California DSA will be hosting a zoom meeting on May 28 at 6:30 to provide an overview of the two progressive tax measures that will be placed before voters on the November state ballot. You will hear about recent tax the rich efforts in California, and speakers from the campaigns will provide updates. You will also have an opportunity to ask questions and get answers. Register here.

From the time of Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto to the present day, taxing the rich has been a central project of the socialist movement. Why?

As long as the capitalist class extracts surplus value from the labor process it will continue to grow richer at the expense of the working class. (See Piketty, R > G). Economic inequality has surpassed Gilded Age proportions. Progressive taxation is an essential means of clawing back some of the wealth created by the working class so that we may fund vital public services and provide the basis for a more egalitarian and democratic society. Campaigning for progressive taxes provides a direct opportunity to raise class consciousness, as the discussion naturally revolves around how inequality benefits the rich, hurts everyone else, and can be at least partly fixed with this solution. 

As such, a tax the rich campaign opens the door to the next level of discussion: how capitalism works, and how democratic socialism can fix its problems. 

A common thread

The other benefit of a tax the rich campaign is that it represents a common thread through just about every other issue and concern to DSA members. If you are working on issues like public transit, public education, universal childcare, public health and safety or social housing, none of these issues can be properly addressed without adequate funding from the state. Taxing the rich is pivotal to success in any of these areas.

If you are interested in electing democratic socialists, once in office they need more funding than currently possessed by the public sector. We shouldn’t be electing socialists to administer austerity, but that’s what usually happens, given the bad choices they face without progressive taxation to fund their work. The ‘electing’ part of local electoral work is also supported by a tax the rich campaign, because taxing the rich remains consistently popular, and when presented in cooperation with local DSA-endorsed candidates who are on board, it broadens their appeal as well.

If you want to stop the imperialist war machine of the US government in its corrupt alliance with private sector capital—including the current AI investment bubble that supports data centers, environmental destruction, and surveillance technology alongside new forms of mass death in other countries—we must wrest as much of that capital as we can out of the hands of the ruling  class so that it doesn’t control these enormous sums to invest. Taxing the rich is a vehicle to do that.

If you wish the labor movement to become more militant, raising class consciousness can be transferable from the ballot box to the workplace. The working class has two methods to retrieve the capital it produces through the labor process: militant, democratic organizing unions that extract a greater share of the pie through collective bargaining, and political organizing to tax the rich. With socialist education as the nexus, each method can reinforce the other.

After November, more taxing the rich

We have created a Tax the Rich Working Group in East Bay DSA to work on the two state ballot measures that will appear in November before the voters. Similar groups have been chartered in other chapters. But our progressive tax work won’t be over with the election. Even if both measures pass, capital will continue to be bloated and the multiracial working class will continue to have needs that can only be met through other forms of progressive taxation, like increased corporate taxes and splitting commercial property off from residential property. After November we intend to turn to political education and legislative efforts along these lines. These will be key components of our ongoing May Day education and coalition-building project, reinforcing the idea of what May Day 2028 signifies in terms of a political economy for workers over billionaires. 

If your chapter has not yet started working on the campaign here’s a chance to get going. Check out the campaign page on the California DSA website. Joining this work will engage the diverse activities of California DSA chapters within a unifying theme and effort. It will help us to stand alongside and uplift our allies in the labor movement and community in common struggle. And it provides the opportunity for pushing beyond reform toward revolution. 

What:‍ ‍Online forum on taxing the rich in California

When: Thursday, May 28, 6:30 – 8 pm

Who:

• Matthew Hardy, Communications Director, California Federation of Teachers

• Doug Jones, Organizer, United Health Workers-SEIU

• Fred Glass, Co-Chair, East Bay DSA Tax the Rich Working Group

Register here.

Here’s how DSA members and other progressives can organize to compete in upcoming intra-party contests.

Oligarchs and the donor class still have a firm grip on the Democratic Party apparatus and politics. But the cracks are increasingly obvious:

Zohran Mamdani; Analilia Mejia; the crumbling of AIPAC/DMFI sway; burial of the DNC’s 2024 autopsy report for fear of what it might reveal; polling numbers that show a party less popular than even Donald Trump; widening gaps between the progressive and corporate wings. 

And now, still small but growing numbers of DSA cadre and allied candidates are competing and winning local, state and federal elections around the country, defeating some guardians of the status quo.

When will the ice break in California?

The day may be coming soon. We’ll know a lot more after June 2 primaries and November 2, when progressives who make “top two” test the thesis that the road to victory is the opposite of chasing Republicans to the right in pursuit of mythical centrist “swing” voters. 

Next, we’ll have an opportunity to contest for control of the state Democratic Party.

Compared to many other states, the composition of the California party’s Central Committee, which elects its officers and endorses candidates, approves the party platform and passes resolutions, enables significant small D democracy, if we organize. 

About a third of the approximately 3,500 members are elected in caucus-like processes—4 in each of the 80 state Assembly districts. Voting has gone more and more by mail and online since the pandemic, with plenty of opportunity for mischief but also real opportunities for progressives —again, if we organize. 

Path to success

The path to success in the 2026-27 ADEMs (Assembly District Election Meetings) is to create solid, diverse slates of candidates in each district, with strict solidarity—each member working hard to get out the vote for all—facilitated by an effective system to register voters in a special process. (It’s not enough to simply be a registered Democrat, though that is required.)

Another third of delegates to the state Central Committee will be selected by county central committees, which in most of the state will be elected on the 2028 primary ballots (exact methods vary some from county to county, confusingly). In most locations, a similar process of creating progressive slates and campaigning for them will be in order.

Recruiting candidates to construct ADEM slates needs to begin now. They must file by late this year, with voter registration following, and balloting in early 2027 (exact dates to be announced). Many DSA members have run in recent rounds, which come every two years, though participation has been passive to negligible in many chapters. Chapter electoral committees may want to change that, determining the best strategy—and it can vary a lot depending on the demographics, politics (e.g. union strength, local Democratic leadership) of the district.

