education Amendment (A1R8) structures the general meeting to prioritize all DSA work equally. We do not believe that political education and organizing skills are in any way secondary tasks of the organization (2026 General Body Resolution [R8, the resolution being amended] Whereas: The goal of MD-DSA general body meetings shall be to get members involved in ongoing organizing work, with a secondary emphasis on political education and organizing skills trainings) because those are all part of the tasks that build up our membership to be true socialist organizers.

The amendment makes the GM a place where members learn about and discuss both the short and long term struggles and aspirations of DSA. It gives working groups and committees the opportunity for face-to-face conversations with new members to get them involved in committee work and updating experienced members on the same. It allocates ample time for democratic deliberation, ensuring a robust chapter democracy and a forum to discuss and deliberate ideas, tactics and campaigns born from the generative discussions carried out earlier in the meeting.

Political Education grounds the thinking and discussion for the GM. The Political Education Committee, made up of comrades passionate about socialist ideals and open to all members, selects topics that help to develop the political understanding of general membership. Thirty to forty-five minutes of the GM are dedicated to a presentation and a discussion of a broad topic relevant to socialist organizing: topics like “Why the Working Class”, “Racial Capitalism”, and “Socialist Feminism.” These are topics that any socialist must have a deep understanding of in order to effectively organize. New members are introduced to broader issues in socialist thought and organizing, and experienced members hone their thoughts and opinions through further discussion of the topics.

In addition to the normal political education segment, “in the case where the NPC has directly contacted steering committee and issued talking points about a current event” (A1R8 resolved clause 1), there will be 30 minutes for a short presentation and discussion of the issue. Many new members are brought to DSA in response to one of the endemic crises caused by capitalism, such as the genocide in Gaza, the ICE murders in Minneapolis, and the imperialist war on Iran. If we have a GM that is just updates on campaign work and questions of logistics, new members will walk, thinking that DSA is not serious about taking the fight to the capitalist class. As a chapter, we have failed to meet these moments on numerous occasions already. What is most alarming: we have not had a chapter wide discussion on ICE, the fascist paramilitary that invaded another midwestern city a few months ago. We are woefully unprepared as a chapter to respond should Trump turn his ire to Detroit. The first step to action is thought and discussion.

At our March GM, we had a short preview of what this segment could look like. I brought forward a motion to take fifteen minutes from Political Education to have a discussion on the US-Israeli war on Iran. Comrade Rodney C gave an excellent introduction, the conversation among members was spirited, and the members who came to the mic to share their perspectives were met with cheers from the crowd. Had the motion not been made, we would have had another GM where we did not address an absolutely monumental moment in global politics. With the passage of the Agitation, Deliberation, Education Amendment, the Current Event section of the GM would generate proposals for actions for the chapter to take that would be debated on in the section dedicated to deliberation.

The portion of the GM dedicated to deliberation and decision-making, “30–35 minutes for deliberation on adopting resolutions, endorsing campaigns, establishing new working groups etc., or agitation for new campaigns;” (A1R8 be it resolved clause 1) must be the democratic heart of the chapter, with the same deliberative spirit as the convention. The convention is the highest decision-making body of the chapter for a reason. It is an entire day when members gather to deliberate, face-to-face, the most important issues of our chapter and set its course for the coming year. We do not wait a few days for an email link to click on, to have our voices contend with members who did not hear the debate and are not educated on the issues.

We hear the speeches, feel the momentum in the room, raise our red cards proudly in the air. We are creating our democratic socialist future in the present. But we need practice in order to create this future. We can have this same exhilarating burst of democracy every time we gather for a GM. When a political decision arises in the course of their work, the Steering Committee should bring it to the GM to let the membership decide. When a working group or committee wants to start a new campaign, they should bring it to the GM to agitate for it and allow the membership to debate it. When members feel that they have a plan of action to respond to a new crisis after discussion in the GM, they should make their case to the rest of the membership.

Finally, each committee or working group gets to make its pitch to new members and others curious about their work in the 20–30 minutes dedicated to report-backs and breakout groups. At recent general meetings, there has been a haphazard effort, if any at all, to direct new members to the working groups. This is the best place to integrate new members into the chapter; by allowing them to follow their own interests to a part of chapter work that will get them engaged the quickest and keep them engaged the longest. It also allows for more face-to-face conversations, letting new and experienced members form personal connections that will help the new member feel comfortable in the chapter and integrate them into the chapter socially as well as politically.

