Submission from a member of Cleveland DSA

Note: This post has been updated on Feb 10 to reflect the amended language of the Building an Independent Party chapter resolution, which removed and added passages to the language based on our discussion with DSA compliance.

This post is inspired by Chad’s new segment of the same name in our General Meetings.

With the second Trump presidency here and already disrupting so many lives, we are going to be in crisis mode for the foreseeable future. This will encourage a tendency towards reacting to crises, as opposed to responding to them. During this time, we must ground ourselves in our shared principles and perspectives to avoid the tendency towards liberalism.

As happened last time the Cheeto was sworn in, we have seen a bump in new members joining our chapter – which is a massive source of hope for me personally! At the same time, turnover within the movement and specifically within our chapter is predictably unpredictable. Leaders step away for a variety of capitalism-related or burnout reasons. When this happens, we often lose important institutional knowledge and continuity from previous internal chapter debates.

In our flurry of activity since I joined in 2021, I’ve seen some of the same political debates play out again and again in our chapter. It hasn’t been because circumstances are vastly different and we needed to re-evaluate past decisions, though. The debates often center around our theory of power, how we relate to liberals, coalitions, or NGOs, or the money in our bank account. From what I understand, this pattern even predates my time at DSA.

In the time I’ve been involved, I’ve certainly seen a coalescence in our perspectives towards DSA as a mass party, our endorsement criteria and process, our expectations for future electeds, and our desire to have independent messaging which directly ties our work to socialism. That’s not to say every member agrees, but there seems to be broad strategic alignment in these areas which were previously fractured in the chapter.

But the unfortunate truth of Cleveland DSA is that we haven’t been great at documenting our reflections on our past work/decisions, codifying our shared strategic vision, or educating new members on these perspectives as they’ve developed and merged over the years.

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In this piece, I’m hoping to shed light on our chapter’s formally established perspectives. I think it’s especially important for newer members to know and understand our chapter’s history so that we can avoid repeating the events of the past and keep the chapter growing as a political force.

This is not to say that we should never repeat a particular debate. Instead, I’m calling for our chapter to operate in a way that once the majority does agree on a particular perspective/vision, we make sure our record-keeping reflects that and, ideally, develop educational materials for new members that reinforce that shared perspective. 

Our chapter would benefit greatly from the development of education materials anytime we take a decisive stance on a political question. A great candidate for this treatment in my opinion is the passage of the Building an Independent Party resolution at the 2024 convention. (More on this later.)

In this way, we will learn and retain information as a chapter, rather than as a group of individuals.

Additionally I’d love to call for others to write their own reflection on the chapter.

Our Chapter’s Strategic Vision

The Democratic Socialists of America is a big tent organization which does not require agreement with its national platform or “purity tests.” As our chapter grows and develops politically, we pass resolutions to formally establish our perspectives based on what we have learned through practice. These perspectives guide our tactical decision-making as we undertake the historic task of bringing democratic socialism to the masses.

As established in our Member Handbook, our theory of change is as follows:

“…collective power can be wielded for tremendous good when done so with wisdom, care, and effort; that our capitalist society is tremendously weighted against regular, working people, and critically: that we can win, especially if we engage in deep organizing. We believe that through shared struggle and political education, we can build a democratic, multiracial, working-class, explicitly socialist movement, in Cleveland, Ohio.”

From the National DSA Constitution:

“We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships. We are socialists because we are developing a concrete strategy for achieving that vision, for building a majority movement that will make democratic socialism a reality in America. We believe that such a strategy must acknowledge the class structure of American society and that this class structure means that there is a basic conflict of interest between those sectors with enormous economic power and the vast majority of the population.”

How We Codify Our Strategic Vision

In addition to our foundational documents, a number of resolutions passed at our 2024 convention* formally established some of our chapter’s perspectives around questions like our messaging strategy, our anti-drug war stance, our perspective on DSA as a political party, and our desire to form a formal relationship with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee.

The “Whereas” clauses of a resolution, although not binding, reflect the author’s perspective towards the work in the “Be it resolved” sections. In this way, we put forward perspectives which inform our tactical-level decisions.

Thus, although the Democratic Socialists of America and our chapter are “big tent” organizations, individual political views do not supersede our democratic mandates. Acceptance of a democratic mandate does not require the individual to agree with the direction or political undertones of that mandate because the “big tent” allows for factions/caucuses and internal organizing towards differing political perspectives.

