Building the resilience to productively work through conflict is one of our most important tasks in building DSA into a real party – one that many leftist organizations struggle with. Without a healthy democratic culture and structure, political disagreements metastasize and become intertwined with personal grievances, a toxic cocktail that can boil over and implode chapters (including our own in 2022-23).

Selecting leadership can require navigating divides within a chapter that may not always be entirely reconcilable. Leaders have to be able to build some level of ideological or strategic unity to collectively execute a shared direction for the chapter, or risk gridlock and inertia that blunts our organizing momentum. On the other hand, operating too hegemonically risks alienating or marginalizing others within the chapter to a degree where they feel their only recourse is to leave, which, for an organization like DSA which prides itself on its big tent politics, would be robbing us of one of our greatest strengths.

There’s no formulaic approach for striking the right balance here. It requires rigorous and frequent analysis of the current conditions surrounding the organization (i.e. a muscle that needs to be regularly exercised), being structurally flexible enough to meet those changing conditions, and strong leaders capable of facilitating those tasks and meeting the moment.

In 2023, we stepped up as leaders in a disorganized, demobilized chapter lacking cohesion and stretched across siloed working groups. Our analysis then was that the primary task was to re-establish a healthy chapter culture and organizing practice. We emphasized general meetings as a social and political hub for the chapter and built consensus with leaders across the chapter for a collective campaign, with the mindset that the politics of the campaign was secondary to building a shared democratic muscle where the chapter collectively executed and debriefed this campaign together. 

We believe this approach was generally vindicated by the growth and maturation of the chapter over 2024-25. That trajectory has not changed since, and we’re now taking on projects larger than ever before. Some of the challenges we’re working through or likely to hit in the coming years are new, others are familiar territory for veteran DSA organizers – maintaining political cohesion with so many chapter projects without stifling new organizing, the presence of more politically developed and organized factions within the chapter, etc. 

Sustaining our social practice and chapter culture is still a priority (and mostly outside the scope of resolutionizing), but we now believe structural changes to our leadership election process are also needed to better facilitate this over the next few years, as Madison Area DSA becomes a chapter over 1000 members strong and we reckon with how to most effectively wield that growing power at the city and state level. From observing how larger chapters have already been wrestling with these questions, we want to tackle these changes proactively rather than reactively.

In that context, we’re bringing this proposal to the 2026 Chapter Convention to change how we elect executive committee officers from row elections for single seats to at-large elections. Here’s a brief summary of the actual changes in our proposal, followed by additional context and rationale for why we’re motivating this.

• The executive committee this year will prioritize building out committees to delegate more of their current administrative work (e.g. budgeting, general meeting coordination) where appropriate..
• Starting in 2027, the five non co-chair officer positions on the Executive Committee are elected at-large from a single pool of candidates, rather than by individual election for each position. The newly elected executive committee will vote on their officer roles after the chapter election. 
• Exec elections will be required to use Single Transferable Vote, a ranked-choice voting system that preserves proportional representation.
• The Administrator position shall be renamed to Secretary, in line with other chapters.
• Provisions where branches automatically receive an additional voting representative on Exec shall be removed.

What does the executive committee do?

In order to understand how these changes will affect the composition of Exec, we need to discuss what the executive committee actually does.

The bylaws (specifically Articles V and VI) give a brief overview of what Exec’s basic scope entails, as well as the duties of each officer. While that description is not inaccurate, it doesn’t capture the full scope of leadership responsibilities, and the influence they have on the political direction of the chapter as a whole.

Individual exec members have additional administrative and political leadership duties beyond the scope of the bylaws, including tasks like liaising with working groups, committees, and other chapters; adjudicating grievances and conflict; and developing new leaders to replace them. Political leadership here is not limited to ideological positions, but encompasses other dimensions of organizing leadership such as how they show up in the chapter’s internal political life, organize others to accomplish projects, and model skills like delegation.

While the chapter may vote to take specific actions or direct broad strategy, it is often Exec that is tasked with implementing that broad mandate (or steering other chapter bodies in doing so).

Exec has wide latitude in how to prioritize these decisions, strategizing and implementing (which can have significant political consequences in terms of what sort of infrastructure or power that builds for the chapter long-term), how much outreach is performed to membership or coalition partners, which chapter bodies are brought into planning, etc.

Exec also plays a key advisory role for the chapter, and has been a primary force for bringing proposals to the general membership. Unlike other chapter bodies though, Exec has authority to define the terms of discussion to general membership that can potentially tip the scales, deciding such things as what items (such as proposals, resolutions, or bylaw amendments) are agendized, how much time they are given, what the format of discussion looks like (alongside the decisions of the meeting chair), and some hand in the degree of announcement given to the general membership prior to the meeting. Exec also is empowered to make some political decisions on behalf of the chapter between general membership meetings. 

All of the above can in theory be overwritten by a vote of the general membership, but this is a right that often goes uninvoked. In the past few years, we can recall very few motions brought forward by Exec (as a whole body, not individual members) that have failed to get approval by the general membership. While there are other factors such as pre-selection of motions for ones that are most likely to pass when brought to the chapter, having a good understanding of the collective political vision of the chapter, and being personally developed enough to write and present a winning proposal, the powers of the chapter’s highest offices does confer potential to put an often unintended thumb on the scale. 