DSA is its membership, and the organization’s abilities and qualities will be reflected in those of its members. Members who spend years attending the type of GM created by the passage of the Agitation, Deliberation Education Amendment (A1-R8) will be true democratic-socialist organizers. This member, and this organization, would not be easily discouraged by a defeat, nor carried away by a victory. They would be steadfast in pursuit of our higher cause; that dangerous radical dream of a society governed by and for working people. The dream of humanity united in peace and prosperity for all, free from domination and discrimination, living on a planet preserved for posterity.

Vote Yes on A1R8, linked here

Chris W is a law student and uncaucused member of the Democracy Coalition.

Agitation, Deliberation, Education was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In 1988 and 2016, DSA backed insurgent primary campaigns by gifted outsiders — but the aftermath of the Jesse Jackson and the Bernie Sanders campaigns were very different.

The post Why Wasn’t There a Long Jackson Moment? appeared first on Democratic Left.

You’ve probably received enough communications regarding this Saturday’s “No Kings” demonstrations, which will be held all across the country. At last count more than three thousand demonstrations are being organized, and there will no doubt be at least one near you.

In case you have been procrastinating, here is a link to find the demonstrations closest to you.

The first of these demos last June had a million or two people attend. The next one, in October, had at least five million. We’re aiming to double that this time, which would put us in striking distance of the 3.5% of the US population that research says is necessary to topple authoritarian regimes in the making. 

Against the backdrop of brutal anti-immigrant violence and preparation for election suppression at home, and clueless trade policy matched with deadly wars abroad, a growing number of Americans are coming out to the streets. These include people who have never been politically involved outside of voting every few years, and progressives who sat out the 2024 presidential elections because they didn’t think there was any difference between the two parties and the two candidates. Within DSA and the rest of the left this often took the form of denouncing the “twin parties of capital”. Which they are. But that picture, drawn without nuance, underestimated what fascism is and does.

Now we know. 

A reasonable question at this point is, ‘What sort of message should socialists be sending to the other demonstrators, and the world, a year into America’s fascist descent?’ You have the opportunity to weigh in on that as you make your protest sign. “No Kings” is a start, not a program. “Workers Over Billionaires” moves us closer to the ideas we need.

This mass demonstration of opposition is absolutely necessary, but not sufficient to stop MAGA from dragging us along on its road to hell. For that we need to be broadening the struggle with other tactics and strategies (mutual aid, mass strikes, non-violent direct action, and electoral politics) that build a powerful anti-fascist movement and lay the basis for moving past the failed politics of the past. What happened in Minneapolis/St. Paul on January 23—‘No Work, No School, No Shopping’—is the best example so far. DSA has joined with labor and community partners in the May Day Strong coalition, which understands “No Kings” as a step toward a sharper critique of capitalism on May 1. On that day we will see how prepared we are to advance beyond a nationwide demonstration to a national movement.

We’ll see you out in the streets this weekend. And then we’ll continue to train and educate and prepare ourselves for the struggle ahead.

In the February issue of California Red we ran a background article on the California DSA campaign we call “The Fair and Responsible Tax Plan for California’s Wealthy”, which embraces both measures currently gathering signatures to qualify for the November state ballot. That was the first in a series we are running between now and the election. Here is the next installment.—Editor

The unfathomably vast yet still growing level of California’s economic inequality

Our East Bay DSA crew of five had planted ourselves in the parking lot of a supermarket in North Berkeley on a warm mid-March afternoon. We were collecting signatures for the Billionaires Tax and the Protecting Education and Health Care Act. During our three-hour shift we did not do badly, gathering several dozen for each measure. Even better were the conversations, which ranged from informing voters about the nuts and bolts of the proposals to broader questions about economic inequality: how much money do billionaires have, anyway? What share of the total income of California, the fifth largest economy in the world, goes to the one percent? What would be the right amount of taxes for them to pay? And how do we get them to pay their fair share? 

We explore a few of these ideas and numbers below.