Putting on my Cleveland DSA Historian hat, I’d like to highlight some perspectives and priorities we established at the 2024 Chapter Convention. (As an aside, Damion also provided us with some excellent opening remarks.)

Passed at 2024 Chapter Convention*

These are the resolutions that passed that I think were important for establishing the politics of our chapter. I’ll provide a brief rationale for their importance for each. Any emphasis (bold or italics) is mine.

Campaigns (Projects) Communications Strategy

This resolution establishes the need to craft messaging that ties our work to the movement for socialism:

“[Be it resolved,] …at minimum, a blog post announcing the campaign and talking points that will be shared with membership to help them articulate how the campaign relates to the struggle for socialism.”

It also reflects the chapter’s broad support of building a mass political party to advance socialism:

“[Whereas,] in order to build the kind of mass political party we need to advance socialism, we need to illustrate how our campaign (project) work ties into socialism more broadly.”

Provide harm reduction materials & anti-drug war propaganda at DSA events

This resolution is a great example where we can do low-lift work with a high return. I’m proud that our chapter has been engaged in the community doing NARCAN distribution. I’m not sure if we produced the literature described here but if we haven’t yet, reminder that we are mandated.

“Whereas, there is a pressing need for a politically minded response to engage the public and to dismantle the narrative around the drug war;”

This resolution also establishes a direct political education element and membership growth opportunity:

“Resolved, that the DSA shall allocate $300 for the development and distribution of class-conscious, anti-drug war literature to be presented alongside harm reduction materials at events, with the aim of attracting individuals engaged in this issue into DSA.”

Building an Independent Party

This resolution establishes locally our agreement with the decision at the 2023 National Convention to “Act Like an Independent Party.”

For those unfamiliar with the original resolution, the goal is to establish political independence (in both practice and perception) through rejection of Democratic Party discipline in favor of internally democratic organization.

“[Whereas,] …It means political independence and a rejection of Democratic Party discipline. And political independence requires organizational independence in the form of a membership-based internally democratic political organization. 

All electoral work must therefore be oriented toward building DSA’s organizational skills and capacity as well as towards building popular perception of DSA as politically independent of both major capitalist parties.”

The specifics of this resolution in the “Be it resolved” section are going to become extremely important if/when we move towards having Cleveland DSA cadre run campaigns. I’d encourage a full read/re-read! (And in my opinion it’s .) Highlights:

“[Be it resolved…] Cleveland DSA must put forward a politically independent socialist point of view in all messaging and any campaign materials used by the chapter must be DSA branded…”

“It is the official position of Cleveland DSA that the purpose of DSA running candidates for elected office is to build a democratic socialist movement outside of the state that is in opposition to the existing state…”

“Chapter electoral work should be oriented toward building the skills and capacity of the chapter to run campaigns.”

“If a DSA member gets elected, the Chapter shall form a Socialists in Office (SiO) committee with the elected comrade(s) as ex officio members. Cleveland DSA will only endorse candidates who agree to meet with the SiO to maintain an open dialogue regarding policy positions. The SiO will provide reportbacks to membership.”

Towards an EWOC branch

This resolution is important because it has the potential to strengthen our chapter’s relationship with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee and National DSA. It would more directly/explicitly tie our work towards socialism with the organic workers’ movement. It’s also very ambitious and I hope we don’t lose sight of its aims in 2025:

“… [Be it resolved,] The EWOC-trained organizers, a local coordinator, and the advanced organizer will launch the branch and start accepting leads from EWOC. Preference should be given to leads in DSA Cleveland’s zip codes. There is an expectation from EWOC to take leads outside of our immediate area. 

EWOC organizers are responsible for meeting with their assigned leads and developing leads into campaigns. Organizers are expected to support at least one sustainable campaign or several soft leads. 

EWOC organizers are expected to train and onboard new EWOC volunteers. EWOC expects volunteering to be open to non-DSA members. 

EWOC training, meetings, socials, fundraisers, and worker support events will be considered DSA Cleveland events unless specified otherwise. EWOC organizers should avoid scheduling in conflict with priority campaigns, general meetings, and committee meetings…”

Winning the Battle for Democracy

This resolution was primarily to affirm the National DSA Political Platform stance on the American political system and to call for National DSA and our electeds to more explicitly indict the undemocratic state form. It’s honestly an exciting read and clearly establishes the political environment we find ourselves in in this moment.

