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From the National Political Committee — Fighting For Working Class Freedom

Enjoy your October National Political Committee (NPC) newsletter! Our NPC is an elected 27-person body (including both YDSA Co-Chairs) which functions as the board of directors of DSA. This month, join our Fall Drive, hear about organizing across the country, and more!

And to make sure you get our newsletters in your inbox, sign up here! Each one features action alerts, upcoming events, political education, and more.

From the National Political Committee — Fighting For Working Class Freedom

Hot Socialist Summer has come to a close for 2025, but as the temperature drops this fall, organizing across DSA is heating up! 

DSA is at a pivotal moment, where the genocide in Palestine and the failures of the Democratic Party to mount meaningful opposition to the Trump administration, the oligarchy, and the rise of the far-right is motivating tens of thousands of people to build a mass, socialist organization in the United States. According to a Gallup poll, support for socialism is at an all-time high among Democratic voters. DSA’s presence at mass actions like the No Kings protests last weekend show how many people are ready for a fighting alternative to the catastrophic status quo. 

All across the country, people are being inspired to believe that building a powerful socialist party is possible — and that they can be a part of it. Just this past month, DSA has surpassed 80,000 members in good standing, our highest membership peak to date! DSA now has better organization, more political development, more vibrant internal democracy, and more radical ambitions coming to fruition than ever. We have more DSA members contesting elected office while operating together as socialist blocs, from Missoula, Montana, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Portland, Oregon. We are more embedded in the labor movement, we are more functionally part of social movements, we are more deeply internationalist — and thus are even better positioned to motivate and sustain a new membership surge.

We are just weeks away from Zohran Mamdani’s election for mayor of New York City — a democratic socialist mayor in the highest executive office in the heart of global capital! — and chapters across the country are throwing down for their locally and nationally-endorsed campaigns as Election Day nears (and you can, too, even if you’re not in a city with a candidate – jump on a Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash phonebank and help push these candidates across the finish line)!

State power is just one piece of DSA’s strategy — we’re also… 

As we continue the fight for working class freedom everywhere — from down the block to the other side of the globe — we know that as DSA, we must be bigger and stronger by many orders of magnitude. DSA is and will always be a dues-funded organization, where organizing new members increases our people power, allowing us to deepen and expand our base as we fight to oppose US military aggression and free Palestine, prepare for major political interventions toward midterms, organize toward May Day 2028, and so much more. DSA now has more members in good standing than ever before — and we’re turning the heat up higher with our just-launched Fall Recruitment Drive, with a stretch goal of reaching 100,000 DSA members by the end of this year! 

We’re rooted in struggle, blooming in solidarity — and together we’ll keep growing democratic socialism throughout this fall. Read on for more about how you can plug into the Fall Drive — and sign up for phonebanks with special guests, to help us reconnect with lapsed members to rejoin DSA in this crucial political moment!  Watch this space for more information about how you can get involved at the chapter level, or by taking on your own recruitment campaigns among your coworkers, neighbors, and friends.

For even more ways to get plugged into DSA, scroll down! We will see you in the fight!

Yours, 

Megan Romer and Ashik Siddique
DSA National Co-Chairs

Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash. Help Elect Socialist Candidates!

It’s 3 weeks till election day ⏳ and we’re 6.5k short of our goal! It’s been a hugely successful year for the DSA’s National Electoral Commission and our fundraising campaign, and we’re hoping to have a new crop of socialists in office to show for it.

But taking out the capitalist trash won’t be possible without YOUR help. Corporate money is flooding into our races across the country in this crucial final stretch. We’ve set a goal of raising $100,000 before election day to ensure our slate has the support it needs to win and we’re just a little over $5,000 short! Can you donate to our slate to support a socialist running for office?