A cool million

It used to be hard for the typical working class stiff to imagine what a million dollars looks like. A million dollars? That’s what millionaires have, and I’m not even close to being one of those, we would say. But that was before a million dollars or thereabouts became the average price of a house in Los Angeles. It’s slightly below that statewide, and slightly above that in San Francisco. But you get the idea. Generally speaking, if you can afford a home, you know what a million dollars looks like—it looks like your house. (If you’re a renter, it looks like that house.)

A billion dollars was even more unfathomable. We didn’t have many in the United States until relatively recently; as late as 1990 there were just 66 of them. Now there are close to a thousand, and we’ve got 213 right here in the Golden State. Since we know that a million dollars looks like a house these days, we can imagine that since a billion is a thousand millions, it would look like a thousand houses. 

No one needs a thousand houses to live in, so most billionaires scrape by with just ten or twelve. Of course, being billionaires, they need somewhat larger houses than most people, so they might spend five or ten million dollars or even more—fifty million! A hundred million!—on their humble abodes. If they owned ten of those, that could put a pretty big dent in their billion dollar fortune. But guess what? The average wealth of a billionaire is not a billion dollars. It’s currently around 8.6 billion dollars, according to inequality.org. So that would be 8,600 houses. 

Minus the dozen they “live” in, that would leave them with enough money to purchase 8,588 more houses. I don’t know about you, but as the numbers climb my ability to translate the million dollar house into a clear image of the wealth of billionaires is beginning to get somewhat unequal to the task. And that’s before we try to imagine what the total wealth of 213 billionaires looks like. 

Trillions

It is reliably estimated that thanks to the ginormous growth of their fortunes during the past ten years (Trump I’s tax cuts, pandemic economy when there was nothing to invest in except stock buybacks, Trump II’s continuing tax cuts, massive AI bubble, and outright looting of public resources) our couple hundred California billionaires collectively own (hold onto your “tax the rich” baseball cap) two trillion dollars’ worth of assets. In California they’re doing a little better than the average 8.6 billionaire; they’ve each got around 9.4 billion. 

Although I just said I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around the houses when they added up to the average 8,600 houses each (adjusted now to 9,400), let’s try it out with trillions. That’s a thousand billions. So collectively our 213 ultra-rich people with their two trillion dollars would have, let’s see, carry the one, a bit over 1.8 million houses, at a million dollars each. 

You might think that that’s enough for anyone, and these individuals must be looking around for philanthropies to unload to. But no, according to a recent New York Times article, billionaire giving has fallen precipitously in the last few years as their ‘uneasy accommodation with fascism’ (fascism scholar Robert Paxton’s formulation describing the initial response of economic elites to the uncouth new political rulers) has grown considerably less uneasy—more like downright comfortable. The 213 billionaires in California have seen their total wealth grow by nearly a third in this period as the rest of us have been essentially running in place—and that’s not enough for some of them. 

If you listen to one of their loudest mouthpieces, tech mogul Ron Conway, the proposed billionaire tax is not only bad for his 212 other peeps; it’s way worse than that. He was recently quoted in a New York Times article with a sentiment that inadvertently revealed how that kind of bank account can warp one’s perspective: According to Mr. Conway, referring to the billionaire tax, “This is the greatest tragedy this state has ever felt.” Hmmm. I wonder whether the families of dozens of people who lost their lives and thousands who lost homes in the Eaton and Palisades fires in 2025 agree? Or if Japanese-Californians, 93,000 of whom were incarcerated during World War II, share that view? Or if Native Californians, whose population fell from a third a million people in 1800 to about 15,000 by 1910 during the genocide that did them in, would agree with Conway’s historical research? 

On the other hand

At the other end of the economic spectrum, California’s borders contain about 7 million people below the official poverty line, or 18% of its roughly 40 million people. But the official federal poverty line ($33,000/year for a family of four) is laughably (that’s probably the wrong word) below an actual ability to live. One measure of how many people are barely getting by in California is the number of MediCal recipients, dependent on the federal Medicaid funding stream for most of their care costs. Although California is a net donor to the federal treasury, it does rely on $20 billion per year from the feds to support MediCal. Some 15 million Californians are enrolled in MediCal.

Let’s move on from the tiny extremely rich and the very large poor slices of the state and look at the condition of the merely rich, the top 1% income earners, which includes the billionaires but extends downward to the merely well-to-do. Although calculations vary, the bottom rung of the ladder for a one percenter is just about a million dollars a year in income; the median merely rich, right in the middle of the one percent, is $3.6 million a year. Here’s chart to help us visualize how their share of total California income has grown over the past half century. 