“[Whereas,] the historical tendencies towards the concentration of capital in few hands and the concentration of people in few states has rendered any constitutional paths that may once have been open to the socialist movement forever closed, obstructing progressive reform and leaving those reforms already won through historical mass struggle defenseless as the political servants of the capitalist class conspire to strip them away.

The DSA has pledged to fight for a “a world organized and governed by and for the vast majority, the working class,” which is clearly impossible under the current Constitutional regime and cannot be won through the antidemocratic channels of reform laid down by the Constitution.”

The following is such a powerful statement of what we must do to reform the state into one worth contesting in the electoral arena:

“[Be it resolved,] Cleveland DSA affirms, from the DSA Political Platform, that “the American political system was not made to serve the working class” and that “the nation that holds itself out as the world’s premier democracy is no democracy at all” by officially raising the demand for a new and radically democratic constitution, drafted by an assembly of the people elected by direct, universal and equal suffrage for all adult residents with proportional representation of political parties, and rooted not in the legitimacy of dead generations of slaveowners and capitalists, but that of a majority consensus of the working masses. 

Additionally Cleveland DSA urges DSA as a whole to take up a stance of opposition to the Constitution, openly indicting it as antidemocratic and oppressive, encouraging all DSA members in elected office to do the same, taking concrete actions to advance the struggle for a democratic republic such as agitating against undemocratic judicial review, fighting for proportional representation, delegitimizing the anti-democratic U.S. Senate, and advancing the long-term demand for a new democratic Constitution. We declare that to be a socialist is to fight for an expansive working-class democracy in which the state and society are democratically managed by the majority. In the U.S. this means demanding a new Constitution…”

*All links are currently members-only access. Please contact membership@dsacleveland.org if you cannot access these documents. I’ll be motioning at a future SC or General to make these publicly available.

Other Outstanding Democratic Mandates

In addition to some of the work above which is ongoing, we have other outstanding chapter-level mandates to keep sight of:

• Our Home In Cleveland (office space)
• Merch Madness (ordering up to $400 worth of shirts)
• Winter Collection (more merch)
• Standing Authorization for Steering Committee to Authorize Fundraising Concerts

Some progress has been made on each of these, but I suspect not all members are aware of this ongoing work. Even in the steering committee, we’ve had difficulty remembering various authorizations or the details of them, like the concert planning one.

We do have the motion tracker now though, which is up-to-date with all motions made in 2025!

Dissent to Current Mandates

As mentioned above, acceptance with a chapter decision doesn’t mean you must agree with the decision. When votes are close or the sides are polarized, internal organizing is the solution. Factions and caucuses may be formed, vote whipping is permitted (provided you aren’t using chapter resources for these purposes).

But an important distinction is that posting dissent across Slack is not the same as internal organizing. It can certainly be the starting point, but we are all here because we believe in collective power and democratic decision-making. Our chapter business is run by Robert’s Rules so that we can openly debate, amend, and vote on decisions. This form of active, engaged, participatory democracy is vastly different than sending messages online and allows for much greater access and involvement across our chapter.

Our Unresolved Political Questions

There are still some outstanding topics we’ve yet to officially form positions on which we can expect to see some polarization on. These include resolutions that did not get debated on the convention floor, plus a meaty topic we only ended up discussing in a small group at a chapter convention plenary – our electoral strategy.

• “Points of Unity for Coalition Work”
• “Chapter Labor Strategy” (however we did vote to create the Labor Chair position)
• Our Electoral Strategy – Discussion Session coming up Feb 22nd!

If you’re interested in working on resolutions around these topics but need some help, my DMs are open! I can either help you or find someone who can.

Luckily, on these topics we aren’t starting at zero. There’s already great writing on these topics and examples we can point to as we develop our positions. I’m hoping especially with the electoral strategy discussion that we will sharpen our perspectives and vision.

I’m taking my Cleveland DSA Historian hat off so that I can directly state my political vision for our chapter.

My Political Vision for Our Chapter

My hope for our chapter is that we work to routinize this cycle of debate/deliberation, codification, and education that will be vital to our political progression as our chapter grows. My long term vision for our chapter is to advance towards some form of programmatic unity.

Programmatic unity is how we can institutionalize our learning so that our organization doesn’t depend too heavily on its long-time members. Acceptance of (not necessarily agreement with)  a program or platform would allow our chapter to move forward as a political body, clearly articulate “where we’re going” to our newer members, and prevent the awkwardness and polarization that comes from repeating the same fundamental debates every few years. To be clear, none of the below is something I’m trying to actively organize for right now but what I see on the horizon that would unify and strengthen our chapter for the long-run.