Help for Organizing

Gearing up to help organize locally is a PAC in formation, the People’s Democracy Network (PDN), operating fully outside the Democratic Party but dedicated primarily to building power for the left inside the party. We hope to accelerate the ability to work with local progressives to build ADEM slates this year, but the main organizing needs to be done by people with local relationships and skills in each district. Careful navigation is often needed to forge coalitions where necessary and to counter fake “progressive” rivals. Last time, we saw an unusual infusion of money for competitors in some districts by PACs apparently fronting for Israel lobby groups.

PDN will soon be recruiting members to support its particular narrow mission – building progressive power in the California Democratic Party, from the outside. Exact criteria are in the process of being determined, but to be clear, it’s not exclusive: members of DSA or other groups are welcome. To read PDN’s mission statement and 2024 policy platform (needs updating, including the name), go here.

For a more detailed description of the ADEM process and advice on constructing local slates, please see here.

And to let us know of your interest in helping organize in your district, please submit this form.

There’s a new DSA member in Congress! In Pennsylvania, Chris Rabb defeated an establishment-backed opponent and another secretly funded by AIPAC. Now Congressman Rabb will continue the fight to abolish ICE, free Palestine and win Medicare for All in the U.S. House of Representatives!

You can find out more about Congressman Rabb’s campaign here. Philly DSA, together with thousands of other working class people across Philadelphia, organized to make this win possible. That’s the DSA difference — our work is based in solid organizing in our communities, with our neighbors.

And it’s not just Pennsylvania! Here’s just some of our nationally-endorsed state and local successes:

• In Kentucky, Louisville DSA’s former co-chair Robert LeVertis Bell, a proud union teacher, will now be the first socialist in the State House! And Andrea Parr has just advanced to the runoff for Louisville Metro Council District 9. She’s fighting for budget reform, public power, and sanctuary policies protecting trans and immigrant communities!
• Georgia wins are coming in hot! Two years ago, Atlanta DSA’s Gabriel Sanchez broke ground by becoming the first Democratic Socialist elected to the Georgia General Assembly. This Tuesday, he won his race for Georgia State House District 42. And congratulations to Mathewos Samson on advancing to the general for Georgia House District 58! Mathewos will fight to make Georgia work for the working class, not the billionaires. Athens Area DSA is celebrating as well — proud DSA member Tim Denson is advancing to the runoff for Athens-Clarke Mayor.
• In Arizona, public interest lawyer Bobby Nichols just won his race for Tempe City Council At-Large! Bobby’s platform includes making Tempe affordable for everyone, building public housing, and making it easier to form a union.
• And in Oregon, Tammy Carpenter for winning her election to Oregon House District 27! Tammy will fight alongside Portland DSA to fully fund public schools, win universal healthcare and establish a Renters’ Bill of Rights.

More elections are coming up this summer. Check out our live results tracker to find out more about DSA’s national and local endorsements!

DSA organizing goes beyond the ballot box, too. Here’s just some of our work this spring:

• This month, over 170 DSA chapters participated in May Day actions, showing our solidarity with the labor movement and the global working class in the streets, in our workplaces, in our schools, and beyond.
• From Wisconsin to Georgia, DSA chapters are standing against Big Tech’s AI and data center projects, and organizing for green projects instead!
• Chapters across the country are organizing to stop war, taking to the streets and sending tens of thousands of letters to Congress!

As a DSA member, you can help build the strong working class movement we need to stand against fascism and build a brighter future. Join today!

As the weather gets hotter, DSA members are serving up cool wins. Be a part of it!

The post Hot DSA Electoral Wins! New Democratic Socialist in Congress — Plus State and Local Wins Across the Country appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

By Ian Mark

Like many of my comrades, I have a vision of a DSA with millions of working class members that can meaningfully influence politics on the scale of the next presidential election, a potential general strike and more. Only through growing DSA to this scale can we hope to build an organization capable of dismantling capitalism and winning socialism. Our goal is nothing short of building DSA into a genuine mass political party and a historic political force that can transform this country and the world…all in our lifetime.

At present, our chapter has nearly 1,400 members. That’s almost double the number of members we had in 2024. Recent DSA wins like Zohran Mamdani’s election underline that we are living in a time of historic opportunity for socialist politics, but our work is just beginning.

I’m running for Membership Engagement Chair to lead recruitment building the chapter to 2,000 members by the end of 2027 and position us for 3,000 by the end of 2028. I’m also running to support key efforts in driving engagement in our chapter’s projects and democracy, including developing practical organizing skills like how to hold effective one on one conversations and analyze power structures.

I’ve been in DSA for nearly 10 years. I joined Huron Valley DSA in 2017 because I felt compelled to do something other than doomscroll through the mind-numbing cruelty of the first Trump administration. I was angry and scared and I wanted to fight for a better future.

In 2020, I stepped up as the Member Engagement chair for Huron Valley DSA, serving on the steering committee and leading the committee through the surreal first year of the pandemic. In that time, I’ve talked to hundreds of new members and learned a lot about what truly drives engagement.

In this article, I’m outlining my plan for my three priorities of recruitment, engagement and development for the Membership Engagement Committee (MEC). These are the same priorities included in the MEC resolution that the general chapter membership unanimously and democratically voted to approve at our annual convention this April.

Building Metro Detroit DSA to 2,000 Members in Good Standing by 2027, and 3,000 or More by 2028

As exciting as our recent growth is, we can’t take this momentum for granted. Just three years ago, our membership had rapidly shrunk to less than 700 members. Furthermore, most people across Metro Detroit still have never heard of DSA or don’t understand what socialism is. Even many self-described socialists don’t understand why it’s important to join a socialist organization.

If we’re serious about building real power in Metro Detroit, we must ensure sympathetic people across the region are aware that a large chapter exists in their community and invite them to join the movement at scale.

Like most chapters across the country, our recruitment to nearly 1.4k members has been mostly passive, meaning there’s a lot of untapped potential for new members across southeast Michigan. If our chapter had the same proportion of DSA members to population as Twin Cities DSA, we would have over 2.3k members.

If we’re already growing at this rate, imagine how fast we can grow if we apply a concerted effort in recruiting.

I recently launched a new project with several comrades called “database building” (this is often called list building, but I prefer to call it database building to avoid confusion with list work, a totally different organizing tactic).

