Author: Serge S.

Artwork can carry many meanings. Sarah Selan, the artist behind the recent Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA) exhibition What is Violence?, hopes that people can see the deeper meaning underneath the surface of her paintings and take action to end the genocide in Palestine. 

Her paintings consist of saturated dark backgrounds, figures of civilians forming protective barriers against ICE, interference with weapon manufacturers and other actions that highlight state hypocrisy when it labels direct action and peaceful resistance as “violence”. 

Selan has personally tasted the arbitrary nature of the government when she was charged, along with ten others, for her alleged involvement in a Nov. 2024 protest. According to the allegations, several buildings and landmarks at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) were smeared with red paint, including a statue of retired chemistry teacher “Doc Oc.” 

The action, which the school claims caused $400,000 in damages, was in response to the CWRU and CIA’s continued work with institutions in the genocidal state of Israel. Students have long demanded the university cut ties with the country.

As part of her punishment, Selan was ordered by The Cleveland Institute of Art to show what they categorized as “better” ways of protesting. She did, but she did it in her own style.

“To be frank, the assignment from the school felt a bit condescending,” Selan responded in a written interview. “I was told that I was fighting a good fight, but the way I was fighting is not acceptable. My instructions were to introduce ‘better’ protest ideas from people I do not believe want us to win in the first place. I wanted to use this opportunity to display the difference between peaceful protest and non-disruptive protest. The vandalism was a peaceful protest. Nobody got hurt or was threatened with violence.”

“That being said, it was a disruptive protest,” she added. “People who equate disruption with violence fail to realize that a protest without disruption gives no reason for demands to be met, and no reason for anyone to pay attention to what you are fighting for.”

The paintings remain unfinished. The reason why, Selan said, was to emphasize that the fight for liberation is never over, but also a way to honor the memory of those artists murdered in Palestine by Israel. 

“The first is that the revolution is never really over. The fight for global liberation is never really over,” Selan wrote. “We have miles to travel against our oppressors as we work to gain the freedom of ourselves and our neighbors. I wanted to portray that these acts against us are in progress, as are our acts of resistance against them.”

“The second reason was that I often found myself emotionally stuck,” she added. “What right do I have to make art when I should be out fighting? What lottery have I won to find myself in a situation where my punishment for disruption is art while others face death?”

“It was difficult to get the work done in time because I did not deserve the opportunity to make it in the first place,” she concluded. “The greatest artists have been killed by Israel during the genocide. The most creative minds sit in jails and prisons in the United States due to situations outside of their control. To me it serves as a reminder that the best art has never been made because we killed the beautiful people who would have made it.” 

Selan said that the school’s reaction to the protest shows the institute’s true stances on human rights, and she hopes that students continue to call for divestment. 

“I have no doubt that a day will come in the future where both institutions will boast that their students contributed to an encampment to end the genocide of the Palestinian people,” Selan wrote. “They will use it to draw in future applicants to come be a part of a historic campus with deep roots in liberation.

“They punished the brightest minds their schools have ever seen to promote their beliefs of hatred and bigotry. They work with groups that exterminate an entire group of people just to line their pockets. I condemn their hypocrisy and hope that as students continue to push for divestment, we will transform these institutions into respectful academic organizations that inspire calls for global liberation, instead of suppressing them.” 

Selan said that being an organizer as a student comes with its own limitations. When people graduate, movements slow down, and future participants can lose the memory of what worked and what didn’t in previous encampments.

She added that student organizing can only go so far, and for real progress to be made, the skills and experience developed among the encampments need to be put back into the community. 

“Student protesters have always been some of the most powerful voices in the activist community,” Selan wrote. “From anti-war movements to civil rights, our students are strong. That being said, we can not put the weight of the revolution on their back. 

“I am proud of the students who were able to achieve divestment through their encampments, but that cannot always be the case. There is a lot of pressure to change campuses that have been rooted in imperialism and oppression for decades, but most students will only be around for 4 years. These movements can take decades to achieve change and that can be an overwhelming thought to a lot of young people.”

“Do not take this to mean that campus-based issues aren’t worth fighting for,” she continued. “But rather as a reminder that even if you do not achieve what you hope to in your time at an academic institution, you are making progress towards personal growth and a strong community.” 

When asked for her final thoughts, Selan said that her future will be rooted in activism, and in a way, she can thank the state for that. 

