By Halsey H.

The past decade of the Democratic Socialists of America has been defined by shockingly successful moonshot campaigns that catapulted socialism into national conversation, leaving organizers scrambling to meet the moment without sacrificing their principles. First, we had Bernie’s 2016 presidential campaign and its 2020 encore, and then just a few months ago, Zohran Mamdani shattered expectations with his election as  mayor of New York City. Now, it might be Wisconsin’s turn: MADSA member and State Rep. Francesca Hong announced her bid for Governor at our September General Meeting. Since then, there has been widespread debate in the chapter, but one thing we all seem to agree on: this race could be a huge opportunity for socialists in Wisconsin. The question is – are we ready?

MADSA members have been thinking about this race in the context of our preference for “cadre campaigns,” where we slowly and deliberately build our organization from the ground up by sending candidates into office who are drafted to represent DSA’s politics in office. I believe this is the best strategy for building our independent electoral apparatus, and laying the groundwork for a party – but it’s not the only strategy. In some ways, our relationship to Fran’s campaign might look more similar to the Bernie campaigns, where DSA reverse-engineered a socialist organization out of an electoral campaign. The comet’s going to pass whether we like it or not, and we know people are already watching it. We also know that the only thing that can win socialism is a mass working class organization, so we need to make sure that when people look around with new eyes, they find us and the movement we’re building. That means the question of whether this race will advance the class struggle can only be answered by our ability and willingness to rise to the occasion and build that movement.

In my mind, the decision to get involved in any electoral campaign (or other organizing project) should come back to three simple questions (distilled by comrade Marianela D’Aprile):

1. Does it make more socialists?
2. Does it build the power and organization of the working class? 
3. Does it build the power of DSA? 

I believe that Fran and her campaign team want the answers to be yes, but I don’t think it’s entirely up to them– it’s up to us. There’s a very real chance that we get to live in a world where Fran runs as an extremely open socialist everywhere, endorses all of our downballot candidates, uses her platform to uplift DSA’s priorities, and encourages people to join DSA at campaign events. In that world, we are firing on all cylinders for most of 2026. We’re running her canvasses in Madison and across the state, including in districts where we don’t have enough of a footprint to run downballot candidates, and using them to recruit like crazy – since we’ll be the field leads, and hosting the after-canvass cookouts. We’ll be expanding our membership, expanding and deepening our coalition relationships, and building internal infrastructure – and potentially building toward a statewide DSA legislative campaign. Win or lose, a race like this can change the landscape of WI politics for the better, and build DSA’s capacity to take on state-level policy fights – and other struggles – in the future. Some of it will be on Fran, but a lot of it will come down to whether or not MADSA and our comrades around Wisconsin have the capacity to use this campaign to make more socialists, empower our class, and build our organization.  For the record, I want to be convinced, because I fear the gravitational pull of a statewide race will be too much to resist for the majority of the chapter. We might as well try to get the best endorsement situation we can.

Below I’ve laid out my understanding of the state of the race, our relationship with Fran and her campaign, and the chapter’s strengths and weaknesses. Finally, I propose what an ideal campaign would look like, and what commitments it will take from Fran AND from MADSA to get us there. If we don’t feel like those commitments are possible, then we shouldn’t endorse. If they are, we may very well be foolish not to.

Some context: as the co-chair of the chapter and active member of the Electoral Working Group, I have been privy to many conversations about and with Fran. I have also been involved in several DSA campaigns, including as a DSA rep to a campaign coalition team. There are definitely aspects to this campaign and our political terrain that I don’t have insight into, and I encourage other comrades to elaborate upon or argue with what I’ve laid out here. I do think this reflects the gist of the conversations about Fran’s campaign in EWG, and I hope this will be a useful framework for chapter members thinking about this huge decision in the coming weeks. Thank you to comrades Wesley, Justin, Adithya, Athnie, and others for your contributions!

The Fran We’re Dealt

In assessing this race, it’s helpful to understand MADSA’s current relationship with Fran. It is true that Fran is not a homegrown cadre, drafted by our organization to represent us in the Assembly as part of our political strategy. Despite this, we maintain a positive, but limited, relationship with her, and she behaves in office as we’d hope any socialist would – introducing legislation like the Economic Justice Bill of Rights, elevating the demands of organized labor and social movements, and taking the fight to the Democratic Party when necessary. To be frank, I think the reason we’re so distant is that for most of Fran’s time in office, MADSA hasn’t had the electoral or legislative capacity to build the relationship to the point where it would have been mutually beneficial.

Some background: Fran was elected in 2020 at the top of a crowded field that included at least one other DSA member, Marsha Rummell. (MADSA did not endorse in that race, but did endorse Fran’s current chief of staff, Nada Elmikashfi, for State Senate District 26). After the election, Fran joined DSA. Fran was re-elected in 2022 and again in 2024, which is when MADSA endorsed her for the first time and about when she joined the WI Legislative Socialists Caucus. We didn’t get involved in the field for her 2024 State Assembly race, as she was a popular incumbent with no primary challenger. Instead, we endorsed on paper and threw our weight behind another race that needed more capacity, Maia Pearson’s unsuccessful challenge to incumbent Rep. Shelia Stubbs. I believe it was a mistake not to get more involved in Fran’s campaign, or at least bring her into greater communication with the chapter, as doing so would have given us more opportunities to deepen our working relationship. 

Despite this, she was involved in MADSA’s 2024 priority campaign: Free School Meals for MMSD, and played a crucial role in connecting that local coalition to a state-level one. Occasionally, Fran has attended chapter and working group meetings and participated in DSA events, most notably the YDSA Organizing Fair shortly after the 2024 election, and the Hands Off Medicaid Town Hall earlier this year. We have reason to believe that she’d be willing to have a stronger relationship with us, if our chapter 1) had more capacity – and a strategy – for state-level legislative work and 2) had a formal communication channel with Fran and her office that could keep her in the loop on chapter priorities and facilitate her giving regular reports to MADSA membership. As a popular and highly-motivated activist Assemblywoman, Fran has a lot of political capital – much more than MADSA. She also has a lot of voices in her ear, and unfortunately, we haven’t been strong enough to earn a place amongst the loudest ones. 

Unfortunately, the fact that she has political capital above and beyond MADSA’s means that her decision to run for governor is not an expression of DSA’s democratically-decided strategic priorities. I won’t lie – it’s not ideal that we’re getting involved so late and have so few cadre in the commanding heights of the campaign. As we know from her work in the legislature, Fran is a great fighter, but I think it’s safe to say that this is not a fight MADSA would have picked. If we’d been a factor in Fran’s decision to run for governor, we probably would have come out against it, both because of scale and because of the contradictions inherent to governing as a socialist executive under capitalism. There is a non-zero chance that Fran could win! That does feel like a bridge we’ll have to cross when we come to it, but we do owe it to ourselves to be serious about what that will entail, before the rubber hits the road. If we’re lucky, we can get some progressive stuff done with her as Governor, but there is a real tension implicit in having to govern, as we’re seeing with Zohran in NYC. We need to make sure having a socialist executive won’t backfire or fracture our movement, and see our role as creating the conditions in which a socialist executive can succeed.

My belief is that the strength of any socialist elected depends on the strength of the movement that supports them, their ability to elevate movement demands, and how well they communicate back to the movement about the compromises they are forced to make – because there will be compromises. Even if Fran was the ideal cadre candidate in every conceivable way, there would be decisions she’s forced to make where there’s no good option. If we get involved in this race, we should get realistic about what we hope to achieve on the inside, and where she’ll need movement pressure from the outside – both to advance a popular mandate for socialist transitional demands, and to defend that mandate from the backlash of capitalists and their allies in the state and federal government. 