The database building approach is based on the model provided by New York City DSA, which is by far one of the fastest growing chapters in the country (even before Zohran launched his campaign).

In short, here’s how the plan for database building works:

1. We start by collecting names and contact information for individuals across Metro Detroit sympathetic to DSA and our politics at scale. This is a high-volume play.
2. There are many ways to build a large database of sympathetic non-members, but NYC-DSA cited letter-writing tools and mass calls like the call their chapter hosted with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as highly-efficient tactics for collecting thousands of names.
3. With a growing list of thousands of sympathetic “prospective” members in Metro Detroit, we phone or text-bank this list periodically asking them to join DSA, strategically timing outreach to occur following galvanizing political moments like the ICE surge in Minneapolis for maximum effect.

With this strategy, I am confident we can reach 2,000 members by our annual convention as outlined in our consent resolution for MEC. However, I’d like to go even further so that we can exceed 3,000 in 2028.

To Increase Engagement, We Must Build a More Consistent New Member Onboarding Experience

If we are going to deliver real wins for the working class in Metro Detroit, we don’t just need more members in the chapter. We need more members who are truly engaged, and that starts with new members.

If we use general meeting and convention attendance as a crude yardstick for engagement, only 150–200 members are actively engaged in any given month out of the nearly 1,400 members in good standing.

Our chapter currently excels at engaging new members in two crucial ways: our robust five-part new member political education program and a range of popular socials including game nights, Dances Against Fascism, regional meetups, cookouts, parties at local bars and bowling alleys, and more.

Continuing these programs is vital, and I commend my comrades in MEC for their exceptional efforts here in fostering a true sense of community in the chapter and grounding new members in sound socialist thought.

Where there’s the most room for improvement is ensuring all new members receive an accessible introduction on how the organization is structured, how our democracy works, what campaigns, projects and initiatives we have running and how they can contribute.

The biggest issue I see for engagement is the same issue I saw in Huron Valley DSA: with so many working groups, committees, projects and scattered communication channels, it can be very difficult for new members to understand what’s happening in the chapter and where they fit in. It’s hard to overstate how overwhelming and confusing the new member experience can be without a veteran member to guide you, but in MEC we simply don’t have time to do that for every comrade.

We do an admirable job calling new members weekly in MEC, but due to time constraints we only ever connect with a fraction of incoming members. Besides, in a 10–15 minute call, it’s not possible to share everything a new member needs to know. Lastly, even if we could, it wouldn’t be scalable for the amount of growth we need to build real power.

At the same time, we have to carefully assess what a brand new member truly needs to know, as it’s easy to overwhelm folks by throwing too much information or too many options at them all at once.

I believe MEC must streamline and standardize the new member experience by ensuring new members are consistently and quickly familiarized with the following:

1. The general structure of our chapter, including basic information on:

- General meetings and event schedule on our website

- What committee/working groups exist and what they’re working on

- How to access primary chapter communications (Slack, Signal)

- How our democratic process works, like Robert’s Rules 101 and how to bring resolutions to convention

2. Basic political education

- Basic orientation of what DSA is and does, what socialism is, and why we are socialists

- Schedule for upcoming new member political education events, OR other political education events if above is not in near future

3. Clear tasks to making a meaningful impact in the near future

- Accessible, tangible and specific opportunities to make an impact within the organization and get more involved

One way to achieve this would be consolidating our new member events with a session combining all of the above information in a DSA 101-style event hosted monthly. This would also provide a general entry point for prospective members.

New members would receive a primer on everything they need to understand the basics of our organization and how we operate. They’d get a chance to connect with other members and walk away with information on upcoming political education sessions as well as details on accessible, clear ways to make a meaningful impact, like the No Appetite for Apartheid boycott campaign or canvassing for the Chris Gilmer-Hill campaign.

This would supplement, not replace, our existing new member political education program. It would serve as the go-to first event to direct all new members within Metro Detroit DSA.

Other options include making this information more broadly available in a concise format on our website and in new member email and text outreach. Regardless, the point stands that we must ensure everyone receives the key details on how to navigate DSA in an accessible manner.

Developing Practical Organizing and Leadership Skills to Build Chapter Capacity

Since the majority of new members enter the organization with minimal or zero prior organizing experience, it is vital that we help everyday people grow into effective socialist organizers, thinkers and leaders. This development takes time and doesn’t happen by accident, so we must start this work now with an actionable, structured plan, building on the strong political education program and campaign structure that already exists within the chapter.

I recently launched a list work pilot program for developing leaders with the Chris Gilmer-Hill campaign. In less than two months, this initiative has already identified three members ready to step up as new canvass captains, who are the members that train new canvassers at the event and launch the canvass.

This is a big leap forward from the structure we built to elect Denzel McCampbell to Detroit City Council just last year. Each of these canvass captains gain valuable experience that they can later transfer to other leadership roles in the chapter.

Beyond leadership, MEC must also expand the general organizing skills trainings offered by our chapter. I believe that holding effective organizing conversations should be the number one skill every organizer learns, which is why I co-faciliated a training on the topic this spring. I’d like to run this training again every quarter to ensure every member is familiar and comfortable applying techniques like agitation and making a hard ask. Every single member should feel confident in their ability to galvanize their friends, family members, neighbors and comrades to action with this approach.

Furthermore, I believe we should run trainings on practical skills like facilitating effective meetings and creating agendas, how to use Robert’s Rules, analyzing power structures and more to complement the annual Organizing 101 series from the political education committee. These are skills that you often don’t learn before joining DSA, but are critical to being an effective organizer.

Together, We Can Build Thousands of Skilled Socialist Organizers in Metro Detroit

I have big dreams for MEC and our chapter, but I can’t do any of this work alone. Regardless of the results of the steering committee election, I will be working hard to implement the above agenda, and I’ll need the help of my comrades.

If you’re excited about the possibility of growing our chapter into the thousands and helping ordinary people grow into effective, powerful organizers, please join us. If you have your own ideas for how MEC should operate or what we should prioritize, let me know. Though I’m a proud member of the Groundwork caucus, I’d love for MEC to be a truly multi-tendency committee that serves as a model for how we can support diverse political perspectives and organizing tactics across the chapter.

