“Red All Over” — an occasional roundup of media coverage of DSA

The post Hold Your Nose And Vote appeared first on Democratic Left.

by Travis Covitz

This month, I re-read To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee for the first time since my freshman year of high school (which overlapped with the first wave of Black Lives Matter uprisings). Mockingbird was written by Lee (a Southern white woman) in the early 1960s; it follows the girlhood of Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, who is white and the daughter of a lawyer, in Depression-era Alabama. A major plot point of the book is Scout’s father, Atticus Finch, defending a local Black man who has been charged with rape of a white woman. Atticus is posed as a noble white hero in contrast with the ‘backwards’ racists in the countryside. Reading in 2026, the juxtaposition of the police brutality in Ferguson and the lawfare in Mockingbird seems like it was just begging for commentary. But at my school in the Phoenix, Arizona suburbs, where we had a very small Black population, I have no memory of such a conversation. What I do remember is, at some point during the year, one of the few Black girls in my grade commented that the murder of Michael Brown echoed the murder of Trayvon Martin. I know that she saw the parallels between Scout’s fictional world and the world we found ourselves growing up in. 

My mom has always been a huge fan of Mockingbird and the Finch family in particular. As the youngest in her family, my mom related heavily to Scout’s perspective as a young child surrounded by adults. Perhaps because of her connection with Scout, or perhaps just because of her own liberal white sympathies, my mom glorified Atticus as a paragon of virtue. I remember seeing a lot of discourse in 2020 about how white people preferred quoting this fictional white lawyer, instead of living Black people, to demonstrate their values of racial justice. My re-reading of Mockingbird was, in part, a desire to revisit the character of Atticus Finch and see just how valiant he really was. Was he a principled anti-racist or a white savior? I found myself thoroughly underwhelmed, but not surprised, with how Atticus actually behaves in the book. And then I read the sequel.

Go Set A Watchman takes place in that same small Alabama town, centered on that same Finch girl (who is now a woman), about two decades later. Scout is in her mid-twenties (actually very close to my current age) and visiting her hometown on a trip away from her life in New York City.  She is forced to confront the imperfections in the moral characters of her father (Atticus) and lover (Hank), who have joined the local white Citizens Council in protest of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Watchman was only published in 2015, and takes place after the events of Mockingbird, but it is actually more interesting than a mere ‘sequel’. Lee wrote Watchman in the 1950s, as the first draft of this story, only for it to later be edited into the narrative we know as Mockingbird. 

Reading Watchman greatly enriched my appreciation of Mockingbird – but I think that Watchman was only able to be so profound because of that decade of relationship I already had with the Mockingbird story. I felt that the loss of Atticus’ heroism, rather than a betrayal, was a very plausible continuation of the character. In fact, I think that character journey is an important one to read for white readers who, like the young Scout, saw Atticus as a perfect gentleman. In my experience, Mockingbird is used by liberal Americans to assuage their guilt over racism, by allowing them to reassure themselves that they’re ‘one of the good ones’. It paints a picture of racism as a personal problem rather than a political one. The subtextual rebukes to this narrative which I found in Watchman actually allowed me to more deeply appreciate the world that Lee built. By showing how a kind, honorable white man – who treats Black people as equals in daily life – can still feel so threatened by the idea of Black people in power that he organizes to prevent it, Watchman illustrates how racism is a political issue, not just a personal moral failing.

In Watchman, Scout is positioned as the moral hero in contrast to Atticus, but not necessarily enlightened, which I feel is the correct choice for the character. She is still learning the ways of the world, but we can see that she has deep moral convictions that ground her. If Scout had been written as perfect, it would have ruined the whole story, which is about coming-of-age and realizing that your heroes are only human. My revisiting of Lee’s work has been its own coming-of-age story, after all. Even though I generally appreciated the direction of Watchmen, I disagree with some of the political conclusions Lee offers. But this way in which I disagree with Scout paradoxically makes me relate to her even more. Just as her long-time deification of Atticus was confronted by a painful reality when Scout realizes she has her own moral positions, I had to realize my own values are based on the people I live and organize with – not just the books I’ve read.

If you remember reading Mockingbird, and especially if you remember quoting Atticus Finch, I would highly recommend Watchman. It might be painful, but I think you will be all the better for realizing that even the Finches have flaws – and wondering what actual anti-racism would look like.

The post Narratives of Imperfection: Revisiting Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) and Go Set a Watchman (2015) first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

Enjoy your September 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, hear about hot labor updates, organizing trainings, volunteer opportunities, 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 — Cool Fall Organizing
• Sunday 9/27 — How Should DSA Respond to Data Centers? RSVP for our DSA Labor Call!
• Work for DSA! Application Deadlines Begin Friday 9/18
• Sign Up for Fall 2026 Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee Training Series! Classes Begin Saturday 10/24
• Mutual Aid Working Group Reforms Disaster Relief Committee — Get Involved
• Sign Up for National Political Education Commission Newsletter
• Housing Justice Commission Abolish Rent Book Club — Final Sessions Still Open
• Contribute to Democratic Left!

From the National Political Committee — Cool Fall Organizing

It’s September again, and while hot socialist summer is over, there’s lots of cool organizing going into the fall. From chapter Labor Day celebrations, to back-to-school organizing, to worker solidarity actions you can do right now, DSA members like you are getting in gear across the country!

We spent Labor Day weekend with hundreds of DSA members in Chicago at the annual Socialism Conference organized by Haymarket Books, which is a great opportunity for political education and big-picture strategizing across organizations on the left. DSA members were represented on over 20 panels, including ones on organizing a general strike and building a stronger pro-democracy labor movement, and showcasing our own “Workers Deserve More” program with special guest Hasan Piker. In DSA, we always want to focus on outward-facing work that builds our power with more and more people, but it’s important to make time to keep learning and testing each others’ ideas too! 

This spring, over 170 DSA chapters participated in May Day actions. And last week, chapters  came out to organize and celebrate workers — check out some of our highlights here! From NEPA DSA’s Labor Rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Greater Baltimore’s Labor Day Potluck, to Northern Colorado’s Labor Night Out, DSA members came together to create community and showcase worker wins. And check out some photo and video highlights!