Can MADSA Meet the Moment?

While the weakness of the relationship with Fran is partially due to the weakness of our chapter in the past, our chapter is in a vastly different place than it was even a year ago. Our membership has nearly doubled since November 2024, and our active membership, though harder to quantify, feels like it’s quadrupled. Dozens of new members are pouring in every month, bringing new ideas, skills, energy, and enthusiasm. New members are taking on new responsibilities, building an increasingly comradely and democratic culture. 

We have a chapter that is committed to the ultimate vision of building an independent socialist party, and an Electoral Working Group eager to expand our electoral machine. And in Madison, we can prioritize non-partisan campaigns on a local level, and focus on a vision of building up cadre candidates — leaders developed through our ranks. Our working group is committed to only recommending endorsements for campaigns where DSA will have a significant impact. That vision has driven some skepticism about Fran’s campaign, since it is 1) a Democratic Party primary in a high-stakes general election 2) not a cadre campaign and 3) would require a massive commitment from the chapter, potentially taking away from other cadre candidates. This skepticism has allowed us to take seriously the opportunities and challenges offered by this race, and given us time to build the relationships we need to make it work.

It has also forced us to take stock of what we have to offer, which at this point in MADSA’s development, could be quite a lot. Thanks in part to our recent local program canvassing, we have at least a dozen people who could be field leads tomorrow, and another dozen who could be running shifts by the end of the month. We have countless more people who could canvass and take on other field volunteer roles, and many who can bottomline town halls, socials, and fundraiser events. This will take a tremendous amount of training and development work, but luckily, we have a strong and constantly improving Membership Engagement Team which is building an onboarding pipeline in conjunction with the Political Education Working Group. We have a good track record of comradely coalition work and connections throughout Madison, and have members with connections to smaller towns and cities across the state, who could help host events, train field teams, and even seed DSA chapters in parts of Wisconsin where we’re still punching below our weight.

While we bring a lot to the table, some things are still in the oven. Our Electoral Working Group was chartered just a few months ago, and although it is doing great work and holding 20+ member meetings on a biweekly basis, the group has quickly borne the stress of increased attention on DSA. We went from having no endorsement procedure to handling endorsements at four different levels of government in mere weeks, and will need to keep learning and adapting to changing circumstances. As of this week, we’re now officially in the process of drafting a 2026 Political Platform to replace the outdated version from 2021, which will hopefully guide our organizing work for the next year and give some direction to our small but growing stable of policy people. We also have a desire to develop a coordinating structure to build on our Endorsed Candidate Expectations and support communication between our endorsed electeds and the chapter, but no concrete plans just yet.

All of that information and organizing infrastructure is still getting built, but the foundation is there, and could grow much stronger if we get involved in Fran’s campaign at a high level and bring all of that experience back into the chapter. Both our program/policy work and nascent SIOC team can also help us build a stronger relationship with Milwaukee DSA and other WI DSA chapters, to the point where we could lead the adoption of a Wisconsin DSA Platform and build campaigns around shared statewide priorities. A statewide race is the perfect foundation for that kind of Wisconsin-wide coordination, and would help us build the organizing relationships we’ll need if and when Fran wins the election (and if she loses, too).

The State of Play

It’s been a long few months since Fran first announced her candidacy for Governor, and some of the chapter’s initial apprehension seems to have shifted. Fran has a new campaign manager who is a DSA member, and seems to be drawing a lot of her high-level team from Milwaukee DSA. Several MADSA members are also involved in their capacity as individuals. As a result, we’re seeing improvements in her messaging around “democratic socialism,” which now has pride of place on the front page of her website. There definitely could be a greater emphasis on DSA and recruitment to DSA in her campaign comms, but signs are promising that she’d be willing to work with us to shape her messaging. She has expressed to both Milwaukee and Madison DSA that she’s interested in getting us involved in field organizing in a big way, and sees us a key potential partner in her campaign.

There are also some external forces that may be affecting some of the positive developments, and could continue to push this campaign more into “socialist tribune” territory. The race is almost comedically stacked with good-enough, labor-friendly, progressive-ish Wisconsin Democrats, and the entrance of Mandela Barnes – a classic “progressive except for Palestine” who’s running like he’ll run away with the primary despite his reputation as a loser – makes it even easier for Fran to distinguish herself as not just another progressive, but the true fighter for Palestine and the only unapologetic socialist. To really take advantage of that opening, Fran needs to run like she’s not afraid to lose – because the way the winds are blowing, that’s the only way to win. If she positions herself hard against the establishment and ready to take the battle to both the Republicans who want to flood our state with masked ICE agents and the Democratic Party establishment that doesn’t have any solution for that or just about anything else, she can win over broad swaths of working class Wisconsinites who are sick of business as usual.

With these positive developments, it is looking more likely that the campaign will be ripe with opportunities for socialists in Madison and Wisconsin to build our capacities. Specifically, it opens up avenues to 

1) coordinate and collaborate with other DSA chapters around Wisconsin

2) recruit and develop leaders in communities where we don’t have a strong presence yet, through field work and through building coalition relationships with other organizations involved in the campaign 

3) shore up our policy knowledge, deepen our working relationship with the WI Legislative Socialists, and help us develop our state-level electoral/legislative strategy

4) build up our campaigning capacity for future electoral and other work

5) and above all, to articulate a socialist politics and a vision for our state that speaks to the needs of working-class Wisconsinites.

Playing Our Hand 

Now that we know what cards we’re holding, we need a gameplan. It’s up to the chapter to iron out what our involvement in the campaign could look like, but I think it’s shaping up like this:

• MADSA grinds to deliver Madison for Fran and builds a city-wide base for her key campaign demands, on the strength of issue-forward slate canvasses for Fran and our downballot candidates 
• DSA chapters cohere a statewide DSA network to coordinate around the Fran campaign, and work toward an in-person WI DSA conference. That network will:
  • Go absolutely beast mode on field in towns and cities around the state
  • Train up DSA field leads where we have chapters, and send experienced organized to seed and mentor chapters where we don’t
  • ID campaign volunteers to recruit to DSA
  • Host & run town halls on the key issues, and use them to identity volunteers and local leaders & help sharpen our messaging 
• WI DSA can think about what kinds of campaigns we can lead around issues where Fran’s platform overlaps with ours. If we have that vision in place well before the election, we can bring leaders we meet and develop through the campaign into that work long-term, whether as DSA members or coalition partners.

I’ve said that the ball is mostly in MADSA’s court, but there are definitely some things we need from Fran and her team to make this possible. At a basic level, that looks like her promoting DSA somewhat regularly, and getting some MADSA people getting involved at a high level in the campaign (especially in field but also in comms, fundraising, etc.). We also need her to commit to endorsements for our down-ballot races, so we can campaign for them as a slate and do joint canvasses in Madison and Milwaukee. Finally, it would be great if we could get Fran to do a little political education work with us while on the trail and in office. Hopefully we can come to a shared understanding of what DSA needs and wants from this campaign, and get everyone, including Fran, bought into the idea that DSA can and will throw down if we think we’re building socialism, but will also work very hard to keep the class struggle on track.

Can we Make Better Possible?

I’ve laid out what I think MADSA’s involvement in this race should look like in an ideal world, and what we need from Fran to make it possible. Now I want to lay out concretely what I think we need to put into this race in order to get out what we need from it. 