If the executive committee is tasked with the responsibility of steering the chapter and executing its will, then that committee should be broadly representative of the chapter’s collective will and political currents, which often form loose collections or tendencies. “Factions” is the most useful term for speaking to these distinct collections of members.

What is factionalism, and why are we engaging with it?

Factionalism is a bit of a dirty word, especially in the context of liberal democratic forms. However, factions are any collectivity of our membership that are bound by common goals, generally directed towards internal (within DSA) organizing ends. If you have ever spoken to other members in favor of or against a contentious motion prior to a meeting with the intent of building support or identifying opponents, then you have engaged in a sort of factionalism. 

Most internal organizing that meets some level of opposition can be described in factional terms, though such factions are usually short-term. There is a natural tendency to gravitate towards others within the chapter who share similar vision, which can take many forms: a group chat, an affinity for specific chapter projects, or perhaps something more formal like coalescing around an ideological caucus.

This is a normal, generally healthy expression of political conflict, and addressing those conflicts productively is in part how we resolve the contradictions inherent to a big-tent organization like DSA. A lack of such conflict might indicate a failure to engage in impactful political action, preserving the big-tent at the expense of building/wielding power, or that the membership has consolidated around a singular, all-encompassing political vision, collapsing the big-tent; something that our organization in its current form would be unlikely to structurally survive.

Regardless of whether such a conflict is acknowledged or not, factionalism is a reality that is already present within the chapter, has been for some time, and will continue to evolve as we grow. Rather than bury our heads in the sand, it is important that we address the potential pitfalls of factional conflicts before they can grow to proportions with dire organizational consequences (splits being the primary concern).

As our chapter grows, questions and disagreements on political strategy will have greater stakes, which increases the pressure and incentives for members to make tradeoffs that might secure short-term political victories at the expense of our long-term organizational health.

Returning to the substance of our proposed bylaw amendment, one way we can place guardrails is by making Exec more likely to proportionally represent the range of political currents within the chapter. Our current election system, while effective in previous stages of chapter development, is less well-equipped for our potential future trajectory. We believe that changing to an at-large voting system places some guardrails against factional excesses, and also allows membership to better consider candidates on the basis of their leadership rather than just for the specific position they’re contesting. In the event our chapter doesn’t develop beyond our current level, we think it unlikely to have a major impact on our elections as currently run.

One weakness of row elections is a reduced ability for membership to weigh in on the collective makeup of the body, instead having each race be a separate first-past-the-post election. This can result in a leadership body not representative of the chapter, and organized political pluralities or slim majorities able to win disproportionate voting power on our highest leadership body. An example of this is in New York City, where the two largest political factions won about ⅔ of members’ votes in last year’s convention delegate elections (using STV), but represent almost 100% of seats on the chapter’s steering committee, since candidates from those factions can win a simple majority in almost every row election. This is not inherently a bad thing on its own and not an indictment of the chapter’s other successes, but we believe it presents real contradictions and limitations for NYC’s internal democracy. 

Structural changes on their own are of course insufficient for resolving political and organizing problems. Our chapter has had the same row election system for years and vastly different political cultures over that time; some chapters with steering committees elected at-large have a healthy internal democracy, but others do not. 

As such, our other priority with this bylaw amendment is to shift the focus of elections towards that of electing the strongest leaders overall. This is increasingly important as the scope of officer roles exceeds the ability for all tasks to be completed by any single person, before considering other leadership responsibilities on Exec’s plate.

Over the last three years we’ve made major strides in our membership work, going from most tasks being handled directly by membership coordinator (or other exec members), to a standing committee led and overseen by the membership coordinator. This has also helped create a leadership development pipeline where people running for membership coordinator have been able to build more direct experience before running. To a lesser extent we’ve seen similar success with our Communications Committee. Regardless of the vote on the larger proposal, we believe it should be a priority for Exec to set up similar structures to delegate other areas of work, e.g. budget and finance, general meeting coordination, and other common administrative processes.

To make this a reality, we want to set the expectation that organizing leadership is the primary requirement for these roles, something we’ve already emphasized to candidates for Exec this year. We want the chapter to elect the members best suited to lead those roles, recruit other members and delegate work as necessary, and believe at-large elections allow us to more effectively consider that long-term.

Baseline technical skills are still needed for certain roles, but in the past few years many officers have come in without extensive prior experience and develop these skills after taking office. Our long-term growth requires elected officers understanding their role as overseeing particular areas of work rather than being solely responsible, and have resources and guidance built in to ensure that future terms of the executive committee are able to take on those roles from all levels of baseline experience. 

This, alongside the expansion of committees aiding individual offices in performing many of their expected tasks, including more technical roles like treasurer, leaves us confident that we can continue what has already been standard practice of electing officers whose primary qualifications are in more generalized organizing skills. This is in line with the trend away from the main historic selection criteria for Exec, which has been based entirely on whoever has been willing to run, resulting in a 4-year stretch of conventions (2021-2024) with uncontested elections. 