Solidarity!

To 3,000 Members and Beyond: How MEC Can Build a Stronger, More Effective Metro Detroit DSA was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“…For anybody who destroys a single life it is counted as if he destroyed an entire world, and for anybody who preserves a single life it is counted as if he preserved an entire world.” – Sanhedrin 4:9:1

This article is not intended to shock the reader as a means of persuasion, but it does contain some references to war crimes and crimes against civilians. Proceed with caution.

There is nothing valorous about war. It is one of the greatest evils of humanity. In the 20th century alone, well over one hundred million people were murdered in the course of armed conflict, and millions more died of the deprivation and disease war brought to their communities. The vast majority of those casualties were civilians and conscripts who had no way to avoid their lives being destroyed by the tools of warfare.

In the West, fear of another global conflict that could directly touch the U.S. and Europe faded in the three decades following the end of the Cold War. Russia was no longer the leader of an explicitly anti-Western bloc of nations; China was a dependable trading partner of the U.S.; and both allowed the U.S. to enforce its will on the Global South and Middle Eastern countries including Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. The U.S. exercised its imperial influence on these countries under the guise of “nation -building” or “safeguarding democracy,” with limited success. Media figures and politicians actively encouraged people in the West to ignore the conflicts they engineered elsewhere. They urged us to treat their wars as simultaneously righteous manifestations of democracy, necessary civil rights interventions, distant and ancient conflicts, and complicated statecraft irrelevant to the life of the average citizen.

War no longer feels so distant. In 2022, Russia’s war in Ukraine brought an active war zone to the borders of the European Union for the first time in two decades. The following year, Israel launched a campaign of genocide to permanently end the possibility of an independent Palestine. This campaign has repeatedly expanded into attacks on neighboring states to force them to submit to Israeli hegemony in the Middle East, and the Israeli far right dreams of conquering large swaths of the region.

These developments alone threatened global peace, but it was Donald Trump who took the idea of unlimited war to a new level. He has used his unilateral authority as “Commander-in-Chief” of the U.S. armed forces to illegally seize and destroy boats on the open sea, kidnap the President of Venezuela, repeatedly threaten an invasion of Greenland, illegally blockade the island of Cuba, and launch a war against Iran that began with the assassination of entire sections of the Iranian government, in flagrant violation of the laws of armed conflict. He has also repeatedly floated the idea of using the U.S. military as a domestic occupying force to illegally cement his dictatorial rule.

At a time when global conflict is becoming more common and more likely to escalate, we must remember that there is no such thing as a just war. There is no such thing as a necessary war. Waging war is a crime committed against working people and the most vulnerable in any society.

We must stand up as one and reject war unequivocally.

* * *

All U.S. presidents of the 21st century have unilaterally expanded their military power. After the political and military disaster of the Vietnam War, Congress passed the 1973 War Powers Resolution into law. This law reasserted its authority to regulate the president’s ability to wage war by imposing time limits on the amount of time a military action can continue without congressional approval. In recent decades, Congress has consistently refused to hold the president to account for repeated violations of this law.

In the patriotic frenzy following the September 11th Attacks, Congress granted sweeping powers to President George W. Bush to intervene anywhere in the Middle East through the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). It was extremely broad, granting the president the authority “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons”. Bush used this authorization to justify the disastrous invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as military strikes across the greater Middle East. These wars wasted trillions of dollars, killed nearly one million people, destabilized the region, and reasserted a presidential prerogative to wage ill-conceived wars anywhere in the world.

Obama quietly expanded his military authority through his extensive use of drone warfare, asserting his right to order the killing of any person anywhere in the world. Biden made less intensive use of drones than Obama, but he did not take any steps to limit the powers of future presidents. He does deserve some credit for ending of the twenty-year war in Afghanistan, though his long history of support for war, militarism, and empire building, and the subsequent resurgence of reactionary rule in that country, must also be taken into account in any holistic evaluation of his record.

Trump has taken the power to wage war to the extreme, untethered as he is by any sense of morality or propriety. He imagines his powers as president to be nearly absolute, and there is no telling how far he may escalate his military recklessness as he becomes increasingly unpopular, embattled, and unhinged.

All presidents have known on some level that what they are doing is morally and legally indefensible. The U.S. does not recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court (ICC), in large part because politicians fear it could prosecute U.S. military and civilian leaders for the numerous war crimes they have committed over the last five decades.

The Bush administration took this exceptionalism a step further. In 2002, Bush signed a law (nicknamed the “Hague Invasion Act”) authorizing the President to “to use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any person […] who is being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court,” which includes the use of military force to invade the headquarters of the ICC in the Hague, Netherlands. This law is still on the books today and could be invoked by Trump or any future president.

* * *

Liberals have justified war for centuries, treating it as another tool in the geopolitical arsenal. This is why Democratic establishment figures like Chuck Schumer have quietly cheered Trump on in Iran from the sidelines. They disagree with Trump’s procedural ineptitude, not his stance on the necessity of bombing Iranian cities. They see war as an extension of normal political levers of power.

Meanwhile, the far-right treats war as a rite of passage, the ultimate way to prove valor, courage, and loyalty to their ultranationalist project. To that end, they use the violence of war as a way to motivate their followers to interpersonal violence, turning the methods of imperial domination perfected thousands of miles away on their own people.

Trump has repeatedly shown that he engages with the seriousness and tragedy of war as if it were an exercise in childish imagination. He has repeatedly insisted that military personnel killed in action are “suckers” and “losers.” His administration spliced footage from the video game Call of Duty into a montage of missile strikes on Iran. He nonsensically claims that a new class of U.S. battleships (widely considered to be nearly a century out-of-date in an era of drones and high-altitude precision air strikes) will be “100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” as if he were taunting a schoolmate on the playground.

If it is true that “war is all hell,” as the famous and earnestly serious appeal to peace by Civil War-era General William Tecumseh Sherman has it, then Trump, self-styled “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth, and their brand of chickenhawks imagine themselves to be the Doom Slayer. In their minds, they are the macho heroes of a video game, gunning down endless waves of demonic enemies with no sense of danger, consequence, or moral weight.