• Boston DSA showed that socialism beats fascism
• Middle Tennessee DSA Labor Day marchers said Workers Deserve More
• Miami DSA’s Labor Day highlight was their most ambitious Leftist Movie Night of the year: a special 90th anniversary screening of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times

Socialist socializing like these Labor Day events create organizing opportunities! DSA members understand that bringing people together helps start conversations about how we can organize our workplace, protect our communities, elect socialist candidates, and more. (That’s probably why the Wall Street Journal set out to make coffee with comrades scary!)

And our Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) Fall Drive is off to a great start. Since last semester, more than 45 new campuses have started YDSA chapters. And since the beginning of August, YDSA has doubled its membership! Last year, YDSA chapters organized to protect immigrant students, support campus worker unions, end student lunch debt, and more. 

From the University of Florida YDSA’s kicking the Department of Homeland Security out of their Career Fair, to YDSA at the University of Delaware successfully pressuring the administration to stop collaborating with ICE, to University of Oregon YDSA winning medication access on campus, YDSA students are making big wins and learning how to organize long-lasting campaigns. That’s why they’re growing so much! And given the rise of right-wing campus outreach, we need our youth organizers more than ever.

And speaking of fall labor solidarity… we’re boycotting Starbucks this pumpkin spice season! Take the boycott pledge with our DSA National Labor Commission and DSA members across the country.

In solidarity with over 12,000 baristas across the country with Starbucks Workers United, DSA has pledged to operate as a Starbucks-free political organization during the duration of the boycott. This means that Starbucks products shall not be purchased with DSA funds for meetings, conferences, trainings, offices, conventions, or other official events. You can hear from Starbucks workers about the boycott here.

Solidarity work like this is one reason that thousands of people are joining DSA and renewing their memberships. They see members like you showing up and doing the work our communities need! Would you like to reach out to other members about renewing their dues? Sign up for one of our Fall Drive phonebanks! Training is provided on the call.

• Sunday 9/27 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT with special guest Professor Richard Wolff. One lucky phonebanker will receive a signed copy of Professor Wolff’s book Understanding Socialism!
• Wednesday 10/7 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT with special guest David Griscom. One lucky phonebanker will receive a signed copy of David Griscom’s book The Myth of Red Texas!

And read on for more ways to stand up for a brighter, more democratic future!

Solidarity,

Ashik Siddique and Megan Romer
DSA National Co-Chairs

PS: last week, more than 1000 people joined us for “End Times Fascism:” A DSA Conversation with Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor. Check out the book talk video here!

Sunday 9/27 — How Should DSA Respond to Data Centers? RSVP for our DSA Labor Call!

The construction of data centers around the country is leading to ecological damage and skyrocketing electricity costs, causing grassroots coalitions to take a stand and in some states, win moratoriums on new construction. But for unionized workers in the trades, data centers have led to new contracts and renewed investments in apprenticeships.

Join DSA’s National Labor Commission Sunday 9/27 at 1pm ET/12pm CT/11am MT/10am PT for Building the Machine: The Trades and Anti-Data Center Organizing! On the call, you’ll hear the perspectives of anti-data center organizers and rank-and-file union workers about how socialist unionists should orient to the data center boom.

Work for DSA! Application Deadlines Begin Friday 9/18

DSA is hiring! Please apply if you’re interested, or send to someone you know who has the right experience.

Open positions include:

• Regional Organizer (rolling; first deadline 9/18)
• Membership Growth and Retention Coordinator (deadline 9/20)
• Designer (deadline 9/25)

You can learn more about these positions on our Careers page here.

Sign Up for Fall 2026 Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee Training Series! Classes Begin Saturday 10/24

The Housing Justice Commission is proud to announce that our 2026 Fall Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee (ETOC) cohort is now accepting RSVPs from prospective tenant organizers. ETOC is a DSA initiative to promote the formation of militant tenant unions through tenant-to-tenant training and instruction.

This ETOC cohort will teach you the fundamentals of tenant organizing over a series of 4 meetings in October and November. The series starts Saturday 10/24 at 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT. RSVP today! Instruction will focus on giving you the skills you need to develop new tenant unions that will organize tenants on a citywide or regional scale. We encourage you to invite others you intend to organize a tenant union with.

Mutual Aid Working Group Reforms Disaster Relief Committee — Get Involved

The Mutual Aid Working Group (MAWG) is reforming the Disaster Relief Committee! MAWG’s Disaster Relief Committee will organize MAWG members to collaborate on disaster preparedness, awareness, and relief. If you would like to get involved in this new committee, or other work in MAWG, join the working group!

Sign Up for National Political Education Commission Newsletter

Don’t get left behind on the left! Keep up with DSA’s National Political Education Commission — with popular trainings, debates and events, national reading groups, media, commentary, and more — by signing up for our monthly missive, Red Letter!

Housing Justice Commission Abolish Rent Book Club — Final Sessions Still Open

Join DSA members and tenant organizers around the country for a nationwide reading of the book Abolish Rent, written by two co-founders of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis. Sessions have already started, but there’s still spots for the Wednesday 9/30 and Wednesday 10/14 meetings. Book club meetings will be at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT.

Together, we’ll learn from the book, share our experiences as tenants and organizers, and discuss how to create a world where rent doesn’t exist. Use the discount code in the signup link here link for a discount on a copy of the book!

Contribute to Democratic Left!

Democratic Left, DSA’s official news publication, is opening applications for non-editorial board roles. If you are interested in supporting Democratic Left’s movement journalism as a book reviewer, reporter, arts critic, copy editor, graphic designer, or chapter correspondent, please fill out the third form linked on this page on the DSA forum.

The post Your National Political Committee newsletter — Cool Fall Organizing appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor launched their book tour for “End Time Fascism: and the Fight for the Living World” on a DSA mass call on Thursday.

The post Out of the Bunker appeared first on Democratic Left.

In December of last year, I started watching the television show M*A*S*H, which ran on CBS from 1972 to 1983. As a history nerd with a penchant for old TV shows I quickly became obsessed, watching every single episode in under six months.

For those unfamiliar, the show is a comedy-drama following the exploits of the personnel serving at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (M*A*S*H) during the Korean War (1950-1953). Intended as an allegory for the Vietnam War, the show tapped into the intense anti-war and anti-institutional sentiment of broad swaths of the American public of the time.

