Cleveland DSA joins the rest of the Democratic Socialists of America in condemning President Trump’s immediate assault on immigrants, trans people, and workers through his recent slew of executive orders. These orders will not only make life worse for workers across the nation, they highlight the undemocratic nature of the US state, investing such powerful authority in its executive and judiciary to carry out these attacks while obstructing and limiting our proportional representation as workers in the legislature.

As socialists, we are not surprised that right-wing Republicans are joining their pro-capitalist, anti-worker economic policies with hateful culture-war rhetoric, which always go hand-in-hand—neither are we surprised that Democrats, equally committed to the status quo, have failed to put up any meaningful resistance to these efforts, with many falling directly in line. Despite these conditions, DSA will continue fighting for its program and loudly proclaiming that Workers Deserve More! While we prepare to defend each other, we will never stop demanding universal healthcare, a shorter work week, an end to the US war machine, a free Palestine, and a socialist economy that works for us all. 
It is our belief that only the organized power of the working class, whether at the ballot box or in the streets, can prevent Trump’s agenda from coming to pass. It is our mission to do everything we can over the next four years to build that power. To join us in resisting these attacks on working people and to build a socialist alternative to the two-party system, join DSA at https://dsausa.org.

The post Cleveland DSA Statement on Trump Executive Orders appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

CT DSA welcomes the ceasefire in Gaza that began on Sunday, January 19, 2025, as a result of the steadfastness of the Palestinian people and their heroic resistance against the United States-backed Israeli genocide. Although we never held any illusions about the cruelty of imperialism, the images coming out of Gaza for the past 15 months have shocked our consciences beyond words. The depravities committed by the Israeli occupation forces have inflicted a deep injury to humanity and dignity.

The following set of comments were given at DSA rallies held after a long-awaited ceasefire was declared on Sunday, January 19. The first is from a rally organized by ROC DSA and allies from Rochester Coalition to End Apartheid, on Sunday, January 19 at MLK Jr. Park. The second was organized by Genesee County DSA, and held Friday, January 24 at Batavia City Hall.

What is Our Truth?

by Travis Covitz

Hello everyone, I am Travis from Jewish Voice for Peace Rochester. Today, as we celebrate the hope and relief of our loved ones in Gaza, I want to talk about what peace means to me in the context of Palestine. Because not all peace looks the same. Zionists love to weaponize “peace” to maintain the oppression of Palestinians. When we talk about peace, when we talk about safety, we are talking about peace that comes from JUSTICE. 

Justice is more than a temporary ceasefire and it is more than trucks of aid. It is a change in the power structures that define our reality. It is the people organizing to create a world where genocide never happens again. It is an end to sieges and occupations and valuing profit over people. Justice means valuing Palestinian life, it means right of return, it means Palestinian liberation. Just as October 7th was not the beginning, this ceasefire is not the end.

Some of us have been fighting for Palestine since we were born. Some of us have only learned of her struggle in this darkest hour. This next phase in the history of Palestine is the most important, because it will show us who wants to go back to the so-called peace of October 6th and who wants to be in this for the long haul, for liberation. How we move must be informed by the lessons we have learned in the past fifteen months. So here are some lessons I have learned.

1. We must be clear that Zionism is a political project and therefore Palestinian liberation is a political project. Of course it is important for Israelis to respect Palestinian people, but what truly matters is the POWER that Israeli opinions have over Palestinian life.
2. Zionism is upheld by the United States because of American imperial interests. The CEOs and shareholders of weapons manufacturers and extractive corporations like Chevron must be named as the ones benefiting from the US-Israel special relationship.
3. People with privilege think that them being uncomfortable is worse than Palestinians being murdered. So we must always be thorns in their side.
4. The leaders that represent the interests of the people do not have to be begged into taking action, because they are in the streets with us
5. Every struggle is interconnected, not just for us, but for our oppressors. We must stand up to the toxic nationalism of the settler-colony where we live every time and any time it arises. Companies like L3Harris that profit from Palestinian genocide are also profiting from mass deportation of immigrants. 
6. The truth is repressed because it is powerful. And the truth is on our side.

And what is our truth?