As central as violence is to the far-right project in America, Trump has normalized engaging with it in a totally unserious way. The Bush administration spent nearly a year lying to sell the war in Iraq to the American people; Trump launched his strikes on Iran effectively without warning, and has faced no consequences for doing so.

* * *

The reality both factions deliberately obfuscate is that civilians always bear the overwhelming cost of war. The numbers are horrific in their own right, but they get worse when we consider that record numbers of civilians have been displaced by armed conflict – over 122 million as of 2025. War crimes against civilians are also rising at an alarming rate, in part due to a lack of regard for international agreements and the tendency of far-right governments to use dehumanizing rhetoric and escalating violence to achieve foreign policy goals.

These trends have only become more acute in the era of unrestricted drone warfare, where soldiers use modified Xbox controllers to pilot weapons of war from air-conditioned bases. The use of enormously powerful explosives to “mistakenly” destroy civilian targets no longer requires risking the lives of U.S. military personnel. These drones are the bane of the existence of millions across the Middle East, parts of Africa, and across the world, and they are the ultimate expression of the U.S. war machine’s demand that it be allowed to violate the sovereignty of any nation anywhere in the world to assassinate its enemies.

Most of the wars raging around the world today are not conflicts between two well-defined nation states. They are most often messy civil wars with multiple competing sides that drag on for decades with no end in sight. There is no valor to be had in such a war, only grinding death.

Embargos and sweeping economic sanctions are warfare by other means. They are more palatable in foreign policy circles because they are a relatively “easy” way to politically coerce smaller, less powerful economies that do not require commitment of soldiers or materiel. But the overwhelming costs of embargoes are felt by the poorest civilians, not leaders. As one academic report puts it: “Economic sanctions are the modern equivalent of a siege.” Sanctions impose immense hardship on civilian populations and often cause mass deprivation and even starvation.

Sanctions are also a way to “punish” left-wing governments for adopting pro-worker policies that harm foreign interests. For example, the U.N. estimates that the U.S. has drained $130 billion from the Cuban economy since the blockade was imposed in the early 1960s; without the blockade, it is easy to imagine that Cuba’s economy could be as strong as Vietnam’s, which has experienced immense growth in the past few decades. An example of socialism “working” in a country with so much cultural contact with the U.S. would be destabilizing to neoliberal and neo-fascist political narratives, however, which is why our government has repeatedly intervened to sabotage left-wing governments around the world innumerable times in the last hundred years.

* * *

Trump’s war in Iran deserves special consideration in all this, in part because it is arguably the most ill-conceived war in American history. Even David Frum, the morally detestable cheerleader for the Iraq War, openly states that Trump started this war on a “whim.”

In addition to serving as a billion-dollar market manipulation to enrich himself and his allies, Trump’s Iran war is a test to see if his political base will let him get away with genocide, as evidenced by his suggestion last month that he would destroy Iranian civilization. Every indication shows that they will.

Right now, the only thing preventing the president from launching an unprovoked nuclear strike against a non-nuclear state is the kind of unwritten consensus Trump loves to violate. Even the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the organization that created and maintains the “Doomsday Clock,” is expressing alarm at the possibility. Trump recently insisted that he has no intention to use a nuclear weapon against Iran, but there is no reason to think he wouldn’t change his mind at any time in the next two and a half years.

A nuclear strike on a civilian population is unquestionably a method of genocide carried out in a matter of hours rather than months or years. It also inflicts unimaginable and wholly unnecessary physical suffering on survivors. Contrary to popular consensus, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not militarily justifiable. Seventeen years ago, comedian Jon Stewart rightfully stated that Harry Truman should be considered a war criminal for his decision to use nuclear weapons on civilians. America being what it is, he was forced to apologize for his remarks.

The world is now one tweet away from Trump declaring that the preemptive use of nuclear weapons against his enemies anywhere in the world is permissible under U.S. and international law. Such a proclamation and the accompanying use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state would unleash an unimaginable new era of terror on the world.

* * *

We live in a dangerous time. As tempting as it might be for the left to cheer on the collapse of the American global military hegemony, what follows will almost certainly be worse. Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Trump, and any number of tinpot authoritarians cannot be left to carve up the world into political and economic spheres of influence. This is exactly what the current international system was set up to prevent. We must remember that the laws of that system were written in the blood spilled by countless millions in the Second World War. If we allow those institutions to crumble, that horror will descend on a new generation.

There is not a single armed conflict the United States has waged since the Second World War that was morally or politically justified against its human cost. In most U.S. political discourse, this would be considered an eminently radical statement. But if we are to stand with oppressed people everywhere around the world, the victims of war are among the highest on the list of those who need and deserve our solidarity.

There is no such thing as a just war, or a justifiable war. We do not need to be “bleeding hearts” to recognize that war has never served our interests as working people, and that innocents bear the overwhelming cost of wars waged for territory, wealth, geopolitical influence, “regime change,” and genocide.

International law is unusually sweeping in allowing United Nations member states to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world. Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, and all manner of other butchers and warmongers can and must be held accountable for their horrible deeds. There is no statute of limitations to expire. Every war criminal is subject to prosecution for the rest of their natural life.

It is up to us to build a world where justice for the victims of war is not only possible, but inevitable – a world in which war itself is rendered obsolete as a tool of punishment, extraction, and oppression.

The post War is a Blight on Humanity appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

At the upcoming Chicago Democratic Socialists of America chapter convention on June 6, members will debate a proposed rewrite of our chapter’s bylaws. This proposal was the product of the Local Democracy Commission (LDC), an appointed body of seven members tasked with developing a comprehensive consensus package of structural reforms to improve the day-to-day operations of our chapter.  

Our commission was able to agree on the vast majority of changes to the bylaws, and made substantive improvements and clarifications that we all believe will greatly benefit the chapter. But the commissioners had some substantial disagreements on how to structure the Executive Committee (EC). A majority of the commissioners supported a near-identical version of the proposal which was brought forward at the March General Chapter Meeting (GCM) and failed to secure the two-thirds majority of votes needed to adopt a change to the bylaws. We’re happy that the LDC was able to agree on so much, but we think the membership should have the option to choose between the two visions for the chapter’s executive leadership. 

