On the evening of June 24th, Zohran Mamdani’s campaign shocked the world, in a surprise first round victory that caused the establishment favorite, Andrew Cuomo, to concede the race. As Zohran Mamdani took the microphone, nearly an hour after Cuomo’s concession, he spoke of his monumental walk across Manhattan, describing the workers he saw across the island still hard at work running the city that never sleeps. One of the most profoundly working class speeches the US has ever seen a political candidate given. In this late evening hour, Zohran’s victory seemed to have always been an inevitable certainty.

But in October 2024, when the debate on running Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City was discussed at the New York City DSA’s convention, there were many questions about whether DSA was prepared for this campaign. Zohran Mamdani, a DSA organizer who had already been elected to the New York State Assembly in 2020, was an ideal, cadre candidate to represent the organization, but the sheer size of the effort was unlike anything a DSA chapter, even a behemoth like NYC, had taken on before. And there were deep concerns about the ability to convey an unfiltered socialist, working class message in a race as widely scrutinized as that as for the mayor of New York City.

Now we see that New York City DSA has shocked the world. Zohran’s victory in the NYC mayoral primary is the hugest electoral victory the socialist left has ever achieved in US politics, and in the end, it wasn’t even close. Despite all polling to the contrary, Zohran resoundingly crushed Cuomo in the first round of ranked choice voting, leading to a near immediate concession by the up-to-then assumed victor of the election.

How did such a seemingly impossible moment instead become an incredible victory? There are multiple elements to this. Zohran Mamdani is a generational talent, with a seemingly unshakeable charisma and ability to stay on message and inspire hope in his audience. And Cuomo’s reputation did him no favors-the more voters learned about each candidate, the further Zohran’s odds rose and Cuomo’s fell.

But the real source of this victory is the organizational weight behind Zohran Mamdani as a candidate. Over 60,000 volunteers knocked over 1.6 million doors in possibly the hugest field operation NYC has ever seen. The campaign maxed out potential fundraising early due to an unprecedented amount of committed small donors throughout NYC, enthusiastic about Zohran’s campaign. And the campaign’s Democratic Socialist politics, one that stubbornly insisted on the importance of reducing costs of living and making NYC a city for everyone, successfully captured both the media spotlight and importance among voters by sheer insistence.

Behind all these remarkable successes stands the crucial point, the thing that decided this race years before it even happened: Zohran Mamdani was a committed member of Democratic Socialists of America, an organization committed to developing the power of every day working class people to change politics in this country, and an organization that decided months before that this fight was one we could win. With this victory, there is no doubt that Democratic Socialists of America has become a historic force in US politics, one based in a kind of politics that has largely disappeared from the United States: democratic, grassroots organizations driven by regular working class people.

Steering the Ship

Seeing this huge success in New York City, what is there for us to learn in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky? While there are a number of contextual differences between ourselves and New York City, there are some core things anyone who wants a socialist left to succeed everywhere should take away.

Firstly, what Zohran successfully did was offer a politics based in hope and sincerity for the future of New Yorkers. While the fascist right has embraced cynicism as an organizing tool to encourage the US public to abandon the marginalized and oppressed, cynicism has also broadly infected politics in our society, to insist that winning better things, even if it’s what we want, is strictly impossible. Zohran’s campaign refused to cede an inch to this, insisting instead that New Yorkers “deserve to be free and fed”, that we can have everything that we deserve to lead a good life. This politics of sincerity and optimism must be the politics of Democratic Socialists of America.

Secondly, it has been common with the ebb and flow of DSA in the wake of the Bernie 2016 and 2020 campaigns to view political and historic events as something that simply occur to DSA, that we have to simply ride the waves and resist the regressions as well as we can. But Zohran’s campaign was a homegrown DSA campaign, intentionally chosen by NYC DSA to intervene in the political moment, and it is irrevocably changed the direction of politics both in New York City and across the country. While we certainly cannot control every political event that comes our way, we have the power to make our own mark on history, and we should take the opportunity to do so when we have it.

Finally, it is crucial to understand from this that power resides where we can bring people together. The powers that be rely on an increasingly common sense of powerlessness derived from us experiencing world events alone via computer and phone screens and a 24/7 stream of deeply evil events. But when we are able to come together as an organization, we transform from the framework of an individual victim of history, to a collective actor. To borrow from an excellent article on Zohran’s election:

In 2017, a DSA organizer and philosopher named Michael Kinnucan said: “US civic culture is so hollowed out at the grassroots level that in any city in the US if your organization can get 40 to 50 committed people in a room occasionally you’re probably operating one of the five or six most potentially powerful grassroots organizations in your city.

This idea was foundational to DSA, especially in New York City, and shaped Mamdani. For many, it seemed a fantasy. Five hundred thousand votes later, across nearly every language and nationality in the world, it’s a warning. To defeat the right, the left must learn from Mamdani and the DSA and rebuild mass working-class organization.”