“The vandalism and my alleged involvement changed my life,” Selan wrote. “I was thrown in jail, received death threats, and was forced to pay for damages that were obviously inflated. Despite all this, I have grown as an organizer and will hold these experiences with me forever. They will inspire not only my art, but everything I do in my life. I am grateful for my journey, and I am right where I want to be.” 

The post “What is Violence?” by Sarah Selan Highlights the Hypocrisy of the State When Faced With Action appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

Developers of a new app called Uniform hope that workers will use it to organize anonymously, but this is not how unions are won.

The post There’s no app for organizing appeared first on EWOC.

By: Maritza S

CAMBRIDGE, MA – On February 4, 2026, Lamplighter workers filed for union recognition for their bargaining unit of ~40 rank-and-file encompassing the front of house, production, sales, kitchen, and pepita. They face an imminent election on Friday, February 27, to determine the immediate future through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) process after management declined to voluntarily recognize the union.

On February 22, Lamplighter workers drummed up support by inviting their regulars and relational networks to a union solidarity day across their two taprooms,: a chance to inform community members of the campaign and the union’s oncoming actions.

Lamplighter workers are organizing with Local 1445 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), a union of 11,000 in Massachusetts concentrated in the food packaging, grocery, cannabis, and retail industries. Recent UFCW 1445 victories include the 2025 UMass Memorial workers’ ratification of a 3-year contract in Worcester and other shops joining the union’s ranks – particularly in brewing and cannabis. 

Working Mass spoke with a worker with Lamplighter Brewing the day before the solidarity day:

WM: When were you hired at Lamplighter?

Gabe (Worker): I was hired in July 2024  I love working at Lamplighter, to be honest – it’s a really great place to work. It’s a really good community. The front of house team is a really lovely team and I’ve recently been working a little bit in production, too, and I like working with those guys as well. 

WM: What inspired you to get involved in organizing in the union?

Gabe: It’s just one of those things where we as a team were looking to have a greater say and stake in the business as a whole.

[He paused] 

We all really love being a part of the Lamplighter community, and I would say there were some things that we noticed that made us feel like we needed to collectively bargain in order to have a more secure future at Lamplighter as it grows and develop and grow and develop together.

WM: What were the top demands or issues that you and your coworkers experienced? 

Gabe: I think demands around job security and then also better benefits and of course, more secure and better pay. 

WM: How did management respond to the unionizing? Have you faced retaliation? 

Gabe: Of course, they declined to voluntarily recognize our union so we will be going to an election and have stated they do not believe that unionization is a good fit, as they described it, for Lamplighter. So I would describe their response as, I would say, negative.

WM: What is the best case scenario of victory? What does that look like? 

Gabe: For me, the best case scenario is a situation where all of the workers at Lamplighter feel they can work without worrying about their job security or how they’re going to pay bills.

This dream is a shared one, but evidently opposed by management.

The February 22 solidarity day at Lamplighter Brewing Co. drove up customer awareness of the union through both passersby and activation of relational networks. More and more people become aware of the union and thus are likely to act in solidarity with workers during moments of higher confrontation during the union election process.

The support of the community is key to the organizing drive at Lamplighter. They have also asked for supporters to leave reviews shouting out the union as they move towards election on Friday, February 27.

Maritza S is a contributing writer to Working Mass.

The post Interview: Lamplighter Brewers Drum Up Community Support Before Union Vote appeared first on Working Mass.

Article on The Crimson’s website: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/4/allston-transience-scrutiny/

Repost from The Crimson, April 4 2025, title image credits to Joanna Lin.

by Skye Winspur

I want to make the case that democratic socialists should care about interest rates set by central banks. While I do not worship capitalism, or trust the stock market at all, I do see the value to our society in having central banks. The US Federal Reserve was created, as almost all the US government’s “deep state” institutions have been – Social Security, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Medicare are other examples – as a response to repeated failures of capitalism. Financial panics in 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1907 were distressing enough to the investor class, not to mention ruinous to many workers, that in 1913 they pushed Congress and President Wilson to create a central coordinating institution for banking. The wisdom of not tying the value of money to shiny metallic elements would have to wait about sixty more years.