• Establish a tasks and perspectives doc to guide our decisions on priority projects and non-campaign activities
• Establish topic-specific reading groups within our education committee and an official curriculum
• Get members to publish more reflection pieces on our blog following big chapter decisions or highly contested decisions
• Advocate for programmatic unity at the national level
• Establish a chapter program to unify our local work

Would love to see some response posts if this sparked ideas for any of y’all!

In Solidarity,
Megan R

Feb 5, 2025

The post Where We’ve Been & Where We’re Going appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

Welcome to your quick glimpse into the work of the chapter over the last month, prepared for Little Red Letter #134.

On January 25, workers from Delta Air Lines organized an inspiring rally at the St. Paul Labor Center.  The ramp, cargo, and tower workers are fighting to join the International Association of Machinists (IAM), and flight attendants are fighting to join the Association of Flight Attendants at Delta, the most profitable airline in the industry.  […]

The post Bodily Autonomy Working Group appeared first on Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America.

Decommodification of Housing in Berlin and how we can learn from it in the Twin Cities(Originally Published in Streets.MN) BERLIN, GERMANY — Berlin residents have shown a path out of our global housing crisis via the Deutsche Wohnen & Co. Enteignen (DWE) movement — a mass civil society campaign to socialize tens of thousands of […]

A Line in the Sand On September 28, 2024, the Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America (TCDSA) etched its name into the annals of socialist anti-imperialist struggle. By passing the resolution “Make Twin Cities DSA an Anti-Zionist Organization in Principle and Praxis,” the chapter didn’t just condemn Zionism—it declared war on the settler-colonial project itself. […]

I started the Street Corps Working Group shortly after I joined Twin Cities DSA back in 2021 in response to the collapse of the previous Mutual Aid and Solidarity Economy (MASE) Working Group. Besides filling in the important organizing around mutual aid and dual power that I believed this chapter should be doing, I wanted […]

Don’t let private interests loot education dollars and defund important programs. Charter-school lobby-backed politicians, including IPS board members Angelia Moore, Hope Hampton, Deandra Thompson, and Ashley Thomas, want to redistribute […]

The struggle of working people for an equitable society free from injustice and oppression has sharpened in recent months, taking center stage through headlines on everything from the devastating climate catastrophe to anti-immigration raids. As that fight shows its face in Milwaukee, we must say no to the elements of hatred and division, even when our institutions appear to embrace them.

Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and our allies are calling on CBS 58 and their parent company, Weigel Broadcasting, to restore former meteorologist Sam Kuffel to her position.

We’ve launched a petition Monday rallying their supporters behind Kuffel and against the notion that a stand against fascism should cost someone their employment. Can you sign?

The people of Milwaukee deserve local reporting that is unafraid to challenge the rising tide of far-right hatred instead of running cover for its leading figures. As we reflect this year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is important that we recognize and fight the forces behind historical atrocities as we see them in the present.

Sign the petition online. View the chapter calendar.

In solidarity,
Milwaukee DSA

Sam Z. is a co-coordinator of the DSA-LA Mass Transit for All campaign, and Correna T. is a co-coordinator of the bathrooms side of the campaign. 

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

GNDCC: Tell me about your campaign and what you’re currently focusing on.

Sam Z: Transportation is the largest source of emissions in California. Los Angeles is the driving capital of the world, basically. So we find a transportation-motivated, Green New Deal-style campaign to be the most strategic and possibly most impactful.

Our entire chapter votes on our chapter priorities. In April 2023, the chapter voted to make public transit a priority campaign and then re-upped the campaign, so we’re currently in year two. We decided to pursue a two-pronged campaign: the first prong aimed at the county government, the second prong aimed at the city government. There are tons of ways in which public transit could be improved/expanded here as well as life for the working class in LA to be made better—and political and economic power built at the same time. 

The county transit system is governed by the LA Metro Board. LA County is huge—there are 88 cities within LA County. It’s a really powerful governing body. We decided to prioritize public bathrooms as a way to improve and expand transit for riders and for workers—especially transit workers. Our high-level goal is to expand publicly owned brick-and-mortar bathrooms at the LA Metro system level that are serviced by union workers.