Now is the time, in the wake of Zohran’s victory, to carve our path to power as DSA Cincinnati. While there are many differences between Cincinnati and New York City, so many of the crises Zohran plans to fight-affordability, housing, the lack of a real opposition to the Trump admin’s evil policies on immigrants, trans people and more-are crises we recognize right here in Cincinnati. It is time for us join the fight to make DSA a mass organization for millions of people, one that will take up the mantle to defeat the far right, and make Democratic Socialists of America the future of US politics.

DSA Cincinnati has already proven what it can do even with a fledgling canvassing operation. In a mere two months in 2024, DSA Cincy knocked nearly 10,000 doors to oppose Amendment 2, a Kentucky ballot measure that would have provided public school funding to private schools (the ballot measure was soundly defeated thanks to the work of unions and working class people, including DSA, across the state). Now, DSA Cincy looks to the future of Cincinnati and what can be accomplished. Democratic Socialists can take real power in Cincinnati, the same as we have in New York City. DSA has a vision of the future that meets the needs of the working class

It’s always been up to the working class to make a better future. Now it’s clear: DSA can win it. Join the fight and make it happen.

Hear from union leaders, DSA campaign organizers, and socialists in office who are continuing the fight for a better future. Given the hostile federal terrain we now face, local pressure campaigns in our communities and bargaining for the common good in our union contracts are the most viable pathways for winning a socialist Green New Deal this decade.

Speakers

• Thea Riofrancos (author, A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal)
• Ashik Siddique (DSA National Political Committee, Co-Chair)
• Sarahana Shrestha (Mid-Hudson Valley DSA, Assembly District 103)
• Kelsea Bond (Atlanta DSA, council candidate)
• Alex Brower (Milwaukee DSA, Common Council District 3 representative elect)
• Michael B (Louisville DSA)
• Sam Z (DSA Los Angeles)

The post Mass Call: The Fight for a Socialist Green New Deal appeared first on Building for Power.

Huge congratulations to Ithaca DSA’s Jorge DeFendini for securing 58.1% of the vote in the primary!

Jorge was first elected to Ithaca Common Council in 2021, and used his role to successfully go after union-busting, pass protections for gender affirming care, and secure funding for stabilizing rents. 

As a democratic socialist and DSA member, Jorge recognizes the need for all people to have affordable housing, reliable public transportation, and protected rights as workers.

Jorge’s win was made possible by our commitment to building a socialist electoral project by the working class, for the working class.

We’re looking forward to the General Election this November!

In 2023, Chicago DSA’s Chapter Convention was on the same day as Pride. This wasn’t planned, CDSA had selected the Convention date months before Pride announced their date. Former chapter Secretary Marcy wrote a great essay for Midwest Socialist about why she preferred attending a chapter meeting than the city’s highly corporate pride event, which you should all read.

There were plenty of queer and trans people in the room, making democratic decisions at the meeting. We also didn’t make quorum, and it was obvious that some members had chosen (or were working at) Pride instead of doing Robert’s Rules for half an afternoon. 

At the beginning of my cochair term, as I was planning out the dates of our quarterly meetings with my fellow cochair, I checked when Pride typically happened each year. After this review, I set one requirement: CDSA’s Convention should not conflict with either Juneteenth or be held on the last Sunday of the month, because that will mean conflicting with the Pride Parade.

I didn’t do this because I wanted to do corporate Pride entryism into the chapter, but rather because Pride brings thousands of people across the Midwest, and we should be embracing opportunities to share our politics with attendees.. Even if the events themselves are depoliticized or corporatized. 

In June 2024, CDSA members fanned out across the Chicago Pride Parade route, passing out Crash the DNC fliers and talking to attendees about the critical importance of an arms embargo. We talked to people about socialism, drank Gatorade, and met many other attendees with left and pro labor signs, and had great conversations with people we otherwise would not have met. Amidst the chaos and uncertainty of the Presidential election, being able to dress up in rainbow and socialist swag while talking about our politics lifted our spirits. 

This year, Chicago DSA is joining the Gay Liberation Network and Organized Communities Against Deportation (OCAD)’s organized contingent in the Pride march. Attacks on LGBTQ people are more intense than ever, and Pride attendees need to see a distinctly queer contingent bringing left politics in support of immigrants, labor, and Palestine. We will also have members doing crowd canvassing in support of trans patients at Lurie Children’s Hospital.

There will still be floats from large corporations, many from industries that actively harm queer and trans people every day (property management companies, banks, union-busting nonprofits and restaurants, the list sadly goes on). Those groups will march, whether or not we participate, so we might as well take up space in the parade. 