The show is unapologetically anti-war and progressive, unrelenting in its insistence that basic human dignity be upheld in the most horrific circumstances. It is extremely well-written and enjoyable to watch, a true classic of twentieth-century television. M*A*S*H may have premiered over fifty years ago, but it still has much to teach us today.

Best Care Anywhere

Alan Alda stars as Captain Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, a gifted young surgeon drafted into the war. He has a penchant for pranks and a consistent distaste for military discipline. Alda’s performance is unmatched, and he is truly a once-in-a-generation comedic talent. His sardonic wit, impeccable comedic timing, and old-school slapstick gags combine to create a masterful performance. At the time of writing, the 90-year-old Alda is still acting and speaking out for progressive causes. He deserves to be recognized as one of the greatest American comedians of the twentieth century, standing alongside the likes of Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, and Steve Martin.

There was a significant amount of cast turnover spanning the course of the show’s run. Every time someone left, I was very nervous to find out who their replacement would be, and I wondered whether the new actor could live up to the standards of those departing. I was never disappointed.

Hawkeye’s original sidekick, Captain John “Trapper” McIntyre (Wayne Rogers) was a zany, sarcastic prankster. His replacement, Captain B.J. Hunnicut (Mike Farrell) is a grounded family man who often serves as a calming presence and voice of reason. Colonel Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson) was the good-natured, borderline incompetent commanding officer of the outfit in the early run of the show; he was replaced in season four by the firm-but-fair, no-nonsense cavalryman Colonel Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan). The whiny, arrogant, and right-wing Major Frank Burns (Larry Linville) was replaced in season six by the blue-blooded and snobbish but cultured and honorable Major Charles Emerson Winchester III (David Ogden Stiers).

Rounding out the main cast are the two other characters who stayed for the entire series: the meek and kind-hearted Catholic chaplain Lieutenant Francis Mulcahey (William Christopher), and the career-driven and tough head nurse Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan (Loretta Swit).

The only character swap that is more ambiguous is the replacement of the boyish and innocent but preternaturally competent company clerk Corporal Walter “Radar” O’Reilly (Gary Burghoff), who left the show in season eight. He was replaced by Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger (Jamie Farr), the Toledo-born, Lebanese-American cross-dressing soldier who spends much of the war attempting to convince the Army he has gone insane in pursuit of a Section Eight psychiatric discharge. Both characters are quite beloved by fans, and Radar’s departure marked a major turning point for the series.

The focus of the show is highly varied. Plots typically involve pranks and hijinx, Army bureaucracy, dealing with North Korean and Chinese POWs and Korean civilians, confronting racism, the psychological and emotional struggles of the staff, attacks by the enemy, interpersonal conflict that blurs the line between comedy and drama, and much more. The show also experiments with its own format, for example by filming an entire episode from the perspective of a wounded G.I. (S7E11), following a casualty in near-real time (S8E11), and depicting a soldier who is lingering as a ghost after succumbing to his injuries (S10E10).

M*A*S*H is based on a 1970 film of the same name and the 1968 novel that inspired it. Both works fall outside the scope of this article. The franchise received three spinoff series: Trapper John, M.D., which is not related to the show at all; W*A*L*T*E*R, the once-aired pilot for a show following Radar; and AfterMASH, which ran for two seasons. I would only recommend the latter to the most die-hard fans.

“There’s No Such Thing as an Anti-War Film”

In a real sense, this quote from the late French filmmaker François Truffaut is true. Accurately capturing the abject horror of war renders a movie effectively unwatchable as entertainment and impossible to distribute beyond an extremely limited audience. No such project could ever appear on network television.

At the same time, M*A*S*H avoids the typical pitfalls of other “anti-war” media that actually serve to glorify armed conflict or advance pro-war messages, such as Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan or Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper. There are several reasons for this.

First, the surgeons in the show are not soldiers in the conventional sense. They are doctors first and foremost. Hawkeye, Trapper, and later Hunnicut only reluctantly submit to military discipline. The show does not depict frontline combat or give the sense that a victory on the battlefield is a victory for the cast. Direct engagement with the enemy is sporadic and never glorified. The show makes it explicitly clear that every advance of blue squares on the map in a general’s office sends countless teenage boys to the hospital in critical condition. The surgeons at the 4077th must perform “meatball surgery” on their shattered bodies in the hope of keeping them alive long enough to get them to a hospital in Seoul or Tokyo. This constant drumbeat of “incoming wounded” keeps the show grounded in its values, and many episodes focus explicitly on the unique stresses endured by wartime medical staff.

Second, overt displays of patriotism, love of country, and sympathy with American foreign policy goals for Korea are almost completely absent. The show’s thesis does not seriously entertain counter-arguments as to why war should be seen as a moral good or a regrettable necessity. Characters do express belief in traditional American virtues including justice, fairness, democracy, and equality, but it is rarely tied explicitly to patriotism. It is only foils like Frank Burns who demand loyalty, obedience, and paranoia as they salute the flag.

Finally, the more “gung-ho” officers, soldiers, and civilians who visit the 4077th are consistently depicted in a negative light. The doctors are often pitted against officers willing to trade young lives for their own glory, bigots of all stripes, war profiteers, adventure-seeking journalists, anti-communist witch hunters, the officious bureaucracy of the U.S. Army, and more. These figures are often drivers of conflict in the series. They nearly always either learn a lesson, receive some kind of comeuppance, or set up a serious and contemplative moment for the main cast.

The show is not intended as an attempt to shock the viewer with the horrific, gory reality of war. Its elements are packaged in a way that is palatable for 1970s TV. Episodes are by no means excessively violent, and they aren’t at all unpleasant to watch. But they do send an unambiguous and consistent message: There is no value in this kind of killing.

If any piece of popular media can be considered truly anti-war, M*A*S*H is it.

Questions of Taste

Most of the humor in the show holds up to modern standards. It is intelligent and well-written, and there are relatively few cases in which a joke is made that I consider to be in poor taste. In one early episode (S2E9), the doctors paint a soldier in partial blackface to teach him a lesson about racism after he requests that he not receive “the wrong kind of blood” (referring to the recent integration of the U.S. Army’s blood supply). The message is intended to be anti-racist, but this plot point couldn’t air today for obvious reasons.