We’ve heard concerns that running in an election whose technical responsibilities are not definitively listed at the time of the election might discourage members from running, and that the post-election sorting of roles is too much of an open question. In our experience, this sorting process is already happening, but prior to elections – members considering running for Exec typically talk with others informally beforehand and we see at least 1-2 cases a year of people adjusting what positions they run for based on what others are running for.

The natural expectation written into this bylaw amendment is that most people will likely join exec with a “preferred” role they might want to pursue, with mechanisms to resolve irreconcilable conflicts between exec members over the same desired role, opportunities for exec members to rotate roles as needed (though we don’t expect this to need to be invoked often), and the option for exec members to resign and trigger a new election if they find an assigned technical role to be personally intolerable. If the capacity to fill these roles exists in the current moment, it will continue to exist under the new structure. In all, it formalizes, democratizes, and makes transparent processes that are already happening.

Conclusion

It is important that, when a DSA chapter is altering its bylaws, that such changes are not intended to be overly prescriptive. The goal should not be to fundamentally change the nature of our organizing work through the changes, but to more subtly adjust existing practices to fit the current conditions. Additionally, changes to bylaws should be utilized to give formal recognition to informal practices that have proven useful for the body at large, designating a mandate that such practices continue or simply acknowledging that said practices are unlikely to cease given current organizing needs. This philosophy is reflected in another proposal we authored to rewrite our bylaws with guardrails against that process being used as a vehicle for major political changes, and it informs our thinking behind this proposal as well.

We believe this change helps codify leadership expectations we’ve contributed to shifting the last few years. And though we don’t expect it to have a significant immediate impact, we believe it sets up long-term scaffolding whose positive effects will be increasingly felt as we continue to grow and tackle new challenges in the coming years.

Purpose

This procedure is intended to assist Milwaukee DSA in effectively responding to and promoting actions and events when there is not time to meet beforehand. 

Procedure Steps

1. Within two days of notification of a new event:

• Someone (in membership) alerts the rapid response body (Outreach Officer), who will determine whether we will promote DSA attendance or decline to promote.
• If Outreach decides to promote, proceed. If Outreach declines to promote, announce in discord that we are declining to promote this event for DSA attendance. Announce that this does not mean DSA members shouldn’t attend, it only means that we are not showing up organized as DSA.

2. If vote is to promote:

• Create a thread in discord (under #emergency-actions) to coordinate people, title this thread as descriptively as possible to this one event (Event title + date).
• Announce in #general-announcements that we are promoting DSA members attendance and link the event coordination thread in this announcement.
• Assign an event coordinator who will be responsible for performing setup and communications for the event.

3. Before the event:

• Event coordinator will pick up supplies from Zao MKE:
  • DSA banner or flag
  • Sign-in sheet (if possible)
  • Sign-up QRs, petitions, etc. in rapid response bin (will need to be put together)
  • Five clipboards for canvassers
• Event coordinator will transport the supplies to the event and arrive at least 15 minutes prior to the event start time.
• Event coordinator will announce a meetup point in the event discord thread.

4. During the event:

• Event coordinator will stay at the meetup point for at least 15 minutes after the event start time.
• Event coordinator will assign and distribute literature/petitions to members who are willing to canvass.
• Event coordinator will be responsible for carrying DSA banner/flag.
• Event coordinator will maintain a unified body of DSA members that moves together, the exception to this rule will be the assigned canvassers.
• Event coordinator will monitor the discord thread for the event for the duration of the event.

5. At event close:

• Event coordinator will collect all materials from canvassers.
• Event coordinator will take a photo of the DSA group.
• Event coordinator will return materials to Zao MKE.
• Event coordinator will separate filled-out petitions and label them with the event title and date on a scrap piece of paper folded around the petitions.
• Event coordinator will return sign-in sheet to chapter secretary.

Capping rent increases, increasing the minimum wage, and banning corporate money in politics are just some of the issues two democratic socialists are advocating for in their campaigns for state Assembly.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) received national attention due to Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race in November 2025, as the schism between the progressive and establishment wings of the Democratic party deepens over how to engage with working class voters after failing to defeat Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Mamdani openly described himself as a democratic socialist throughout the primary and general election and is a member of the New York City DSA.

Here in Nevada, Assembly candidates Shaun Navarro and Val Thomason do not shy away from the label. Both are members of Las Vegas Democratic Socialists of America, or LVDSA, which is a political activist organization, not a political party..

“Rich people tell us what to do at our job, they write our laws,” Thomason said. “We don’t even have control of our own tax money.”

Democratic socialism to her is taking control from the rich and giving it to the working class.

