By: Travis Wayne

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not represent the official position of Working Mass.

Build the branch to build the party.

“The party” has as many definitions as there are blades of grass. Each tendency and caucus tends to imbue “the party” with its own nuances, its own emphases. Substantial disagreements on the party form plague every single socialist movement, in every era, but the “party” itself doesn’t tend to particularly care about definitions – in fits and starts, in battle, the party splutters into existence as a self-organized vehicle the working class discovers on its own all over again. Its definition and its program are fluid products of the struggle in flux. In many but not all cities and towns across the United States, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has emerged as the mass organization that acts increasingly most like the party. Our numbers swell with each victory we win and each defeat the working class suffers.

The party forms in our collective hands, but our hands are diverse. Allende’s children sit alongside Harnecker’s on steering committees and ecosocialists share unions with anarchists. We’ve gotten about half of what Seth Ackerman’s Blueprint for a New Party advocated for in building the party surrogate – a party-like structure with no ballot line. But caucuses have different visions for the party of the future. To some, the party surrogate is the indefinite road of DSA’s success. Others prefer a clean break and independent ballot line. Others hold up the vision of the mass party, brought down from Kautsky and the RSDLP and Partido Ortodoxo, in which socialist organization is built within. For example, in 2021, now-NPC member Cliff Connolly of the Marxist Unity Group wrote that the party must “win political hegemony in whatever independent organs of proletarian power that we help build, using every available means,” by building “the local chapters of the mass party work together on a common, democratically agreed-upon plan.” In 2024, meanwhile, Bread and Roses’ Elizabeth Brown described a vision of a socialist labor party as one where we act as the political center for a wider affiliation network of “class organizations” built through a dirty break from Democratic control once there is a base for the break. Reform and Revolution counters this strategy by calling for “A Socialist Party in Years, Not Decades.”

The 2025 DSA Convention, the highest-body of the largest socialist organization, chose instead to only endorse R07: Principles for Party-Building: “The fundamental purpose of a socialist party is to be a mass association of the working class formed for collective political action.” DSA is the party surrogate, for now, but what matters more than the ballot line is “our ability to take independent political action” with “local party organizations run by membership.”

In Boston today, I argue that these agreed-upon principles can be best honored through branch-building. Branch-building means organizing local party appendages closest to sites of struggle and connected to working class self-activity. That can include the industrial section, the labor or tenant union caucus, the neighborhood. Building branches closest to sites of struggle is how we ensure branches actually function as “local party organizations,” organically connected to the political arenas of everyday life where oppression is experienced and protagonism grown, while developing the layer of new members themselves to make those branches “run by membership.” Since many of Boston’s new members are entering into organization at the local layer, we can organize the party best by meeting them where they enter – the local. At the point of entry, new members can best be nurtured into core members by becoming protagonists: members, decision-makers, organizers in an organization of organizers.

Some have called the strategy of building the branch “decentralization.” Rather than detracting from building Boston DSA, branch-building lets us organize deeper into the lives and terrains of the working class. Branches connect people to the working class’s self-activity most closely because branches can prioritize lived experiences of oppression experienced in the workplace, the home, the community more effectively than chapter apparatuses tasked with dozens of other priorities for meetings, while also building the confidence of new members into leadership. Members can wield power, strategize, and campaign as a collective, learning collective lessons within one unit of the party itself. Branches can be incubators of member leadership for the party and also serve as healing grounds for party leaders to recuperate from burnout. The branch is a sign of vitality, not weakness. Instead of purposeless decentralization, as some allege, branch-building strengthens the sinew of the party itself.

Without these bridges to working class self-activity, there is no party at all.

From Neighborhood Groups to Branches 

Call it a local, call it a branch – the party needs bridging organizations. 

The local party appendage closest to sites of struggle acts as the conscious bridge between the party and the self-activity of the working class – the struggles below. Sometimes, the chapter can do this, especially if it serves a small area or when the political center of the chapter and the chapter itself are synonymous, as in small chapters or in locals with fifty or fewer active members. In those cases, chapters may be “branches.”

In Boston DSA, branches can only be organized as organic projects of the membership surges and self-organization of the membership. Since new members have started organizing neighborhoods, conscious efforts to build the party from those formations is branch-building. Since November 2024, new members have infused new energy into eleven “neighborhood groups” (the bureaucratic classification that separates them from working groups) across the Greater Boston area, with active formations of members in Cambridge, Somerville, Allston-Brighton, Arlington, East Boston, Jamaica Plain, Malden, Medford, Merrimack Valley, South Shore, and North Shore. Each has different projects, different profiles, different silos. Since new members began participating in Boston DSA in neighborhoods, core and active members also began in greater numbers. Some caucuses, like Bread and Roses, have made organizing the neighborhood groups a key priority enough to run as a slate on their development during local convention. A chapter co-chair candidate has also campaigned on developing the same layer – illustrating cross-caucus, multitendency recognition.

“Branches” don’t need to exist on paper to exist in practice; we can organize by people, not by resolution. Neighborhood groups are informal and vary in level of activity, according to the bylaws, which means some neighborhood groups are branches and some aren’t. Neighborhood groups are not automatically branches of the party because neighborhood groups do not automatically connect members to working class self-activity. 

A neighborhood group is a bureaucratic category that isn’t a working group; in Boston, a branch is a conscious political project to organize a functioning appendage of the party connected and intervening as an “independent political force” in sites of struggle. A neighborhood group can be passive; a branch must be active. Most obviously, a branch is more than a neighborhood group because it encompasses more neighborhoods – consciously building the party deeper and more local to everyday working and oppressed people’s lives.

In arguing for building the branch to build the party, I will use Somerville as a case study. I moved to Boston in August 2024, became active in Somerville DSA in November 2024, and have co-chaired since February 2025. 

Somerville represents one path to branch-building, but not the only one. 

The Branch as Local Party Organization

Like the party, the branch must be multitendency and shared by the movement.

Last winter, Somerville DSA had an active membership of fifteen members. Now, we have over seventy active members participating in party activity as recorded by listwork. At the beginning, administrative items were traded between core members saddled with significant chapter-level duties that ensured local work always took a backseat. An election led to a slide towards fascism. Then, new members began to show up – until active membership was largely newly-activated, including me and other members, who began to organize the branch.

First, we organized intentionally multitendency. While other working groups may have become caucus fiefdoms and subject to a winner-takes-all political culture that undermined solidarity, we sought to build Somerville to maximize the participation of as many members as possible across all tendencies. First, membership passed a resolution for formal neighborhood leadership to place administrative burden into the hands of elected leadership instead of branch membership. This immediately built ownership among a new core team over the key important cogs of the branch functions, including regular flyering, listwork, intentional agenda-setting, and a maximalist approach to turnout. Established also was the expectation that branch leaders were responsible for these items or to find someone to do these items – building up another layer of member leadership, beyond what may pass as an organizing committee – as a baseline and foundation of our leadership. Administrative clarity creates space for greater participation of members, which leads to both a more robust internal democracy, as well as more member leadership energizing that democracy. Party-building was understood from the beginning as the essential core responsibilities of member leaders.