Some of the accents of the actors playing Koreans are uncomfortably broad by today’s standards. Many Korean characters’ inability to speak English seems to render them unable to speak at all, though this is likely due to the difficulty of sourcing actors who speak the language fluently at a time when the number of Korean-Americans in the U.S. was much smaller than it is today. There are also a few cases in which a person being kissed against their will is played for laughs, most often Major Houlihan. For these reasons, and likely a few more that I missed, some viewer discretion is advised. By the standards of a fifty-year-old show, however, there isn’t much to cringe at.

The portrayal of the cross-dressing Corporal Klinger is particularly noteworthy as an early example of what I would consider positive trans representation in media. Klinger is not transgender in the modern sense. He openly admits that he dresses in women’s clothing only to convince the Army he has gone insane, though his wardrobes are quite involved and he obviously revels in the freedom of expression it affords him. Klinger never changes his name or pronouns, he refuses a Section Eight that would require him to admit to being a “homosexual,” and he returns to a regulation uniform and ceases to angle for a discharge after he replaces Radar as company clerk.

The most notable part of the performance is how the majority of the cast treats him with matter-of-fact tolerance, and the characters who scorn him (particularly Major Burns) are portrayed as bigoted and petty. Even from those characters, anti-trans rhetoric doesn’t go to extremes.

Other trans people have different opinions on this topic. They believe Klinger plays into a harmful stereotype of the “man in a dress” that has been weaponized by the cisgender majority to delegitimize trans experiences. Given how the show approaches LGBTQ+ issues more broadly, including Hawkeye and Trapper’s acceptance of a closeted gay soldier (S2E22), I am personally inclined to believe the showrunners approached the question of Klinger’s identity as carefully and sensitively as could be expected for the time. That said, readers are encouraged to form their own conclusions.

Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

The series finale is a two-hour tour de force. Its live broadcast was watched by over 100 million people nationwide, and to this day it remains one of the most-watched scripted television events in history. Directed by Alan Alda, the finale does an excellent job of capturing the heart of the show. The episode is perfectly calibrated in its bittersweetness, and it serves as a powerful, emotionally satisfying, and fitting sendoff.

There is one rather disturbing plot point in the episode relating to the ultimate reason for Hawkeye’s hospitalization. It isn’t graphically depicted and is handled with care, but sensitive viewers can choose to skip that section, which takes place from timestamps 38:51 to 41:25.

As the ceasefire is announced during the finale, the total number of U.N., communist, and civilian casualties is read out over the base’s loudspeaker system, serving as a memorial for all those killed and permanently scarred by the Korean War. Klinger’s question: “Vietnam? Where’s that?” is particularly poignant as a nod to the show’s origin as a critique of the Vietnam War.

* * *

M*A*S*H is solidly progressive in a way that socialist viewers will immediately recognize. None of the characters are socialists, nor could they be in a show set during the early Cold War. But we can still admire and praise the virtues the show promotes: Radical tolerance of those different from us. Scorn for the horror of war and cruelty in every form. Sacrifice for those who have nothing. M*A*S*H reminds us that we should not apologize for our values, that our most basic humanity must be upheld against the forces of imperialism, militarism, and hatred.

The doctors of the 4077th are unable to stop the unbelievable carnage around them. They can only do their best to help those who come through the door. In our own time of global crisis, we should strive to do the same.

M*A*S*H is currently available to stream in its entirety on Hulu.

The post M*A*S*H is an Antiwar Masterpiece appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

A universal right to bargain would turn Simone Weil's philosophy into a concrete tool for building economic democracy in the American workplace.

The post A Right to Bargain appeared first on Democratic Left.

As CDSA forges ahead into a busy and demanding aldermanic cycle, membership is set to consider a new slate of potential endorsees at September’s General Chapter Meeting: four candidates for Chicago’s first fully-elected school board.

Before those votes take place, I’d like to make the case for why lending our chapter’s endorsement of all four candidates is critical to amplifying our “Workers Deserve More” program and furthering the class-struggle messaging that will help build out our movement and propel us to victory in February’s municipal elections. All four school board candidates under consideration (Hilario Dominguez, Jason Dones, Karen Zaccor, and Debby Pope) are self-identified socialists who have a clear-eyed vision for what it means to bring socialism to the Board of Education. 

But perhaps it would be illustrative to first share what the stakes are in these elections; in other words – what we stand to lose should charter and billionaire-backed candidates take these seats instead. 

Should a right-leaning school board take the helm after November’s elections, there can be no doubt that school closures would be on the table. This would be sold to us under the tired slogans of “fiscal responsibility” and “chronic under-enrollment.” It’s quite the masterful gambit, really. These schools are chronically under-enrolled because of decisions at all levels of government that have left Black and Brown neighborhoods starved of resources for decades. Now, those same actors are returning to demand the closure of schools that they intentionally underfunded.

A right-wing school board would likely forsake any attempt at progressive revenue streams from the state. Instead, it would likely close schools exclusively on the South and West sides of the city, just as it did in 2013. School closures aren’t just about underinvestment. They are a form of violence inflicted on the most vulnerable neighborhoods in this city. They leave communities divested, depopulated, and scarred. Today, the vast majority of CPS schools closed in 2013 remain in disrepair, a constant reminder for neighbors that Chicago has long valued the lives of certain residents over others. Additionally, school closures themselves are often antecedents to violence. Research has consistently demonstrated that areas immediately surrounding closed schools have seen higher rates of gun violence since 2013. 

Schools are community anchors and hubs where neighbors and their families convene to dream of a better tomorrow – one made possible only by the right to a free, accessible, and comprehensive public education. In many cases, they serve as centers for community programming, provide free summer enrichment programs, and welcome families that have recently arrived to the United States. When families are stripped of that right and forced to send their children to schools miles away at the behest of a school board that’s been bought and paid for by the charter school lobby, it’s an example of how the boot of racial capitalism continues to crush communities of color while enriching their oppressors. 

How can we seek to grow our presence on the South and West sides under the message of “Workers Deserve More” if we stand by while they’re given less and less? If “Workers Deserve More” is to be an actual vision for the implementation of democratic socialism, rather than a mere rallying cry, it must account for the workers (and their families) most likely to be affected by school closures: in Austin, Garfield Park, Englewood, and Auburn Gresham, among so many other neighborhoods on the South and West Sides. 