First, we need to make sure our heads are in the game. We need the whole chapter locked in on being serious, curious, adaptable, and comradely, and thoroughly committed to constructive communication and organizational democracy. Getting involved in a high-profile race like this means a lot of people are going to be circling us, joining, and wanting a piece of what we have to offer. We need to keep our eyes on the prize (socialism!) and make sure that we’re not falling for any opportunistic pitfalls. This will take rigorous planning and creative problem-solving. Internally, we’ll need to set up a democratic structure that can hold the relationship with Fran and the campaign, but not too close to the chest. There should be opportunities for rank and file MADSA members to get involved in the campaign coordinating structure we develop. This will make this project successful, and can help us lay the groundwork for more democratic, accountable relationships with our member-electeds in the future.

Secondly, we need to be ready to grind. This campaign only works if we are all in, and have a large proportion of the chapter ready to do the work – not just canvassing, but learning how to lead canvasses and phonebanks, cut turf, run events, fundraise, and do campaign comms. Having people learn those skills will build up our chapter’s capacity for future fights, but will also take countless hours of chapter member time away from other things we could be doing. If our members, and especially our electorally-inclined members and leaders, are not excited to do that work, they should say so, so we don’t overpromise and underdeliver. We’ll also need to be everywhere all the time, and be representing DSA in a positive way in coalition spaces, at canvass kickoffs, at campaign socials, and at the doors – and then, we’ll need to be identifying potential recruits like crazy and making sure our follow-up game is on point. This campaign gives us a great opportunity to talk to people in Madison and around the state who haven’t heard of DSA, and may be outside of our usual recruitment circles, and we should make sure we’re bringing them into a healthy and welcoming chapter with lots of ways to get plugged in. On top of the campaign work, we’ll need a summer of socials, trainings, and political education. 

We also need to invest in our relationship with Milwaukee DSA and other WI chapters, and make sure we’re building member-to-member social ties and space for political discussion and creative collaboration, not just top-down coordinating bodies. A centralizing priority with such high stakes will be a great opportunity to do any repair work that needs to be done, and to start to articulate what a statewide DSA Program could look like. 

Finally, we need to get aligned internally – or at least start the conversation – about what we want to see from Fran’s administration, and who we’d like to see in it. We need a sense of what we think we can accomplish with a woman on the inside, and what issues we expect to have to push her on from the outside.

That’s a lot to think about, but luckily, we have some time. As of today, Fran is still in the petitioning process, and will have a questionnaire, an interview, and another candidate forum for her to tell us what she thinks. At the same time, we need to be talking amongst ourselves about what we think we can realistically deliver, how much we’re willing to sacrifice to do it, and whether we think it’s worth it in order to make more socialists, grow DSA, and build the power of the working class to defeat capitalism and win social, economic, and political democracy for all. I believe in our chapter’s democracy and our ability to make a strong, empowered, democratic decision about this endorsement, and I look forward to continued discussions about this over the weeks and months to come.

2026 North NJ DSA Chapter Convention ***CHAPTER CONVENTION IS JANUARY 31 at the HUUB in Orange!!*** The event will by hybrid, with the in-person portion being held at The HUUB (47 […]

Mayor Bowser's RENTAL Act has washed away decades of rights enjoyed by tenants in DC. It's time for us to fight back.

“Pinto and Trump / sitting in a tree / attacking and terrorizing kids in DC”

Peninsula DSA is deeply proud of its connections with AFT 1493, and counts many professional teachers as valued comrades in our organization and even on our steering committee. This connection adds to our collective horror and ire at recent attacks on academic freedom [1] and the all out assault [2] on both students and teachers by this fascist government [3], that nonetheless heighten existing contradictions and problems in higher education [4].

Online harassment of educators, in particular, is on the rise, often with the explicit goal of getting people fired from their jobs [5]. For years now, reactionary vigilantes on the internet have made it their life’s work to “expose” regular school teachers, perhaps because they express ideas with which they find dangerous to their preferred social structure, or perhaps because the person is of an appearance that they find similarly distasteful (such as being an openly queer person).

One recent case in particular has caused us great concern [6]. On September 10, Tom Alter, a tenured professor of history at Texas State University, was fired without due process, after speaking in a personal capacity at an online socialist conference. His comments were clipped and highlighted by a self-described online “fascist” [7] who began a viral campaign to get Prof. Alter fired.

As socialists with a particular solidarity with working teachers, we are deeply concerned by this case and the precedent it sets. Professor Alter is a comrade in our struggle for socialism, and since his firing was due to his politics, it sets a very bad precedent for socialists nationwide. To put it bluntly: an attack against one of us is an attack against all of us, in every sense of the phrase.

As a chapter, we strongly support the First Amendment right to free speech, as well as job protections against illegal firing. This case is about the right of socialists to teach and to exist in public in this society, as well as defending the rights of all working people. Peninsula DSA remains committed to its support of teachers’ unions, and to general academic and intellectual freedom, and we proudly add our name to the list of organizations nationwide supporting the Committee to Defend Tom Alter. States away we may be, but our struggles are alike.

Reinstate Comrade Alter now!
https://defendtomalter.org/

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/01/academic-freedom-us
[2] https://jewishcurrents.org/higher-ed-under-attack
[3] https://therealnews.com/inside-trumps-assault-on-universities
[4] https://jewishcurrents.org/higher-eds-bad-bargain
[5] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/academic-freedom/2025/09/19/right-wing-doxing-campaign-endangers-faculty-and
[6] https://labornotes.org/blogs/2025/11/texas-college-teacher-fired-free-speech
[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gCBU2OOX9Y

Unions must invest in new organizing if the labor movement will survive. We should consider a cautionary tale of the 1990s AFL-CIO.

The post The decline of union membership and lessons from the past appeared first on EWOC.

On stocking Christmas merchandise when it’s 80 degrees in October

by OF

I grew up in Southern Illinois, at the very tip where you’re closer to Memphis than Chicago. The
summers of my youth were brutal and swampy: far worse than those my parents remembered, and god awful to my delicate sensibilities. Heat waves would hover over 100 degrees for days, only letting up after a cold front kept the tornado sirens running all night long. As such, summer became a season of indoor fun. My preferred pastimes were reading books, going to movies, and playing video games.

I developed certain habits during these heatwaves. A preference for “cold” video games. Skiing simulators, ice levels, jingling bell soundtracks. It might have been boiling outside but there I sat in front of the TV, blasted with AC to the point of needing a blanket and forcing Mario through some slippery Christmas-themed torments. No discomfort required. The draw of video games is often escapism, to slip into a different, more enjoyable version of reality for a while. It can give you something your current environment lacks.

This isn’t an inherently bad thing. The purpose of fiction is to provide an emotional outlet: to give catharsis, provide comfort, and reflect complicated parts of life. However, the nature of video games, movies, and so on as a commodity makes this analysis more complicated. They are designed to make a profit. Individual designers and creatives working on products may put passion and depth into their work, but it is still filtered through the lens of commercial viability and consumer dependence on producers. This goes beyond the entertainment industry, and captures general trends in today’s consumer culture. I am haunted by the eagerness of corporations to steal our world, and sell us hollow replicas.

As an adult, I work a retail job in Madison. Early each week, shipment arrives. We sort through
the boxes, stock the shelves, and find homes for overstocked items. In the latter half, we set up new displays and put out signage for upcoming sales. The weekend brings the largest crowds, so we focus on selling.

