Markus Sokol represented Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) at the 2025 DSA National Convention and discussed the challenges facing left-wing organizations against the rise of fascism and the far right around the world.

The post Partido dos Trabalhadores Participates in the DSA Convention in the USA appeared first on Democratic Left.

Hello Comrades,

Are you ready for fall? At MADSA, we’re kicking off cozy season with a great Wisconsin activity – apple picking! We had a summer full of outdoor fun, and we just had to squeeze in one more event before it gets too chilly. To our comrades who are looking forward to the cold, we see you and love you, and to those mourning the end of the summer sun and heat – and perhaps gazing woefully out on the lake as the sail boats are brought in for the year – we feel that too. Regardless of your feelings on the weather, we all know winter in Wisconsin can be a grey and lonely time – but not when you have a strong community and the fire of revolution in your heart! Now is a great time to start building that community ahead of the gloomy months, so make sure to stop by at least one of our three cozy, comradely socials coming up: Crafting with Comrades, Coffee with Comrades, and of course apple picking!

But wait, there’s more! The energy of summer may now be waning, but at MADSA, we aren’t slowing down for a second. Besides lovely fall and winter, there’s another season on the horizon: campaign season! The Power Mapping Committee has been hard at work on electoral plans, and we need everyone involved. At tonight’s General Meeting, we will have the opportunity to pass the charter for an Electoral Working Group to really get our electoral operation up-and-running and to continue that work in the coming months and years. We will also hear from chapter member and state rep Fran Hong and member and staffer David O on the state of Wisconsin politics and what we can be doing as a chapter to be movers and shakers in our city and state’s political scene. Come out to our Canvassing Kickoff event on September 13 to get fired up about potential upcoming city council campaigns and to talk to your neighbors in District 6 about their thoughts and feelings on local life and politics. We will start with a canvassing training, so no experience is required. Even if canvassing isn’t something you ever thought you’d do, it’s always a good time to learn a new skill, and there will be experienced comrades to help every step of the way. Also, please be sure to fill out the Membership Mapping Survey linked at the bottom of this email if you haven’t yet. A thorough survey of our members is important to assessing our internal power so we can plan our labor, electoral, and other activities most strategically.

Finally, check out our new and improved Socialism 101 – now titled Beyond the Two Party System! If you attended a Socialism 101 in the past, bring a socialism-curious or two-party-fatigued friend or coworker out and help us spread the message: workers deserve more, and socialism is the way to win it.

Solidarity forever, 

Your MADSA Executive Committee

In this newsletter:

• Tue. September 9, 6:30-8:30pm: September General Membership Meeting
• Sat. September 13, 1-5:00pm: Canvassing Kickoff
• Sat. September 13, 5:30pm: Crafting with Comrades!
• Sat. September 20, 10:00am: MADSA Apple Picking Social
• Thu. September 25, 6-8:00pm: Beyond the Two Party System: A Socialist Way Forward
• Sat. September 27, 10:00am-12:00pm: Coffee with Comrades!
• Sat. October 4, 2-3:30pm: October New Member Orientation

Even before Donald Trump became president for a second time and began enacting a systematic attack on LGBTQ+ people—trans and nonbinary people especially—their lives and rights were at risk. Across the U.S., state after state under GOP leadership has begun doing everything they can to strip away hard-earned rights to privacy, personhood, and life-saving, gender-affirming care. 

Trans and nonbinary folks are some of the most vulnerable in our society to homelessness, lower wages, mental illness, workplace discrimination, violence, and suicidal ideation. The anti-trans rhetoric and policies that have surged in recent years have only made things more dire. 

As a result, the Cleveland DSA chapter decided to do something to protect trans and nonbinary comrades in our organization and the community at large. Enter the Trans Liberation Priority Project.

Our Vision

Started in 2025, the Trans Liberation Priority Project of the Cleveland DSA’s strategic vision is to: 

• Pass a Trans Sanctuary City resolution in the cities of Cleveland and Lakewood similar to resolutions passed in other cities like Cincinnati and Cleveland Heights that will deprioritize the enforcement of any laws that would harm trans people such as laws penalizing the provision of gender-affirming care.