Saturday 10/25 Fall Drive Phonebank Kick Off — Special Guest Bhaskar Sunkara

Be part of the Growth and Development Committee’s nation-wide membership drive! Our strength is rooted in solidarity and in our communities. Let’s work to build deep roots in our local communities, reach out to lapsed members to renew, and bring thousands more into the struggle together! Join us for Fall Drive phonebanks to talk with lapsed DSA members about renewing their dues. We’ll kick off Saturday 10/25 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT with special guest Bhaskar Sunkara!

And you can join calls throughout November:

RSVP for International Migrant Rights Working Group ICE Watch Training Tuesday 10/28

ICE agents have been escalating their presence in our communities, and that means that we need to get together with our neighbors and come up with plans to make sure we are protecting ourselves and our communities from their harassment.

People all over the country are trying different things. Many communities are coming up with ways to observe ICE and to inform neighbors of their rights, all things that every person has a right to do under the Constitution.

Join DSA’s International Migrant Rights Working Group and NDLON on Tuesday 10/28 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT to hear from NDLON organizers about the Adopt a Corner program, and from DSA organizers who are actively running ICEWatch and Adopt a Corner programs in their local chapters.

AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Collective Meetings Tuesday 10/21, Thursday 11/13

Hello comrades and cousins! Interested in joining a collective for AfroSocialists and Socialists of Color? 

Join AfroSoC for for upcoming General Body Meeting (GBM) to be in community with socialists of similar identity, culture and politics. The next GBM will be Thursday 11/13 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT.

If you are new to AfroSoC, we encourage you to attend our upcoming New Member Orientation tonight, Tuesday 10/21 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT. Questions? Reach out to AfroSoc@dsacommittees.org.

Convention results

The 2025 Convention Results Compendium and Minutes are officially approved by the 2025-2027 National Political Committee (NPC)! You can view these results and minutes here.

We appreciate everyone’s patience as our new NPC got onboarded and settled into their roles. As a reminder, there are Overflow Agenda items from the Convention that the NPC is still working through. These can be viewed in the final compendium. We hope to take up a majority of these items during our October 19th virtual meeting as well as our November 8th and 9th NPC in-person meeting in Denver, Colorado. 

We hope that all comrades who got sick following Convention are doing well. If you think you may have contracted COVID and have not already let us know, please email dsacon@dsausa.org with the subject line “Convention COVID Reporting” so we can continue to track and plan for future events. Please do not reply back to this email for this purpose.

Apply to Join the Democracy Commission (DemCom) 2025–2027! Deadline Extended to Friday 10/31

Apply to Join the Democracy Commission (DemCom) 2025–2027! The deadline to apply is Friday 10/31. Authorized in 2023, the Democracy Commission (DemCom) developed reforms to strengthen democracy across DSA. Its proposals were overwhelmingly adopted at the 2025 Convention, and the body has now been reauthorized to support chapters and the NPC in implementing them.

DemCom will assist with chapter rechartering and bylaws review (2025–2027), visit chapter meetings to support implementation, report regularly to members and the NPC, develop best practices in tandem with chapters, and promote democratic governance. 

There are open seats on the Commission. Please fill out the form here to apply. The application deadline is Friday 10/31. Commissioners are expected to attend regular meetings (8PM ET, Monday evenings, plus some weekends), work with chapters to implement reforms, and report on progress and challenges.

The post From the National Political Committee — Fighting For Working Class Freedom appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

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Revolutionary Optimism and Why You Should Kill the Doomer Inside You

Author: Mike Z

Things aren’t the best right now. I think we can probably all agree on that. The Trump administration is seemingly speed running the dismantling of our civil liberties while nakedly attacking any opposition of any kind. He’s declared war on anyone even remotely to the left of his positions with with broad and sweeping declarations of illegality so as to target and silence dissent within society. Even the most milquetoast liberals are being attacked and silenced for their modest criticism of Trump. Endless tariff uncertainty and corporate back dealing have led to ever increasing pinch in the wallet for the average person. ICE continues to attack our neighbors in the name of unlimited deportations. Federal troops and the national guard are being deployed en masse to ccities Trump deems to be “crime infested” to normalize their use against American citizens. Israel continues its genocide of Gaza from occupied Palestinian territory while the American media landscape consolidates control in the hands of a few Zionist sympathizers.