I have a complicated relationship with this work. As a lover of things, there is something
gratifying in opening up shipments and seeing new inventory. This year, the Halloween shipment arrived in July, during the hottest week of the year. We unboxed bat-themed tchotchkes and pumpkin spice scents with sweat rolling down our legs and visible pit stains (seasonal attire not permitted by the corporate dress code). I felt a sense of relief seeing these items. They promised cooler weather, changing seasons, and passing calendar landmarks.

But the heat didn’t let up. September came, and – despite a few chilly days– it was
indistinguishable from Summer. October as well. Christmas merchandise started arriving a few weeks after the Halloween junk, and remained steady throughout the whole Fall. The season was marked not by changing weather or migrating birds but by consumption and waste. What will be bought next, what will it be replaced with. Constantly anticipating the next milestone, ignoring the outdoor reality. Our merchandise arrived improperly priced; shifting tariffs and political instability increased the price of some stock by double. This added an extra unpleasant layer to the work, if you thought about what those numbers represented. Did the workers making these items see any of the profit? The workers shipping and delivering the boxes? It certainly wasn’t reflected in what I was paid, nor any additional spending money lining our customers’ pockets.

Peeling price stickers off of holiday ornaments and replacing them with more expensive ones gives a fellow lots of time to ruminate. No matter what the weather was like outside, I was surrounded by reminders of an impending season. One associated with crimson leaves, chilly breezes, longer nights and the sweet flavors of holidays. How much of that could be turned into a product? Fragrances, colors, and flavors can replicate these senses. Visual cues hit the viewer with instant nostalgia. “Ah, it’s a bat! I love Halloween and childhood memories and seasonally-allotted whimsy. This purchase will align my external consumption habits with my internal identity of a alienated, sensitive weirdo!” Nevermind the stagnant weather, nevermind the damage done by the system that produces so much excess, nevermind the whole, independent person you were before you felt the need for a bat figurine. None of our seasons depend on the weather actually changing, on anything marked on the calendar other than quarterly reviews. They are no longer defined by the time of year, but by the items you expect to find on the shelf.

Which is convenient, given how unreliably seasons behave at our current point of climate
catastrophe. No matter what the weather is doing tomorrow, a pumpkin spice candle remains static. Smelling like memories and the abstract impression of food made with love. Costing only $19.99, on sale, ending this week, get one before they’re gone. Don’t look at the trees, still green well into October. This towel is the right shade of orange, with a pretty leaf print. You’re allowed exactly 5 seconds to grumble about the price before you decide whether or not it’s worth it. Don’t think about who made it, or where, or how it got to the store. Don’t think about why it was so cheap before. You deserve this. You deserve empty luxury, surrounded by inanimate reminders of a world you pretend still exists.

If our corporate masters found a way, they’d rip our faces off and sell them right back. They’d make us thank them for it.

Author: Mack B.

Hey all! Verso is having an end of the year sale – if you buy five books they are all 50% off. They have a lot of great reads so I wanted to recommend five for those who are interested in the discount.

• 20% off when you buy two books
• 30% off when you buy three books
• 40% off when you buy four books
• 50% off when you buy five books

The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail by Óscar Martínez is a great place to start for those who want to know more about people migrating from Central America to the US. The author follows the stories of real people making the journey to the United States and through their stories he answers common questions such as “why are people coming here?” and “why don’t they just come legally?” This is my go-to gift for the non-leftists in my life, it’s an enjoyable read that has an easy to understand message and doesn’t require slogging through boring facts and history like a typical leftist book.

Ten Myths About Israel by Ilan Pappé would be my recommendation for those looking to start reading more about Israel/Palestine. Pappé is an anti-Zionist Jewish Israeli known as one of the “New Historians” of Israel (meaning that, starting in the 80s, he wrote history that countered the standard narrative given by Israel, such as occupying an empty land, Palestinian voluntary migration, etc). In this work he goes over common myths about Israel and debunks them. These include commonly discussed topics such as the conflation of Zionism and Judaism and Zionism’s colonial history. This is a short easy read for those who want to build up a solid foundation of knowledge on Israel/Palestine.

The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale discusses what police actually stand for (a catch-all solution to deal with the fallout of austerity politics) and how we can make real changes to better serve the community. When it comes to police reform, people I’ve talked to struggle to identify the fundamental issues with policing and, when confronted, often lob liberal reforms that don’t fix the problem. This book discusses and breaks down these issues, critiques accepted reforms and gives better solutions based on studies and practices that other counties and communities have had success with.

All-American Nativism: How the Bipartisan War on Immigrants Explains Politics as We Know It by Daniel Denvir is unfortunately more relevant than ever. This work discusses nativism on both sides of the aisle and shows that Donald Trump’s nativism is not an aberration, it is in America’s DNA. Denvir discusses the history of our immigration policies and the justifications used to deny people their right to a better life. The liberal side of the aisle has never been much better than the right on this issue and it’s important to understand that this is still happening today and a new narrative needs to be written by people on the left that sees the humanity and needs of immigrants.

Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement by Jane McAlevey is a narrative of the author’s decade devoted to organizing a union in a hospital in the right-to-work state of Nevada. McAlevey is a must read for those interested in organizing and this book is a good place to begin. You’ll see struggles and strategies around organizing told in a narrative that is entertaining and easy to digest. The book makes you feel good and helps you understand how powerful a well organized union/organization can be.

The post Verso End of Year Sale – Book Recs! appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

But since my aim was to write something useful for anyone interested … it would be appropriate to go to the real truth of the matter, not to repeat other people’s fantasies. Many writers have dreamed up republics and kingdoms that bear no resemblance to experience and never existed in reality;  anyone who declines to behave as people do, in order to behave as they should, is schooling himself for catastrophe

Nicos Machiavelli, The Prince

Zohran Mamdani’s victory disrupted politics as they were and inaugurated a new moment for what politics can and should be. It was also “proof of concept” of what socialist strategy might achieve and forced the question: could Mamdani’s strategy be replicated elsewhere? Does NYC provide a roadmap to advance the socialist project nationwide?

This article reviews strategic visions that differ not in ultimate goals but in paths and timing. On one side of the spectrum are those who suggest that conditions favor replicability and a national push now in time for 2028. On the other side, there are those, like me, who suggest that NYC’s campaign is more unique than presumed. Under these circumstances, a national strategy should prioritize expanding power in the most favorable urban areas, consolidating those strongholds, and using them as platforms for expansion when conditions and opportunities allow. 

Replicating the Mamdani strategy where conditions are absent will lead to large expenditures of resources that will likely bear little to no fruit. Yet, consolidation does not mean socialism in one city. DSA can prioritize deepening its influence where: 1) favorable demographic conditions exist, 2) organizational infrastructure is established, and 3) middle-class fracturing creates openings for working-class/renter coalitions. This could mean consolidating NYC while expanding in LA or Chicago rather than less viable localities. The point is not geographic contiguity but demographic, organizational, and political strategy and readiness.

The question confronting the Left now is which strategy best fits social and political conditions as they actually exist, not as we wish them to be. The Left is particularly susceptible to this error. As partisans, our identities are animated by an optimism that human emancipation remains a material possibility. Nevertheless, the value of our prognoses depend on diagnosing social and political conditions as realistically as we can and moving ahead on such terms.

In search of national replication

 “I am a partisan. That is why I hate the ones that don’t take sides, I hate the indifferent. —Antonio Gramsci

Many on the left asserted that Mamdani’s candidate profile, message, coalition, and eventual win made clear that the time had come to take the fight for socialism to the national level. At the 2025 August Convention in Chicago, DSA activists enthused about the Mamdani surge precisely because it justified the “universal appeal” of their own foundational principles and norms. One DSA member asserted, “Campaigns like Zohran Mamdani… show that Palestine is a winning issue. That socialism is a winning issue…We can win the Democratic primary in 2028.” At the convention comrades buzzed with ideas about how to “Mamdani” their own locale. Daniel Goulden, an NYC DSA organizer, claimed “I think that the model that we used in New York is 100% replicable.” This sort of bold thinking has an important place in socialist strategy making. At the same time, precision matters.