Furthermore, the election of a right-wing school board would likely mean cuts to services for students across the board. The first programs to go would likely be those that support Diverse Learners, students who require special education services. At a time when schools are already understaffed for the personnel that would accommodate these students’ needs (SECAs, paraprofessionals, etc.), it would be unconscionable to consider further cuts. Many students who receive accommodations and curriculum modifications have disabilities. As socialists, we must view this fight through the lens of disability justice. To ensure that every child, in every part of this city, has access to education as a tool of liberation, we must fight to expand funding for our Diverse Learners, not sit idly by while it’s rolled back.

While the prospects are quite somber should the school board swing right, there’s also much to be excited about should the board remain aligned with workers and their children. Just as with the City Council, we are fighting to build a bloc of school board members who have proven records as organizers for the working class. These candidates will mobilize the working class to demand the progressive funding for our schools that Governor Pritzker and the Illinois General Assembly have been refusing to answer for. 

With stable, progressive revenue, we can start to dream bigger. We can work with our bloc of board members to develop a coherent set of policy planks around education that transforms and integrates our schools even deeper into the fabric of the communities they serve. We can begin to imagine a district of Sustainable Community Schools, with wraparound programs like free healthcare, legal aid clinics, and nutrition education. Our district could also fund Universal Pre-K at age 3. Both of these are policies that school board president candidate Hilario Dominguez is running on.  It is a program we as a chapter can and should rally around.

So in the words of educators across this country: “Raise your hand if you’re here, CDSA.” We need to be here to fully fund our schools. Here to push back against the tide of corporate and billionaire money. Here to ensure that the schools in our black and brown communities are as well-resourced as any school in Lincoln Park or Lakeview, not shut down. And here to dream and organize around a better future for Chicago’s children.

The post Raise Your Hand if You’re Here: Why CDSA Must Intervene in the Board of Education Races appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

by Martin O.

One of the critical questions, if not the most critical and contentious in Cleveland DSA, is our strategic and tactical orientation toward “The Groups.” As we pursue our objectives, where do the many NGOs and activist groups in the metro area fit in? This debate encompasses a variety of political perspectives that have been represented historically for hundreds of years. In fostering healthy discussion of this issue, it’s important to recognize that these positions represent a place in this broader historical political debate rather than simply a particular moral or ethical viewpoint about the value of particular causes.

None of the information I’m going to convey here is new; there are no new insights, it’s all available in other places. However, as I’ve been in the middle of discussion with comrades both to the “left” and “right” of me lately (as you’ll see, this terminology breaks down completely at a certain point), I felt it might be important to put all this together in a single post. After all, it’s easier for someone to read one post than 12 and I think it’s essential that comrades recognize the full scope and nature of the discussion and the positions their fellow DSA members hold.

This will be about the three most prominent orientations in Cleveland DSA (and really the socialist movement as a whole) toward its direction as it relates to cooperation with outside forces, along with the pros and cons that others have laid out, in the way that I see them. These are, as I’ll refer to them, the “Popular Front”, “United Socialist Front” and, “For a single mass party” positions. These positions to some extent exist on a spectrum of their own that seems to defy the traditional left and right descriptions. 

Individuals’ positions in this debate are determined to some degree by their personal relationships to these groups around Cleveland and the issues the groups deal with, but there is also an important political assumption often being made in the background around the question of “is DSA one group out of the many groups that an individual might want to do work in and weigh equally?” or “Is DSA the most important group to me out of all of these possible groups?” This assumption affects one’s position on coalitions to a massive degree. There are also questions about the tactics these groups use, beliefs about their effectiveness, their effectiveness in building long-term power, etc. 

I’ll be upfront that I am a believer in the “for a single mass party” theory of change. Some of this is just because I don’t have the time to be involved in anything other than DSA and my past political activity took me into some of The Groups such as Justice Democrats (not particularly active in Cleveland) and then out of them. My point with this post is to help members understand the perspectives on display so that they can learn to frame questions themselves and we can argue about the politics of the situation and the historical justifications for one approach or the other rather than taking personal shots at each other.

Popular Front

Popular Front politics, as a historical phenomenon, have roots in the earliest days of the movement for working class political power. A popular front simply means an alliance of cooperation between socialists/communists and liberal political forces, usually against reactionary elements such as Fascists. This is almost always a cross-class coalition between people who depend on wages and people who own capital (in some sense). The working class fought alongside the Republican elites (in the “we want a Republic not a Monarchy” sense) in the 1830 and 1848 Revolutions in France in order to eliminate the Monarchy. In the 1920’s & 30’s, Communists, Anarchists, Syndicalists, and liberals formed popular fronts across Europe to oppose Fascism. 

Today in the DSA of 2026, many argue that the conditions of Trump’s second term such as state violence and climate change mandate a popular front approach for DSA to orient itself as part of a “movement of movements”. This “movement of movements” would be an alliance of groups all across non-Fascist politics like Indivisible, labor unions, issue/advocacy-based nonprofits, DSA, to Trotskyist groups (maybe, maybe not), etc. Some examples of DSA writing representing this are “DSA For the Masses: Organizing The Anti-Fascist Majority” by Emmett M and “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda:  A Vision for a Nimble, Mass‑Oriented DSA” by Chris K of LA-DSA. In Organizing the Anti-Fascist Majority, Emmett writes:

 “We are witnessing the breakout of large amounts of unrest targeted at the Trump administration, without DSA at the forefront to meet the masses. DSA should support any anti-Trump protest from the Left instead of applying purity tests to them and thereby allowing liberals to control the anti-fascist and anti-Trump narrative….A strong principled Left opposition is needed to stand up to the threat of Trump, and DSA should be at the forefront of it nationally, not standing by self-consciously worrying that we may be mistaken for liberals.”

The argument goes that DSA is still a small organization, unable to effectively oppose fascism by itself and that the circumstances demand a unified defense of the American people by DSA acting in cooperation with their allies. Skeptics of this assumption might ask if the popular front itself is even able to cohere the necessary numbers & political power, or question its capitalist character. Proponents of popular front positions might argue however that the actual chance to build a large movement depends precisely on the cooperation with non-socialist forces because DSA is so small and in such an embryonic stage of life, being barely over 120,000 members as of 2026. It follows that the membership of progressive and liberal groups are the closest to DSA politically and the most likely of anyone on the political spectrum to join DSA and build its numbers, which are required to fight fascism. The essential point being made is that the demands of the historical moment or the threat presented by fascism dictate the need to cohere the greatest numbers to oppose fascism in the short term, through a diverse coalition of political perspectives. 