Brick by brick, wall by wall…Zionism will fall!

From the river to the sea…Palestine will be free!

Ceasefire & Arms Embargo

by Rachel Carroway

While we rejoice with the Palestinian people in Gaza over the ceasefire, we recognize that this is only a temporary reprieve. The current ceasefire is guaranteed for just six weeks, serving as phase one of the hostage deal. Although Hamas has honored its side of the agreement, Israel has already violated the ceasefire by shooting and killing Palestinian civilians as they returned home to rebuild and search through the rubble for the bodies of their loved ones.

Additionally, shortly after the ceasefire was announced, the Israeli military launched a new operation, “Iron Wall,” in Jenin, located in the occupied West Bank. This operation has involved airstrikes, ground assaults, and inevitable casualties.  At least twelve Palestinians have been killed during this latest attack, and reports indicate that dozens more have been detained without charge, effectively taken as hostages.

Meanwhile, rogue Israeli settlers have rampaged through Palestinian cities in the West Bank, burning homes, cars, and businesses. These settlers, protected and encouraged by the Israeli military, have only grown more emboldened.

In light of these events, it is evident that Israel is not pursuing peace. Several Israeli military leaders have resigned or threatened to resign following the ceasefire agreement, with some vowing to leave if the war does not resume after the first phase of the ceasefire ends in early March. Israel’s violent history and ongoing policies of Jewish supremacy and apartheid demonstrate that it is a rogue state intent on perpetuating harm.

For these reasons, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their resistance. Palestinians have a legal right to resist oppression and strive for a better future. Additionally, we urge the United States to impose an arms embargo on Israel, as other countries have done, to prevent further destruction of Palestinian lives.

The post Ceasefire Today, Liberation Tomorrow first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

A plea from a civil servant: do not let them overwhelm you into apathy. We must stay united, informed, and proactive.

This is the first in a regular series of articles by Todd Chretien focusing on Maine politics and society from a socialist point of view. Todd Chretien is a farmer, translator, and author who was recently elected co-chair of Maine Democratic Socialists of America. He will try wicked hard to write at least a couple times a month.

Since Trump’s election, the Maine Democratic Socialists of America chapter has been growing rapidly. We’ve got hundreds of members all over the state and 90 percent of them are (at least) a full generation younger than me. We have a few stalwarts from before my time whose experience in politics and the labor movement enrich our chapter and an even smaller handful of leftist children of the 80s like myself. Speaking in gross generalities, I think this makes me both more conservative and more radical than most MDSAers. The small number of people who became socialists in the 80s and early 90s looked to the movement’s past and to Marx and other theorists for inspiration because prospects for a broad-based socialist movement appeared so faint. International Paper broke the union in Jay, McKin poisoned our drinking water, and the Androscoggin stunk and bubbled in the summer, while Reagan handed out blocks of surplus cheese, threatened the world with nuclear annihilation, and massacred Salvadorans and Nicraguans. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive… yah, right. 

Many in my political generation adopted an outsider ethos, guided as much by punk rock rebellion (The Clash, Public Enemy, Dead Kennedys, Stiff Little Fingers, The Pogues, and, again and again, The Clash) as working-class struggle. We were right to reject Reagan, but—speaking for myself—failed to sufficiently appreciate the tenacious elements of solidarity that stood up against his attacks, even if they were losing battles most of the time. Be that as it may, punk rock socialism helped a small layer of dissidents preserve the idea that the working class has the right, and the power, to challenge the power of the elite. 

In contrast, as difficult as the world is today, my Millennial and Gen Z comrades have drawn inspiration from Bernie’s campaigns, Black Lives Matter protests, trans courage and visibility, and Starbucks workers organizing unions, all of which have shown up proudly here in Maine. Socialism unites all these struggles and identifies capitalism as the machine that produces and reproduces all the muck, from the climate crisis to the genocide in Gaza. Socialism is a common sense force that can be built brick by brick and my younger comrades expect working-class people to join us based on our movement’s good work. Socialism advocates solidarity amongst and between everyone who’s kept down and left out as the way to fight back and it proposes simple solutions that everyone can understand: tax the rich and spread the wealth. The rise of this generation of socialist activists—in their tens of thousands across the country—is a profoundly important development, without which any notion of building a significant working-class challenge to the millionaires and billionaires is doomed.