In Somerville, we elected two co-chairs, one secretary, one moderator (tasked with liaising with the Harassment and Grievance Officers, as well as maintaining accessibility for all members), and one internal organizer (tasked with turnout and onboarding). This structure would then be adapted a few months later by the other largest branch in Boston DSA: Cambridge. Members of the Communist Caucus, Bread and Roses Caucus, and independent new members have all shared leadership in Somerville since our self-organization, working together to set agendas and improve meetings, developing new strategies to maximize turnout over monthly potlucks. We conducted one-on-ones with other new members to become priority campaign stewards, a framework adapted from Las Vegas DSA, where specific member leaders are responsible for bottomlining the branch’s priority campaigns. New members have become priority campaign stewards and also become active in other parts of the Boston DSA chapter by first developing into member leaders as priority campaign stewards. These include members from across the ideological spectrum, from the aforementioned caucuses to Boston DSA’s internal “Conifer” alliance to independent cultural organizers. Active membership shaping the branch, meanwhile, includes organizers from the Libertarian Socialist Caucus and Red Line. Already, the branch has served a role as the local party apparatus capable of building up new organizers across the ideological spectrum to build both the broader party and class organizations in sites of struggle.

This constant focus on building up member leadership is in line with the framework of Antonio Gramsci when the founder of the Italian Communist Party called for “a continual insertion of elements thrown up from the rank and file into the solid framework of the leadership apparatus which ensures continuity and the regular accumulation of experience.” Beyond the branch’s multitendency nature, branch-building can be party-building also through articulation. In the words of Salar Mohandesi, “the primary task of the party is not actually to create social forces, but rather to facilitate their coming together into a broader unity.” The working class self-organizes in a turbulent below, an underbelly of capitalism that eats at our will and seeks to disorganize us in racial and gendered and intersectional ways, so its formations are as “fluid, unstable, personal” as Mario Tronti described the class struggle itself. Rent goes up and markets crash. Some unions win recognition from the state and some don’t; some people organize in workplaces, some in buildings, some in community spaces. Union reform caucuses rise and fold. News stories change and people pivot. The democratic socialist party press has received some investment and Working Mass continues to grow its subscriber base, but the majority of members do not have a reliable finger on the pulse of the fractured and disorganized conjuncture: what Maria Poblet describes as “a combination of circumstances or events usually producing a crisis, long or short-term, relating most to the short- and medium-term interventions.”

Branches of the party are uniquely capable of strategizing across all terrains within one set turf, all of the circumstances or events that may produce a crisis in the local area where the branch organizes, but only through the conscious political organization of the branch. 

In Somerville DSA, we first sought to strategize by power-mapping. We did that for two meetings. Now, we incorporate “updates from the working class” into the top of every branch meeting agenda. This is intentional. Last month, updates included reports from the strike of sanitation workers rocking the North Shore, concessions workers’ striking at Fenway Park for the first time in 113 years, contract fights by the local teachers union, and information from the eviction defense in Nubian Square by the Greater Boston Tenants Union. Members heard reports and asked questions. This month, we did the same. This month, in August 2025, members discussed the Hamilton Tenants Association rally against their landlord, Somerville 4 Palestine’s ballot initiative to divest the city, and a report from a conversation with a representative of Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL), a mass socialist and democratic party in Brazil. This structure of updates provides a space for members to literally engage with updates from across working class self-activity in the area, including Marx’s famous dress rehearsals for revolution in strike updates, coming collectively to understand what’s happening and through that process to report to one another on these struggles – to study them, on each other’s behalf, for one another. We aim to ask members to give reports with a particular focus on strategically asking members who have not stepped up as leaders before, to facilitate that end. Through these asks, we build up more ownership over the branch – the party.

But reports are not enough. The point of talking about what’s happening is to intervene in what’s happening. We analyze updates from the working class in Somerville to participate in struggles in Somerville. And since the branch can prioritize time for discussions not only of working class self-activity but also its own collective projects, its own interventions, the branch can bridge the party to the working class and vice versa. In other words, Boston DSA branches can become vehicles themselves, but also vehicles for members to become organizers, which bridges new members directly to working class self-activity. The branch facilitates both ways.

The branch, as a unit of the party, seeks to constantly engage with the turbulent self-activity of the working class because it’s a necessary if insufficient ingredient to actually articulate local struggles into a broader unity – the historic role and power of the party. “Some of these social forces may be working independently towards alliances, but their coming together is not inevitable, and in most cases efforts to coalesce will end in failure,” Salar Mohandesi continues: “But through the party, then, acts as a kind of binding element, trying to find a way to bring together diverse social forces, and to help them stay together, despite the many tendencies pulling them apart.” As a binding element, it can ultimately become undone. Just because a party branch exists does not mean it continues to be a party branch.

But effective branch-building doesn’t stop at conjunctural analysis or direct connection in struggle as a means to develop members as organizers. We also need branch-building as a means of creating the local vehicle for “independent political action,” just as agreed upon in the Principles for Party-Building passed by the 2025 DSA Convention.

The Branch as Laboratory

Independent political action is developed in the laboratories of the working class. 

The working class, in building its party, must try things to gain confidence. Our own collective capacity for risk is a direct result of trying things together. We cannot take on projects capable of changing material conditions, of intervening as an independent political force as the party must, without first learning what works and what doesn’t together – and earning trust through praxis. That does not happen automatically and it does not automatically pass down with lineage. Instead, trust must be relearned, relationship by relationship, year by year. And we can do this doubly effectively by creating the base layer parallel to the center, because the branch doesn’t just exist in neutral parallel to the center – it reinforces it.

In Somerville DSA, we adopted a one-for-one proposal as a unanimous membership of nearly fifty of the then-sixty three active members of the branch. Somerville would adopt one external priority campaign, one internal priority campaign. Campaigns would need to be renewed every six months by proposal and vote of membership. Choosing priorities forces membership to grow and, by making collective decisions, becomes a collective conscious of its own power. This collective-making process not only built consensus across conflict lines in Somerville; it also created ownership. Even when proposals failed, openly encouraging and building new members to make proposals increased their confidence in the short-term and participation in the branch in the long-term even in the first round following the passage of the resolution. Ownership over the branch increased. The democratic process of choosing a priority, of debating between proposals, let members feel and then claim ownership.

Membership proposed multiple proposals for both the external and internal priorities of the branch. Participation was at its highest during the meeting of the debate. Ultimately, members chose to prioritize electing a cadre democratic socialist and branch member Willie Burnley, Jr. as mayor of Somerville, while our internal priority campaign became a combination of two proposals that blended together organizing training, socials, and political education. Another proposed external priority campaign would have charted us to fundraise to forgive the medical debt of local residents. The debate between these proposed priority campaigns underscores the breadth of possibility available to a branch becoming a vehicle for independent political action in the external priority campaign. Other priority campaigns could include strike support, building a community-wide strike committee, an ICE watch operation, an eviction defense operation in partnership with a local tenants’ union, a local No Appetite for Apartheid initiative to build a base of apartheid-free stores, or a local ballot initiative for socialist policy. Through the one-for-one structure, the process of rigorous and open debate to choose only one priority per sphere produced two collective projects shared across tendencies in the Somerville branch. 

Even more importantly, though, the one-for-one structure of renewal every six months ensured that the branch became a laboratory for working class experimentation. Proposals are created by members working together, which after meetings involving conjunctural analysis of the moment each month, inherently involve the process of collective strategizing on behalf of the branch even to make a proposal. Developing winnable collective campaigns within the capacity of a group is an inherently good skill to develop as a member of Boston DSA. Key also is the six month term. The campaign must be time-limited, not only to make it winnable, but to ensure that the collective can remain coherently organized. It’s easier to contribute to a project even when your favorite one fails when you can try again in the fall. 