Read the full article

by Alexandria R

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has become infamous, particularly in the past year, for brutal tactics, intimidation, and even murder. In 2025, 32 people lost their lives in ICE-related incidents. Some of the agency’s more lethal crimes have drawn major headlines – particularly the most recent killing of two US citizens in Minnesota. While ICE as an agency has gathered a popular reputation as a secret police force, the agency and its activities date back to March 2003, when it was formally created and mobilized as part of the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Its tactics, including infiltration and disruption activities akin to COINTELPRO, have not changed. ICE has acquired Israeli-manufactured spyware known as Graphite, developed by Paragon Solutions. The software is capable of hacking encrypted drives and phones, including live location data, photos, and encrypted messages. Additionally, the agency embeds itself within local law enforcement, often making use of Flock license plate readers and shot spotters to target migrant families and coordinate its operations. Officially, Flock denies that this cooperation exists. 

The agency’s effective infiltration and lethality is concerning, especially when their official mission is taken into account. DHS effectively functions as an organ of the state dedicated to mass internal surveillance and policing. ICE has a mandate to use children to draw out their parents, and detain people based on their outward characteristics. 2026 is a little over two months old, and in that time, ICE has murdered more than six people. Some of them are activists. Other American citizens have been threatened with detention or death for interfering with ICE business. Of particular concern are reports from activists in Minnesota, which echo strange occurrences reported by other activists since at least 2020. Judy and Noah Levy were stopped by ICE agents while observing agency operations in St. Paul. The couple noted that their license plates were photographed. Jarringly, the agents addressed Judy by her name when they came to speak with her. Recalling the incident, Judy said that she was shaken, but continued to follow the agents and their caravan. That’s when ICE vehicles turned onto Levy’s street. 

“Our street is off the beaten path,” said Noah, “You don’t go down our street to get to anywhere. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t intimidating.” 

In September, ICE spent millions on technology to surveil social media and the dark web. The software, called “Tangles,” creates a daily life profile of the people it surveils by mining social media for their posts, contacts, locations and events they attended, combining it with any information leaked about them online. While the agency has been using AI to “crawl” social media apps and sites, ICE is also putting together a surveillance force for 24/7 social media monitoring. DHS wants your data, but surveillance of public information is not where ICE stops looking.

The Guardian first broke the story of DHS/ICE’s acquisition of Graphite. Stephanie Kirchgaessner’s report details the capabilities of the software, noting that Graphite can “hack into any phone. By essentially taking control of the mobile phone, the user – in this case, ICE – can not only track an individual’s whereabouts, read their messages, and look at their photographs, but also open and read information held on encrypted applications, like WhatsApp or Signal. Spyware like Graphite can also be used as a listening device, through the manipulation of the phone’s recorder.” The agency’s contract with Paragon Solutions dates to late 2024 under the Biden administration. ICE’s mandate to spy on members of the public originates with the founding of its parent organ, DHS. 

Infiltration via spyware is not the only point of entry into personal and private data. It has always been important to be aware of your safety when disclosing personal information online, such as location “check-ins” and specific information about shops or restaurants you frequent. Securing information that can be used to track you and your activities can be difficult when you don’t know what people are looking for. The many different ways that federal agents gain access to sensitive details about ICE observers and their affiliates certainly don’t make it easier. Agencies often infiltrate group events and Signal chats by posing as a concerned member of the public or as an activist. This can be mitigated by ensuring that people are who they say they are via connections to the community, but informants and state collaborators could be anyone. I do not encourage readers to start viewing their comrades with suspicion – only to be wary of sharing specific, personal information, even among friends or comrades, as much as possible.

Internal policing and surveillance have always been the mandate of DHS. Though the agency’s tactics have shifted recently to become more ruthless, the existence of ICE has been maintained and expanded upon by every administration since George W. Bush. The contradiction is glaring. Internal policing and anti-migrant policies such as forced deportation of asylum seekers have no place in a society that calls itself a nation of immigrants, and we as citizens have an obligation not only to inform the public of the tactics and goals of these entities, but also to actively work against them.

The post Every Step You Take, ICE is Watching You appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

Every time Sen. Susan Collins has made a consequential choice in regard to Iran, she has chosen to put us on a path to war.

Back in 2015, Collins had a choice to ratify a painstakingly-negotiated treaty which ultimately ended Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, and kept the United States from needing to bomb targeted sites. She chose to oppose that treaty.

In 2018, despite that treaty working exactly as planned, and even as world leaders and his own advisors begged him to stay the course, Pres. Donald Trump impulsively withdrew from the agreement, putting us back on a course toward war. At the time, Collins could have stood up to Trump and opposed his recklessness, but, instead, she published encouraging words around what the withdrawal could achieve.

In 2026, just over a week ago, Trump launched the war he and Israel wanted from the beginning, and Collins voted against a resolution that would have stopped him from destabilizing a region and slaughtering children. In other words, she sided, once again, with war.

As a reminder, the deal I speak of, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, otherwise known as the Iran anti-nuclear treaty, was negotiated by the Obama administration after the administration forced Iran to the table through years of expertly targeted economic sanctions. The treaty included some of the strictest oversight and deepest concessions any opposing nation had ever agreed to.