Apparently one thing Jeffrey Epstein believed strongly in was the virtue of negative interest rates. And for quite a while, the world was accommodating to him in this regard as in others, with the Federal Reserve under Ben Bernanke embracing a zero-interest-rate philosophy, and the central bank of Japan wedded to it for an even longer stretch (raising interest rates barely above zero only in March 2024). I turned 26 years old in 2008 and I remember how we were all told (by Bernanke and Larry Summers and every other Wall Street man) that slashing interest rates would “stabilize the economy,” create jobs jobs jobs, encourage every poor striving youngster to take entrepreneurial risks, cure cancer faster … What it actually did do, unquestionably, was stimulate the construction of new coal plants, usually in the Global South; encourage predatory subprime lending to people whose incomes were very precarious (the subprime rate always being substantially higher than the central bank one); and generally enable already mega-rich men to embark on vainglorious capital-intensive boondoggles that caused harm to the environment and surrounding communities (like Elon Musk’s “city” complex Starbase, which the Obama-era EPA could probably have done something about if it really wanted to). Because as soon as interest rates fall below zero, it is more profitable to spend one’s money on anything at all than store it in the bank. Of course, paying one’s workers more rarely if ever spontaneously enters the thoughts of those possessing this money, despite some economists’ claims that wage increases are “organic” or “natural” in a growing economy.

Morally speaking – and this may just be my inherited Scottish thrift speaking – I feel that saving is not the same as hoarding. Still, I also feel that wealth inequality has reached hyper-outrageous levels. Therefore, I think a wealth tax on all assets above $50 million, as Saikat Chakrabarti has proposed, is absolutely justified. I also think raising the FDIC insurance cap on deposits to half a million dollars is a very good idea, because young adults should be able to save up for homeownership in Dane County with one bank account without fear of bank failure during the next panic. The problem here is that if interest rates on CD savings accounts are zero or even less than one percent, as Kevin Warsh appears to want to push for with all the fervor of a recent convert to Trumpist orthodoxy, there is little to no financial incentive to save the sums required for a house or any similarly large purchase. Young people may even be (more) tempted to sign up for ICE or CBP and grab a quick signing bonus, hoping that they will not be asked to do anything too atrocious in the next three years. Quite a way to compound the systemic evil of the carceral state.

I am not a Marxist and I do not believe in a final, total abolition of capitalism. I think if we are going to have a central bank like the Fed (and despite the paranoid rantings of Rand Paul-aligned libertarians, I think we should) it should maintain a robust interest rate, not so high as to make borrowing impossible but not so low as to promote the creation of Starbases and Fyre Festivals and other spectacular wastes of financial resources – and no, the money Netflix made off the Fyre Festival documentary does not redeem that project. The evil of capitalism cannot be changed by loosening regulations, refusing to use preferred pronouns, or cutting borrowing costs – this is the false promise of which Trump is always trotting out new variations – it can only be reduced, and reduced very substantially, by strong enforcement of an equitable rule of law and applying brakes in the form of central bank monetary policies. To my mind, keeping interest rates well above zero is one of those brakes.

by Paul Allen

With the genocide in Gaza recently reaching its second year, and with the “ceasefire” agreement allowing for ongoing mass murder on the part of the IOF, I’ve been pondering recently how we discuss the role of Hamas, and just how we can best classify them in the political context. To set some facts straight to start: they are the central state actor in Gaza; their antidemocratic hold on power aside, their military wing is only a part of an organization that runs the civil institutions as well, the hospitals, universities, supply lines, transportation networks, and disaster response infrastructure that Israel has repeatedly bombed. 

It’s entirely accurate to say that Hamas is a “resistance movement”, in that they are an organized force working to impede the actions of a stronger occupying force in a specific geographic area (a simple definition, but I think effective). Some prefer to use the term “terrorist movement” as well, something which is not mutually exclusive with a resistance movement, but which is used to obscuring effect by Israel’s defenders. While many of the accusations levied against Hamas are fabricated and embellished, one cannot deny the large death toll among the civilian Israeli population on October 7. The targeting of civilians is always a war crime, no matter the context, which would make the individuals carrying out these actions war criminals, despite any Israeli actions before or since. 