I think many of us did not expect things to fall so fast. That there would be at least some kind of fight or pushback that would slow things down. I think many of us thought we’d have more time to prepare for a fight that we knew may be coming, but just not yet.

We do not.

The fight against fascism is here. And with this recognition there is a sense of helplessness and hopelessness that can become paralyzing or empowering depending on your outlook. I recently helped run a new member orientation and when we talked about why we all joined, those feelings of helplessness and hopelessness were at the top of the list. For these people those feelings motivated them to seek out something more, but for so many others it leads us to shut down. Even those of us who have been in this fight for any amount of time are susceptible to this as well. What we do is not easy and we are all just human at the end of the day. It is something I have fought with on hard days as I’m sure many of you have as well, but we must be wary of letting those feelings set in and stay for any significant length of time. They can lead us to doomerism – that nihilistic feeling that nothing can change, try as we might, so what’s the point? It leads us to isolate and pull away from our comrades who are in desperate need of our support and solidarity. It leads us to comply with our ideological enemies before so much as a word is even uttered.

Do not comply in advance. Kill the part of you that dooms.

Your doomerism is the final boss of overcoming your liberalism. Liberalism teaches us to be oriented towards the individual and to hold that ability to operate unfettered from the restrictions of society and our peers as the highest virtue. It would have us believe that a single person, with enough pulling of the bootstraps, could change society. But anyone who has lived in one of our so-called liberal democracies understands the powerlessness of the individual in the face of systemic oppression. I believe this is where that doom comes from. But as socialists the remedy is simple. It is the knowledge that throughout history it has always been the case that true change only happens when the average person bands together in a fight for a vision of a future that has yet to be. A future that WILL be if we do the work now to materialize it.

We must remain endlessly hopeful that these actions we are taking right now will be the ones that start the fall of the first domino. We must remain steadfast in the face of overwhelming power and adversity to keep fighting for what we know to be right and just. We must remain assured in our convictions that the emancipation of all people from the evils of capitalism is worth fighting for to see a better future for our descendants who will reap what we sow today. And this is not to say it will be easy, because it certainly will not be, but remember that by joining with our comrades we can help each other foster and maintain the spirit of unyielding optimism that our fight requires. The future we want to build must remain our lodestar to bind us together in a movement larger than any one of us single actors.

In writing this I am constantly thinking of the Palestinian people, as I do most days for the past 2 years of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Every day there are new atrocities to learn about. Every day more innocent lives are lost in the name of genocidal irredentist conquest. But every day I am also stunned by the stories of ongoing resilience by those who remain and continue to fight for their very existence. They would have every right to despair. Nearly 80 years of occupation and systematic ethnic cleansing by Zionist forces, the majority of it patently unknown to much of the western world funding their destruction, and yet they carry on. They continue to fight for their homeland and their humanity with such grace and compassion. They remain unbroken.

Just as they dream of a world where they can live free in their land once more, we can embody this endless optimism in our fight to transform the world. We can work to build a world that will ensure that the oppressed and marginalized peoples around the world may never suffer a fate even remotely similar to those of Palestine, or Sudan, or Sri Lanka, or any of the other communities across the globe being persecuted ever again. For the sake of all people we must steel ourselves so we may respond to their cries for help both at home and abroad.

I recently finished a wonderful book, “Let This Radicalize You” by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba Cover to cover it was an amazing read that I highly recommend to any organizers looking for salient real world stories of other organizers and how they’ve struggled and succeeded. But that’s not what I want to talk about. During the book Mariame quotes one of her previous works and it has become permanently emblazoned into my mind –

“Let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair.”