That’s right, believe your eyes. The top 1%’s share of income in the Golden State has grown over the past half century from about one twelfth of total income to almost one third. Richest state in the richest country in the world? Yes, but a vast chunk of the riches seems to have ended up in the pockets of people who didn’t need the transfer. 

On the third hand, if all of the state’s total income had been divided up equally, every person in California in 2024 would have received around $80,000—which means that for a family of four, combining their incomes, the household would have had $320,000—just a little under ten times the official poverty line.  

“But that would be socialism!” cry the billionaires, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and probably quite a few temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Well, sort of. We’ll get into that some other time. One thing is clear: it would certainly be different from what we’ve got.

When HR-1, Trump’s Big Bad Budget Bill, first passed last summer, the California Medical Association warned of “catastrophic” consequences. They were right.

Residents of Glenn County now travel 40 minutes to the nearest emergency room, thanks to a 40% funding cut that forced the county’s only hospital to shut down. St. Johns Community Health in Los Angeles struggles to stay open, after seeing one-third of its operating revenue disappear. $50 million in cuts have forced the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to close more than half its community clinics; besides vaccinations, the clinics provided screening and treatment of tuberculosis and HIV. In Alameda County, Wilma Chan Hospital narrowly averted a layoff of 400 workers while the County searches  for new funding sources to keep them on the job.

MediCal, California’s version of the federal Medicaid program, currently covers one in five working Californians and half the state’s children. A 25% cut in state and federal spending is expected to strip close to 3 million people of their coverage by 2028. People on Medicaid will lose access to reproductive health services.  

Nor has Medicare been spared. Refugees and asylum-seeking immigrants who were on  Medicare no longer qualify. Other non-citizens were already barred from the program. 

HR-1’s proponents claimed the only people harmed by Medicaid cuts will be those who should not have been getting benefits in the first place—what were once referred to as the “undeserving poor. ” The new law requires that any adult under 65 who is not caring for young children must provide proof of working at least 80 hours a month to qualify for Medicaid, so long as their employers met the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.  

“Too onerous”

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, most people on Medicaid already work, but may find it “too onerous to demonstrate compliance” with the work requirement. The UC Berkeley Labor Center estimates that this could account for more than half the Californians expected to lose their MediCal coverage.  Their hours may fluctuate; they may be laid off temporarily or change jobs; they may be self-employed, or work for an employer who is unable or unwilling to provide the necessary documentation. The same illness that required access to Medicaid could also disqualify you from getting it, if it keeps you off work for any length of time. 

Work requirements don’t come cheap; one of the ironies of HR-1 is that the cost of implementing them could offset any savings from  throwing people off the rolls. Georgia is a case in point. Medicaid is jointly funded by state and federal governments, and one of the best features of the Affordable Care Act to make federal Medicaid dollars available for states  that cover people who make  up to 138% of the federal poverty level. Georgia took the money, but added a work requirement. As a result,  Pro Publica reports that “most of the tax dollars used to launch and implement the program have gone toward paying administrative costs rather than covering health care.”  Worse, many Georgians who complied with the work requirement still found their coverage terminated. 

The targets of HR-1

HR-1 targets those who benefited from expanded access to Medicaid—including 5 million Californians—in other ways. They are now required to reestablish their eligibility every six months. Every doctor’s visit requires  a $35 co-payment. In California, providers who will take them on as patients will likely become harder to find, since the state will no longer augment notoriously stingy Medicaid payments. And no one on Medicaid can count on being reimbursed if they get medical treatment more than a  month before their eligibility is confirmed.

More than any other group, Californias’s immigrants will feel the impact of the cuts;  here, the state must assume its share of the responsibility. California was the first state in the nation to grant MediCal eligibility without regard to immigration status. This did not come easy or happen overnight; it was the product of a protracted, step-by-step struggle to extend state funds to cover those denied access by the feds—first immigrant children, then Dreamers, finally all state residents, whether “legal” or not. 