Our concerns aren’t solely structural: we see the makeup of the EC as a fundamental political and organizing question as well, and we feel a few key changes are still needed to maintain structural connections between the membership and leadership, help the leadership move the membership behind chapter priorities, and limit the potential for siloing. So, in keeping with the guidelines set during the establishment of the LDC, we’re proposing an amendment to address these concerns.

Our Proposal

Currently, the EC is composed of eight officers and proportional representation from the territorial branches, as well as a Labor Branch delegate and a YDSA delegate. As the chapter has grown, so has the EC; the body is set to have roughly 30 members in June. Our existing bylaws also include a provision that empowers the EC to appoint a Steering Committee (SC) to handle many of the day-to-day issues that require leadership attention but don’t call for substantive debate, such as small expenses or approvals of minor requests from chapter groups. Any decision made by the SC can be overturned or revised by a vote of the full EC.

The proposal that was submitted at the March GCM reduced the EC to 11 members by eliminating all branch representation, and removing the voting authority of the Political Education Coordinator, among others. The base proposal also did not formalize an SC to handle day-to-day administrative decisions within the executive body. The main substantive difference between the March GCM proposal and the one introduced by the commissioners who supported it was the inclusion of a seat for a “labor coordinator” elected by the entire membership, rather than a delegate elected by the Labor Branch, in the way all other branch delegate seats are currently elected. We felt this change did not substantively address the concerns that members had with the earlier versions of the proposal, and did not move far enough from the failed March proposal to seek consensus and compromise with the concerns then expressed. 

We agree with the other commissioners that, because the demands of executive-level leadership can lead to burnout, a much smaller executive body is needed to allow for sustainable middle-layer organizational development. But we need a political leadership that is present across the chapter, can move an all-volunteer membership through organic connections, can coordinate operational units, and, critically, has an incentive to build consensus. 

We believe that by removing branch delegates and not formalizing an SC, the base proposal actually risks working against these interests. On the contrary, that structure would likely create a greater burden for EC members, sever the point of connection between branch-level leadership and the central executive body, and set up potentially adversarial relationships between the executive leadership and the branches.

Our alternative proposal reduces the EC by about 50% from its projected June size, down to 16 seats. This EC would still include an SC composed of seven members — the two Co-Chairs, Secretary, and four “at-large” members without specific officer duties elected by the full membership — to free up valuable organizing capacity for EC members and open up more space at EC meetings for political discussion. Its minimum 4-vote threshold keeps it in line with the minimum vote threshold of the base proposal, which has a quorum of 6 for the 12-person EC.

Ten of the 16 EC members would be elected by the full membership of the chapter: two Co-Chairs, Secretary, Treasurer, Membership Engagement Coordinator, and Political Education Coordinator, and the four at-large members. Other officer-level positions, such as Communications and Campaigns, could be opened up to the membership or appointed from among the EC’s elected at-large members, as the EC or GCM decides. The four territorial branches and the institutional branches (e.g., the Labor Branch) would each have one delegate, as would YDSA. 

Ten generally-elected members and six branch delegates ensures a structural majority for generally elected members. The territorial branch delegates would be elected by the membership of the branch and would have a seat on the branch steering committee. The Labor Branch delegate would be elected by the Labor Branch members, and the YDSA delegate would be elected by local YDSA chapters.

Our Reasoning

This proposal addresses the major pain points members raised in our outreach as commissioners: that branch leadership should be able to focus primarily on branch work; that generally elected members should hold the majority of elected seats; that we need a nimble body to handle day-to-day administrative and political decisions; and that the executive body should have fewer seats to encourage more competitive elections. 

As part of our work, members of the LDC looked at the structures of similar-sized chapters with high recruitment and retention statistics. The 16-member EC in our proposal is in line with three high-performing chapters in our tier of membership size: Portland DSA (the most successful chapter at recruitment and retention outside of New York City) has 14 seats; Twin Cities DSA had between 14 and 17 seats until February 2026 (including branch and labor delegates); and Philadelphia DSA has approximately 15. There are other well-performing chapters with smaller bodies, but Portland, Twin Cities, and Philadelphia were the best-performing in recruitment and retention. (See Tables 1 and 2 for more context on these figures;  “LQR Rate” is the rate of “lapsers and quitters minus reactivators,” a metric that essentially reflects member attrition.) Portland in particular has had much recent electoral and labor organizing successes.

However, there is an important caveat: we do not believe that success follows from structure itself. As the tables below show, there is not a strong correlation between things like EC size, proportion of at-large members, or number of officers, and different metrics of success. What we found, however, was that of the most quantitatively successful chapters we identified, 14-17 was a common and reasonable range. 

Certain elements of our EC’s composition have significant impact on the organizational health and functioning of the entire chapter, and we want to state those stakes clearly. 

Branches Matter! 

This is a belief we share with the other commissioners, who have argued that branch delegates should be removed from the EC to free them up to focus on the work of expanding branch-level organizing. While we don’t disagree with the spirit of that argument, we’ve instead proposed that each branch be given one delegate seat on the EC to maintain a formal connection between each branch and the central leadership body. 

We believe that direct connection between branches and the EC is necessary to avoid siloing or pushing branch leadership to take on even more work to stay abreast of developments across the chapter and in leadership. Labor Branch already has this setup within the current EC: One dedicated delegate is tasked with liaising between the branch and the leadership as a voting EC member with substantive input, while the rest of their SC dedicates its organizing efforts towards branch and chapter work. This has been an effective model, and we believe it will serve the chapter’s operations well.

The EC is Not a Legislature—The GCMs Are

We see the function of chapter leaders elected to the EC not as representatives who advocate on behalf of a constituency, but as leaders who facilitate the work of the chapter by being embedded in it. The EC is not a legislature—that’s the GCM. Rather, it is a body delegated to efficiently execute the will of the membership between GCMs.  

What’s more, the high rate of member turnover means that, at any given time, a significant portion of the membership aren’t connected to its leaders and didn’t vote in the most recent leadership election. In a typical year, 18-25% of members lapse or quit, while 15-25% of the chapter consists of new members recruited that year — meaning roughly 35-50% of the membership composition turns over annually, presenting major operational challenges for even the strongest chapters.