The product of collective choice is member leadership. The process of choosing priority campaigns can be cultivated by branch leaders, but engaging members as fully as possible in the process of the choice itself can turn new members further into organizers. When members feel like they themselves can shape the future of the branch’s activities, they are more likely to continue to contribute to the party. By organizing new members at the layer closest to sites of struggle and orienting the party branch around those sites of struggle, we can most effectively build those members into organizers in the workplace, the home, the community – participants in the struggle itself. Already, in Somerville, this is clear – not only do Somerville members regularly attend tenant union eviction defenses and participate in strike support, they also sign up for tenant organizing trainings, workplace organizer cohorts, and practices for systematic one-on-one structured organizing conversations.

This member leadership element of organizing the branch into a local vehicle for “independent political action” is key. The branch is our membership, no more or less. We are as powerful as our members, collectively. As a result, learning how to leverage the maximum power of our collective is key to becoming an independent political force. The process itself is transformative. While the primary product is member leadership, one byproduct of building the branch as the party is the seismic force of a tightly-organized party cell in the wider community. At its most formidable, the branch is a “mountain,” party cells that “[loom] large and formidable over their region… [where the] development of the party as a governing institution required that these “mountaintops” would subordinate themselves to the work of the party as a whole.” By avoiding mountaintopism, the branch builds the party and avoids decentralization by nurturing organizers into the collective force we are capable of together.

The creation of powerful “mountains” is the byproduct of branch-building, but the power of that force in the bourgeois political system cannot be understated. In Somerville, one comrade who participates in branch-building wondered whether an end result of our strategy would be a socialist version of Boston’s old Irish ward system. Martin Lomasney, once-boss of the West End, used to run the ward with iron power: “his organization was broken down so that he had a competent leader in every precinct. That leader had a dozen lieutenants… It was the job of each to see to it that every voter on his street went to the polls on election day and, what was more important, voted for the Lomasney candidates.”

It’s true that a byproduct of branch-building may be the lattices of an electoral machine that closely resembles the Lomasney presence – especially since our first external priority campaign, in Somerville, has been an electoral campaign. We have canvassers at doors or calling voters most days of the week, overseen by three priority campaign stewards, connected both to the Electoral Working Group and the campaign. But by connecting to the turbulent and oceanic power of the working class from and beyond the more limited political horizons possible through diasporic community organizing, the branch connects to even greater sources of power. Electoral campaigns end but the branch remains. And instead of top-down patronage systems dominated by patriarchal white men, the branches can be organic and dynamic outgrowths of empowered memberships developing new organizers from members returning to their workplaces and their buildings and their communities to fight. 

The potential power of branch-building far surpasses the political power of the old machines that ruled Boston for more than half a century.

The Branch as Party 

There are plenty of contours of the party question to debate. But every conception of the party is strengthened by a layer of party organization that bridges the central party to working class self-activity, training new organizers who can become not only effective members of the party, but effective protagonists of their own struggles. The branch can serve as the local party organization and the laboratory of the working class, a site of political experimentation closest to where exploitation is both experienced and can be politicized in collective action. And while in Boston, the branch is a conscious political project that can be organized from the neighborhood groups, the “branch” is not unique to Boston. Anywhere there is a unit of a few dozen members who can connect to the working class can form a bridge between the party and the turbulence below through following a branch-building strategy. 

There are other aspects of branch-building as party-building that there isn’t time to explore here. One is how the branch is uniquely suited to house cultural organizing. Socials happen at the local level; this is why socials are a key part of Somerville DSA’s first internal priority campaign. More generally, in the process of organizing the party, NYC-DSA and Triangle DSA and DSA chapters in New Jersey, along with countless other chapters, all discovered the need for cultural organizing. There are running clubs and dating clubs in New York City; in the Triangle, members form hiking associations and crafting formations; in Boston DSA, members meet to play basketball under the team name “United We Dunk” regularly.

But realizing branch-building unlocks new terrains for political experimentation, a laboratory for members to try things together, also means embracing the branch as a site of political imagination. Building branches, if undertaken across the city of Greater Boston, has a destination. Imagine: every part of Boston, each with a branch of the party. From Somerville to Roxbury, from Jamaica Plain to Cambridge, from Allston-Brighton to the South Shore – each home to a machine of localized “independent political action” driven by members, which means internal democracies with robust and participatory worlds, training workers and tenants into organizers of the party and of mass organizations: the labor unions, the tenant unions, the assemblies and the neighborhood councils. That is a vision of socialist and mass struggle merged into one. The branches, tightly-organized, each may have their own flavor, their own identity, informed by the social forces they articulate. Some may work on electoral interventions, others on fighting gentrification. Over time, the branches may begin fundraising projects for party offices. Party offices could grow across the city, one for every district, one for every neighborhood. That is a vision of a party not dissimilar from the workers’ parties around the world, with corner offices embedded deep inside the neighborhoods of the urban landscape.

These are examples of different horizons. Each belongs to membership to explore – or not. The branch is a conscious project of party-building, which means it can only exist through members breathing life into its vision. But that’s no different from other parts of the party. DSA is nothing but its members, which is no different from the branch. And when we think of “Principles of Party-building,” we need to take seriously how we can best pursue that goal as a mass organization at the most hyper-local levels of disorganization.

It may not be the only road, nor the only one necessary to accomplish the goal of party-building, but it is certainly an important one: build the branch to build the party.

Travis Wayne is the deputy managing editor of Working Mass and co-chair of the Somerville branch of Boston DSA.

The post OPINION: 2025 DSA Convention – Build the Branch, Build the Party appeared first on Working Mass.

The power of collective change begins at local elections. In the upcoming 2026 California Primary Election there are over 50 elected official seats on the ballot and DSA-VC seeks members who are interested in running for the below offices (table).

DSA-VC will be closely following the incumbent announcements, delegates, and campaigns. Look for the official DSA-VC 2026 Voter Guide in July 2026.

Are you interested in running for office or joining the DSA-VC Electoral Committee?

Send us an email here!

2026 California Primary Election Deadlines

January 22, 2026. Last day for propositions to qualify to appear on the ballot
February 9 – March 6, 2026. Declaration of Candidacy and Nomination Paper Period
March 6, 2026. Deadline for California statewide primary candidate filing
March 26, 2026. Certified List of Candidates for the June 2, 2026, Primary Election will be posted

2026 California Primary Dates – Voters

• The last day to register to vote for the June 2, 2026, Primary Election is May 18, 2026.
• All California active registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot for the June 2, 2026, Primary Election.
• Your county elections office will begin mailing ballots by May 4, 2026.
• Ballot drop-off locations open on May 5, 2026.
• Vote-by-mail ballots can be returned by mail, at a drop-off location, or your county elections office.
• Vote centers open for early in-person voting in all Voter’s Choice Act counties beginning on May 23, 2026.
• Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by June 9, 2026.

Looking to become active in DSA-VC? Come help table at our county college campuses for the 2025-2026 school year.

By: Jane Slaughter

Besides decision-making debates, the national DSA convention also offered educational workshops, such as how to organize your workplace, starting a local Amazon campaign, and “International Songs of Struggle.” I spoke on a panel titled “Lessons from the Lean Years.”

Almost all current DSA members have joined the socialist movement since DSA began its big surge in numbers in 2016. The idea of the workshop was to talk about how socialists had operated and survived when the organized left was much smaller, and share some lessons.

The other panelists were Chris Maisano of NYC-DSA, who’d been a DSA member back when it was small, and Todd Chretien, co-chair of Maine DSA, who’d belonged to the International Socialist Organization (ISO) for decades. I belonged to the New American Movement of the early 1970s, the International Socialists (IS) starting in 1974, and then Solidarity, before joining DSA in 2018.