This victory for immigrant rights is now in peril.  California has responded to lost federal health care dollars by barring any new enrollment in MediCal for undocumented adults. Those already enrolled must pay a $30 monthly premium. Even one missed payment gets you dropped from the program, with no opportunity to reenroll. In fact, leaving the program for any reason, even temporary, means you can’t get back in. Those who remain enrolled must now pay out of pocket for dental care.

A weapon in the war on immigrants

How is it that that a state that boasts the world’s fourth largest economy could allow access to health care to be used as a weapon in Donald Trump’s war on immigrants, all in the name of “austerity budgeting”? Much of the blame lies with the health care system itself. A plethora of profit-driven private insurance plans, coupled with various public programs that try to patch up the system’s holes, make rampant administrative waste and glaring inequities inevitable, while driving health care costs through the roof. 

The state legislature is already on record in favor of a “unified financing” system that provides comprehensive benefits and equal access for all Californians, at a projected savings of $158 billion a year. AB 1900, the latest attempt to adopt a single payer health plan in California, fleshes out what the system should look like.  But it is strictly a policy bill; effective financing for a truly comprehensive, universal health care system in the state would require federal waivers that aren’t likely to happen as long as Trump is in the White House. 

That doesn’t mean the money isn’t already there. It’s just that so much it is in the hands of people who are exempt from equitable taxation. That’s the rationale for the Billionaire’s Tax, a one-time 5 percent state tax on assets over $1 billion. It would affect only about 200 people, but would bring in enough money to offset all the federal revenue cuts from  HR-1. 

A second measure, to extend Proposition 55, the Education and Health Care Act of 2026, would make permanent an existing state tax on incomes in the top 2 percent’s brackets, due to expire in 2030. It wouldn’t bring in any new revenue, but it should prevent further cuts to cash-strapped public schools and colleges, and sets aside money as well for children’s health.

Both measures are currently collecting signatures for the November ballot and are endorsed by California DSA. On March 15, East Bay DSA created a Tax the Rich Working Group to get them on the ballot and work for their passage.

Neither measure represents a long-term solution to the health care crisis. They’re more like applying a tourniquet to a cut artery—a stopgap measure, to buy time until you can get the patient to a doctor. But without it, the patient could die. We can’t let that happen.

[Reprinted from Democratic Left]

Our ancestors in the labor movement fought for bread, but they fought for roses, too. This saying means that while we want subsistence, we also desire beauty.

As a union organizer and Silicon Valley DSA co-chair, I worked non-stop in 2025. Daily local fights just to earn my bread. Like many socialists, it was a joy to get to cheer on Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral campaign. Then I had a realization: Why do so from afar? Why not give myself a rose? So I decided I would pack my bags and canvas for Mamdani. After trouncing Andrew Cuomo in the primary election, he was almost sure to win. It would be beautiful, and I needed a chance to celebrate.

I felt so compelled because frankly, we don’t often win on the Left: Bernie’s losses, the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the destruction of Gaza had many feeling depleted. But every now and again? We get a long shot knockout.

A historic campaign
So here was the tale of the tape: On one side, a young, relatively green New York Assemblyman. A Muslim. An immigrant. A friggin’ Democratic Socialist. Just reeking of unelectability. On the other side, the most establishment Democrat who ever established: former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Zohran shouldn’t have stood a chance. But, despite smears of antisemitism, and the fact that Andrew Cuomo, a disgraced sex pest, was willing to ally with any Republican or billionaire with a checkbook, Zohran was able to organize a historic campaign. This campaign was built on real hope for working people and the mobilization of tens of thousands of volunteers.

On the ballot back home in Santa Clara County, there was Measure A, a ballot measure to raise $330 million for our public hospitals. I pushed for Silicon Valley DSA to endorse it. Campaigning for Measure A would be a strategic opportunity to build our chapter’s local notoriety and, of course, winning would be hugely meaningful in our community. Since I am a co-chair and I introduced the resolution for our endorsement, I was feeling a bit selfish leaving town so close to election day. Luckily, trusted comrades encouraged me to take the trip anyway. Those talks were roses for me.

In 2010, I had actually lived in Brooklyn. Returning on Saturday, November 1, 2025 was surreal. I roomed with a fascinating but cranky Russian woman named Merina, a 70-year-old immigrant who told me stories of isolation and despair, landlords who fixed nothing, and her past as an economist and poet. When I tried to talk to her about Zohran, she insisted that nothing could change and that Zohran and I were both naive. It reminded me of why his campaign, and his focus on the unvarnished details of working class life, was so empowering: because so many had lost hope. But in Zohran’s New York we all matter. Meeting Merina was a rose, even if she hated giving it to me.