Critics of popular front approaches such as Jack L in “Coalitions of the Liberal & Socialist Left” argue that this approach has innate limitations that proponents of popular front politics fail to acknowledge or even ignore, such as apparent historical evidence that the bourgeoisie will eventually betray the working class’s political goals. This manifests in particular ways. In “Ultraliberalism: The Dominant Tendency of the American Left”, Chicago DSA member Ramsin Canon argues that the influence of the NGO sector on the left through cross-pollination of membership and the general class position of politically active people means that the socialist movement must fight to maintain its drive to liberate the working class and this requires rejecting the liberal individualist politics of the nonprofit sector that is influenced by competing for funding and the careerism of executive directors.

The traditional historical argument such as in Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution by Vladimir Lenin says that unprincipled partnership between socialist groups and the bourgeoisie results in the “liquidation” of revolutionary politics to maintain the needs of the coalition. Overall the critical position is represented by a belief that coalitions between socialist groups and liberal groups have inherent limitations. These limitations can be driven by class interests, differing theories of change, disparate organizing capabilities, and competition between activist groups and their leaders, but they represent essential differences between DSA and liberal groups. 

Points in favor

• Historically, popular front movements such as in Spain & France have mounted strong opposition to Fascism even if they didn’t always defeat fascism. In Russia, the Tsar was in part able to be overthrown because the national bourgeoisie were tired of him as well. 
• Cooperation between DSA & issue-based advocacy groups has resulted in some huge legislative wins like NYC-DSA’s Build Public Renewables Act. 
• Important electoral wins such as Zohran Mamdani’s in NYC over Andrew Cuomo (backed by Trump) that have energized hundreds of thousands of people 
• Simple reality that DSA is not politically strong enough to get policies passed on its own because this requires legislative majorities or executive power 
• Proponents claim that each incremental reform won allows a new baseline from which to agitate for more changes and which validate the effectiveness of the socialist movement 

Points against

• Skeptics say that liberal organizations are more concerned with control of the state in the sense that they can better manage it than fascists, while (as skeptics say) socialists should be concerned with opposing the state as it exists
• This can take the form of the political horizon being shrunk to simply incremental reforms – this shows acutely on the topics of policing & anti-imperialism
• Reconciling strategic objectives & decision-making across both liberal groups and DSA can be very difficult when they are structurally so different – mass member democracy vs nonprofits run by executive directors & full-time staff 
• Issue-based coalitions often encounter friction between activist leaders along with mission drift which can lead to wasting time 
• Liberal groups fighting for control of the state / favor with the state might end up shifting their struggle solely to parliamentary concerns or focus just on liberal “consciousness-raising” as Ramsin Canon puts it 

United Socialist Front

As if to address some of the concerns the critics of popular front politics point out, some socialists believe partnerships should only be built with Groups that meet particular political standards such as advocating for police abolition or Anti-Zionism. Operating off a similar assumption that DSA is still a small, still mostly weak formation, they advocate for strategies like running electoral candidates in coalition with other socialist groups like Party for Socialism & Liberation, and using DSA resources to support candidates from those groups. Examples in DSA include the arguments in Akron DSA and elsewhere to support PSL candidates for office and the Springs of Revolution caucus’s strategy of coalitional electoralism.

Similar to the popular front argument, this train of thought says that these groups are all “close enough” to DSA and that the demands of the historical moment require us to form the most numerically robust opposition to fascism that we can, except that Zionist groups or pro-NATO groups and such aren’t included. Some of these groups include (but are not limited to) PSL, FRSO, CPUSA (Communist Party of the USA), Socialist Alternative, Revolutionary Workers’ Party, and the Revolutionary Communist Party (of Bob Avakian fame). I personally never bothered until recently to learn what any of these groups were or were about because I came to DSA from the progressive electoral world and I looked at most of these groups as the weird people who just protest all the time and run the occasional third party electoral campaign that gets 1-2% of the vote. 

In a sense, the horizon for the Socialist Front position shifts from simply opposing fascism to also advocating for socialism unapologetically. However, just as with Popular Front approaches, problems arise immediately because of the nature of the various organizations in the coalition, that often also includes “progressive enough” liberal groups or the front groups that these various sects create in order to appear more legitimate to the general public like the Peoples’ Forum in NYC. This is a reflection of the sect groups’ particular attention to certain historical texts such as Vladimir Lenin’s “What is To Be Done,” which Lenin himself emphasizes is merely a snapshot of a debate at a point in time in the history of Russian socialism, not a blueprint for everyone.

The overarching impediment to cooperation between them (and with DSA) is that all of the sect groups believe their organization is the one that’s going to “actually” the one that’s going to cohere the working class against capitalism and the others “aren’t” for various reasons such as their “deviations” in political line. This is a result of the historical development of these groups and the particular interpretations of historical tendencies that they represent, as offshoots of the organizations that came before them. This can include Trotskyists but also Marcyites, Cliffites, Shachtmanites, etc. PSL for example is a Marcyite formation. The question of what to aim for (Socialism in some form) becomes less prominent, although this can be contentious. Instead, the question of how to get there takes center stage. 

An example of the problems inherent in these sect-type organizations is described in “The Task of Left Renewal” by Lewis N in Prometheus Mag talking about the Left in Britain: 

“The left in Britain has a number of problems – a key one of these is the age problem. Within the British left, there exists a core generation which retains control over the apparatus of the broad left (Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, union branches, etc.), primarily those within their 50s-60s. The problem is not with the participation of these comrades within the movement; it is with their insistence upon leading the movement and stifling the enthusiasm and energy of younger comrades with outdated political culture and processes, ultimately resulting in an insular left which exists simply to remember its past and rest upon its laurels (of which it has little in the past few decades). Younger comrades are consistently tokenized without actually encouraging meaningful participation, resulting in those younger comrades who fall in line with the older sections of the movement out of respect or deference for their history becoming absorbed into the same sectarian struggles which have plagued the left for decades. When we have a situation in which younger socialists are splitting into pre-existing sectarian groups based on their perceived disagreements over their interpretation of historical events for which they were never even alive, and then continue to reproduce the same toxic ideological divisions which have consistently paralyzed the left, we are unable to move forward – only to act as a living museum for those who came before us.”