Antonio Gramsci famously argued, “My own state of mind synthesizes these two feelings and transcends them: my mind is pessimistic, but my will is optimistic.” The challenge consists in recognizing the need to bolster the will of the optimist through statements of faith and solidarity without undercutting the realism needed to exercise the analytical realism of the pessimist’s mind. Confusing desires for what ought to be with real analysis for what is remains a major intellectual pitfall facing all socialist partisans then and now, leading to mistakes that can cost the movement resources, time, lives, and freedom.

The Mamdani Coalition

In a November 2025 Jacobin article, sociologist Vivek Chibber offers a sober assessment of barriers to building a universalizing socialist movement. He explains that neoliberalism is undergoing a profound crisis rooted in both ideological exhaustion and political decomposition. The Left’s ideological evolution magnifies this weakness. Over the last period, much of the Left has shifted toward cultural and identity-centered frameworks detached from material conditions. For Chibber, “real politics…is based on materialism, not on a vibe, not on values.” The Left must therefore reassert economic issues and universal programs rather than relying on moral language or value appeals to drive mass alignment.

Electoral victories only have value if they are a means to building the institutional and intellectual infrastructure needed to sustain the working class as a political force. Mamdani’s win represents an opening to rebuild working-class power, not a shortcut to socialist advance at the national level. A viable socialist strategy must reunite ideology with material interests, rebuild working-class institutions from the ground up, and treat electoral wins as foundations for long-term hegemonic construction. Mamdani’s win proves Chibber’s claims half right. The campaign demonstrated the potency of a campaign focused on material questions. Mamdani won by anchoring his message in tenant protections, redistribution, and public investment.

However, what made victory possible in NYC was not overwhelming support of working-class voters for Mamdani. In fact, he did not win a majority of the poorest workers, nor of homeowners. The decisive class force was in fact made up of those Chibber largely dismisses: overwhelming young renters largely attracted to his messaging on housing, intersectional multiculturalism, and the “values… and vibe” he exuded. This layer of young renters often sees itself as a mutually recognizable, coherent social unit; in fact, it contains white collar workers (teachers, nurses, proletarianized graphic designers, artists, and musicians, etc.), a much smaller layer of few blue collar workers (especially those concentrated in city unions), gig workers, independent contractors, tech professionals, entrepreneurs, low level managers, upper-middle-class urbanists, and even a few aspiring capitalists.

Paths for going national

We can all agree that electability does not require sacrificing socialist principles, as Mamdani showed in practice. However, there are different ways for understanding the when and how socialism improves or undercuts electability across different terrains. Mamdani’s victory generated a surge of momentum that many comrades interpreted as proof of a broader political opening, transforming excitement into a shared belief that the socialist moment had finally arrived. His charisma amplified this feeling: activists saw in him a leader capable of embodying a universal message and carrying it far beyond the city. 

Chibber contends that neoliberalism’s legitimacy crisis has created a rare opening across the entire political landscape, weakening ruling-class ideology and exposing deep unmet material needs. In this context, a leader who articulates clear, class-centered demands can give national shape to working-class discontent. Yet Chibber insists that socialism cannot bypass the long march through organization. National advance requires rebuilding unions, party structures, and working-class institutions capable of sustaining the fight. So what can we take away from Mamdani’s campaign?

A Gramscian case for going national begins not with momentum or charismatic leadership but with the structural demands of the regionally specific “war of position.” [Subsequent Gramsci quotes from The Modern Prince] Because the modern state is fortified through countless institutions (schools, media, courts, bureaucracies, civic networks), any local breakthrough remains precarious unless extended across wider terrains. Gramsci argues that socialism must build national reach precisely because hegemony requires transforming “common sense” at scale, forging a worldview that resonates across regions, classes, and cultural groups. National expansion is not optional escalation but strategic necessity. Yet Gramsci warns that national advance must be grounded in patient construction of a “permanently organized and long-prepared force” capable of sustaining conflict in every trench of the integral state.

Maneuver is an “expansionary” battle within the larger war of position, and any successful maneuver must be followed by consolidation. Mamdani’s campaign represents one such battle: winning the Mayor’s Office captures a single fortification within a vast state lattice of institutions, norms, and counter-powers. Bureaucracies, police, legislatures, courts, and civic infrastructures can all move to neutralize or delegitimize a socialist breakthrough, reminding us that electoral gains do not equal hegemony.

The maneuver phase unfolds through several contingent moments. First, crises inside divided elites create openings when they cannot decide whether coercion or consent will worsen their legitimacy problems. Second, insurgents can generate a surge by communicating effectively, unifying disparate groups, and expanding networks through collective effervescence. Third, the intensity of such a surge can overwhelm poorly prepared adversaries, draining their resources and legitimacy. Fourth comes the actual capture of a government institution, an achievement that remains precarious without deeper foundations.

For Gramsci, hegemonic power means that the dominant norms and values of socialism would legitimize whoever governs, just as New Deal ideology constrained Eisenhower and neoliberalism structured Clinton and Obama. After fifty years of neoliberal dominance, simply winning the White House or a city hall grants position without the legitimacy needed for durable rule. The working class and the socialist movement have clearly not accomplished this at the present time.

Consolidation is therefore critical. In Gramsci’s terms, the “integral state” contains many entrenched sites from which old forces can launch counteroffensives. Electoral victory changes one node of power while leaving most legitimating structures intact. Gramsci warned that old forces concede only to “gain time and prepare a counter-offensive.” Post-victory periods must therefore be devoted to weakening adversaries, securing hesitant allies, and binding an inter-class coalition under a working-class hegemonic vision.

Once consolidated, preparation for the next expansion must begin immediately. Socialism cannot survive in a single city because hostile forces can regroup at higher or lower scales: federal, state, or regional. Class struggle is inherently expansive; withdrawing labor or territory from capital’s circuits creates threats that provoke counter-mobilization. Believing that consolidation alone is enough risks isolation and defeat. For Gramsci, the war of position continues until one side is definitively neutralized or overthrown; there is no stable equilibrium short of that outcome.

Local versus general political conditions

Using Gramsci’s theory of socialist strategy, Mamdani’s campaign is framed as a “war of maneuver” phase within the broader “war of position.” This analysis traces the phases of breaching state power’s outer fortifications, diminished capabilities of repair and closure, and the conditions enabling the campaign’s expansionary surge.

1. Political Crisis Breaches Fortification: Elite Fragmentation Blocks Fast Repair Without Closure

Mamdani’s socialism, steadfast criticism of Israel, and US policy toward Palestine precipitated opposition from key elites within the Democratic Party but not all. The political crisis of the Adams administration and its ties to the Trump administration had already fractured the fortifying power of party elites. The surging popularity of the Mamdani campaign diminished the capabilities of oppositional elites to close ranks in party networks. The result was elite fragmentation and not elite closure. Support from elites came at the cost of some compromises to DSA principles. Mamdani did not disprove the “socialist principles versus electability” dilemma. Rather, contextual factors diminished the capabilities of party elites to “close ranks or tank the game.”