Back in 2016, DSA skyrocketed from 5,000 members to 50,000 nationally as a radical rejection of Trump. Today, through ups and downs, we’re even larger. In Maine, that influx gave us the strength to organize. Over the last eight years, we’ve won some (raising the minimum wage in Portland electing two socialists to city council) and lost some (challenging CMP). Through it all, we’ve faced difficult debates, our fair share of burnout, and a few missteps. But we’ve been buoyed through it all by a general sense that most working-class people were moving closer to the left and that fact would, in one way or another, express itself in national and state politics.

Unfortunately, I think the conditions that defined this period of optimistic socialism have changed significantly and we will have to adapt our strategy. It remains true that HUGE (to paraphrase Bernie) numbers of people reject capitalism and the two-party system and a significant layer of these people want to hear what socialists have to say. However, Trump’s reelection marks an important turning point. He has built a sort of mass movement Reaganism. And he is stronger precisely because—as strange as it is to say—he understands the need to build a social movement that can unite disparate political trends (Proud Boy fascists and Evangelicals) and potentially hostile class forces (Elon’s tech-broligarchy and desperate small business owners). More frightening, he has clearly recruited an important section of the state apparatus and the ruling class to his project; at a minimum, they are willing to go along for the ride. 

Meanwhile, Democratic Party leaders are twiddling their thumbs—the Senate, even Bernie, confirmed Marco Rubio unanimously—hoping that Trump’s assault on the status quo in the interest of the One Percent will knock just enough centrist voters from the MAGA column back to the “America is Already Great” column to win back the House in 2026. Now, it’s possible that the Democratic leadership could be proven right in narrow electoral terms, but Trump and his movement may well be more durable. I hope I’m wrong, but I tend to think it is. In fact, I think it’s downright dangerous to minimize his strength at this point. If that’s right, then Trumpism will have to be defeated and replaced with a positive and radical alternative, not simply a return to the status quo conditions that led 77 million people to vote for the Orange One.

Here in Maine, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills’ budget speech last week provided a master class in defending the status quo. But we should reject any complacency that says “it can’t happen here.” After all, Paul LePage vacated the Blaine House only six years ago and Trump already commands a majority in District 2. Worse, despite her demonstrative political talent and administrative competence, Gov. Mills is proposing an austerity budget that will lead to layoffs, cuts in public school funding, and a reduction in public services. It will push greater tax burdens onto local governments, forcing cities and towns to draw blood from a stone. And Trump’s slash and burn at the federal level will trickle down, leading the governor and her majority in the legislature to deepen the relatively “mild” budget cuts under consideration today. While Trump and his billionaire pals ought to bear the brunt of the anger these cuts will produce, the majority party in the statehouse usually pays the price at the polls.

This means that Maine DSA faces a new political period and will need to develop and improve on our practice in order to continue growing and sharpen our skills. The platform we adopted at our January statewide conference does a solid job of setting out those challenges in terms of protest action, local elections, and united fronts alongside unions, immigrants and trans organizations, indigenous peoples, and local communities. We also aim to spread socialist ideas through study groups, publications, social media, and educational meetings and conferences. Our strategic goals in the coming couple years are, first, to play a significant and honorable role in resisting Trump’s attacks on working people and, second, to increase our membership and organizational capacity.

I think that makes sense. But in addition to these practical tasks, we should add a dash of punk rock socialism to the mix without spoiling Maine DSA’s optimistic socialism recipe. Combining the best of our generations will give us a better chance to achieve our common goals.

The post DSA could use a dash of punk rock appeared first on Pine & Roses.

Other Surveillance Technology Proposals Pass Council, Despite Community Opposition

By Siobhan M.

CAMBRIDGE — Community members flooded a meeting of the Cambridge City Council on Monday evening, successfully pushing the City Council to shunt back to committee a proposal for a surveillance drone for the Cambridge Police Department. The Council, over many residents’ strong objections, voted 6-3 to approve two other surveillance proposals: a device to unlock cell phones seized by police, and automated license plate recognition technology to allow police to track residents. The city’s unelected chief executive, City Manager Yi-An Huang, brought all three proposals on behalf of the Cambridge Police Department.