Seven of the most powerful nations on the planet joined the treaty to assist with enforcement and accountability, including China, Russia, and the UK. The European Union and the United Nations ratified the treaty, and Middle East hawks including Brent Skowcroft, former Republican National Security Advisor to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W Bush endorsed it

But when it came to Congress for ratification, the Israeli lobby, at the direction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, went into overdrive to oppose it. And Collins obeyed by saying she would oppose the treaty when and if it came up for a vote (it never did, as Democrats filibustered to block Republican attempts to undermine this path to peace).

Then, less than two years into Trump’s first presidency, despite all evidence showing the treaty was working as planned – and despite leaders worldwide calling on Trump to stay the course and let diplomacy stand – Trump walked away. 

Sen. Collins stood silently, saying only that she hoped Trump would “fix the flaws” in the original agreement. How did that work out?

Well, last week, when she finally had a chance to actually vote up or down on war, she, of course, voted in favor of war.

While this war is Trump’s and Netanyahu’s, a war they have wanted from the beginning, Sen. Collins must own her part in it. From the beginning her actions have made clear that diplomacy was not her choice. 

War is what she wanted and war is what she got. The Iranian people and the world will have to deal with the consequences. 

***

This story was originally published by The Beacon, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from the Beacon, sign up for the free Beacon newsletter here.

The post Collins wanted war. She got war. appeared first on Pine & Roses.

The post Political Cartoons, March 2026 appeared first on Pine & Roses.

At the March 2026 General Meeting, RVDSA adopted the electoral strategy below, along with amendments to our endorsement process. Introduction The purpose of our electoral work is to build the confidence and organization for the working class to seize political power, radically democratizing our society and transitioning toward social control of the economy. When working […]

High Peaks DSA voices our complete opposition to the United States and Israel’s February 28 decision to initiate an illegal war against Iran, a sovereign nation. We emphasize that this war is both catastrophic and unjustified. We stand unequivocally with the Iranian people in their fight for freedom and self-determination.   

Iran posed no imminent threat and was in the midst of negotiations when the United States abandoned any attempt at a peaceful resolution to join Israel in a war of choice. This war has only begun because of the arrogance of the Israeli government, the ignorance of the American government, and the complete collapse of the international rules-based order. 

The early attacks on Iran in the first few days of this war have already killed at least 1,800 civilians, including a horrific strike on a girls’ school that killed 168, most of them children between the ages of 7 and 12. Much of the Iranian leadership has been assassinated or incapacitated, most notably the assassination of the supreme leader,  Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei. The assassination of a head of state is a dangerous precedent and a brazen violation of international law. 

A rapidly expanding war has since grown throughout Southwest Asia, as Iran is responding with an onslaught of missiles that are seriously testing the Israeli defense systems in Israel proper, along with strikes on nine other countries in the region. Iran has already attacked energy infrastructure and is greatly impacting maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical corridor that accounts for a quarter of the world’s oil trade. Iran has also retaliated by striking several U.S. military bases in the region, resulting in seven soldiers killed at this point and many more wounded. Israel has further escalated its targets with additional attacks in Syria and Lebanon, where hundreds have been killed, and a mass displacement crisis has unfolded. Israel has also closed off humanitarian aid, again, to Gaza. 

Israel and the United States have further escalated their onslaught on the Iranian capital of Tehran, a city of more than 10 million, with additional strikes that have hit residential targets and social infrastructure, including hospitals and schools. The bombings of oil sites near or in Tehran’s city limits have covered the city in a black sky, an ecological disaster that will have alarming health ramifications for the population long after this war is over. A reminder that war itself and the United States military are one of the single greatest contributors to the worsening of the climate crisis.

Trump may have felt that Iran would be like Venezuela, a short bombing campaign, kidnap the President, and work out a deal with the Vice President to take the oil. This short-term success itself is unlikely to hold up in the long run. Iran is a vast mountainous country with a large and diverse population, and it has a substantial military that has been preparing for a war with the West for 40 years. The leadership structure is greater than one individual, and a new Ayatollah, the son of the old Ayatollah, has been selected. He is considered a hardliner and has strong ties to the Iranian Revolutionary National Guard, the state’s military body. 

Iran is not Iraq or Libya either. In each of these prior wars, efforts were made by the Obama and Bush administrations, on false pretenses in Iraq, on false promises in Libya, to sell these wars and garner coalition support from European allies. Following the approval of Congress with votes in favor from 3 of the next 4 Democratic nominees, Bush and Blair launched their illegal invasion of Iraq. The war killed at least hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and became an unmitigated disaster for the reputation of the United States. 

Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi ruled their countries with less public support than the Iranian Regime, and while their governments fell quickly, each war turned into a years-long quagmire. The Iranian government will be harder to topple, and the country much harder to stabilize. If regime change is successful, an outcome worse than Afghanistan is most likely, given that Iran has similar mountainous terrain and is a more important geopolitical state. 

Donald Trump, who, in part, won the 2016 Republican nomination by being seen as an outspoken critic of the Iraq War, was then able to successfully position himself on a platform of no new wars as the peace candidate when contrasted with Hillary Clinton in the general election. 