The two big takeaways I got from the well-attended workshop were, on the surface, contradictory, but not really.

Todd stressed that a socialist organization has to be flexible enough to adapt when reality changes. The ISO had always had non-participation in the Democratic Party as a core principle, seeing it (correctly IMO) as a “graveyard of social movements,” leading the civil rights and feminist and other movements into mainstream dead-ends.

Then Bernie Sanders — always and still an Independent — ran for President as a Democrat in 2016. Hundreds of thousands of people were energized by Bernie’s self-described democratic socialism, and tens of thousands of them joined DSA. The Democratic Party hadn’t changed its nature, but something had decidedly changed. DSA was there to take advantage of the moment.

The ISO couldn’t handle it. The organization couldn’t deal with the idea that anything positive could come out of running in the DP. I can imagine the internal debates. At a mass conference call in March 2019, members voted to dissolve.

YES, BUT

The other takeaway from the workshop is the need to stand by your principles even when the world is changing. The example I gave comes from the labor movement.

Members of the IS had founded a newsletter called Labor Notes in early 1979, intended to bring together different rank-and-file movements in unions, from wildcatting coal miners to Teamsters and auto workers battling their own leaderships. Labor Notes was always intended to be a broad, nonsectarian publication, with participation from anyone who agreed. The politics were clear, and came from a socialist understanding of unions and class struggle: an injury to one is an injury to all; unions exist to fight the bosses; and members should own their unions to make that happen.

Then, just 10 months later, the ground shifted under the labor movement. Chrysler Corp. asked the UAW for contract givebacks — and the union leaders said yes. Today these corporate demands are commonplace, but at the time, it was a shock. Union members had assumed, correctly, that their contracts would get better each year — not that they would ever go backward. Other companies quickly took up the demand for concessions, aided by the recession brewing. It was an employers’ offensive. Movements sprung up in various unions to resist the concessions that union leaders — who considered themselves far-sighted — were pressing on members.

At the same time that companies were demanding concessions, they were also proposing “labor-management cooperation”: “We’re sorry, workers, that we didn’t value your brains in the past; now we want your ideas for how to make the company run better — it’ll be win-win.” Quality of Work Life programs and quality circles were set up everywhere, with the UAW leading the way.

The mainstream media, practically all top-level union leaders, and some sections of the left all promoted the idea that workers should give concessions on pay and working conditions in exchange for “a say” in shop floor governance. “New power for workers!,” they promised. Believe me, that “say” never amounted to anything more than getting off the assembly line occasionally to sit in a circle with supervisors and decide how to do the work of six “team members” with five.

Today, management doesn’t bother to pretend that it cares about workers (unless there’s a union drive). But in the 1980s, the ideology of labor-management cooperation and the “team concept” was everywhere.

A DISSENTING VOICE

Guided by its founders’ socialist politics, Labor Notes held firm: the working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There’s no win-win — anything we gain is a loss for the bosses, and anything we give up helps the boss’s bottom line.

Labor Notes analyzed in detail the psychological tricks the new programs used to disarm union members. We held conferences and workshops and published books about fighting concessions and cooperation; thousands of workers credit these with helping them understand the onslaught and what to do about it.

Reaffirming union and socialist principles when all around us were losing their heads put Labor Notes on the map within the labor movement. The politics was, of course, combined with practical steps to take. And this same combination of socialist labor politics with how-to has continued at Labor Notes to this day.

After the workshop, throughout the weekend, people came up to me to say how much they’d gotten out of it. Firm class principles + flexibility and intelligence to meet the moment — that’s Marxism!

Surviving the Left’s Lean Years was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We had an absolutely fantastic time with our comrades at the 2025 DSA National Convention! Many of our Steering Committee members were serving as delegates for their chapters so we were able to catch up in person – some of us meeting IRL for the first time!

And of course – we have news to share with you regarding the direction of DSA’s national electoral work as determined by Convention as well as updates from our Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash fundraising project!

For the NEC, Convention kicked off with us hosting an electoral-themed social on Thursday night, where participants were invited to make buttons of their favorite nationally-endorsed DSA candidates and partook in a get-to-know-you BINGO as they mingled with our candidates and electeds. The activity prompted people to meet comrades from chapters running campaigns with national endorsement, socialize with people who serve on their chapter’s electoral working groups, and connect with comrades from a variety of chapter sizes. Participants received an NEC bucket hat!

Electoral Workshop Results

On Friday, we hosted an electoral workshop to an overflowing room of participants!

At the NEC workshop, we had attendees complete an Electoral Program Report Card where they graded their chapter’s programs according to a variety of pillars of our electoral work (endorsements, leadership development, SIO work, etc.). We got 96 responses, which provided the NEC with an unprecedented look into our chapters’ electoral programs across the country. 

The Steering Committee is pouring over the responses and will share a summary of our findings once we complete it.

Missed the workshop and want to grade your own electoral program? Check out our slides and then fill out your report card.

We also had great conversations at our table – leading to 38 applications being submitted by DSA members wishing to join the NEC. 

Electoral-Related Resolutions & Amendments Passed at Convention

This convention was a pivotal one for the future of our electoral work! Check out the following resolutions which will change the course of our electoral strategy both locally and nationally.

• NEC Consensus Resolution: This resolution sets a new course for our national and local electoral work, including running candidates on independent ballot lines, updating our national endorsement criteria, creating a national socialists in office network, and issuing best endorsement practices recommendations for locals.
• Towards Deliberative Federal Endorsements: This amendment to the consensus resolution updates our federal endorsement criteria, requiring Q&As with federal candidates and more deliberation prior to endorsement.
• Carnation Program Amendment to NEC Resolution: This amendment to the consensus resolution sets a goal of running 5 candidates for Congress in 2028 running on a platform of 5 priority issues, including ending U.S. militarism, Medicare for All, and more.
• Invest in Cadre Candidates and Political Independence: This amendment to the consensus resolution commits to prioritizing running more cadre candidates at the local level, expanding the NEC’s fundraising efforts, and increasing staff capacity to support NEC.

Next Steps

We’re very excited to begin implementing these mandates from convention, including our very own NEC Consensus Resolution. If you want to help out with this important work, please join the next all-member NEC call, or if you’re not a member apply to join the NEC!

Nationally-Endorsed Slate Fundraising at Convention

National Convention was the perfect opportunity to do some fundraising for our slate of candidates! Through the QR code at the table and promotion from Chanpreet during convention, we were able to get 104 donations during convention – 54 of which were first-time donors!

Since the start of convention, we have raised an additional $6,029.94 for our slate candidates (currently Denzel McCampbell, Jake Ephros, Joel Brooks, Kelsea Bond, and Willie Burnley Jr.) on top of the $61,659.32 we had already raised so far this year!

Thank you to everyone who attended the National Electoral Commission’s events! We hope to see you at our upcoming all-member meeting so we can get to work on implementing the mandates from convention.

Shout-out to Cleveland DSA and Snohomish County DSA for allowing us to borrow your button makers. And thank you to Nick W for your button production run prior to convention!

– Your National Electoral Commission Steering Committee

On August 23rd, Bernie Sanders will be hosting a “town hall” event with Rebecca Cooke, candidate in the 2026 Democratic Party 3rd Congressional District election, near Viroqua. This follows his June 19th endorsement of her. We, the Executive Committee of the Coulee Region chapter (CDSA) of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), denounce this endorsement and campaign event and urge Senator Sanders to withdraw this endorsement.