This highlights the primary problem that DSA faces when trying to coordinate strategy alongside these groups. Not only do they solely represent specific niches ideologically, they often are under the control of ruling cliques such as the Becker family that dominates PSL’s central committee. This raises an essential question: are these groups really building a mass movement that can last, or simply a self-serving project of a particular set of activists, usually from a given social class? As we might ask in Cleveland DSA, are they more focused on mobilizing or organizing? 

Points in favor

• Generally more revolutionary political line than Popular Fronts that excludes problematic politics like pro-policing and Zionism 
• Preserves ability to have some strength in numbers via cooperation
• Easier to coordinate agitational campaigning across groups with generally excellent media operations
• High level of political education across “members” 
• Centralized governance makes for generally efficient operations
• Not dependent on government or capitalist funding*
  *exception for Neville Roy Singham and PSL

Points against

• Not really that many people when you add up all the alphabet soup of acronym groups – for example SAlt was ~1000 pre-split, PSL is estimated to be a few thousand, FRSO is estimated to be even smaller
• Have to argue for membership in your group vs. the other groups – Why would I join DSA who is knocking on my door when the candidate I like that they’re knocking for is from PSL?
• Can a coalition of this nature withstand the need for freedom of criticism across coalition members when many of these groups exist because they split from other ones or descend from a prior split? 
• Critics say because of the history of these groups they are bureaucratized and controlled by various cliques 
• Emphasis on purity politics and adherence to line means that organizations often split and cohere around charismatic figures and leaders (most famously, splits in various Trotskyist & Maoist groups)

“For a single mass party”

Finally, I’ll turn to my own camp, the “For a single mass party” crew. A sort of synthesis of both the popular front and the purity politics of sects suggests itself through the failures of the groups Our Revolution that originated from the Bernie Sanders campaign and Justice Democrats that originated in the NGO sphere to recruit progressive candidates. As Bernie said, the regular people of this country today have the historic task of building a mass movement to defeat fascism and demand the democratic republic that we do not currently have, restricted by gerrymandering, campaign finance, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and so on. I have always taken this idea to mean we needed one big organization that would be the standard bearer for the left that people could unify around. Notably, he didn’t say “now all of you go join a bunch of various individual groups like your local Maoist or Trotskyist cell”. It took me years to realize that the missing link was that it had to be driven by member democracy in order to be most effective. 

Our Revolution never became that organization because it was not based on mass member democracy but run like any other nonprofit around an executive board. But we also need the labor movement to be there too, as the class of society we fight for and whose historic task socialism is to carry out. The classical Marxist merger formula as stated by Karl Kautsky says “Social Democracy [meaning the mass socialist party] is the merger of socialism with the workers’ movement”. So what this “For a single mass party” orientation represents is the project of building that organization, according to its proponents.

The “focus on building DSA first” approach views DSA in this light. Supporters of this view of how to run DSA often view DSA, despite its relatively small membership, as a successor to socialist parties of the past and the best shot at a Socialist party of the future. Therefore, for it to be successful requires the organization’s politics and structure to be cultivated carefully into a true party, with conventions, a program like the Erfurt one adopted by the SPD, and so on. 

In Cleveland specifically, this dovetails with the reverence this crowd expresses for the organizing style of Jane McAlevey in her book No Shortcuts. No Shortcuts, as many would hold, is the key blueprint for building up the organization that merges socialism & the labor movement into a big whole because of its emphasis on building members of the working class into majorities for political action and building individual agency. The main criticism of both the nonprofit sector and the sects that is made by this group is that nonprofits and groups like PSL are all primarily oriented around mobilizing and direct service provision; protests, one-off rallies, harm mitigation, etc. This is in contrast to the mass-movement building that they see happening through organizing in the McAlevey style.

But why is DSA the organization most likely to accomplish this out of all the ones that have existed? The answer lies not just in its mass membership democracy but also in Mike MacNair’s thesis in his book Revolutionary Strategy that what is essential to defeating capitalism in the 21st century is a party that harnesses “unity in diversity” across the left. 

In contrast to the marginalization of the many sect groups throughout the 20th century due to splits and purges, and the absorption into liberal coalitions that the UK Labour party underwent, MacNair advocates for a multi-tendency organization to be the independent political home of the working class, one driven by mass member democracy. Because many of the “for a single mass party” people understand the importance of the multi-tendency organization (not limited to them however), they are some of the most committed to DSA for its own sake. 

Central to this debate from the perspective of this tendency is what Mike MacNair refers to as the “Strategy of Patience”, the idea that the independent class-based political party must preserve its own political independence and revolutionary character so as to ensure it can build strength and carry out its mission. This means a cautious approach to entering into government coalitions with bourgeois politicians and a cautious approach to partnerships with liberal politics, save for in specific campaigns as a tactic to advance our goals. 

However, unity in diversity and mass member democracy are not a magic wand. A “DSA for everyone” would seem to replicate the same problems of coalitions, except internally rather than externally. In that sense, it cannot “be” everything for everyone at the same time. 

Points in favor

• Emphasis on multi-tendency organizing means new ideas are generated constantly
• Focus on building majorities within 1 org means able to wield organizational power in a focused way
• Proponents say avoids pitfalls of popular front politics (risk of liquidation into liberal politics or other organizations)
• Proponents say avoids pitfalls of sect form of organizing (such as consolidation of power and lack of accountability) because of emphasis on internal democratic processes & structure-building
• ”Better off together than apart” 

Points against

• Can be hard to make decisions among clashing political perspectives
• Not always responsive to immediate conditions
• Dizzying to navigate for people joining
• Critics might say the Strategy of Patience is incompatible with the timetable presented to us by climate change 
• Can lead to strategic flip-flops as different tendencies vie for control of the organization 

The current composition of DSA is only slowly starting to move toward multi-racial nature and still biased toward a “precariat” perspective, far from fulfilling the promise of the merger formula. But many would say that this represents our best chance so far. Above all, answering the question of how you think DSA should relate to The Groups requires you to clarify what you believe DSA is FOR and how it would be most effective at achieving that. 

The post Cleveland DSA & “The Groups” appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

Portland’s capitalist class animates an opaque network of political action committees & non-profits tasked with pushing Portland politics to the Right.