Where this gets even more complicated, though, is the fact that war crimes like those from 10/07 are almost universal to military action from any force, both modern and historical (the firebombing of Tokyo in 1945, the Sullivan Expedition of 1779, the use of depleted uranium in Iraq in 2003, the list goes on). That’s not to excuse it either, but just to say that terrorism and war crimes do not delegitimize a group’s claim to statehood. No one would argue that the US, despite its multitude of sins, isn’t a sovereign state actor. The statehood of Israel exists alongside its history of apartheid, colonialism, and genocide. On the large scale, Israel has no right to exist in Palestine, simply because there was already a people and de facto country already there in 1947 (Ottoman and later British occupation do not delegitimize this fact any more than the Zionist presence at any point in history). The fact that the US, Israel, and Hamas all provide civil services and have non-military wings shows this even further. It is unique to the case of Palestinians that accusations of terrorism by its military actors are used to deny their claims to self-determination outright.

When someone asks, “is Hamas a terrorist organization”, the only way that an answer of “yes” is incorrect is that it doesn’t tell the whole story. Yes, but not to the degree of the US and Israel. Yes, in that it has used terror tactics in the pursuit of its legitimate and justifiable aim of freedom from Zionist occupation (certainly less condemnable than the imperialistic aims of the US and Israel). Yes, as much as George Washington, David Ben Gurion, Oliver Cromwell, Fidel Castro, William T. Sherman, or Dwight Eisenhower ever were; founders, defenders, challengers to the status quo. It doesn’t make it right to commit war crimes, even in the face of genocide, but it also doesn’t excuse the same or delegitimize the struggle of the oppressed.

The post On Legitimate Resistance and Acceptable Tactics  first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

The Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and their allies are telling the Milwaukee Common Council to pass the ICE Out legislation package.

Announced earlier this month at City Hall, the package includes several pieces that will work to limit ICE operations in Milwaukee and help protect people here from the death, abuse, and chaos brought on by ICE during their operations across the country:

• Resolution declaring opposition to how federal immigration enforcement activities are occurring in the United States and amending the City of Milwaukee’s legislative package
• Communication from various City agencies relating to strategies and responses the City might use in response to militaristic actions undertaken by the federal government targeted at the City
• Resolution prohibiting the use of City property by federal law enforcement agencies engaged in immigration-related activities
• Resolution instructing the Milwaukee Police Department to protect the rights of community members when they engage in constitutionally protected speech and assembly, and intervene to protect community members if anyone, including other law enforcement agency personnel, attempts to abridge the public’s constitutional rights
• Ordinance prohibiting all law enforcement officers, when acting in an official capacity, from wearing masks or face coverings, and requires that both agency and individualized identification be worn
• Motion modifying Milwaukee Police Department Standard Operating Procedure 340 – Uniforms / Equipment / Appearance
• Motion modifying Milwaukee Police Department Standard Operating Procedures regarding the duty to intervene, investigate, and report unreasonable uses of force
• Motion modifying Milwaukee Police Department Standard Operating Procedure 172 – Sick and Injured Persons
• Ordinance creating an office for new Milwaukeeans

“Let this legislative package serve as a message that Milwaukee will step up against ICE and the authoritarian Trump administration ripping families apart,” Milwaukee DSA Co-Chair Autumn Pickett said. “I’m so proud to see that—after less than a day—nearly 4,000 emails have already been sent to City Hall, as everyday people join the call for these protective measures.”

DSA organizers are calling on members, supporters, and allies to email Milwaukee City Hall and tell the Common Council to pass this package quickly and do its part to keep Milwaukee safe from ICE.

“Our work doesn’t end here: More than 20,000 Milwaukeeans have already joined the local community defense network to watch for ICE activity, deliver groceries to at-risk families, inform our neighbors of their rights, organize within our unions to protect our workplaces, and so much more,” Pickett said. “We will continue to fight for the better future that all working people deserve.”

Milwaukee DSA is Milwaukee’s largest socialist organization fighting against imperialism for a democratic economy, a just society, and a sustainable environment. Join today at dsausa.org/join.