Senator Sanders has been a principled socialist for his entire life, and has been a leader and inspiration for millions of progressives and socialists for decades. This made his endorsement of Rebecca Cooke extremely shocking. Rebecca Cooke is no socialist, or even a progressive. She refuses to endorse Medicare For All. In 2024, she was “grateful” to be endorsed by the genocide-apologist organization Democratic Majority For Israel.¹ In June of this year, she was a featured speaker at “WelcomeFest”, a convention of the anti-progressive wing of the Democratic Party, sharing the billing with genocide-apologists and neoliberals.² In the struggle between progressives and reactionaries within the opposition to the current fascist regime, she has declared on which side she places herself- it’s not with us, and it shouldn’t be with Bernie Sanders.

There are two other candidates in this primary, namely Laura Benjamin and Emily Berge, who would make far more sense for Senator Sanders to endorse. Both have endorsed Medicare For All. Both have better stances on Palestine. Laura Benjamin is a member of DSA, is committed to socialist principles, and is a fiery public speaker. Emily Berge is firmly in the La Follette Progressive tradition and has years of experience in local elected office.

For these reasons, in the spirit of socialist comradeship, the Coulee Region chapter of Democratic Socialists Of America urges Bernie Sanders to withdraw his endorsement of Rebecca Cooke.

COULEE DSA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE & CHIPPEWA VALLEY DSA OC, AUGUST 19^th, 2025

Coulee Democratic Socialists Of America can be found at https://coulee.dsawi.org/, on Facebook, on Instagram, and by emailing couleedsa@gmail.com. Chippewa Valley DSA can be reached at chippewavalleydsa@gmail.com

1“DMFI PAC announces new endorsements in Arizona, New York, & Wisconsin” https://dmfipac.org/news-updates/press-release/dmfi-pac-announces-new-endorsements-in-arizona-new-york-wisconsin/

2“I Just Got Back From the Centrist Rally. It Was Weird as Hell.” https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/welcomefest-dispatch-centrism-abundance/

The post Bernie Sanders Endorsement of Rebecca Cooke A Betrayal of Socialist Movement first appeared on Coulee DSA.

By Amanda Matyas & Lauren Trendler

The DSA national convention this month for the first time included a Cross-Organizational Political Exchange: more than 40 speakers from unions, social movements, and socialist parties across the globe came to confer with DSA. The convention website explained that the idea was “to pave the way for party-building and a May Day 2028 coalition.”

This exchange was critical to asserting DSA as a pre-party formation, as 1,300 delegates from across the country gathered in Chicago to debate the direction of the organization — six weeks after Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City and our subsequent membership surge. Amidst the contentious resolutions being debated, this non-voting part of the convention served not only as a space for comradely exchange but as a chance to see the enormous potential of international solidarity in building a socialist party.

Addressing the crowd and explaining the process of planning the exchange, convention co-chair Laura Wadlin said, “There [wasn’t] a spreadsheet of cool unions — but now there is.”

Now that the cool union spreadsheet exists, it can serve as a blueprint for building a real coalition that is often invoked rhetorically but rarely put into practice. We engaged with other groups and navigated how we orient towards the world. According to Wadlin, the two main goals in organizing the exchange were to make the convention less inwardly focused and to feel like it has stakes, and to create a next step for May Day 2028. “There were so many other benefits of the process,” Wadlin said, “that we ended up gaining more goals. I now see it as expanding our horizons for what’s possible in the working class.”

Delegates also had a chance to speak, interspersed with the guests, as determined by a lottery. Detroit DSA member Erin T was selected and spoke about her work in the teachers union.

The fast-paced cross-organizational exchange showcased our shared excitement for two massive projects: a new electoral formation independent from the two major parties, and UAW President Shawn Fain’s call for strikes and working-class political action on May Day 2028.

Union reform caucuses Higher Education Labor United (HELU), Build a Fighting NALC (letter carriers), Railroad Workers United (RWU), and Caucus of Rank-and-File Electrical Workers (CREW) all called for a new party (a call that RWU first made in 2012!). HELU noted they have a policy platform on higher education, a key battleground under Trump, ready for a new party to adopt.

The Palestinian Youth Movement urged DSA to commit to an anti-war strategy that could “be bold on Palestine because it is the winning thing to do.” CREW tied the call for party-building back to its roots, noting that a workers party must “…come from an organic and independent working class culture of self-activity and militancy. It stands to reason that there can be no labor party that does not have deep, organic ties to labor. Get a job in strategic industries and callous your hands alongside us.”

Organizing towards May Day 2028 gives us a concrete opportunity to build rank-and-file class consciousness, cross-union organization, popular support, and renewed ties between the socialist movement and the labor movement.

FROM ACROSS THE GLOBE

Political organizations from across the globe were moved to travel great distances to discuss May Day 2028 with DSA, and representatives from La France Insoumise and the Workers Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA) both noted their excitement to see this activity developing in the U.S.

They were joined by members of the Workers Party (PT) and the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) of Brazil, Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana of Puerto Rico, the Movement for Democratic Socialism of Japan, and the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) of Mexico, whose powerful speech ended with, “We [Mexican immigrants] will be deported if we go out on strike and you cannot allow that.”

The Amazon Labor Union urged DSA to “focus on political education to help workers connect issues in the workplace to issues outside the workplace.” The Los Angeles Tenants Union cautioned the group to “plan for before and after mass action,” and the Debt Collective, based in Washington, D.C., asked the crowd, “What would it look like if while workers withheld their labor, debtors withheld their payments?”

Not only were our guests from these unions, social movements, and socialist parties invited to speak; they also mingled with DSA members all weekend, met at the hotel bar, joined our parties, and made connections that will continue to guide DSA towards our goals.

The preliminary discussions that began at the Cross-Organizational Exchange show there is broad support for an independent working class party, but more discussion and debate are needed to determine what our next decade of organizing looks like. The Exchange gathered many key organizers for our massive May Day 2028 project, but two-minute speeches from dozens of organizations is just the beginning — much more collaboration is needed.

The resolution Fighting Back in the Class War: Preparing for May Day 2028 committed DSA to several specific next steps. Over the next two years, DSA will anchor a May Day Convention in concert with major unions and other organizations that have taken up May Day 2028 as a priority, to collectively establish a plan and a set of demands for May Day 2028. DSA will encourage members to get jobs in strategic workplaces, industries, and unions, and DSA members in unions will organize to line up their contracts to expire on or around May Day 2028. DSA chapters will develop materials for agitation and political education around the need to build class power ahead of May Day 2028, and hold political education events directed at workers broadly.

We hope that all DSA delegates returned to their chapters invigorated by this exchange and with a laser focus on our shared goals. “If we don’t recognize the obligation we have to act in the world, we could miss our potential,” Laura Wadlin remarked. “DSA is not just an online subculture. We’re a political player on an international stage, and we need to match that.”

[Amanda Matyas and Lauren Trendler were elected convention delegates from Detroit.]

Workers of the World Unite for DSA’s First Cross-Organizational Political Exchange was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ten years ago, the Illinois General Assembly passed a ridiculous law signaling unconditional political support for Israel. Now we have an opportunity to repeal it.

Former Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, a Republican and private equity investor who held the position from 2015 to 2019, was a political failure on his own terms. Once he got into office, he made it clear to the Democrat-controlled legislature that he would not sign any budget unless it was passed alongside the regressive “reforms” that constituted his Turnaround Agenda for Illinois. The legislature did not budge and as a result Illinois went more than two years without a budget. Rauner tried to take everyone in the state hostage, and he did a lot of harm trying to make the Illinois regulatory environment more like Republican-dominated Wisconsin. Today, he is remembered as a bush-league do-nothing who couldn’t get his agenda through Springfield.