• Provide support and resources to the trans community in Cleveland DSA’s region.
• Work towards developing organized, sustained, militant, anti-capitalist trans politics in and around Cleveland.

Recap

Cleveland DSA recently reauthorized our trans rights work in August for a second term. This term will be building on the work we did over the course of that first term which included: 

• Hosting clothing swaps where anyone in the community could donate and/or pick up clothing
• Running a Name Change Clinic where community members were able to receive legal aid as well as financial aid to file Name Changes and amend Gender Marker documentation.
• Organizing 2 fundraising events where we raised $1190

In our first month of this new term we’ve hit the ground running with our efforts for the Sanctuary City Resolution by collecting over 700 signatures from the community in support of our resolution. We’ve also begun mobilizing members and the community to the Lakewood City Council meetings to keep the pressure on our elected officials to pass this resolution. We have also started ramping up our collaboration with other local nonprofit and activist groups that are also working to protect trans and nonbinary rights.

What’s Next?

The fight is far from over. We aim to continue to do everything we can to push the Trans Sanctuary City resolution in Lakewood and eventually, through working alongside other organizations and local government reps, the City of Cleveland. We will canvas and collect signatures in support of trans sanctuary legislation in our region, continue organizing other mutual aid events, and spreading literature about trans rights throughout local municipalities. 

Now is the time to act—are you ready to join us? 

The post Trans Liberation Priority Project: Protecting Lives and Rights of a Community Under Threat appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

By: Taina Santiago

When summer ended and the school year began again, parents were racing to check off their supply lists. For working class families, this task can be time-consuming and expensive. In response, Metro Detroit DSA’s Black and Brown Alliance (BBA) organized a back-to-school backpack drive.

The event took place Saturday, August 30, at the Eastside Community Network (ECN) building in Detroit, where other community services like free vaccines for children and free pizza for families were set up as well. ECN also runs a free store packed with clothes, shoes, and toiletries.

This space fostered the socialist principle of meeting the needs of the working class in real ways. With a “Solidarity Metro Detroit DSA” banner proudly displayed, a dozen DSA volunteers throughout the day distributed 140 backpacks filled with folders, markers, pencils, and other school supplies.

Why Mutual Aid?

Mutual aid is a form of community service that expects nothing in return from those you are lending a helping hand. It functions under the philosophy that we always show up for each other in our communities. BBA has been talking about doing a mutual aid project for a few months now, with members eager to get started on something actionable. BBA Secretary Rodney Coopwood had a personal connection to the idea: “Growing up in Detroit, there were times when I myself didn’t have what I needed for school. I had to wait for supplies well after classes started.”

BBA was also inspired by the Black Panthers and their ability to radicalize people through community services. BBA Co-chair Jon Mukes said, “[Mutual aid is] how a lot of Black people from various other socialist traditions organized. Free breakfast programs, free health clinics, etc., were incredibly revolutionary. Historically one of the reasons why socialism grew is because socialists and communists fed the people when the capitalist system failed.”

Because of the Black Panthers’ example, it was clear to the BBA that there had to be educational and community-building elements in the project to avoid doing one-and-done, detached charity work. So along with handing out supplies, we also gave literature about DSA to parents and had deliberate conversations with members of the community about socialism.

Recruitment Potential of Mutual Aid

One of the BBA’s goals is to diversify Metro Detroit DSA. Black and Brown socialists have always been the backbone of the larger movement and there should be many more people of color in our organization. Mukes said, “One of the many reasons that our chapter is incredibly white is that we aren’t visible/doing work in Black and Brown communities.” While a delegate to DSA’s national convention this year, Mukes says he “made a point to hang around and talk to other POC comrades and I asked about how they recruited Black and Brown members. A backpack drive for Black people in their communities came up a lot.”

BBA’s mission of diversity in the chapter also informed where we chose to hold the backpack drive: in Detroit. Volunteers spent the day informing Black parents about DSA’s September general meeting, giving interested people an actionable next step to get involved, and collecting contact information for further communications. An event that makes DSA visible and allows us to have one-on-one conversations with people of color has great recruitment potential for working class Black and Brown comrades.