At the city level, our second priority is to intervene in a particular moment when, this year, voters in the city of LA voted to pass an unfunded pro-transit mandate that says: we want the city to fully implement the mobility plan. The mobility plan does a lot of good stuff: more rapid bus lanes, more pedestrian infrastructure, more bike infrastructure; all things that are not cars, basically. The mobility plan does not have any power. The ballot question that passed gave it some legal power, but no public budgetary power. So we decided that our campaign would focus on trying to get more budgetary power behind this implementation. Similar to bathrooms, this would make life better for working class Angelinos in terms of riding transit also for potentially lots of union workers who might be building more bus lanes, driving more buses, etc. That has involved trying to intervene in the city council.

Correna T: That second goal, we are pivoting a little bit in our campaign. Sam and a couple of other members have been meeting pretty regularly with our socialists in office. A couple of the staffers from the current city council electeds that we have have been meeting with them in order to try to get that funding for Measure HLA, whether it be some capital campaign, just include it in the city budget for next year, etc. As the city budget is super tight this year, that ask for $100 million or whatever it is to try to get new paved streets with bike lanes, etc. is hitting a wall. 

It’s been really good to develop that relationship. But last month, a new opportunity actually came up for a potential push as a campaign to instead work on a fare-free drive. There’s a city bus route that’s not run by the county metro system. It’s run by the city—by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation—and those buses have been free ever since the pandemic started. Due to all the budgetary cuts in the city, they are trying to reinstate fares as of January. There was a public hearing last month, and we, as a campaign, got together at our last meeting and voted to see if that’s something actionable that we can affect, to transition some of our city council-focused energy to fare-free rather than working on this capital campaign. 

Sam Z: The one other campaign description comment I wanted to add in is, especially in year two of our DSA-LA transit campaign, we are making sure that organized labor is at the center. Both in terms of the policy goals we have and in terms of the strategy. So for bathrooms and the city government-level transit build-outs and now fare-free, we have actively tried to build relationships with the relevant unions. That’s been somewhat successful on the bathroom side; that helped us do at least one motion at the Metro Board level. At the city level, It’s been a little trickier, but we’re still working on it.

Correna’s been super involved in trying to build our transit labor circle, which has been experimental and successful in some ways, and still growing. In an ideal world, our campaign would be members of DSA-LA who are also transit workers. We have tried to borrow some ideas from that kind of model from the East Bay DSA folks and their transit work. We’re not there. We have some transit workers; they’ve maybe thought about getting involved sort of on the periphery.

Correna T: There’s definitely been a lot of labor discussion and coordination on the bathroom side of our campaign that I can talk about, too. I was not as involved with the first year of the campaign, but the public services—as we call it—side of things, was more general. We were doing a lot of canvassing at stations, talking to folks about fare-free, talking to folks about what kind of services they wanted. Part of the reason, I think, that we focused on bathrooms here in year two is that Metro started a pilot program last year where they unfortunately partnered with a Silicon Valley startup company that provides public restrooms. They are free; you use this little QR code to scan and get into the stall.

And so we were like, They’re clearly acknowledging that there is a need for public restrooms, especially because Los Angeles is hosting the 2028 Olympics. That is a huge thing with Metro, that they’re going to do a car-free Olympics in Los Angeles somehow. And they’re acknowledging that there’s a need for things like public restrooms. We were like, There might be some leverage here with the board to increase this public service here. We started off canvassing folks about these restrooms. We’ve seen them there, they function, but we want brick-and-mortar restrooms. We want these to be built at all these stations, we want them to be Metro-owned and -operated.

Then, over the summer, we found out that not only were they using this third party contractor, but the employees who service them are gig-work employees. So they’re not even just part-time or full-time workers. They get paid 15 to 20 bucks per restroom that they clean, which, especially out here in LA, is ridiculous. It’s almost comical that they can even get people to service them. So that became our push, and that was a moment where we were able to successfully do some lobbying.

We reached out to TCU, the Transportation Communications Union, which is the union that represents all the unionized janitorial staff that actually work for Metro, that do all of the cleanings of the stations in the very few staffed bathrooms that they actually have. They reached out to their union leaders and presented this as an opportunity for them. Essentially, these are jobs that should be going to that union, and instead are being proposed to go to this gig work model. At the time, they were still a pilot program, but there was about to be a vote in the Metro Board to extend the program for the next four years. They’re talking about 64 bathrooms that are going to be potentially operated and cleaned by gig workers. This union that we partnered with was able to get an amendment through the Metro Board using their contacts. It didn’t stop the expansion of the program from happening, but it did make sure that we look into the opportunity of using union work instead.