In practice, much of this perception was always false. The budgetary priorities of campaigning for massive tax cuts and large increases in defense spending inevitably would lead to direct actions taken by the Trump administration in its first term that were never going to be peaceful. The implementation of these policies contributed to the events of October 7, the ratcheting up of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank, and more than two years of genocide in Gaza that followed, and laid the groundwork for the War with Iran. 

Trump unilaterally pulled the United States out of a six-nation nuclear agreement with the Iranian government that was working to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons program. Toward the end of his first term, he recklessly assassinated a top Iranian general, and we only avoided war because of Iran’s restraint with a narrow and orchestrated response. 

The annexation of the Golan Heights, the moving of the embassy to Jerusalem, the implicit support through inaction on the further expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank, and the pursuit of the Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and the countries of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and later Morocco and Sudan all were major factors in the continued isolation of the Palestinians and contributed to the rationale behind the October 7 attacks by Hamas. 

A brief discussion of the historical context in which the current war arose is helpful. In 1953, the United States and the United Kingdom initiated a successful coup to oust the democratically elected government in Iran by strengthening the powers of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to stop the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. The monarchy ruled with an iron fist and an indifference to the suffering of the Iranian people. Decades of political instability in the country ensued, culminating in the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The monarchy was abolished, and the Islamic Republic of Iran was formed, initially with popular support following an anti-imperialist revolution. 

For the last 47 years, Israel and the United States have been deliberate in their efforts to shift the Arab states from a position of adversarial opposition to the brutality of the Zionist apartheid state to client states that now consistently work for the interests of the Western powers while having to appease the sympathies of their populations, who remain with the Palestinian cause. Like the Shah’s rule in Iran, Israel has calculated that they benefit from having an Islamist opposition in Hamas, and has done everything in their power to weaken all secular Palestinian alternatives. 

Iran is viewed by Israel as one of the last remaining states in the region that is providing real economic assistance and military support to the Palestinians through Hamas. Much of this is overstated, as the Iranian regime is primarily invested in remaining in power, and like the other autocratic regimes that dominate the region, has little interest in liberation that could threaten their legitimacy if a viable democratic state were to be formed in Palestine.

The continuation of the Trump polices under the Biden administration, about Israel and its ongoing support as Israel conducted its systematic genocide in Gaza, along with its failures to adopt a more humane approach to immigration, depressed the Democratic party’s voting base and helped Trump win the 2024 election. Once again, Trump presented himself as the peaceful anti-war candidate, in contrast to Kamala Harris, who refused to distance herself from Biden on these issues. The dye had been cast, and this time, Trump retook the presidency, now having complete control of the Republican party, and surrounding himself with a cabinet of sycophants willing to go along with his worst impulses.

On immigration, he has been more draconian in the targeting of all immigrants regardless of their status, detaining many who were engaging in the legal process by revoking previous legal protections like temporary protection status, deferred action for childhood arrivals, student visas, and ignoring the international right to seek asylum. The overwhelming majority of immigrants who have been detained have no violent criminal record and are being held indefinitely amidst squalid conditions in concentration camps, awaiting deportation or court proceedings. He has used the violent arm of the state to occupy major U.S. cities, violate people’s rights to lawful protests with mass arrests on dubious charges that are almost always later dropped, and has killed protestors. 

Trump has brought the same cruelty and disregard for the rule of law he exercises domestically to the international stage, murdering Venezuelans in fishing boats without evidence to support his accusation of drug trafficking, kidnapping the Venezuelan president and his wife, and starving the people of Cuba through an oil blockade. He has also threatened to annex Greenland and Canada.

The failures of the political opposition in the United States and Israel, the absence of accountability from both the domestic and international institutions for the unlawful actions, have neutered our ability to confront the aggression and illegality of Putin‘s invasion of Ukraine, or the violent suppression of protests in countries like Iran, where a theocratic regime has been able to escape from under the boot of U.S. imperialism, only to stifle the aspirations of its own people.

For Iranians, whose liberation is long overdue after decades of oppression from both ends of the imperialist boomerang, history has shown us that no foreign military force can ever lead a people to freedom. This war is only being fought to serve the interests of capital and the imperial powers. Wars are often promoted and fought under the guise of liberation for the marginalized, but in reality, they suppress all ability to achieve social progress. For the bravery of the dissidents in Iran who have never stopped fighting for their rights over the years, only to be killed and imprisoned, this war will only make their struggle harder and the collective suffering greater. 

The oil barons of yesteryear stand in the way of a sustainable clean energy future. The tech oligarchs of today use algorithms and surveillance tools to censor our dissent and determine our fate with targeted strikes, like the one on the girls’ school in Tehran that further separate us from our humanity. These masters of war, the old and the new forces of capital, can only be defeated when the working classes, the oppressed in all corners of this world, can recognize our shared morality and begin to organize ourselves to build a better world, one without artificial hierarchies and violently enforced borders.

The post High Peaks DSA Statement on Iran appeared first on High Peaks DSA.