Another goal of the BBA — and DSA as a whole — is to change the narrative around socialism. Decades of Red Scare propaganda have painted socialists as the enemy of the people when the opposite is true. Socialists want to bring working class people together and events like the backpack drive do just that.

“If we approach them with more actions and fewer words, they see us as people of purpose. We give their kids backpacks. We provide water when they’re thirsty, heat when they’re cold,” Coopwood said. “When we were there, I expected to be brushed off, but people were very open to talking about socialism. They may not sign up for DSA, but they’ll know that DSA and socialists are there to help. So when an open socialist is on the ballot, holding a rally, or pushing an agenda to publicize a private corporation or implement ranked-choice voting, they’ll be open to us.”

Lessons on Organizing

As important as the event itself was all the planning, budgeting, location scouting, and prepping that had to be done in a short window of time. When BBA voted to put the backpack drive into motion, there were only a couple of weeks before the school year began. Within a couple of days, Coopwood had drawn up a fully mapped out proposal to take to the steering committee. In another week, Mukes was ordering supplies and a week after that, those supplies were in the hands of working class families.

This speed of turning talk into action was a testament to BBA members’ organizing skills and served as a confidence booster to fuel more projects. Coopwood said, “I realized I’m much more capable as an organizer than I originally thought. This was my first time doing something like this. I applied what I do at work as a researcher, made an action plan, and it worked — I was very proud of that.” Mukes sang the praises of fellow organizers, saying, “My biggest takeaway was how quickly a handful of dedicated people can set something like this up.”

These kinds of mutual aid projects would give the chapter more opportunities to build up experienced organizers, giving members projects to try out, learn from, and succeed at. The DSA volunteers who have conversations with strangers about socialism will improve their skills there too. The members who put events like the backpack drive together will take valuable lessons into subsequent projects, bringing ideas from the abstract into reality with effectiveness and efficiency.

As Coopwood pointed out, these events “give action-oriented members an outlet to effectively aid communities, and those communities know exactly who assisted them, building unity and loyalty. This unity will be reflected when we need to run electoral candidates or launch campaigns like Michigan for the Many,” which is a campaign we actually gathered signatures for at the backpack drive. He continued, “This is how we get the public — who intrinsically value actions over promises — to know what Metro Detroit DSA is and bring them to our side.”

Just the Beginning

As socialists, getting the material needs of the working class met is an important element in our ideal political and economic system, so we should put our socialist money/action where our mouth is. The backpack drive is not a one-off event, it is a kick-off to a greater focus of the BBA on mutual aid in general. Our direct involvement in communities of color — getting to know people and cultivating camaraderie — will be invaluable to building our movement.

And it isn’t just about the big picture goals. It’s also about the small moments that keep us connected to the human-driven purpose of everything we are doing, which Coopwood highlighted: “I got to see kids pick out their favorite color backpacks, and in the grand scheme of trying to stop capitalism and imperialism from destroying the world, it’s nice to see a kid pick their favorite color backpack.”

BBA Rings in the School Year with Backpack Drive was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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

After reading that Burlington’s legendary music spot Nectar’s had permanently closed, GMDSA Secretary David Wilcox wrote to Seven Days to propose municipalizing the venue. His letter, printed on 8/20/2025, is republished below.

In response to the shutdown of Nectar’s, I’d like to suggest a solution: Why not have the city government take over and run Nectar’s? There’s nothing radical or unprecedented about the City of Burlington running a popular music venue, given that it owned and operated 242 Main for 30 years. And I would argue that a venue like Nectar’s, one that’s synonymous with the general idea of what Burlington is, contributes far more to the city’s bottom line than its own financial numbers would indicate.

Without venues like Nectar’s, Burlington loses its aura as a cool, desirable place to live. And if Nectar’s has seemed like a shadow of its former self in recent years, why not try to revitalize it under new (public) ownership? Especially since the final shutdown of Nectar’s was due to a dispute with a landlord. The city has already forced the sale of one Handy property (184 Church Street) for the greater good of the community. Surely, there’s a way to make all this happen with enough political will.