Conclusion

Should this amendment fail, we are concerned that the EC will become disconnected from chapter formations, sitting above them and overly factionalized in the way similar structures in other chapters have been prone to factional domination. There is also a real risk of this structure creating an adversarial relationship between leadership and membership, with an EC that is factionally proportional but not set up to implement the inherent compromises that emerge from GCM decisions, in part because it will not be composed of operational units. Most importantly, we are concerned that without this amendment, the EC may drift from its practical leadership function and begin to act more as a policy-making body detached from the membership.

In developing this amendment, we’ve prioritized a scientific approach, drawing from recruitment and retention data from comparable chapters, our own chapter’s recruitment and retention data over time, an analysis of the purpose of an executive executory body versus a legislative body, and a practical study of how members become organically connected to the central leadership. We believe this proposal is a balanced compromise between the original proposal that failed at the March GCM and what we have seen work in Chicago and comparable chapters. Our proposed amendment addresses the consensus complaints with our current structure, while holding the chapter together at the highest level. We hope the membership will agree, and consider voting in support of our amendment. 

Additional Findings

For members’ convenience and reference, here are some additional data that we put together in the course of our research. There was more, but less relevant here.

Table: Metric 1. This shows the membership density of “Huge” and “Extra-Large” DSA chapters based on members per 1,000 residents in their territory. Most chapters are within range of each other; there are local factors that are important (such as geographic spread) and contextual politics is likely heavily determinative of this figure.

Table: Metric 2. This is a simple table showing the percentage of members in a chapter who either pay monthly dues or are enrolled in Solidarity/Income-Based Dues (SIBD), a measure of commitment intensity.

The post A Vision for a Lean, Political, and Effective Executive Committee appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

Shasta County DSA faces the challenge of organizing in a rural, heavily Republican corner of far northern California — but years of persistent effort have paid off.

The post North California Home to New DSA Chapter appeared first on Democratic Left.

The candidate for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District is one of at least 14 DSA candidates on the ballot Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Oregon, and Kentucky.

The post Chris Rabb Makes the Establishment Nervous appeared first on Democratic Left.

Enjoy your May National Political Committee (NPC) newsletter! Our NPC is an elected 27-person body (including both YDSA Co-Chairs) which functions as the board of directors of DSA. This month, check out May Day actions across the country, apply for our summer conference, sign up for organizing classes, and more!

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

• From the National Political Committee — May Day Raises the Bar
• Join Us in Chicago! Summer Organizing Conference Application Deadline Extended to Monday 5/25
• Hear Florida Congressional Candidate Oliver Larkin Wednesday 5/20!
• Action Alert — Help Abolish ICE!
• Help Support DSA — RSVP for Growth and Development Phonebanks Starting Sunday 5/24
• Learn New Skills! Sign Up for a Growth and Development Committee Training Starting Friday 5/22
• Read All About It — The New Labor Herald!
• Sign Up for Religion and Socialism Working Group Meeting Monday 5/18 — And Check Out Our Podcast!
• National Political Education Committee Spring Political Educators Conference Online Sunday 5/31
• RSVP for Fundraising Committee Solidarity Dues Training Saturday 6/13

From the National Political Committee — May Day Raises the Bar

Dear Comrades,

It has been an incredible month in DSA. Over 170 DSA chapters participated in May Day actions, showing our solidarity with the labor movement and the global working class in the streets, in our workplaces, in our schools, and beyond. This was one of the largest May Day actions in recent memory — all over the country, we’re recovering the deep American roots of this international workers day. We are building toward May Day 2028 (and looking ahead to the 2028 Presidential Election, too). That means exercising our organizing muscles by using mass demonstrations like the May Day and No Kings actions to channel organic energy into campaigning to win socialist demands: tax the rich, abolish ICE, raise our wages, increase worker protections, and so much more. Scroll down for more ways that you and your chapter comrades can plug into our national organizing projects and trainings!

Both Co-Chairs have had the opportunity to represent DSA in international spaces in the past month. Megan has participated in events in Brussels with the Party of the European Left and the European Left in Parliament, and Ashik visited our comrades in Sweden and Brazil for events with their left parties. We cannot emphasize enough what an incredible honor it is to attend these international events, and to represent the work that DSA is doing across the country and in different arenas of struggle. Our comrades overseas see that members like you are building a strong US American left and challenging global capital for state power from the belly of the beast. Billionaires and the ruling class are operating more openly than ever as a “reactionary international”, to suppress democracy across countries, fuel the rise of the far right, scapegoat people they consider expendable in our societies, and strip our public resources for parts. The stakes for all of us are very real, our struggles are intertwined, and we’re learning from each others’ challenges and successes in real time — we have a historic responsibility to win!

People around the world are inspired to see how socialists in power in the U.S. are raising expectations and resisting “capitalism realism” that tells us good things just aren’t possible from government — like mayor Zohran Mamdani organizing a balanced budget that overcomes a multibillion deficit crisis while resisting draconian cuts to public services in New York City, and fueling the fight to tax the rich. As enthusiastic as our comrades overseas are about our higher-profile wins, they are also delighted to hear that we are organizing everywhere, in big cities and small towns, chipping away at the stranglehold that capital has on the working class and refining the techniques that help us organize our fellow workers in an era of extreme alienation and exploitation.

Here are just a few of the wins we’ve been inspired by (and that we’ve been bragging about):

• Portland, Oregon passed a historic “Keep Portland Housed” social housing package, brought forth by City Council Member Mitch Green, a longtime DSA member and endorsed elected, which invests $17 million in social housing and millions more in tenant protections
• Troy, New York passed a Good Cause Eviction law after a 2-year campaign led by Troy DSA
• Bloomington, Indiana declined to renew their contract with Flock after Bloomington DSA members helped organize opposition to their unfettered mass-surveillance technology
• Dallas, Texas voted to maintain Dallas Area Rapid Transit services in the key areas of Addison and College Park, saving public transit for working-class riders across the metro area after DSA North Texas mobilized to knock thousands of doors

And DSA continues to grow! We’d like to welcome our newest chapters, Red River Region DSA (in the Montgomery, Alabama area) and Humboldt DSA (Northern California), as well as our newest Organizing Committee, Broome DSA (in the Binghamton, New York area).