47 members of the public registered to speak at the meeting, the vast majority of whom spoke in opposition to the surveillance technology. “I’m terrified that the federal government has announced they’re going to go after my friends who have spoken truth to power about Palestine, and I do not want the Cambridge police to have more tools to do the same” said Dan T., a member of Boston Democratic Socialists of America, during the meeting’s public comment period. Dan stated this as part of a comment in which he also advocated for a municipal housing voucher program. Affordable housing was noted by many commenters as a better use of public funds than surveillance technology.

DSA was far from the only group standing up to this proposed expansion of the surveillance state. MIT’s Coalition Against Apartheid and Harvard’s Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee put out a joint statement urging community members to oppose the proposals, and many students and university workers answered the call. As “a union organizer and a community organizer,” Hanna M., a grad worker at MIT, said she has “had lots of firsthand experience with Cambridge PD, who shows up to even the smallest community actions with numbers, technology, and force that I would call comically unnecessary if it wasn’t also deeply chilling…a main use case of this technology is surveilling civilians who are exercising their right to protest.”

Some community members also highlighted the toll these proposals would take on surveilled communities. “Everyday surveillance puts significant wear and tear on the human body, elevating blood pressure and heart rate, ultimately resulting in chronic illness and staggering rates of poor mental health,” said Somaia S., a medical student. “Surveillance technology is not what Cambridge needs and is in direct opposition with the well being and good health of our community.”

While the Council’s majority seemed unconcerned by automated licence plate recognition technology, commenters noted it is a powerful tool to aid police misconduct and repression. Across “hundreds” of documented cases, police misused license plate readers “to get information on romantic partners, business associates, neighbors, journalists and others for reasons that have nothing to do with daily police work.” Virginia police were also caught using theirs to build databases of individuals attending political rallies.

While the community was able to fend off surveillance drones in Cambridge, they have been adopted by police departments across the country to monitor protests. An estimated 1,400 law enforcement agencies now use drones, with “event monitoring” seen among police as an increasingly necessary function. Yale PD, who arrested 48 pro-Palestine demonstrators at a sweep of a student encampment on April 22, 2024, were later revealed to have compiled a massive trove of information on the protestors, including drone images and social media profiles.

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) was slated to help fund all three Cambridge PD proposals. UASI is a federal grant program of over $500 million a year to militarize and increase the surveillance capacity of state and local governments, as well as private nonprofits. Alongside other programs like the State Homeland Security Program (SHSP), this process of militarizing police departments functions as a giveaway of more than $1 billion per year to private weapons and surveillance contractors. UASI and SHSP were initiated in 2003, shortly after DHS’s founding, alongside other DHS elements like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). These DHS programs collectively serve to spy on and repress working class communities and political movements while lining the pockets of capitalist war and surveillance profiteers.

As part of his opposition to all three surveillance proposals, Boston DSA’s endorsed Cambridge City Councillor, Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, raised concerns about the surveillance technology also being used to enforce a future federal abortion ban.

Concerns about the Trump Administration’s potential misuse of surveillance data are entirely justified, but the surveillance and abuse of protestors has often been a bipartisan project. Democratic Party-led cities across the country used police to crack down on protests against American support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, including in Cambridge and Boston. Alejandro T., an MIT undergraduate student, recalled that “as students protested the complicity of the universities in the genocide of Palestinians, Cambridge PD aggressively arrested students as they peacefully protested. They had 5-6 cops pinning down individual students. They slammed students into the ground and caused multiple injuries in the process.” 

A militarized, capitalist-controlled police force, armed and outfitted by private arms and spyware dealers, will always be an opponent of the better world we strive to build. Socialists, and all those fighting America’s police state at home and imperialism abroad, must continue to stand against government surveillance no matter which capitalist party controls it.

Siobhan M. is a member of Boston DSA and UAW 2320. The views expressed herein are her own and do not represent her employer.

Photo by Pok Rie: https://www.pexels.com/photo/grey-quadcopter-drone-724921/

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.