How Zohran connected
The first canvas was Sunday in Park Slope. I got paired up with a first-time volunteer, a nurse practitioner. In my union, I represent similar workers and we bonded. Zohran connected with her because she sees how affordability impacts her patients. She was non-union and we talked about how she could change that. Our time together was a little rose.

That evening I got dinner with a DSA buddy from Portland who also made the pilgrimage. We hung with his friend, a popular drag king. While bar hopping we chatted everyone up about the election. When we hit a bar called Boobie Trap, we talked to a young couple who were making out all night. When they took a short break I interrupted to ask if they supported Zohran.The woman replied, “Do I look like I would vote for Cuomo?”

The last stop before bed was to hit the bodega. I chatted up three native Brooklynites about the election. One of them asked me, “So what exactly does it mean to freeze the rent?” Luckily, Zohran had been so detailed in explaining his platform, I felt I had the tools to explain. The guys said they would look into it. I don’t know if they did. But when I checked out, the shopkeeper confirmed he was voting for Zohran. Nice, bodega rose.

On Monday I had hopped over to New Jersey to canvas for Jake Ephros in his Jersey City city council race (he won). I hit the doors with a 22-year-old comrade named Mei. She wore a bluetooth boombox slung around her shoulder. For someone so young, she was quite insightful and dedicated. I did have to tell her not to play her boombox at the door though. 

A generous person, Mei drove me back into the city where we met up with my Portland comrade again and an old NYC friend. The four of us had a classic NYC Italian dining experience at Monte’s Trattoria and camaraderie was at an all-time high. Roses and “Fuggedaboutits” abounded.”

Tuesday, I had the surreal experience of canvassing in my old neighborhood, Bushwick. Last time I lived there Occupy Wall Street was happening. I did not participate at all. Times change. 

While waiting in line to get my precinct list, one of the volunteers wearing a red “DSA for Zohran” shirt pointed at me and insisted he knew me from somewhere. But how? As we shuffled through the line getting materials it dawned on both of us – we had attended some parties thrown by a mutual friend in San Francisco in 2023. Small world, big roses.

Beware shop talk
Once again, I was paired with a first-time volunteer. After we canvassed our last door, we ate lunch at a Palestinian restaurant called Ayat Bushwick. While sitting down, we ran into a handful of volunteers (including the one I had met in SF) and decided to all eat together. It didn’t take long before internal DSA politics took over the conversation. Finally, after a couple minutes of what was probably unintelligible shop talk, one of the volunteers bravely asked “So, what’s DSA?” Socialist record scratch.

This brave volunteer was a 28-year-old Dominican native New Yorker who had just been laid off. This ought to be our target demographic –— but she’s out here literally canvassing for Zohran and has no idea what DSA is. We’ve got so much work to do. A harsh reminder to not get lost in the red sauce. After lunch, those DSA members let me take a work call at their apartment. Rose and rose.

Finally, polls closed. There were big DSA election night parties scattered across the city. I couldn’t miss out. I went to 9 Bob Note, a wicked warehouse bar and club. Zohran felt larger than life at this point. When I finally got inside the energy was incredible. Will Menaker from Chapo Trap House was there and I got to say hello. Also there were Yung Chomsky and Brace Belden from the TrueAnon podcast: the DSA equivalent of a Hollywood after-party! Plus I kept running into people I had met on the trip. The drag king! My Portland comrade I didn’t even expect to be there! Ara, one of the NYC-DSA staff! It was like the end of Wizard of Oz: “And you were there, and you were there.”

The moment we were all waiting for was fast approaching. By then, many of us had crowded tightly into the dance floor area of the event space. There were a few hosts there to get us hyped up. And then it happens: Zohran is announced the winner. The mayor-elect sign flashes on the big screen. The building erupts. Incredible. 

This felt like a peak in my socialist career. Crammed in with hundreds of other comrades, most of whom I am sure worked a lot more on this campaign than I did, cheering, crying, hugging strangers. No kidding, I did a 360° and the makeout couple from Boobie Trap was standing behind me! We high fived. Roses could have fallen from the ceiling.