Several months into the second year of his second term, Trump’s might-makes-right strategy, at home and abroad, has spurred more mass disgust among his opponents and even among a few previous supporters. But does that mean Trumpism is in decline? As we confront the need to build an anti-war movement, resist ICE repression, and defend civil liberties and voting rights, it’s useful to think through our political opponents’ strengths and weaknesses. In a previous article, I suggested three scenarios that might play out in the next few years. This piece looks at the strengths and weaknesses of two of them: Clintonism 3.0 and Trumpism 3.0. (The third, AOCism 1.0, will be the focus of the next piece!)

Old wine, old bottles

Clintonism is the rule of centrist politicians who believe in neoliberal, international free trade, a moderately funded welfare state, the rule of law within the framework of mass incarceration, and market mechanisms to mitigate climate change. They tolerate unions and nonprofits, but believe that anyone to their left is “unelectable.” They yearn for a return to bipartisan normalcy where elite “adults” run the government and dominate the global economy through “multilateral” (i.e., Western) banking relationships and military might. Although it’s hard to remember now, the Republican Party used to sing a version of the same song.

The most important factor in the power of Clintonism is the lack of an organized, working-class political alternative. Social movements and unions — and working people in general — have suffered forty years of bipartisan neoliberalism. The percentage of workers who have a union and who are confident enough to strike — the most basic measure of working-class clout — both remain near historic lows. In 1970, unions represented nearly 30% of workers. Today that number has slipped to 10%. 

That 7 million people attended No Kings rallies in October indicates widespread rejection of Trump among an important segment of the population, but that power remains only potential. For instance, while communities in Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Maine have stood up to ICE and slowed down their operations — no doubt saving many families from detention — the body snatchers continue to operate with impunity. Democratic leaders in Congress like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries want ICE agents to attend a few sensitivity seminars in exchange for re-upping their funding. Clintonism 3.0 hopes to displace just enough Republicans to win a majority in Congress and begin negotiating with Trump. 

This makes Clintonists a weak force against Trumpism; however, they have huge reserves of power and money and just might pull it off. Critically, despite their own low polling numbers, establishment Democrats’ political theory — namely, that capitalism is just fine, it simply needs to be modified to reduce the worst outrages — is widely held among large parts of the electorate. A centrist return to power will be felt as a huge relief for many. But that would hardly end the crisis. A Democratic majority in one or both houses of Congress will only raise the stakes for MAGA while doing little or nothing to improve the lives of the vast majority of working-class families. Trump is not afraid of Clintonism. He proved that by defeating Biden/Harris/Walz handily in 2024.

What is MAGA?

Trumpism represents a new political phenomena: namely, a specific version of American fascism. Stefanie Prezioso warns us that knee-jerk analogies between the contemporary far right and earlier fascist movements “may risk anchoring us too firmly in interpretations of the past, hindering a rigorous analysis of today’s realities and the development of effective responses.” We should listen to her. At the same time, the human brain has used analogy to good effect over the years: If that animal is a different color but almost as big as a bear, if it doesn’t growl but it does howl, if it’s hunting in a pack instead of on its own… I should probably get out of here! This kind of thinking can be life-saving. 

If Hitler and Mussolini represented fascism coming “from below” (through a mass fascist movement) and Chile’s Pinochet and Spain’s Franco represented fascism coming “from above” (through military coups), all four constructed similar regimes once in power. But the specific character and ferocity of these fascist states was shaped by their social bases and the particular political crisis that brought them to power. 

There are obvious parallels between earlier fascist movements and regimes on the one hand and MAGAism and the Trump administration on the other. Fascists — and this distinguishes them from ordinary conservatives — insist they are fighting for “the little guy” and often powerfully criticize aspects of capitalism because they want to build a cross-class, mass movement. 

But fascists are not consistent anticapitalists. Their goal is not to build an international movement of working-class people against global capital. Rather, they seek to build an alliance between “good” nationalist capitalists and “productive” people (workers, small businessmen, professionals, etc.) from the dominant racial or religious groups who share their supremacist ideology. To do so, they must find scapegoats. Capitalists per se are not the enemy, only “disloyal” capitalists are. Hitler blamed German capitalism’s real crisis on imaginary culprits: Jewish capitalists (and Jews in general) and the Versailles Treaty. Trump blames American capitalism’s real crisis on his own imaginary culprits: immigrants, the Paris climate accords, etc. 

The fascist story can provide a powerful explanation for millions of people who want something different for themselves and their children. As Leon Trotsky put it when describing growing support for Hitler, “Despair has raised them to their feet and fascism has given them a banner.” This is what gives Trump his power, and until that story can be replaced by a more compelling explanation from the left based on strong unions, multiracial solidarity, and material reforms that change workers’ lives for the better, MAGAism will remain a strong force in American politics.

Despite his sagging poll numbers, Trump’s power is not limited by normal electoral mechanisms. The results of elections — real or imagined — still matter a great deal to MAGA, because Trump cannot yet dispense with the formal levers of state. That’s why the administration is putting so much effort into gerrymandering. But Trumpism is more than a right-wing electoral machine; it’s an inchoate fascist movement attempting to turn the state into a fascist instrument for repression. 