2. Advantages and Disadvantages of Elite Fragmentation

Elite fragmentation weakened the capabilities of the Democratic Party to fulfill their fortifying functions but did not deactivate it. Oppositional elites had sufficient power to prolong the campaign, but not enough to close ranks and deny Mamdani support in the general election. Fragmentation proved advantageous: it enhanced insurgent legitimacy at stages of plummeting incumbent legitimacy without costing access to all resources elite gatekeepers control. Mamdani secured approximately 85 elected official endorsements, 12 labor union endorsements, and 15 organizational endorsements, while Cuomo received 7 elected officials, 6 labor unions, and 3 organizational endorsements.

3. Preparatory Conditions: Past Consolidation Sets Stage for Surging Expansion

Past gains through maneuver had been consolidated and used as a platform to prepare and run for the next big expansion. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 congressional primary victory mobilized hundreds of volunteers and knocked on enough doors to turn out approximately 25,000 voters in a race where far fewer voters were expected. AOC’s campaign demonstrated DSA’s viability in NYC electoral politics, provided an early proof of concept for the field organizing model, and helped normalize democratic socialism as a legitimate political ideology rather than a fringe position. That win, combined with Bernie Sanders’s two presidential campaigns, catalyzed national and regional debates about socialism, which helped foster recruitment into DSA chapters across the country and region. And NYC DSA’s many years of subsequent work developed strongholds across the city. Consolidation from earlier battles elevated preparation for the next big campaign.

4. Exceptional Expansion: Concentrated Networks as Fuel for Wildfire

Mamdani’s surge remains exceptional. Beginning at 1% in February 2025 Emerson polling when Cuomo dominated at 33%, Mamdani climbed methodically: 16% in April, 22-23% by late May, winning 56.4% to Cuomo’s 43.6% in the final ranked choice count—a 55-point swing in four months. He mobilized 26,000-30,000 volunteers during the primary who knocked on over 644,000 doors, expanding to 76,000 volunteers by the general election with over 500,000 doors knocked and 1 million phone calls. Networks attracted greater resources, labor, monetary contributions, and in-kind support for increasingly sophisticated citywide infrastructure.

5. Messaging: Centering Economic Issues, Sticking Close to Socialist Values

Mamdani’s disciplined messaging on material affordability (rent freezes, free buses, universal childcare) combined with progressive differentiator issues (Gaza, LGBTQ+ protections) helped broaden resonance while solidifying the loyalty of his core base. The message was also refined through constant testing of various iterations in base building politics, deftly exploiting Cuomo’s vulnerabilities from sexual harassment and nursing home scandals to position himself as the honest alternative against a discredited past.

Yet, even accounting for all this, Mamdani secured a thin majority (50.4%), approximately 17 percentage points less than Kamala Harris’s NYC performance in the 2024 presidential election (67.70%). He did not win a majority of votes in Queens, despite large investments of time spent canvassing and money spent on advertising. Mamdani won a plurality in the borough and does not appear to have converted many Trump voters. This was not a blowout or an overwhelming mandate.

Politically, Mamdani’s victory emerged from an exceptional convergence: fractured Democratic Party elites, a delegitimized incumbent administration, and activist networks capable of exploiting the breach. These conditions sharply reduced the Democratic party’s ability to coordinate a unified counteroffensive. Yet such fragmentation is far from national. In most states, party machines remain cohesive, institutional fortifications stronger, and local elites more capable of closing ranks. Without comparable organizational density elsewhere, a national offensive would confront far more fortified political terrain.

Breaking down Mamdani’s votes

Mamdani’s winning coalition reflects trends powering other DSA candidates into city council seats across the country, even if he is the first DSA member to win a mayoral race in a major city. The electoral coalition consisted of:

1. The Youth Vote: Powerful but Not Dominant

Approximately 75-78% of voters aged 18-29 supported Mamdani, compared to 19% for Cuomo and 5% for Sliwa. Young women aged 18-29 were more unified at 84%, while young men gave 68% support—a 42-point margin over Cuomo among young men who had shifted significantly rightward nationally. Youth turnout was strong at approximately 28%, nearly double the 14% in the previous mayoral cycle. The key was not that young voters became dominant but that they turned out at higher rates and voted with near-unanimous support.

2. Recent Arrivals: The Most Overrepresented Group

Among voters in NYC five years or less, 85% supported Mamdani—his most unified demographic group. Recent arrivals constituted 15-20% of his coalition while representing only 8-10% of NYC’s voting population. Mamdani’s coalition was young, mobile, renters. His message about rent freezes, universal childcare, and free buses resonated with direct economic self-interest.

3. Middle to Upper Middle-Class Coalition

Mamdani won the majority of voters earning $30,000-$299,999 annually. Those below $30,000 and above $300,000 favored Cuomo—a salient inversion for a democratic socialist. His strongest performance was among voters earning $100,000-$200,000, where he won 55% to Cuomo’s 37%. His coalition consisted of people with financial stability to care about cultural and affordability issues but not so wealthy as to be insulated from housing cost concerns.

4. The Multiracial Coalition

Mamdani won approximately 60% of white voters, 52% of Black voters, and 60% of Latino voters. White people make up only 31.3% of NYC’s population but roughly 40-45% of Mamdani’s voters. This reflects the concentration of recent arrivals, college-educated professionals, and gentrifying neighborhoods (heavily white) in his coalition. Mamdani also significantly overperformed among young Black voters (83% according to CIRCLE data) and in heavily Black neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn. Latino voters showed mixed support at 60%, which was 7% less than Kamala Harris’s 67% of the vote. Given Latinos’ share of NYC’s population (28.4%), this suggests that Latino voters split more evenly with Cuomo than other demographic groups. This split likely reflected class divisions and regional variation; working-class immigrant communities in some areas of Queens and the Bronx proved more responsive to Cuomo’s message. Mamdani won 49% of Asian Americans but 70%+ among young Asian voters. Approximately 90% of Muslim voters supported Mamdani, making this by far his most unified demographic group. He won only 31-33% of Jewish voters, creating a 29-point deficit compared to Cuomo.

5. LGBTQ+ and Gender Dynamics

82% of the 14% of voters identifying as LGBTQ+ supported Mamdani, translating to 10-12% of his coalition despite LGBTQ+ voters representing only 5-7% of NYC’s population. Young women aged 18-29 voted for Mamdani at 84%, compared to young men at 68%—a 16-point gap particularly striking given young men’s national rightward shift.

6. Partisan Alignment

Mamdani won 66% of Democratic voters compared to Cuomo’s 31%, demonstrating remarkable partisan cohesion. Among Independents, the race was tighter: Mamdani won 43% compared to Cuomo’s 34% and Sliwa’s 18%—a potential vulnerability in his coalition.

Socially, the coalition relied on demographics distinctive to large urban centers with high “culture industry” concentrations: recent arrivals, highly mobile renters, young multiracial professionals, LGBTQ communities, and culturally progressive middle and upper-middle class segments. These groups are overrepresented in New York but sparse across small cities, suburbs, and rural regions. Nationally, the working class is older, more rooted in place, more likely homeowners, more religious, and more culturally conservative. The social base powering Mamdani’s campaign is geographically concentrated, making national replication difficult without first reshaping broader conditions.

Urban conjuncture and the new socialism

A distinct urban conjuncture has emerged in a handful of U.S. cities, producing conditions far more favorable to socialist advance than those found nationally. These cities combine soaring housing costs, generational displacement, fractured middle-class interests, and dense networks of activists, tenants, and young professionals. It is within this alignment that Minneapolis, New York City, Los Angeles, and similar metros have become laboratories for new socialist politics.