We’d also like to congratulate all of the chapters that have (so far) been awarded our matching funds grants to open their own offices and organizing hubs: Lehigh Valley DSA, Rochester DSA, Northern Colorado DSA, DSA-LA, Salina DSA, Boulder DSA, Chicago DSA, Atlanta DSA, Portland DSA, Salt Lake DSA, North New Jersey DSA, Birmingham DSA, Boston DSA, Cleveland DSA, Metro Detroit DSA, Tampa DSA, Lincoln DSA, Dayton-Miami Valley DSA, and River Valley DSA, with even more in the pipeline. Office and organizing space will help all of these chapters level up their work and build DSA everywhere, and we are beyond excited to see this program back in action!

As we move into the summer, with its cookouts, swimming, and miles upon miles of door-knocking, we invite you to jump into chapter work if you’re not already involved. And bring some new folks along — we have a world to win!

In Solidarity,

Megan Romer and Ashik Siddique
DSA National Political Committee Co-Chairs

Join Us in Chicago! Summer Organizing Conference Application Deadline Extended to Monday 5/25

There’s still time to apply for the 2026 Democratic Socialists Summit, DSA’s National Organizing Conference! Join DSA in Chicago from July 31st to August 2nd. There, members will gather to learn to organize for the work ahead through political education, skills training, organizer development, general programming, and social activities.

In order to cover a variety of topics, the NPC has created 5 different programming tracks. You can find more information on these tracks on the website. You may apply for up to two of the following tracks:

• Governing as Socialists: The DSA Difference (NEC)
• Workers Deserve More: Building to a General Strike (NLC)
• A Free Palestine in our Lifetime: End Apartheid and War
• No Walls, No Cages: Organizing to Abolish ICE in the Trump Era
• Organizing Fundamentals: Building Blocks for Socialist Victory

The application deadline has been extended to Monday 5/25. For questions, please reach out to us at DSAcon@dsausa.org. Apply today!

Hear Florida Congressional Candidate Oliver Larkin Wednesday 5/20!

DSA has endorsed Oliver Larkin for Congress in Florida! Join us Wednesday 5/20 at 8:30pm ET/7:30pm CT/6:30pm MT/5:30pm PT as we chat with him, St. Petersburg councilmember Richie Floyd, and scholar of democracy Aziz Rana (author of The Constitutional Bind). On the call, you’ll hear about Oliver’s fight for Medicare for All and against the Supreme Court’s attacks on voting rights in Florida and everywhere.

Action Alert — Help Abolish ICE!

Act now to help abolish ICE!

The NPC has passed a resolution to endorse comrade Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s Ban Warehouse Detention Act (HR 8494). Please sign on here to support Rep. Tlaib’s bill.

And call your US House Rep to ask them to join as a cosponsor or thank them if they are one of the nineteen who have already signed on! You can find the cosponsors list and a link to contact your representative here.

Your financial support can help chapter organizing now. DSA is fundraising to support local chapters coping with surges in ICE activity, and now local chapters can apply for grants to access those funds. Chapters can get assistance for:

• Legal observation of ICE activities
• Mutual aid to neighbors who need to shelter at home to reduce their risk of being kidnapped
• Pressure campaigns on public officials
• Development and production of Know-Your-Rights materials
• Renting spaces for trainings and community gatherings

You can make a contribution to the grant fund here, and help melt ICE!

Help Support DSA — RSVP for Growth and Development Phonebanks Starting Sunday 5/24

Join the Growth and Development Committee for an upcoming phonebank!

• Recommitment Phonebank Sunday 5/24 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT
• Solidarity Dues Phonebank Thursday 6/4 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT
• Recommitment Phonebank on Thursday 6/18 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT

Learn New Skills! Sign Up for a Growth and Development Committee Training Starting Friday 5/22

Check out the Growth and Development Committee’s membership trainings! Our core curriculum spans topics from meeting facilitation to membership engagement. Spots are available now for sessions through the end of June!

Read All About It — The New Labor Herald!

The latest issue of the National Labor Commission’s bulletin, the New Labor Herald, is here!

In this issue, you’ll find reports from chapters across the country on May Day organizing. And check out our front-page article on a graduate workers’ union in Pennsylvania building immigrant solidarity and winning their first contract through a credible strike threat! You’ll also find an anonymous article by a member of the Alphabet Workers Union at Google, plus DSA National Political Committee member and postal worker Sarah M on her efforts to win the respect and solidarity of her cisgender coworkers through patient struggle. And finally, to mark International Workers Day, we’re republishing Eugene V Debs’ 1898 tribute to the original martyrs of May Day.

Please print and share in your chapter labor formations, and read our back issues here! We are currently accepting article pitches and submissions for our June issue at nlc@dsacommittees.org. Please put “BULLETIN” in the subject field.

Sign Up for Religion and Socialism Working Group Meeting Monday 5/18 — And Check Out Our Podcast!

If you’re a religious socialist, come to our monthly meetup Monday 5/18 at 8:30pm ET/7:30pm CT/6:30pm MT/5:30pm PT to see what others are doing, ask questions, share information, and give us your ideas! Write to religioussocialism@dsacommittees.org to get the Zoom link. If you want to know more about us, visit our new website. And listen to our podcasts here!

National Political Education Committee Spring Political Educators Conference Online Sunday 5/31

The National Political Education Committee (NPEC) invites all chapter or committee political educators to our spring online conference Sunday 5/31 at 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT! The topic will be “Political Education During Trump 2.0.” Whether you’re a seasoned poli ed leader, or are just learning the ropes, come share your experiences doing this work in the past year. We’ll discuss the path forward as we grow and develop together. Join us!

RSVP for Fundraising Committee Solidarity Dues Training Saturday 6/13

Join the Fundraising Committee for a training on how to run a Solidarity Dues Drive on the chapter level. The training will be held Saturday 6/13 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT. RSVP today!

The post May Day Raises the Bar — Your National Political Committee newsletter appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

A friendly boss and a healthy wage are increasingly rare, but do workers lucky enough to have both need a union?

The post I have a good boss. Do I still need a union? appeared first on EWOC.