This won’t be the first time that Chicago DSA has marched in the Pride parade. The chapter participated in the mid-90’s, when both Chicago DSA, and the Pride Parade were much smaller. 

Early Pride events through the 1970s-2000s were more focused on community groups instead of sponsors, and were much more political – because they had to be. Discrimination and abuse by police were rampant, and legally sanctioned. People were dying of AIDS due to the mass indifference of federal policymakers. There were no corporate sponsors because corporations saw LGBTQ people as a brand threat, not a customer base. 

The demand that Pride become more of a party, complete with freebies thrown from corporate sponsors did not fall out of a coconut tree – it came about because of demands for LGBTQ people. Many people wanted banks, real estate agencies, and politicians to attend Pride and take their dollars and votes. Pride as a party is made possible due to many different legal protections, including basic local ordinances against “indecency”. If we want Pride to be political, we need to engage with people at Pride and make our case. This year is a good time to do that, because so many people are angry at the Trump administration, and angry at corporate cowardice and an end to long-standing sponsorships for Pride events.

There is no shortage of alternative Pride marches and events seeking to directly challenge Corporate Pride, both across the US and Chicago. In 2020 there was both a mass protest that weaved through North Halsted and ended in Uptown, and a “Drag March for Change”, explicitly demanding an end to racist discrimination in drag act bookings by Chicago venues. However, these events have seen less participants since then, and this year organizers of the “Taking Back Pride” march announced that they were cancelling their planned march for Sunday, June 22nd in order to direct people to join the GLN/OCAD contingent at Pride. Alternate marches and events can create a taste of the better world we want, but they rely on a significant amount of volunteer infrastructure, risk more encounters with police, and often don’t serve the purpose of welcoming new people into the movement. 

Join us Sunday, June 29th to either march in the Pride parade or canvass attendees about our Lurie Children’s Hospital letter campaign. If we want to win rainbow socialism, we need to speak to the beautiful rainbow masses at the Pride parade. 

The post Why Chicago DSA Is Marching in the Pride Parade appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

How DSA Members Can Help Save Regional Services

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Polling Provides Hope for Progressive Tax Solution

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transit coalitions

Bay Area

Bay Area Safe Routes to School

People’s Transit Alliance

Seamless Bay Area

Transbay Coalition

Voices for Public Transit

Transit Riders Unions

East Bay Transit Riders Union

San Francisco Transit Riders (includes Transit Justice Coalition)

Silicon Valley Transit Users

Bicyclists

Bike East Bay

California Bicycle Coalition
Marin County Bicycle Coalition

Napa County Bicycle Coalition

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

Silicon Valley Bike Coalition (includes San Mateo County)

Sonoma County Bike Coalition

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

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

Adams and big money corruption

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

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

Mamdani’s program

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

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

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

Encouraging polling

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Search of a Real Socialist Organizer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All Hail the Real Socialist Organizers

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

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

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

Not a Glide Path

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

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

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

The deadliest places in California

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

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

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

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

Coming Together

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The question of the military

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

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

All of this is real, in real time. 

Dumpster fire of a Reichstag fire

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

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

Well on the way to fascism

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

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

The Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America [DSA] condemn the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran and demand that U.S. leaders move towards disengagement instead of continuing the destruction of the region. 

After decades of crying “nuclear,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American President Donald Trump have sparked a hot war that will directly impact 90 million Iranians, 10 million Israelis and 4 million Palestinians living in the region. It will also indirectly affect people around the world, including those in Milwaukee, as the economic impact takes hold. 

“This is yet another example of unnecessary American intervention in the Middle East,” Milwaukee DSA leader Pamela Westphal said. “While thousands of Americans every day struggle to have adequate access to food, shelter, water, education and transportation, the U.S. government uses the same taxpayer dollars that could alleviate these problems to bomb innocent civilians in Iran.”

Though Trump has characterized this initial attack as necessary to bring peace, we recognize the self-fulfilling nature of a nuclear nation baiting and bombing another nation over unproven claims of that nation’s combative intentions.

Already, Israel, the U.S. and their allies have spent decades destabilizing the region. In the past three years, Israel’s escalated ethnic cleansing of Palestine alone has led to international charges of war crimes and condemnation from countries around the world.

“To our Iranian brothers and sisters in Milwaukee and beyond, I pray for your safety and healing as this war is reignited,” Westphal said. “And to our Muslim neighbors here in Milwaukee, we stand in solidarity with you against Islamophobia and U.S. intervention in the Middle East.”

Just a generation after the horrific occupation of Iraq, Americans should know better than to beat the drums of regime change or to join a war that has already cost hundreds of civilian lives. Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan remain battered by American and allied meddling, their communities facing some of the world’s worst living conditions. We hope U.S. leaders will do the right thing and move towards immediate peace instead of continuing down a long road of death and destruction.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you! Solidarity Forever!