For decades, American cities operated under a stable class coalition: developers received profitable construction areas while white middle-class homeowners secured low-density neighborhoods with appreciating property values. As housing became unaffordable, a younger generation—including both workers and middle-class professionals—found themselves priced out of homeownership. Housing became the central issue introducing intra-middle-class conflict within a class demonstrating remarkable unity since the 1980s. This generational conflict precipitated splitting of the urban middle class into three factions: NIMBY (dominant older fraction), YIMBY (market-oriented professionals), and DSA (abandoning homeownership aspirations, aligning with the working class for non-market solutions).

These divisions characterize New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Minneapolis and other expensive cities where the young middle class cannot afford entry into the housing market. Mamdani’s coalition in NYC mirrors this pattern: his strongest support came from young renting professionals and workers who had defected from traditional middle-class politics. And this is not the first time we have seen this pattern: between 2010 and 2021, Minneapolis’s City Council shifted from three progressives to eight, driven by gentrifying neighborhoods with concentrated university-educated millennials. Similar dynamics are reshaping NYC electoral politics. 

However, Minneapolis reveals a crucial limitation: despite sweeping political victories and near-unanimous City Council support for upzoning legislation, the old homeowning middle class used its structural resources to block implementation through planning offices, county jurisdiction, courts, and the state legislature. Technical policy solutions, even progressive ones, cannot overcome fundamentally political problems rooted in lack of hegemony. Winning elections does not automatically translate to policy implementation when economic elites maintain veto points throughout governmental and civil society institutions.

The pattern is replicating in NYC. Mamdani won through coalition with young renters and recent arrivals, yet the old neoliberal coalition still controls courts, real estate boards, and bureaucratic institutions. His ability to govern will depend on constructing sufficient hegemonic power to overcome structural veto points.

So what is to be done? Mamdani’s victory was inspiring and points to a better future for socialists. Using Gramsci as a guide, the answer should be clear: we must fight a war of position, not maneuver. Why?

First, this was a very narrow victory with almost no margin for error at the national level.

The narrowness (50.4%) meant minimal margin for error. Loss of just 1%, approximately 10,000 votes, would have resulted in plurality victory with ranked-choice complications. Alienating even smallest fractions of constituent groups would have cost the majority—far more difficult to replicate in northern Wisconsin than Brooklyn.

Second, potential fickleness in the coalition.

Vulnerabilities were distributed unevenly. Loss of 15-20% of young voter support would have cost 25,000-30,000 votes. The greatest vulnerability appears in working-class support, which Mamdani split with Cuomo rather than dominating. A shift of 10% of working-class voters could have changed the outcome.

Third, the local trap and why the coalition cannot scale nationally.

The relative youth of his coalition (20-22% under 35 compared to 15-18% nationally), higher proportion of renters (67% in NYC versus 35% nationally), college-educated concentration, and high proportion of recent arrivals suggest demographic foundations specific to cities like NYC. A candidate replicating this strategy in suburban or rural areas would face different terrain. Homeowners (70% nationally versus 30% in NYC) would be significantly less likely to support rent control and wealth-taxation policies.

Fourth, he needs to improve margins with Black, Latino, and working-class voters.

He won a majority of the Black vote but not margins as large as past Democratic candidates. More concerning: Latino vote at lower margins than Harris in 2024, with Latino support for Democratic candidates dropping nearly 10% every election cycle.

Fifth, uncertainty regarding the left message.

Strident left positions drive high turnout in large global cities, especially among young gentrifiers, but may repel centrist blocs in suburbs and rural areas. Strong commitment to his critical position on Israel cost a large share of Jewish votes. His strong embrace of socialism resonated with youth but lost homeowners, many ideologically conservative Latinos and immigrants. In NYC, this trade-off worked because renters comprise nearly 50% of the city. Nationally, the split is 70:30 favoring homeowners. These positions admired in NYC may repel certain voting blocs while offering only limited reservoirs from which to extract new voters.

Conclusion: consolidate political territory, not just geographic territory

The fight for hegemony is a war, not a single battle. Electoral victory constitutes one engagement in a protracted struggle.

1. The goal of all parties is to achieve a socialist hegemonic project nationally; the point of debate is which strategy is best suited for achieving this end goal. This analysis suggests a strategy of scaling up to the national level through consolidating regional hegemony and using consolidated regions as leveraging platforms to propel expansion to the next opportune battle.

Mamdani’s coalition depends on specific structural conditions: high concentrations of young renters, recent arrivals, gentrifying neighborhoods, and university-educated populations facing permanent exclusion from homeownership. DSA should prioritize deepening its foothold in cities and regions where: 1) these demographic conditions already exist, 2) DSA has established organizational infrastructure, and 3) the fracturing of the middle class has created openings for working-class/renter coalitions. This could mean consolidating in NYC while contributing to expanding power in LA or Chicago, rather than upstate NY, if the political terrain is more favorable. The point is not geographic contiguity but demographic and organizational readiness.

2. Once a battle is won, consolidation of position becomes imperative through three simultaneous processes: securing the consent of civil society institutions, bolstering domination throughout the state apparatus, and neutralizing political enemies by extracting them from the structural conditions that enabled their power.

Enemies of socialist forces never truly disappear; they retreat into the shadows, awaiting opportunities for counter-offensive. 

Building our first instances of regional influence therefore requires simultaneous forward and backward movement: looking forward to construct intellectual and political leadership across an expanding and increasingly indomitable coalition, while looking backward to extract reactionary enemies waiting in the shadows, sabotaging and scheming for restoration.

In New York City, this challenge is complicated because political enemies come in multiple guises and display little consistent loyalty. This ambiguity blurs the line between friend and enemy when clarity is most needed. Mamdani’s dependence on a substantial Democratic base complicates efforts to target enemies within the party apparatus itself. However, he currently enjoys extraordinary levels of public support, which makes Democratic elites less inclined toward outright sabotage and more inclined toward a cynical strategy of appropriating his charisma and momentum for their own purposes. Recognizing this temporary advantage, Mamdani must move with strategic urgency to establish Democratic dependence on him for their political futures rather than the reverse.

3. Mamdani’s symbolic power is at its peak now and will wane. Maximal consolidation sooner will avoid closure and restoration later.

This moment provides his greatest leverage to consolidate asymmetric power relations over potential rivals within the Democratic apparatus, establishing himself as indispensable rather than replaceable to their political futures and livelihoods. With other enemies (reactionary business interests, the police bureaucracy, the real estate establishment) different tactics apply. These are the fickle constituencies least bound by party loyalty or ideological coherence. They respond to power and the credible threat of counter-power, not to appeals to shared governance or compromise. The tempo of consolidation matters enormously. Delay allows enemies to regroup, rebuild coalitions, and mobilize their substantial structural resources. The question facing Mamdani in his first months in office is whether he recognizes that electoral victory opened a war, not concluded one, and whether he possesses the strategic clarity and ruthlessness necessary to consolidate his position before the inevitable counter-offensive begins.

4. Hegemony must guide tactical choices over consolidation and expansions: Until a political bloc emerges capable of bridging these divides and constructing the intellectual and moral leadership necessary for genuine cross-class hegemony, urban governance will remain volatile and ineffective.

What is needed is not merely electoral victory but a transformative political project that unites diverse constituencies around a shared vision of the city as a common good and reorganizes civil society according to socialist principles. For DSA chapters, this means the painstaking work of organizing across class and racial divides to create hegemonic blocs capable of challenging the commodification of housing at its root, not merely winning individual campaigns but systematically constructing “the permanent organization of the intellectual strata” necessary to build durable, transformative political power. The Minneapolis experience demonstrates that without such systematic hegemonic construction, even left-wing electoral victories will be neutralized by the counteroffensive of established economic interests defending their structural position.