Eventually a group of us moseyed over to another Zohran party at Starr Bar where more comrades abounded. It really felt like you couldn’t go anywhere to escape the specter of “Mammunism”. We laughed, we drank, we danced and a 25-year-old told me I was “Old as fuck.” That rose was a little wilted but I still liked it.

Different world
During my final day I made an emotional visit to my old apartment from fifteen years prior. The street itself wasn’t that different, but my understanding of the world was. I sat down in a pizza shop and reflected on my experience and how far I have come.

I am fortunate I have the means for a trip like this. Most do not. Traveling introduced me to so many wonderful people all struggling for their bread and their roses. So many were generous and kind. Their faces lit up when I told them I had come all the way from California to help. And I have so many lessons to bring back to apply in Silicon Valley. 

And now I think about how far we have all come. DSA, the Left and the working-people living in this era of capitalism. More and more are waking up. More and more are hungry for change, hungry for the bread we deserve. The socialist future is ahead of us. Maybe you can’t see it yet. But close your eyes. Breathe it in. Do you smell that? That’s the rose.

(Fallujah, 2004; Minsk, 1942)

Barbara Epstein tells this story in her book about the Minsk ghetto

There is smoke on the horizon
but the fire is far away.
From here, we can’t hear the explosions.
We see the ruined houses only on TV 
but the fat man who works at the Post Office can’t quit smoking this year
because his son is in Fallujah.

Who can explain what is going on?
Is this worse than what has happened before?

In Minsk, in 1942, the Nazis occupied the city.
The Communist leadership had fled east to Moscow, abandoning the city, disbanding the Party.
There were therefore officially no Communists in Minsk.
Citizens, by which we mean Jews and non-Jews, Byelorussians, could not believe that no leadership had been left behind and authorized to organize a resistance.

At first they waited, expecting to be contacted.
Eventually, they formed their own underground, naming it, out of respect, 
the Second City Committee, in case a First Committee came forward.

Nothing came forward. 
The Second Committee saved thousands, Jews and non-Jews, 
transporting them to the partisan units in the forests to the east.

But this is the lesson: No one came forward. Nothing came forward.
They waited, and eventually formed their own committee.

The forever war by socialists and other progressives continues against the ruling corporate wing of the Democratic Party. 

The latest battles were fought at the more-or-less annual state party convention in San Francisco in February, which focused on 1) endorsements in legislative and statewide races; and 2) the party platform for the next two years. 

The endorsements rarely involve close contests in more than one or two races, but this year, as an elected delegate from Sacramento County I received a huge number of mailers and calls over the preceding weeks from candidates for open statewide offices – governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, insurance commissioner and superintendent of public education.  (Incumbents sailed through for attorney general, controller, secretary of state.)

62 candidates for governor

The race for governor comprises 62 candidates, mostly unknowns, from many parties or no party. Ten are generally considered serious by mainstream media – and recent polls indicate that most likely to advance to November’s general election are the two Republicans among them, with about 15 percent each, not much but well ahead of several Democrats at around 10 percent. With June 2 fast approaching, none of the eight top Democrats is blinking, despite pressure from party leadership on those polling poorly to drop out. Ironically, even if a few did it might not make much difference unless voters consolidate in backing one of the Dems. There’s no sign of it yet. 

A lot of folks are also taking a curious look at Tom Steyer, the self-funded billionaire who is ostensibly renouncing his past and repurposing his riches for a couple of decades, while embracing progressive positions on multiple issues. Another enticing aspect of his candidacy is that unlike all the other Democrats, he seems notably unbeholden to the party heavies. His answers to my questions about Palestine at the convention and at a recent Sacramento town hall were sympathetic but not well-informed. (When I offered to meet with him together with a Palestinian comrade he publicly accepted and staff rushed to take my contact information. We’ll see.)

The irony of a Republican governor with a Democratic supermajority in the Legislature could make for pundit heaven. It might highlight a stark contrast between relative progressives who manage to pass some decent bills and centrists who use the “impropriety” of refusing to override gubernatorial vetoes to maintain the status quo.

Meanwhile, the most well-known non-duopoly candidate, Green Party’s Butch Ware, is going to court to fight for his ballot spot after being disqualified over a technicality.