But there was one thing that Rauner and the Democratic majority did agree on: that people should face consequences if they have the wrong opinion about Israel. In 2015, the General Assembly unanimously passed legislation that prevented the state from investing public pension funds in any company that participated in the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. BDS is a non-violent campaign to economically pressure Israel into adopting policies that would respect the rights and dignity of Palestinians. It functions similar to the boycott movement against apartheid South Africa in the late 20th century, encouraging consumers to spend their money ethically and pressuring businesses to divest from a country that systematically violates human rights.

Rauner drinks chocolate milk to celebrate the concept of diversity during Black History Month, February 2018.

In opposition to BDS, pro-Israel lobbying groups have convinced a super majority of state legislatures across the country to pass laws that impose a variety of legal consequences on individuals and organizations that participate in the boycott against Israel. The version that Rauner signed, which was among the first of its kind, created the Illinois Investment Policy Board. The law gave the board the authority to withdraw Illinois pension funds from any company that participates in a campaign to “penalize, inflict economic harm on, or otherwise limit commercial relations with the State of Israel or companies based in the State of Israel or in territories controlled by the State of Israel”. Essentially, any company that refuses to do business with Israeli companies or the Israeli government can lose investment from the state’s pension board, regardless of why or how they are choosing to sever their relationship.

There has never been a better time to get rid of this law. It does absolutely nothing to benefit Illinoisans, and it punishes constitutionally protected opposition to blatantly illegal actions taken by Israel. The law does nothing to fight anti-Semitism; in fact, it makes it worse. The law seeks to make support of Israel non-negotiable, and that position is firmly out of line with the wishes of a majority of Democratic voters across the country. As efforts to finally repeal the law escalate,  people of conscience have an opportunity to bring state law into line with the will of Illinois voters.

What the law does, and why it’s extremist.

For the uninitiated, most state and municipal employees in America are enrolled in a defined benefit pension retirement plan. These pensions pay out a set amount determined by a formula to retired public workers each month over the course of their lives, effectively acting as a 401(k) with a guaranteed payout. To ensure these benefits are funded, employees and the state government contribute money to a pool that is invested in the private sector. The returns on these investments are used to help pay for pension obligations. This model benefits everyone: Springfield uses the stability of a pension to attract workers that might otherwise pursue for-profit careers, retirees have a guaranteed source of income after they stop working, and companies receive extra investment that can help them grow. It is also very common for governments to form oversight boards to manage their pension investments. This ensures that the funds are stewarding public resources well, and they prevent state money from being invested in firms that actively harm the public interest. In Illinois, Springfield has passed laws that prohibit investment in companies that “shelter migrant children” (i.e., participate in Donald Trump’s nightmarish mass deportation plans) and companies based in a few countries that have been sanctioned by the federal government.

They also prevent the fund from investing in companies that refuse to do business in Israel. This already makes Illinois’ anti-BDS law unique compared to the other similar laws in the state; there are no other countries that companies are punished for not investing in. The law is very clearly meant to disincentivize firms from considering a boycott by excluding them from receiving any of the money that state pension funds invest in the private sector.

The law does not differentiate between motives. If a company decides to stop doing business with Israel because its board is dominated by avowed anti-Semites, then it is ineligible to receive any pension investment funds from Illinois. But what if a firm’s leadership divests because they agree with Amnesty International’s conclusion that the country is practicing apartheid? Or because they believe that what the IDF is doing in Gaza constitutes genocide? Or because the Israeli government regularly treats minorities who live in Israel as second-class or non-citizens? Or because they are disturbed by the number of Americans killed by the Israeli military or Israeli militias? Or because they are horrified by the Israeli refusal to allow food, baby formula, and medical aid to enter Gaza, resulting in mass starvation? The Illinois General Assembly made no distinctions between these reasons when it passed the state’s anti-BDS law, so the Illinois Investment Policy Board is forced to consider these motivations equally worth divestment.

This is already extreme, but the truly ridiculous part is that the law also punishes companies for boycotting illegal Israeli occupations of foreign territories. Since the conclusion of the Six-Day War in 1967, the Israeli government has encouraged its citizens to cross the border into Palestinian territory and establish ‘settlements’ there. These self-described ‘settlers’ retain their Israeli citizenship, can vote in Israeli elections, are protected by the Israeli military, and live their lives under Israeli law. Their Palestinian neighbors who live in these areas do not enjoy any of those rights. Many of them are denied self-representation and live under martial law imposed by a government they have no say in. Palestinian families in the area are regularly dispossessed and attacked by settlers. In fact, it is widely acknowledged that the Israeli government is using settlement as part of a strategy to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state, giving Israel an excuse to indefinitely control the region without having to offer Palestinians any sort of rights or sovereignty. Just this month, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich unveiled a new settlement plan that he claimed would “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”.

Illinois prohibits investment in any company that refuses to do business in these settlements, despite the fact that they are illegal under international law and that they exist to deny the two-state solution that most American politicians claim to support. 

Embarrassingly enough, the most well-known invocation of this anti-BDS law was used to punish a company for violating this portion of the statute. In 2021, the ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s (whose founders are both Jewish) announced that it would no longer sell their products in the West Bank because of the illegality of the settlements. The company also clarified that they did not support BDS as an organization. Ben & Jerry’s products would continue to be sold in Israel proper, and the company’s founders identified themselves as supporters of the country. This decision prompted the Illinois Investment Policy Board to pull any pension funds that were invested with the brand’s parent company, Unilever. Effectively, an ice cream company decided not to do business outside of Israel while continuing to do business in Israel. As a result, the State of Illinois declared it would blacklist the company and all of the firms they were associated with.

This law grants symbolic and unconditional support to Israel, including implicit support for policies that many people in the state consider to be criminal and in opposition to U.S. interests. Even if you think it’s appropriate for Illinois to engage in these kinds of sweeping foreign policy commitments, this is the wrong one to make.

The law doesn’t fight anti-Semitism

One common argument in favor of anti-BDS laws is that they are a protection against bigotry or an environment that encourages it. Rauner’s initial statement after the state’s law was signed in 2015 proclaimed that Illinois was standing up against anti-Semitism by distancing the state from boycotts. Other organizations like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have taken the stance that BDS itself isn’t inherently anti-Semitic, but that it creates an atmosphere where engaging in anti-Semitism is more acceptable.

There is nothing about this law that actively combats anti-Semitism. It does nothing to address the enormous 900% increase in anti-Semitic incidents across the country in the last ten years, and it does nothing to discourage hateful rhetoric. It is simply a way to punish businesses for taking a moral stance against genocide or for responding to consumer demands to do the same. These kinds of laws are also an attack on the right to free speech and free association guaranteed under the U.S. constitution, and their legality is dubious at best.

There’s no actual prohibition against supporting bigotry written into the law. It punishes companies that boycott Israel, but there are plenty of disgusting people in business who say and do anti-Semitic things that wouldn’t lose out on the opportunity for state investment. Right-wing businessman and extremist provocateur Elon Musk is a perfect example. 

Not a bit from The Producers, somehow.