(October 2025)

Across Ecuador, Indigenous, peasant, and working-class communities have risen once again to defend life, dignity, and sovereignty in the face of a government that governs for capital, not the people. The Noboa government has answered peaceful resistance with systematic state terror—deploying thousands of troops to occupy Indigenous territories, firing live rounds and tear gas indiscriminately at protesters and residents alike, and criminalizing the very act of defending one’s community. The Democratic Socialists of America’s International Committee extends our unconditional solidarity to the families of those killed and wounded, to the hundreds detained, and to the peoples of Imbabura, Cotacachi, Otavalo, and every territory now under siege.

1. We join their demands

We endorse the demands articulated by CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador), UNORCAC (Union of Indigenous Peasant Organizations of Cotacachi), FICI (Federación Indígena y Campesina de Imbabura), and allied popular organizations:

• Immediate repeal of Executive Decree 126, which raised diesel prices more than 50% overnight and deepened poverty across Ecuador.
  
• An end to militarization, emergency decrees, and curfews imposed under the false pretext of “public order.”
  
• Neutral, civilian-led humanitarian corridors, coordinated with the Red Cross and human-rights monitors — not military convoys disguised as relief.
  
• Freedom for all detainees, the dropping of “terrorism” and related charges, and full reparations to the victims and families of state violence.
  
• Independent, international investigations into killings, disappearances, and the criminal use of live ammunition against demonstrators.
  
• Guarantees of non-repetition: training, command accountability, and civilian oversight of the Armed Forces and National Police.
  
• Protection of Indigenous and community media, including Radio Ilumán, TV MICC, and Apak TV, whose journalists have been attacked or censored.
  

2. We reject the authoritarian referendum

President Noboa’s referendum is not a democratic exercise but a tool to consolidate executive power, criminalize protest, and entrench the neoliberal model that produced this crisis.

In solidarity with CONAIE and Ecuador’s social movements, we support the campaign for a nationwide “No” vote and affirm that true democracy lives in the assemblies, cabildos, and territories of the organized people—not in plebiscites designed to legitimize repression.

3. We affirm an internationalist duty

We call on the U.S. government to end all forms of military and police cooperation that enable repression in Ecuador.

We urge labor unions, Indigenous federations, and left organizations worldwide to send observers, condemn the violence, and amplify the media of the Ecuadorian movement.
We encourage DSA chapters and members to:

1. Circulate this statement through your chapter’s mailing lists, internal communications, and social media channels to raise awareness about the crisis in Ecuador.
2. Contribute to neutral humanitarian funds identified by CONAIE and UNORCAC.
3. Pressure their elected officials to demand an end to militarization and to support international investigations.

As we stand with the First Nations here, we stand with the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador — one struggle for life and sovereignty.

In Conclusion

Ecuador’s uprising reminds us that austerity and authoritarianism are two faces of the same project. The struggle against neoliberalism in Ecuador is inseparable from our fight in the United States for public goods, workers’ rights, and socialism.

From Quito to Chicago, from Cotacachi to New York, our struggle is one.

¡Ni un paso atrás! We stand with the peoples of Ecuador in defense of life, territory, and dignity.

DSA Declaración de solidaridad con el pueblo de Ecuador

(octubre de 2025)

En todo el Ecuador, las comunidades indígenas, campesinas y la clase trabajadora se han levantado una vez más para defender la vida, la dignidad y la soberanía frente a un gobierno que prioriza al capital, no al pueblo. El gobierno de Noboa ha respondido a la resistencia pacífica con un terror estatal sistemático, desplegando miles de soldados para ocupar territorios indígenas, disparando balas reales y gases lacrimógenos indiscriminadamente contra manifestantes y residentes por igual, y criminalizando la defensa de sus comunidades.

El Comité Internacional de los Socialistas Democráticos de América extiende su solidaridad incondicional a las familias de los fallecidos y heridos, a los cientos de detenidos y a los pueblos de Imbabura, Cotacachi, Otavalo y todos los territorios que ahora se encuentran sitiados.

1. Nos sumamos a sus reivindicaciones

Respaldamos las reivindicaciones articuladas por la CONAIE (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador), la UNORCAC (Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas Indígenas de Cotacachi) y las organizaciones populares aliadas:

• Derogación inmediata del Decreto Ejecutivo 126, que aumentó los precios del diésel más de un 50 % de la noche a la mañana y agravó la pobreza en todo Ecuador.
• El fin de la militarización, los decretos de emergencia y los toques de queda impuestos bajo el falso pretexto del «orden público».
• Corredores humanitarios neutrales y dirigidos por civiles, coordinados con la Cruz Roja y observadores de derechos humanos, en lugar de convoyes militares disfrazados de ayuda humanitaria.
• Libertad para todos los detenidos, retirada de los cargos de «terrorismo» y otros relacionados, y plena reparación para las víctimas y las familias de la violencia estatal.
• Investigaciones internacionales independientes sobre los asesinatos, las desapariciones y el uso criminal de munición real contra los manifestantes.
• Garantías de no repetición: formación, responsabilidad del mando y supervisión civil de las Fuerzas Armadas y la Policía Nacional.
• Protección de los medios de comunicación indígenas y comunitarios, incluidos Radio Ilumán, TV MICC y Apak TV, cuyos periodistas han sido atacados o censurados.

2. Rechazamos el referéndum autoritario

El referéndum del presidente Noboa no es un ejercicio democrático, sino una herramienta para consolidar el poder ejecutivo, criminalizar la protesta y afianzar el modelo neoliberal que ha provocado esta crisis.

En solidaridad con la CONAIE y los movimientos sociales de Ecuador, apoyamos la campaña por el «No» a nivel nacional y afirmamos que la verdadera democracia vive en las asambleas, los cabildos y los territorios del pueblo organizado, y no en plebiscitos diseñados para legitimar la represión.

3. Afirmamos un deber internacionalista

Hacemos un llamamiento al Gobierno de los Estados Unidos para que ponga fin a todas las formas de cooperación militar y policial que permiten la represión en Ecuador.

Instamos a los sindicatos, las federaciones indígenas y las organizaciones de izquierda de todo el mundo a que envíen observadores, condenen la violencia y amplifiquen los medios de comunicación del movimiento ecuatoriano.

Animamos a las secciones y miembros de la DSA a que:

1. Difundan esta declaración a través de las listas de correo, las comunicaciones internas y los canales de redes sociales de su sección para crear conciencia sobre la crisis en Ecuador.
2. Contribuyan a los fondos humanitarios neutrales identificados por la CONAIE y la UNORCAC.
3. Presionen a sus funcionarios electos para que exijan el fin de la militarización y apoyen las investigaciones internacionales.

Así como apoyamos a las Primeras Naciones aquí, apoyamos a los pueblos indígenas del Ecuador: una sola lucha por la vida y la soberanía.

En conclusión

El levantamiento de Ecuador nos recuerda que la austeridad y el autoritarismo son dos caras del mismo proyecto. La lucha contra el neoliberalismo en Ecuador es inseparable de nuestra lucha en Estados Unidos por servicios y bienes públicos, los derechos de los trabajadores y la democracia descolonizada.

De Quito a Chicago, de Cotacachi a Nueva York, nuestra lucha es una sola.

¡Ni un paso atrás! Nos solidarizamos con los pueblos de Ecuador en defensa de la vida, el territorio y la dignidad.

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