And that’s really the whole thing right there to me. To me this quote really encapsulates the concept of Revolutionary Optimism in its entirety. When faced with heinous societal developments, don’t let it silence you, let it be the fuel that powers your resistance. Be it hope, anger or anything in between. And if you can’t do that, do it out of spite.
Remember that the average person does not like what is going on. They don’t like Trump and all the violence he is fomenting. They don’t like the attacks on their neighbors. They don’t like everything becoming endlessly more expensive while becoming worse every year. They don’t like the threats and restrictions on their freedoms across the board.
Remember that people want clean air and safe food. They want universal healthcare. They want affordable childcare. They want high quality infrastructure and public transit systems. They want affordable public housing. They want to feel safe with their family when they are out in the world. People want peace and prosperity, not war and destruction.

The average person is feeling all the same emotions of helplessness that we are – it’s our responsibility to help them. As those on the forefront of this struggle it is our duty to share our knowledge and strategies with the masses. To organize them and bring them into the fold of our fight. To show them a better future is possible and that they are a vital part of the equation that will free us all.

Organizing is the antidote to the despair we are all collectively feeling and working to stave off every day. In my short time in DSA I have found that surrounding myself with my comrades working together, no matter how small that work may be, has been the surest path to feeling secure in what we are doing. It’s helped me feel a little less alone in such uncertain times. It’s helped me feel reassured in the mission we are all here to fight for and the world that DSA believes in. I hope it can be that for you as well.


Kill the doomer inside you. A better world is possible for us all – let’s build it together.

Join DSA

If you’ve read this far I want to reward you with some of my current favorite videos that help me maintain my optimism for the future by reminding me why we fight. They help me lock back in. Yes, 3 of them are from Andor – don’t give me that look. Light spoilers if you haven’t seen it (go watch it).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-asb8zTiuZ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKB67KzjO4A 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaKrm5txGCQ


And finally an excerpt from one Michael Parenti’s many wonderful lectures


https://youtu.be/npkeecCErQc?si=0o_HW2fb4jdUY-I4


The post Revolutionary Optimism and Why You Should Kill the Doomer Inside You appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

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MIT Refuses to Sign Trump Compact Following Pressure from Grad Workers’ Union and Other Groups

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AAUP vice-president Ariel White and GSU president Lauren Chua speaking at the rally. (Siobhan M)

By: Frederick Reiber

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s students, workers, and union comrades gathered outside of the university’s Lobby 7 on Friday, October 10th to protest and celebrate MIT rejecting the Trump administration’s compact. 

Earlier this month, the White House sent offers to nine universities in what the administration titled “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” Contained within these agreements were a number of stipulations—including commitments to accept the government’s priorities on admissions, women’s sports, free speech, student discipline and college affordability—exchanged for better access to federal research funding.

Following calls from the graduate worker union, professors, and numerous other student-led groups, MIT president Sally Kornbluth rejected the compact. She cited the numerous messages she had received asking for the compact’s rejection. In doing so the university becomes the first to reject the president’s proposal and the only such university at the time of writing.

Trump’s Continued Attacks on Higher Education

Trump’s proposal follows numerous attacks and challenges to higher education. The administration has paused federal funding of many top research universities, signed several executive orders targeting colleges, and attacked international students’ rights. These have emptied out entire neighborhoods in areas like Allston-Brighton as international student enrollment dropped precipitously this semester, and while the compact may be seen as an attempt to change course, academic leaders were quick to point out its true intent. Ariel White, vice president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) at MIT, said:

This wasn’t an invitation letter, it was a ransom note… the goal is to leave universities powerless and at the whim of the federal government.

Other academic leaders agreed. MIT Graduate Student Union (GSU) – UE 256 president Lauren Chua called the proposal  “a thinly veiled attempt to divide us, to make us turn against each other, and to weaken the very communities that make our university thrive.” 

Chua couldn’t be more right, as the compact seeks to enforce harmful gender definitions, denying transgender students recognition and rolling back university protections, all masked under the language of “equality.” Other stipulations include forcing universities to be more accepting of conservative lines of thought, potentially overruling scientific consensus in academic research. The compact also bans colleges from using sex, ethnicity, gender, or political orientations, continuing the overturning of decades of academic work that finds strong connections between affirmative-action like policies and increasing opportunity for those with less money, or those who continue to face systemic racism. As Jade Personna, the speaker for the MIT Black Student Union, argued: “the battle is decades old and the Black Student Union has been fighting it since our inception.”