I, for one, am sick and tired of passively accepting the loss of important places and services due to “the market,” which is every bit as much a human-created institution as laws and governments. The Burlington renaissance began with then-mayor Bernie Sanders (whose administration founded 242 Main) refusing to accept the market dictating that we couldn’t have nice things. If we want Burlington’s glory days to return, we need to rediscover that energy.

David Wilcox
Winooski

The Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) denounce Milwaukee Police Association president Alex Ayala’s comments calling for a National Guard presence in Milwaukee, noting that such an escalation would harm communities across the city.

“If enacted, the deployment of military violence on the streets of Milwaukee will only cause harm to the citizens,” said Pamela Westphal, Milwaukee DSA co-chair. “Now, more than ever, the citizens of Milwaukee need to build solidarity with their neighbors as the increase of police and military violence grows every day.”

Ayala’s comments come after President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard against protestors in Los Angeles and against the people of Washington D.C., and he has suggested doing likewise in other U.S. cities, as near to Milwaukee as Chicago.

“We must remain strong together in every city facing militarization,” Milwaukee DSA co-chair Andy Barbour said. “We oppose this proposed violation of the safety of our community and are committed to the fight against fascism.”

DSA organizers intend to work with other organizations and community members across the city and beyond to keep our communities safe from increased militarization in Milwaukee. 

As part of that work, the organization is calling on city leaders to follow the likes of Alderman Alex Brower and Alderwoman Larresa Taylor, who released a statement Thursday breaking down both legally and logically why a Milwaukee National Guard deployment would spell disaster for people here.

“We need our local government to advocate on behalf of the communities fearing for their lives here in Milwaukee,” Barbour said. “Working people will notice which of their representatives leave them in danger by remaining silent.”

Milwaukee DSA is Milwaukee’s largest socialist organization fighting for a democratic economy, a just society, and a sustainable environment. Join today at dsausa.org/join.

The 2025 DSA Convention featured a panel on “Building DSA’s Cultural Organizations,” featuring panelists who started DSA sports leagues, choirs, and more. They made the case that these cultural organizations can become institutions of collective action. 

The post Culture is Collective Action appeared first on Democratic Left.

by Reese A

This piece was written 08/15/25

Last week, I had the honor of representing the Liberal Arts and Science Academy chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), at YDSA’s 2025 annual national convention. It was a true honor to be their co-chair, and to serve them once more as their delegate.

Ultimately, however, I came away from the convention concerned for our political future as a movement: We were decisively against organizing students. We failed to pass crucial resolutions that would strengthen the student movement, including R23: Building Campus Consciousness, Democracy, and Militancy through Student Unions and R10: Building an International Student Movement. R23 would have provided crucial support to mass student organizing in the form of student unions, a formation that can mobilize large numbers of students in solidarity in a way that YDSA cannot. The success of the student union formation is outlined below with Students United by LASA YDSA, and I think that failing to bet on mass student organizing via student unions will remain one of the biggest lost opportunities of the convention. Additionally, R10 centered our internationalism around building relationships with student organizations as YDSA, something that must be centered in order to build an international coalition to win student demands and ultimately socialism.

Instead, we focused on gatekeeping durable socialist organizing to only people with “real” ties to the class struggle (current laborers) and building value-pure socialist groups to recruit students into. We passed resolutions like R12: For a Campaigning Internationalism and R18: Recommitting to Running Strategic Campaigns as Unapologetic Socialists, which aren’t obviously bad, but show a clear focus away from larger mass movement organizing of students towards socialist groups. This tendency fundamentally doesn’t believe that students have a claim to power, but rather we must take a backseat to the “real” working class and focus on political education, supporting their cause, and running smaller campaigns as socialists to pressure the campus. It doesn’t believe in the mass student movement or their own claim to power and representation.