Regardless of whether you think Elon Musk throwing up a Nazi salute in January 2025 was an intentional expression of anti-Jewish hatred, he has a long history of embracing the kind of vile rhetoric most people would instantly recognize as anti-Semitic. Musk has indicated that he believes Jewish Americans are part of an anti-white conspiracy to flood the country with “hordes of minorities”. Under his direction, Twitter/X changed its moderation rules to allow a surge in anti-Semitic posts that have caused advertisers to flee en masse. The AI chatbot that his company built for the website has called itself MechaHitler and often launches into unprovoked rants about people with Jewish-sounding last names. Musk has received so much backlash that he’s felt the need to do damage control by visiting Auschwitz and making a PR trip to Israel alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Despite Musk’s repeated anti-Semitic comments and behavior, he hasn’t ruled out doing business with Israel, so Springfield is technically allowed to invest pension funds in his companies. The purpose of this law cannot be fighting the spread of anti-Semitism if it allows for Illinois to engage in a financial partnership with someone like this. Its only logical purpose is to shield the Israeli government from criticism.

Finally, it’s worth considering whether this kind of law could actually increase anti-Semitism. The State of Illinois has (wrongfully) declared to the world that it views an entire ethno-religious group to be inseparable from another country halfway across the world. They have also declared that there is no acceptable way to criticize that country, even as it engages in a genocide that most people (rightfully) find morally reprehensible. The potential effects of this kind of rhetoric were neatly summed up by New York Times journalist Ezra Klein on his podcast a few months ago:

I am a Jewish person…it is very important that it is possible and understood to be possible that you can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic…you just have to be able to be against what the Israeli state has become and not be anti-Semitic. I think it is an incredibly dangerous game that pro-Zionist people have played trying to conflate those things. Because if you tell people enough that to oppose Israel is to be anti-Semitic at some point they’re going to say “Well, I guess I’m anti-Semitic”.

If Klein is right about this, our state’s anti-BDS law could be creating social permission for more conspiracy-minded people to slip into open bigotry. Is that worth risking to preserve a law that doesn’t do anything to fight anti-Semitism?

The biggest obstacles to repeal are elected officials, not voters.

All of these criticisms were true ten years ago, but it mattered very little at the time because supporting Israel has been a bipartisan project in American politics for decades. The real reason that it is an opportune moment to repeal the law is that there has been a seismic shift in how the electorate views Israel. 

Since the Israeli government launched their brutal response to the October 7th attacks, we have seen poll after poll after poll after poll showing that Americans view Israel more negatively than ever before. This is true across party affiliation, but it is especially true among Democrats. Now that Joe Biden has not been in a position to excuse Israel’s behavior and Trump is using the issue to justify illegal, politically motivated deportations, a clear majority of Democratic voters has come to sympathize more with the Palestinian cause than with the Israeli state.

There is an enormous gap between how party elites and voters think about this issue, and most Democratic politicians have yet to catch up to their base. Illinois has been no exception. Only one of the candidates running to replace retiring Senator Dick Durbin, Representative Robin Kelly, has indicated a willingness to pursue an arms embargo against Israel, and the vast majority of the Illinois congressional delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives has consistently refused to substantively criticize the government’s Israel policy. At the state level, only a minority of Democratic legislators have signaled their support for legislation to repeal the anti-BDS law.

This is disheartening regardless of whether politicians are deeply ideologically committed to what Israel represents or whether they have just decided to avoid challenging powerful interest groups. But there are signs that this gap between party elites and their voters nationwide could start to close. In New York City, home to more Jews than any other city in America, outspoken critic of Israel Zohran Mamdani handily won the Democratic nomination for mayor with a plurality of the Jewish vote, in part because of his views on Palestine. Over half of Senate Democrats recently voted to oppose some military aid to Israel, including both Senators Durbin and Duckworth of Illinois. Some Democrats in Congress have even started to call for the U.S. to recognize a Palestinian state. Just as crucially, it does not appear that Israel’s right-wing government has any plans to end their illegal invasion and blockade of Gaza, making the issue more pressing than ever.

It is possible to get Democratic politicians to adopt the positions their base holds under these conditions, even if it’s for entirely cynical reasons. A repeal of our state’s anti-BDS law would not just be popular, it could set the stage for even more policy changes on the national level, especially as Democratic candidates begin to position themselves for a presidential run in 2028. 

With this in mind, Illinois-based groups that have committed themselves to changing our country’s relationship with Israel like Chicago DSA should consider joining the Illinois Coalition for Human Rights as supporting organizations, and should come up with local campaigns to lobby their state officials. The ones that are planning to endorse candidates for state-level office should also take advantage of the upcoming March primaries to ask fresh faces to sign on as a condition for their support.

Like-minded individuals should also make an effort to tell their representatives this is an important issue to them by sending them messages like this one. They should consider getting involved with organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace Chicago, CAIR Action Illinois, and IfNotNow Chicago that have already signed on to stay engaged with the repeal campaign.

To steal a turn of phrase from the infamous American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), supporting Palestine is “good policy and good politics” within the Democratic Party. The only question now is whether we can get our elected officials to wake up to that reality while we have the momentum.

The post Now is the Time to Repeal Illinois’ Extremist Pro-Israel Law appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

Author: Ary C

(These opinions reflect the author’s and are not necessarily representative of those of DSA Cleveland or the National DSA)

This summer I had the honor and privilege of attending the 2025 DSA National Convention as an alternate of the Cleveland delegation alongside 11 of my comrades. As the member of our delegation with the shortest tenure in the chapter, this experience was invaluable in learning more about DSA at the national level and how our chapter fits into the broader context of the national organization. Due to my role as an alternate and not a voting delegate, I felt more able to observe and reflect on the events of Convention broadly. Below are some of my thoughts and observations.

An unavoidable aspect of Convention is the presence of caucuses, whose power and influence is undeniable. While our own chapter is largely uncaucused and rarely does the topic come up (outside of the lead-up to Convention), they are one of the primary lenses delegates view and participate in Convention, right down to the post-deliberation parties. Several comrades have made the comment/joke ‘caucuses exist for Convention’. This conception partly motivated me to join a caucus myself, about a week before Convention. Members of the biggest caucuses mark themselves with branded swag like hats, bandanas, and shirts, as well as hold official socials and unofficial parties. More importantly, they are whipping votes and distributing literature as much as possible to influence delegates’ positions on resolutions and on National Political Committee candidates. Walking into the deliberation hall, the Convention tables (and chairs!) were fully covered in flyers, handbills, and zines from various caucuses. Some, like Marxist Unity Group (MUG) and Reform & Revolution (RnR) even printed daily bulletins in response to the events of the day before. To me, it honestly seemed a bit wasteful and excessive, like junk mail. However, I know many delegates had not developed strong positions on resolutions or candidates, like the bulk of our delegation had, and I suppose I have to respect the game. 

While there is some understandable pushback to characterizing caucuses as left or right due to the connotation and aversion of being categorized as ‘right-wing’, from my experience it is plain that there is a split within the organization. Caucuses that are typically characterized as ‘left-wing’ such as MUG, Red Star, and Libertarian Socialist Caucus (LSC, my own caucus) tend to self-partition politically and socially away from ‘right-wing’ caucuses Groundwork and Socialist Majority Caucus (SMC) (see also LSC’s A Guide to DSA Politics). There are also ‘center’ caucuses like RnR and Bread and Roses (BnR), although based on my impressions during Convention they lean slightly left and right respectively. 