If previous fascist movements in Italy and Germany first had to build an armed, mass movement powerful enough to destroy their enemies (unions, left-wing political parties, etc.) in order to then take over the state and wield its power, Trump has turned the map upside down. He has built a certain kind of movement, but his real political genius (stable or otherwise) is based on two realizations. 

First, Trump understands that the institutionalized democracy represented by the American federal state was so corroded by Clintonism that he could simply bully it aside. In this, he learned from India’s Modi, and he is teaching France’s Le Pen. As Ugo Palheta notes, “In France, the civil liberties and social rights won by the working class and its organizations over the last two centuries have been worn down by a series of governments. The traditional mechanisms of parliamentary democracy are systematically undermined, marginalized, or hollowed out by the ruling class itself, in favor of unelected bodies or procedures to circumvent its processes.” 

Second, Trump won over the billionaire class. Three generations of oligarchs grew up and prospered under Clintonism — even as they dismantled the New Deal and the Great Society — and they could not understand why anything should change. As Hillary Clinton famously insisted, America was already great for them, why rock the boat?

Fast forward to 2026: They now realize they were suckers to let any crumbs (progressive taxation, regulations, global trade rules, etc.) fall from their tables. Trump kicked open the door to unfettered AI development, military spending, a drill-baby-drill fossil fuel revival, and stunning tax cuts, paid for by robbing Medicaid. So far, Trump hasn’t needed a well-disciplined, volunteer fascist army or a military coup to wield state power. 

With the state and billionaires in his pocket, Trump has transferred hundreds of billions from the working class to the ruling class through tax cuts, turned up the thermostat for global warming, and launched a new round of military misadventures. Trump’s rage against Chief Justice Robert’s decision to strike down part of his tariff policy shows that he intends to bend any remaining institutional barriers to his will. To do so, he will need a weapon his fascist forefathers wielded — that is, an extralegal military force to break through the limits of legality to authoritarian lawlessness and brute force. 

The old Confederacy needed the KKK to smash the post–Civil War Reconstruction era and impose Jim Crow. Hitler needed 3 million members of the SA and SS to destroy the unions. Franco needed his bando franquista to destroy the Spanish Republic. Where is the Trump-Bannon-Miller MAGA militia? 

The Proud Boys and the tangled mess of squabbling wannabes must be a disappointment. Trump pardoned them all for January 6, and they still failed to make anything of themselves… yet. And herein lies Trump’s key weakness: his base remains essentially passive. Trump’s MAGA crowds want America to be great again, but they do not want to have to make it great themselves. They want it done for them. To revise Trotsky’s comment about fascism in Germany, “despair has raised them to their keyboards, and Trump has sold them a brand.” The core MAGA belief is “don’t tell me what to do.” 

Steve Bannon wants a white Christian nationalist volunteer army of a million willing to fight for the fatherland. What he has at this moment is a band of hostile snake oil salesmen. Their voices are amplified by right-wing media funded by billionaire ideologues, but they remain (so far) unable to march. 

So if Trump does not yet have the extralegal ground troops to force through his extralegal desires, how can he remedy this shortcoming? Three letters: I.C.E.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE hired 12,000 new agents in just four months in 2025, bringing its total force to 22,000. Although that force remains small as a percentage of the total 750,000 armed law enforcement personnel in the U.S., the Big Beautiful Bill allocated ICE an additional $75 billion to spend in the next four years. To get a sense of its room for growth, if each new ICE agent costs taxpayers approximately $100,000, that means 10,000 new agents costs $1 billion. In other words, there is plenty of money in their piggybank to hire masses of agents. And there can be no doubt that they will be recruited from the far right.

What will Trump do with such a force? Clearly he will intensify his war against immigrants and civil liberties. He aims to normalize ICE invading cities and towns, rampaging for weeks or months, and then withdrawing. All the while, ICE will dole out favors and funding to local and state police who learn to play the new game. Indeed, this process is well underway in many of the deepest red states. 

But it seems foolish to assume that Trump will stop at street terror. He still needs the formal levers of state power to stay the course. He may chafe at the Supreme Court and internal squabbles in the GOP, but he is not yet strong enough to rule without Congress, and as his prospects dim for winning a fair and free election come November, ICE looms large. Trump has already announced he wants “federal” control in 15 major Democratic cities. If he unleashes ICE in October and November to create havoc, he can claim fraud, throw contested election results to friendly state legislatures, and then fight out a Constitutional crisis. This is a playing field on which he has demonstrated he can defeat the Clintonians time and again. After Venezuela, after Iran, we must take this gambit seriously.

So how do we get out of this mess? Having assessed Trump’s strengths and weaknesses, in my next article, I’ll examine the prospects for AOCism 1.0 — leftwing electoral growth and the rise of fighting social and union movements — and review some lessons from three words that start with the letter M: Minneapolis, Maine, and Mamdandi.

***

This piece also appears in The Call, a publication by Bread & Roses, a caucus within the Democratic Socialists of America

The post Aiming for Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: MAGA Before the Elections, Part II appeared first on Pine & Roses.

The war in Sudan has lasted for over two years, pitting state forces against foreign-backed paramilitary group that has been waging a genocidal campaign throughout the country.