U.S. conservatives will continue their attacks on academic and intellectual freedom. That is part of a larger ideological project only furthered by the practical program of Project 2025. Long seen as bastions of “deceit and lies,” higher education has long been seen by conservatives as a threat. Some claim that colleges “teach that America is an evil, racist nation” purely for harboring left-wing scholars,. Now-Vice President JD Vance summarized their perception back in 2021: “the universities are the enemy.” 

In reality, American colleges reflect and reproduce America’s troubled history. Universities are learning institutions that are also landlords, schools that are also workplaces. 

Recognizing People Power

One important takeaway from the academic and student rally was the need for people power. Despite what other headlines may imply, the university’s rejection of the Trump Compact was not simply a matter of a good executive. The university’s rejection was a coordinated and community-led effort, won by the numerous student, worker, and professor-lead groups that organized against the compact by applying pressure on an executive amenable to that pressure.

The unfortunate reality is that American universities are businesses. Run by boards of trustees, colleges will do little to protect their students’ rights to academic or intellectual freedom in the face of financial turmoil. We have seen this time after time with pro-Palestine protests, and will likely continue to see similar protests dispelled. 

Kornbluth was forced to reject the compact by the very people who make MIT the institution of MIT. It is the professors, workers, and students who stood up for their communities, risking their bodies against an administration unafraid to kidnap or coerce. As Chua stated in her speech:

This is a victory for every single one of us, because we acted with unity and urgency, [because] we mounted a pressure that could not be ignored.

Fighting against fascism is not easy, it is not pretty, and it certainly is not done by CEOs, academic presidents, or a board of trustees. It is done through the blood, sweat, and organizing of workers, who—much like the community leaders at MIT—make themselves heard.

Frederick Reiber is a PhD student at Boston University researching collective action and technology. He is a member of SEIU 509, Boston DSA, and covers tech, labor, and education for Working Mass.

The post MIT Refuses to Sign Trump Compact Following Pressure from Grad Workers’ Union and Other Groups appeared first on Working Mass.

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DSA’s Success: Lakewood Passes First-of-its-Kind “Gender Freedom Policy”

From the beginning, the Trans Liberation Priority Project has put on its agenda passing trans sanctuary city legislation in the cities of Lakewood and Cleveland.
Lakewood is our first success.


The Cleveland DSA Chapter first submitted draft legislation to the City of Lakewood in April 2025 and showed up in support of this at a city council meeting, with numerous DSA members who resided in Lakewood giving testimony. Afterwards, representatives from DSA kept in touch with Council President Sarah Kepple about this for several months. In addition, we attended several events in Lakewood and canvassed, gathering resident signatures in support of the legislation.


The City, after consulting with leading local and state LGBTQ rights organizations, transformed our original draft into a Gender Freedom Policy which enshrines and upholds transgender rights in Lakewood. Sarah joined a DSA call in September and discussed the policy further. The legislation was formally brought to the floor of council in September and passed on October 6th, 2025—and we gained an earned media opportunity by being featured in an article in Ohio queer news publication The Buckeye Flame!


What does this show? Our efforts work. There is strength in numbers. Public support can sway minds. There is an appetite to protect our most vulnerable populations in Ohio, despite what legislation our state and federal governments pass. Persistent, polite communication and pressure works with local politicians. Blue cities can be beacons of hope, even in red states.


Our goal is to emulate this in the City of Cleveland. Through concentrated, democratic efforts with local partners and politicians, we aim to encourage Cleveland to pass similar legislation. The fight for another victory is only just beginning, and we are ready for it!

The post DSA’s Success: Lakewood Passes First-of-its-Kind “Gender Freedom Policy” appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.