This is a mistake. If we want to win material change, at our schools and in the world, we have to be comfortable organizing the people around us, having conversations, and building power. As students, we represent some of the most diverse, progressive and willing bodies of people in America, and our organizations should strive to organize and mobilize as many students as possible to win. Some might argue that students don’t have the correct “class character,” and I must disagree. We are forgetting what the root of working class is – people who are not owners, people who do not control capital. Just as unemployed people are part of the working class, so are students. Additionally, others argue that students inherently aren’t worth organizing because they’re a transient group. The student movement has built some of the strongest organizations and movements in American history, from Vietnam and Students for a Democratic Society, to divestment from South Africa and winning the collapse of apartheid, to fighting for a free Palestine today. Turnover is not a valid reason to avoid organizing – if that were true, we wouldn’t be organizing Starbucks and Amazon. Yet regardless of the excuses people give for abandoning students, none of them give a valid reason to leave them unorganized and retreat to our comfort zone of like-minded socialists. They’re progressive, willing to fight, and have organized throughout history. It would be a shame for YDSA to give up on student mass organizing, let alone for the wider socialist movement to do so, yet increasingly that seems to be the trend.

It’s important that we organize the entirety of the working class by building durable organizations to fight for change, not because that we think only the working class can win socialism, but because we truly believe in each and every one of our neighbors as people. In this time of rising fascism, believing in people is more important now than ever if we want to defeat it. Yet the socialist movement seems to be retreating into hiding, requiring that people come to our doorstep instead of organizing our neighbors en masse for change, because we no longer find hope in them. We vote down student organizing, we vote down protest organizing, we stop committing to the rank-and-file strategy and make connections with the union leaders instead. This is what fascism wants of us: to feel hopeless and that your neighbor is untrustworthy, to build division in order to cement the ruling class. Instead, we must meet neighbors where they are, with organizations that can represent them both to their schools and to the wider world, and build committed comrades out of this bond.

At LASA YDSA, we organized a student union, Students United, to serve as a durable student bargaining representative to fight for fairer learning conditions and mental health support. We currently have over 8% of the student body supporting our bid to unionize by signing Union Authorization Cards. This union attracted a wide range of people because it was rooted in a collective movement, representation, and demands for change – a movement from which we were able to build committed socialist organizers out of. While YDSA could never legitimately claim to be a representative of students and demand bargaining rights, a union could, because a union’s legitimacy comes exclusively from its status as a representative of the students instead of ideology or self-interest. YDSA can lead the movement, YDSA can build organizers from the movement, but YDSA must commit to empowering the working class to seize power for themselves. This is an important distinction because it’s both an optical, political and communal one – it’s the difference between one-party rule and a worker’s state for the people. Democratic socialists should commit to people power and democracy first and foremost, not try to make a utopian socialist society concocted out of thin air and imposed on the people.

We will not win by building a cadre vanguard that people do not feel a connection to. We will not win by treating our neighbors as peasants to be strung along. We will win through class struggle and a mass movement of each and every one of us, that, through solidarity, can be built in any community and especially within students. We must not give up on student and wider working class solidarity. We must not give up on our own communities. We must commit more, organize for power, and organize to win socialism.

The post In Defense of the Student Movement first appeared on Red Fault.

Practical Ways to Engage in Community Safety

The recent surge in immigration enforcement activities throughout Ventura County has cast a stark light on the urgent need for collective resistance and community led safety initiatives. Federal ICE raids, particularly the large-scale operations in Camarillo back in July and increased patrols across the 805 area, have not only instilled fear and disrupted countless families, but have also galvanized communities into action. For those seeking to contribute meaningfully to the defense of immigrant rights and the reimagining of public safety, there are many concrete avenues to engage locally.

The Current Context: Legal Challenges and Community Response

On August 2, hundreds gathered for a peaceful ICE Out of 805 protest—a powerful expression of our community’s growing resistance to state-sanctioned terror. Groups like VC Defensa continue to be on the front lines, coordinating rapid-response networks, connecting community members with legal support, sharing Know Your Rights resources, and organizing mutual aid. If you see ICE, call their hotline at (805) 253-3242.

On the legal front, a multi-layered battle is unfolding. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking ICE’s warrantless roving patrols across Ventura and six other Southern California counties, on the grounds that stops based on race, language, work, or location are unconstitutional. On August 1, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld that block: ICE must not carry out these racially targeted stops. But the administration continues to push back, appealing the decision and threatening to restore these terrorizing patrols. Meanwhile, Congress is fueling the very regime we resist. ICE’s budget has ballooned, an additional $75 billion over four years (on top of its base funding), now totaling nearly $28.7 billion per year. This money is being used to expand detention centers, hire thousands more officers, and scale the deportation machine to brutal extremes. The power of capital and xenophobic policy is being used to gut our solidarity and imprison our communities.