I think right now they’re at a bit of a standstill because there may or may not be a part of the union contract that requires that any janitorial or custodial work on Metro property be done by the union, but they approved to expand the program for this gig work company. So neither one of them is happening right now, and this is a place where we’re trying to wedge ourselves in there to see if we can influence it to go in one direction and actually do have the restrooms and make sure that they’re union labor. It’s been a really interesting connection/crossover there.

I can also talk about our labor circle up here, which is a little bit separate. This has been a really interesting thing, because we started off talking to riders. We were talking about doing lobby meetings, but it wasn’t until we had this union connection that some of our gears actually started turning and things actually started happening, which has been really cool to experience.

GNDCC: Tell me about the labor circle.

Correna T: It came partially from this union partnership that we had. But also, just in our canvases of riders, of workers, one of the things we were hearing over and over again was that even people who work for the same company, people who both work for Metro who aren’t contracted employees, just have no idea what’s going on. The lack of transparency between the bosses and the actual workers seems to be keeping a lot of people in the dark. They don’t know what people at other stations are doing, they don’t know what people across different departments are doing. So we felt like we, as DSA, had an opportunity to come in and create a space where workers could come together and talk about different issues that they’re facing. 

We’ve had two labor circles so far. Our third one is going to be this coming Sunday. A couple of really interesting things have come out of that. We’ve had workers who are contracted, whether they’re unionized or not, who have been able to talk to each other about different union pushes that they have. There is a group of workers right now that are being contracted through a nonprofit organization that are going to become part of Metro at some point in the next year. And we’ve been working really, really closely with them to see if they can get organized ahead of being pulled in-house so that they have cards ready to sign and an OC ready to make sure that their bargaining agreement is on par with what they’re wanting once they’re pulled in-house. So it’s been a really interesting space for us to be able to get workers together across all different parts of Metro. Even after the campaign ends in April, we’re really hoping that that’s something that we can keep going in conjunction with our labor committee. So that’s been a really cool thing for a lot of folks to be a part of.

GNDCC: Why should DSA members in LA get involved in this campaign, or DSA members in general get involved in public transit campaigns in their local chapters?

Correna T: I think transit is a really interesting issue, and I’m really glad we’ve been able to do a transit-focused campaign. It is a combination and amalgamation of so many different other areas of socialist ideals. It’s a Green New Deal campaign. It focuses on clean energy and on reducing our usage of cars. It’s a mutual aid concept, because a lot of our transit resources go towards homeless outreach and towards crisis intervention. The ambassadors that are on our transit system carry Narcan with them; they’ve saved over 300 lives. It’s also pro-labor. What we want is essentially a robust system that creates thousands of more unionized government jobs. So it’s a really interesting crossover of a bunch of different areas and ideals that DSA members I hope would carry. It’s a cool way to engage with a bunch of different topics. We’ve had a lot of really good energy from people coming from all different sides of that, which is pretty cool.

Sam Z: Yeah, I second all that, I think with the caveat that different campaigns should be run in different places based on their local politics and policy context. In LA at least, and translatable elsewhere, I would say something similar, but maybe I would phrase it like: do you think climate change is an existential crisis? Do you think that local air pollution and environmental injustice in cities is a horrific problem that we should not have? Do you think that public goods need to be expanded universally? Do you think we need way more union jobs? Then, boy, have I got a campaign for you.

Electric vehicles are not the future. They’re here, they’re for rich people. They’re probably going to come down in price, but we don’t want to be living in a future in which we are trying to mitigate the climate crisis and expand public goods where everyone’s still driving in their fucking solo cars. We’re going to need shit-tons of buses and trains, and the way to get to that future in which we have stronger societies, happier lives, things are not as expensive, and people have way better jobs and union workers have a lot more power, than we need to be running local public transit campaigns.

Correna T: I think it’s a really interesting topic of what it means to have a community and to build a community, because we’re so individualistic. Elon Musk wants us to believe that the future of climate justice is every individual person getting their own Tesla. Public transit to me—being on a bus, being on a train—is a physical representation of the fact that we cannot do this alone and that it takes community, it takes people coming together to actually solve this problem. If that means that you have to deal with the fact that people are kind of annoying on the bus sometimes, that’s what that means. And if that’s a sentiment that people in your local chapter are having, then maybe that’s an opportunity for a conversation about what it is that we’re trying to build here as an actual socialist community.

The post CAMPAIGN Q&A: DSA-LA’s Mass Transit for All appeared first on Building for Power.