Going into Convention, I expected all of my comrades to engage in principled debate and was honestly open to being swayed on many resolutions. In general, I strongly value including a diversity of thought and perspectives in our collective struggle for socialism; in my mind this is critical to developing a democratic and just movement. Therefore, I do my best to operate under an assumption of good faith in my comrades. That being said, I was somewhat disappointed by the arguments put forward by some comrades, often belonging to the ‘right-wing’ caucuses. The first example of this occurred during what might have been the most contentious resolution heard at Convention, Groundwork’s CB02: One Member One Vote for National Leadership Elections. One memorable supporting argument compared not allowing asynchronous NPC elections to historical examples of restricting suffrage for oppressed peoples and asserted comrades opposed to the resolution were ‘scared to let disenfranchised members vote’. It is hard to view this as anything other than an assertion of bad faith towards the opposition, who reasonably brought up examples of how online asynchronous voting reduced deliberation and participation in their own chapters and the concern of turning national leadership elections into a listserv competition. Other examples include opposition arguments on R20 A01: Democratic Socialists and the Labor Movement Need Each Other, which would require endorsed candidates for elected office from the labor movement to identify as democratic socialists and assert DSA’s political independence. SMC delegates argued against the amendment by claiming ‘we shouldn’t tell workers to do socialism even if we think it is the correct path’ and falsely claimed Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign didn’t center or promote DSA very much, concluding it was unimportant for endorsed elected officials to identify as socialists and promote DSA. Finally and most upsetting to me was the support for R22 A01: Align with the BDS Movement, which removed clauses from the original resolution that would require endorsed electoral candidates to uphold DSA’s support for Palestinian liberation and provide a mechanism to hold members accountable for violating DSA’s policies and principles with respect to Palestine solidarity. Fortunately, this amendment failed. Overall, these examples show how the right faction of DSA concerningly tend to view winning electoral campaigns as more important than holding ideological or even ethical/moral lines. 

An additional disappointment I cannot directly attribute to factionalism occurred at the start of convention. A rule was proposed by an immunocompromised comrade to require masks on the debate floor who also cited a confirmed case of COVID at Convention had already been reported. Oppositional arguments heard included the claim that while there was enough masks purchased for all delegates, there was not time to distribute masks (which were available at the registration desk and could be distributed easily by Convention staff and volunteers) and that certain delegates were hard of hearing (live captions were displayed on screens with reserved seating nearby). The pushback to such a simple request, especially one with important health and safety implications, was deeply troubling to me. The failure to adopt this rule was is testament to the work DSA still needs to do to in the realm of disability justice. I am at least proud of my fellow Cleveland comrades who did voluntarily mask on the Convention floor from then on. 

Despite these disappointments, there were also many occasions to celebrate. Of course, many moments and aspects I consider particularly exciting corroborate my own political tendencies falling well within DSA’s left faction. That being said, I know I am not the only member of the Cleveland chapter relieved to see 1M1V defeated and single transferable voting mandated for Convention delegate elections. These decisions are important for upholding the authority of deliberative democracy via proportionally representative delegates at Convention. I was also heartened to see our organization commit to clear standards regarding endorsement of elected officials by passing the amended CR05 (A03, A04, and A05): National Electoral Commission Consensus Resolution and the unamended R22: For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA. 

Outside of the resolutions, I have to commend the professionalism and expertise of our convention chairs. Despite ongoing technological frustrations and occasional failures of delegates to maintain decorum, all of our chairs did a fantastic job of maintaining objectivity and facilitating deliberation. I highly encourage folks from our chapter to seek out and attend national chair trainings and will probably sign up for one myself in the future. 

Beyond caucuses and the debate floor, I found Convention rewarding in other aspects. I attended as much programming as possible. Admittedly, I think programming is one of the weakest parts of Convention and that at least some of that time would have been better spent getting through more of the agendized resolutions. Even so, I attended a couple sessions I really enjoyed. The presentation I thought was the most interesting and useful was the Growth & Development Committee’s State of DSA Report, which involved quantitative and qualitative analysis of trends in membership over the past decade. Major findings included that large membership swells occur in response to major national events that are followed by large member exodus exactly a year later, and that this phenomenon generally affects all chapters equally, meaning no chapters are particularly good at recruiting members outside of major political events. Even though many of the results are unsurprising, I was impressed by the analysis nonetheless and hope the GDC is able to explore membership data with more depth in the future. The second programming session I really enjoyed was titled ‘Lessons from the Lean Years’, a panel discussion including three comrades who had been involved in DSA prior to the 2016 explosion in membership. Panelists highlighted the past organization’s willingness to participate in coalitions as a strength, the need to build a united front of organizations in the future, and a call for more rigorous and locally focused political education. They also encouraged DSA to be humble, reflective, and flexible. However, the most sobering piece of advice was that we should keep in mind that whether the revolution happens in our lifetimes or not, we still have to live and enjoy our lives fully. As someone who often falls into puritanical thinking, maintaining a balance of work, DSA, rest, and familial obligations is something I rarely if ever achieve. Especially as I begin to mature as an organizer, I struggle with the idea of delegating without also directly participating in the work and the feeling that doing is superior to planning the work. I will certainly at least try to keep in mind the advice of my older comrades as I continue to navigate these challenges.

By far the best part of Convention was the ability to connect with comrades across the organization, especially my fellow Ohioans inside and outside of our chapter. A big reason my partner and I joined DSA in the first place was to join a community of people with shared values, and there’s really nothing like three days of intense political debate interspersed with very little sleep without the luxury of complimentary coffee to bond folks together. I appreciate that our chapter chose to sit together on the debate floor throughout Convention, despite political disagreements and the pull to spend time with their caucuses and friends. I also enjoyed getting to know delegates from other Ohio chapters and learning more about their individual strengths. Special shoutout to Joe from Mahoning Valley, who was somewhat adopted by our delegation. Although my feelings about a statewide formation have changed somewhat, I still believe it is important to connect and learn from our sister chapters as often as possible and hope that the Ohio chapters will prioritize regular in-person meetups in the future. Finally, I was delighted to run into a comrade from my original DSA chapter, Coulee DSA in La Crosse, Wisconsin at the GDC table. In fact, David was the first member who invited Joe and I to join DSA from our weekly Palestine protests. Although we were only in the chapter a few months, it obviously made a big impact and led us to get active in Cleveland once we moved home. 

At the close of Convention, I was struck by how impactful each of the ~1200 delegates were, regardless of their caucus status or chapter. Several resolutions passed or failed within 50 votes. One, R44: Resolution on Staff, Contractors, and Budgeting, came within 11 votes, well within the margin of abstentions. Delegates came from all over the country, from very small chapters like Ohio’s Mahoning Valley to the extremely influential megachapters like NYC. Through a show of hands, there appeared to be a relatively even split in the room in terms of the number of Conventions attended, although most folks I talked to were attending for the first time. Even as a non-voting member of our delegation, I felt I had an impact through conversations with my comrades on the debate floor. The idea that people so new to the movement could have so much power in the leadership of the national organization was deeply moving. I hope we are able to send more comrades to Convention in the future as delegates and observers to share in this experience.  

When running for a spot on the delegation, I declared my motivation to run for convention delegate was to continue growing as a DSA member and socialist to better serve the chapter. Although it is certainly too soon to tell – I’m drafting this the day after convention – I feel confident that I will achieve those goals. Attending Convention has been an overwhelmingly energizing and positive experience from the delegate election process to reading each resolution to the Spotify jam session on the drive home. I am deeply grateful to my comrades who had the confidence in me to represent them and am excited to continue sharing lessons learned with my comrades and to become more involved in national bodies like the Growth & Development Committee. I look forward to the future of DSA both in Cleveland and at the national level over the next two years, after which I do hope to return to Convention as a full delegate.

Solidarity forever, 

Ary C

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