This is not just a political crisis. It’s a moral one. Legal wins, even monumental ones like halting roving patrols, are temporary. The bolstering of ICE’s budget ensures that the threat will return unless our resistance rises accordingly.

A Legacy of Grassroots Organizing for Community Safety

The work of reimagining safety in Ventura County builds on a rich history of grassroots activism across the United States. For decades, communities, particularly Black, Indigenous, and immigrant populations, have organized alternatives to policing that center healing, accountability, and collective care. From neighborhood watch programs and mutual aid networks to restorative justice circles and community mediation, these efforts affirm that safety is most effectively fostered through relationships and support rather than surveillance and punishment.

These movements have long challenged the notion that law enforcement is synonymous with safety, instead advocating for the divestment from prison systems and the reinvestment in social services, education, and economic opportunity. The Revolutionizing Community Safety Working Group within DSA Ventura County carries forward this tradition by actively imagining and building new paradigms of justice and protection that do not rely on police or ICE.

Revolutionizing Community Safety: A Working Group at the Forefront

In response to escalating enforcement and the limitations of current systems, the Revolutionizing Community Safety Working Group within DSA Ventura County provides a critical platform for envisioning and building alternatives to punitive policing and detention. This collective interrogates the structural roots of harm and centers abolitionist principles to cultivate transformative strategies. By advocating for policies that diminish reliance on law enforcement and promoting restorative justice, mutual aid, and community led conflict resolution, the working group aims to create a paradigm shift toward genuine safety and care.

Participation in this group offers members an opportunity to influence campaigns, shape educational programming, and engage in direct action that advances abolition and communal wellbeing. It is a space of intellectual rigor and strategic collaboration, essential for reconfiguring public safety in Ventura County.

Additional Pathways to Engagement

• Volunteering with VC Defensa to bolster rapid response and community outreach efforts: Next training is Saturday September 13th in Ojai. Follow VC Defensa’s Instagram @vcdefensa for more information.
  
• Attending monthly DSA Ventura County general meetings to stay apprised of developments and contribute to coordinated actions.
  
• Supporting immigrant justice organizations through financial contributions and advocacy.
  
• Participating in educational initiatives to raise awareness about immigrant rights and legal protections.
  
• Facilitating or joining mutual aid networks to provide tangible support to families confronting deportation threats.
  

Walking Toward a Vision of Hope and Collective Power

The challenges confronting immigrant communities are profound, yet the collective resilience and solidarity demonstrated across Ventura County affirms the power of communal action. Our strength is rooted in interdependence, sharing resources, knowledge, and care to dismantle systems of oppression and build nurturing alternatives.

Each act of resistance, from mobilizing to mutual aid, affirms a radical redefinition of safety, one premised on dignity, equity, and belonging rather than surveillance and exclusion. By engaging with these efforts, we participate in constructing a future where all community members can thrive, free from fear and repression.

On August 22nd, 2025 United Auto Worker (UAW) local 647, representing over 600 GE aerospace workers in Evendale Ohio and Erlanger Kentucky, voted by 84% to go on strike if they had not received a counter offer from GE by the time their contract expired at midnight on August 27th. That time came and true to their word the workers went on strike.

It’s important to remember that between 2022 to 2024, GE Aerospace has reaped record revenue surpassing $100 billion for over $16 billion in shareholder distributions. CEO Larry Culp earned $89 million in 2024 alone - over 1,200 times more than the median worker’s annual income. With this kind of profit GE could absolutely be reasonable with these moderate increases that the workers are asking for but are choosing not to.

Metro Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Democratic Socialists of America stand in solidarity with these workers not just with words but with direct action. DSA Cincy members have been out on the picket line since day one with these workers and are currently out there as of this writing! We proudly support GE workers and will continue to do so until their demands are met.