In a post-Citizens United world, this incestuous network of wealthy donors and corporations relies on weak campaign finance rules, splashy websites, and endless permutations of the words progressive, Portland, and action!

The Portland Metro Chamber of Secrets

The OG lobby of the capitalist class. The Portland Metro Chamber executive committee is helmed by giant multinationals like Bank of America, Amazon, Google, Nike, and Wells Fargo, but it also features local investor-owned utilities, contractors, and health insurers.

The Chamber is the main clearinghouse for right-wing candidates who want to hide campaign contributions from the country’s least popular companies, including data center operators, union-busting law firms, and weapons manufacturers.

The Chamber distributes money to corporate political candidates through 4 ‘separate’ PACs, which are all headed by the Chamber’s hardest working employee, lobbyist Jon Isaacs. According to campaign finance records, Isaacs is the Treasurer/Director of all four groups.

Dishonorable Mention: Working Waterfront is not (yet) a PAC, but the Chamber operates the organization on behalf of major corporate polluters, by fighting against accountability for the dangerous CEI hub and the Portland Harbor Superfund site (e.g. Zenith, Chevron, Exxon, etc).

Some current and recent endorsements:

• State Senate District 15: Janeen Sollman (lost to data center opponent and DSA member Myrna Munoz)
• Portland City Council: Eric Zimmerman (incumbent), Olivia Clark (incumbent), Steve Novick (incumbent), Eli Arnold (current candidate).
• Safer Portland, the failed effort to raid the Portland Clean Energy Fund and hire more cops.

People For ‘Portland Sucks’

This group is like your co-worker who says, “it’s not political” before launching into a pro-cop tirade about how homeless people are at fault for their circumstances. Rising rents and falling wages don’t come up.

These PACs are mostly jobs programs for failed candidates and fired chiefs of staff (e.g. Vadim Mozyrsky, Bob Weinstein, and Eli Arnold, and Julia Brim-Edward’s former staffer, Vikki Payne):

• Go, Portland, Go
• Future Portland
• Partnership for Progress

However, their big money originates with some of the largest check-writers funding right-wing politics across Oregon, including Columbia Sportswear head Timothy Boyle. 

Their steering committees all feature each other’s principal members, according to reporting by the Portland Mercury:

“Partnership for Progress donated $32,000 to the new effort, Go Portland Go, in June, according to state records. The organizations also share some leadership; Partnership for Progress co-leader Vadim Mozyrsky also sits on the steering committee for Go Portland Go. The group is also listed as a coalition member on Go Portland Go’s website.”

‘Go, Portland, Go’ attached several famous restaurant-owners to its list of supporters, but this grassroots is already bailing:

“Earl Ninsom’s constellation of Thai restaurants—Eem, Langbaan, Hat Yai, Paadee, Phuket Cafe, and OK Chicken & Khao Soi (the latter was erroneously listed as two separate restaurants on the Go Portland Go website)—all appeared on the coalition’s list as of Friday, August 28. But after the Mercury asked about the restaurant’s group decision to join, Ninsom said the company would be withdrawing its support.”

Among the restaurateurs still aboard the PAC is the owner of dessert-forward restaurant Papa Haydn’s, which is currently subjecting employees to a nasty union-busting campaign.

Landed Gentry

Portland’s rent-seekers. Rent-seekers are individuals or organizations that try to increase their own wealth by manipulating public policy or economic conditions rather than by creating new wealth or providing productive goods.

These PACs represent the inheritor class; Portland’s ‘old money’ leveraging vast birthrights to buy property and extract rent from tenants, residential and commercial.

• Revitalize Portland Coalition
• Multifamily NW PAC
  • Equitable Housing PAC (statehouse PAC)
• Portland Metropolitan Association of Realtors PAC

The Revitalize Coalition is typical. A pet-project PAC of Portland property-inheritor Jordan Schnitzer, Revitalize bills itself as a “real estate collective” of commercial real estate owners, lawyers, builders, and property managers who want more public money to flow into their pockets. 

They insist this personal windfall will ‘trickle-down’ to you, despite their twin-objective of cutting public services. This PAC has an extremely high density of Preschool-for-All haters, and they are licking their lips at Julia Brim-Edwards’ persistent effort to degrade the program.

Also, unrepentant racist and sockpuppet account operator Brian Owendoff is a Revitalize member:

Revitalize’s candidates for the City elections, prior and current, include right-wingers Rene Gonzalez, Loretta Smith, Dan Ryan, Eli Arnold, Olivia Clark, and Eric Zimmerman.

On the residential side of wealth extraction, landlord lobby Multifamily NW (aka “Equitable Housing PAC”) collected and distributed over $1,000,000 since 2020 to local and state politicians, across various efforts to oppose rent control, relocation assistance, and free tenant representation. 

Recent large campaign donations include all of the statewide Democratic Party Leadership (Tina Kotek, Kayse Jama, Rob Wagner, Julie Fahey, and Ben Bowman) as well as Brim-Edwards. 

Police-Industrial Complex

Not much to say here that hasn’t already been said by police reformers and abolitionists for 50+ years. These PACs are funded by cops or by the capitalists who love the cops. 

“More police” is their hammer, and every social problem is a nail. Increased homelessness? Hire more cops. Grandpa watching too many Fox News ‘Antifa’ segments? Hire more cops? Neighbor’s dog pooping on your lawn? Hire more cops.

The PACs:

• Keep Portland Safe PAC
  • Portland Police Association PAC
• Community Safety Coalition PAC
  • Portland Police Association
  • Multnomah County Deputy Sheriff’s Association
  • Heavy crossover with the Landed Gentry and the Portland Metro Chamber of Secrets

Yet, for a bunch of “law enforcement” officers, they can’t seem to avoid breaking the law. Complainants allege canvassers were instructed to lie to potential voters during the unrealized bid to raid PCEF for cop salaries. The Portland Police Association wasted almost $1,000,000 backing the effort and were humiliated in federal court before finally giving up their campaign.

Canvassing Calendar

With election season in full swing from now until November, it’s time for the DSA Difference. This calendar is your one-stop shop where you can find all our canvassing dates.

Devin Thomas O’Shea’s The Veiled Prophet profiles a not-so-secret secret society that presided over a troubled and troubling metropolis.

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