The possibility cast a pall over the convention; panic had not yet set in, and maybe it will still somehow be avoided. 

Several candidates did better among delegates than in voter polls, but no one came close to the 60 percent needed for official party endorsement. The same held for all the other contested statewide posts, all with multiple candidates. It’s unusual to behold such division in the party, perhaps in part reflecting increasingly large ideological differences, but also the smell of opportunity with Republican prospects seemingly tanking – though surveys show the Democratic Party less popular than almost ever.

Amid the chaos, progressive entities at the convention were not in a position (or not allowed) to make endorsements in these contests, but several candidates made positive impressions: California DSA-endorsed Oliver Ma for lieutenant governor (not on the party ballot due to late entry but very present), Jane Kim for insurance commissioner (came in a close second), and Nichelle Hengerson for superintendent of public instruction (topped a field crowded with several more well-known, termed-out legislators).

Most state legislative and congressional race endorsements were settled or ruled out before the convention at “pre-endorsement” conferences where local delegates and some others could vote for candidates in their districts. But in several cases, the results enabled further voting in San Francisco. And one – the seventh district (disclosure: where I mounted a last-minute campaign in 2024 against incumbent Doris Matsui due to her refusal to meet opponents of the Gaza genocide or call for a ceasefire back when that meant something) – had some real drama. 

DSA-backed congressional candidate denied endorsement

DSA-endorsed Mai Vang, a Sacramento city councilor, won enough support in the local process to force a further caucus at the convention – itself an extremely rare occurrence. Countering were 1) re-appointment of a number of loyalists as “delegates” in the district by party chiefs and Matsui’s fellow Congress members, a legal but despised maneuver; and 2) the sudden appearance of Nancy Pelosi and two other congressional colleagues at the caucus, meant to comprise delegates from the district. Votes are recorded and made public. It’s widely assumed that some were made under presumed fear of consequences had they voted for Vang.

The result: Vang fell one vote short of what would have enabled her to collect delegate signatures to force a full vote of the entire convention on the last day. In my 12 years as a delegate, I’ve seen that happen exactly once – and it was successful.

It was not to be, but as the Sacramento DSA chapter and many others mobilize, we know the vote that will count is still to come – on June 2. A top-two finish will take it to November. The race includes no other progressives. Beating an incumbent is tough under the best of circumstances, but two relatively unknown Republicans could conceivably split the MAGA vote and enable Mai to advance.

Contention on Palestine 

More drama occurred over the party platform. In a comparatively open process, the committee responsible heard testimony and received written proposals from many delegates on a plethora of issues. But it also declared its intent to shorten the 40+ page prior document and make it more of a statement of principles with fewer specific policy planks. 

A December draft did that, but to a minor degree, and progressives were not surprised that many of the deleted sections were among those they had successfully achieved in the recent past. A backlash ensued on a number of environmental issues, Native American matters and anti-corruption principles. There was a short-lived campaign of unknown origin, rife with speculation, to vote the whole platform down. But it petered out, and advocates succeeded in having much of what they wanted restored.

Most contentious, unsurprisingly, were sections on Palestine and Israel, in which I was actively involved. Hundreds of delegates and other Democrats signed a set of amendments we proposed accurately describing and calling for party opposition to genocide in Gaza, escalating settler/military violence on the West Bank – and for a freezing of arms transfers to Israel. Some improved language – see the final platform – came out of negotiation between leaders of Democrats for Justice in Palestine (see the previous California Red report on its founding) and the head of Democrats for Israel (recently renamed “Jewish Democrats,” offensive to those of us whom it describes but absolutely doesn’t represent). 

In an underhanded move, an outside Israel lobby official was allowed to plead with the committee to abandon the initial compromise, and a somewhat worse one eventually emerged – but still better than the previous platform and the committee’s original proposal, which would have deleted a nod, in generic terms, to various elements of international law, including people’s right to leave and return to their country, and condemned genocide – again generically, without mentioning Gaza. But it does describe the horrors that have occurred there. 

Especially grating to supporters of Palestine is the retention of language supporting a “secure, democratic Jewish state” and upholding the “two-state solution” mantra. The next chance to seek change will come in 2028. Meanwhile, it’s both exasperating and reassuring that elected Democrats are not even required to read the platform, let alone follow it in their legislative or executive pursuits.