Events & Actions

Tuesday, February 24 (6:30 PM – 7:30 PM): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday, February 25 (12:00 PM – 1:00 PM): Rally for Net Zero and No Environment Dept Cuts (in person at San Francisco City Hall, 1 Dr Carlton B Goodlett Pl)

Wednesday, February 25 (1:00 PM – 2:00 PM): Sheriff Miyamoto: No Collaboration with ICE Terror (Sponsored by Free SF Coalition) (in person at San Francisco City Hall)

Wednesday, February 25 (6:45 PM – 8:30 PM): Tenant Organizing Working Group Meeting (zoom and in person at 438 Haight St)

Thursday, February 26 (6:00 PM – 7:00 PM): Education Board Open Meeting (zoom)

Thursday, February 26 (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM): ICE Out Orientation (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Friday, February 27 (9:30 AM – 10:30 AM): District 1 Coffee with Comrades (in person at Breck’s, 2 Clement St)

Friday, February 27 (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM): Maker Friday with PSAI (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Saturday, February 28 (11:00 AM – 2:00 PM): ETOC Session 4 – From Organizing Committee to Mass Organization (1916 McAllister St)

Saturday, February 28 (1:00 PM – 4:00 PM): DSA SF at Alemany Farm (Alemany Farm, 700 Alemany Blvd)

Sunday, March 1 (11:00 AM – 1:00 PM): Sip ‘n’ Stitch (Coffee To The People, 1206 Masonic Ave)

Sunday, March 1 (2:00 PM – 3:30 PM): What Is DSA? (Ortega Branch Library, 3223 Ortega St)

Sunday, March 1 (4:00 PM – 6:00 PM): From Silence To Solidarity: Standing With The Iranian People (1916 McAllister St)

Monday, March 2 (6:30 PM – 7:30 PM): DSA Run Club (in person at McClaren Lodge)

Monday, March 2 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM): Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Monday, March 2 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Labor Board – Flex Meeting (zoom)

Tuesday, March 3 (5:30 PM – 7:00 PM): Social Housing Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Tuesday, March 3 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Public Transit Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Thursday, March 5 (6:00 PM – 7:00 PM): Social Committee (zoom)

Thursday, March 5 (6:30 PM – 7:30 PM): Public Bank Project Meeting (zoom)

Thursday, March 5 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Immigrant Justice regular meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Saturday, March 7 (10:00 AM – 2:00 PM): No Appetite for Apartheid Training and Outreach (in person at Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), 522 Valencia St)

Saturday, March 7 (11:30 AM – 2:00 PM): Organizing Mindset Training (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Sunday, March 8 (11:00 AM – 1:00 PM): Physical Education + Self Defense Training (in person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Sunday, March 8 (5:00 PM – 6:00 PM): Tenderloin Healing Circle Working Group (zoom)

Monday, March 9 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Tenderloin Healing Circle (in person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Monday, March 9 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Labor Board – New Union Organizing (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Check out https://dsasf.org/events for more events and updates.

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Phone Zap to Support the Oakland People’s Arms Embargo

Join the cross-Bay phone zap to demand an end to weapons shipments out of OAK! We need Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee to sign on to this campaign – call to urge her to support the Oakland People’s Arms Embargo. We are flooding the phone lines this Monday (yesterday!) through Wednesday, February 23rd – 25th from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM. CALL EVERY DAY! Script HERE.

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Calling Out Capitalism: An Op-Ed Writing Workshop, Part 1

TONIGHT! Join Ed Board for Part 1 of our Op-Ed Writing Workshops. We’ll cover techniques and strategies for writing effective op-eds, and lead some writing activities to get you crafting op-eds of your own. Starts tonight, Tuesday February 24th at 6:00 PM at 1916 McAllister.

RSVP HERE

Part Two, featuring peer feedback on your op-ed drafts, is up in March. Stay tuned for details!

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ICE Out of SF: Plug in and Strategize!

We’ll be strategizing, and connecting the various initiatives happening across the city.

This is a great event for people already involved in immigrant protection to expand their work, as well as for folks looking to get plugged in.

Some of the initiative we’ll discuss are: Adopt-A-Corner, Court watch, Accompaniment, Know Your Rights canvassing, and more!

Join us at 1916 McAllister St on Thursday, February 26 at 7:00 PM. RSVP here

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Grow Community with the DSA at Alemany Farm

Come join DSA SF’s Ecosocialist working group on Saturday, February 28th at 1:00 PM at one of San Francisco’s community gems, Alemany Farm.

This is a great event for both new members and long-time DSA members. Come expand your ecological consciousness and spend an afternoon with knowledgeable urban agriculturalists and fellow comrades. Email ecosocialist@dsasf.org with any questions. RSVP here

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Maker Friday: PSAI Edition

Come make with us on Friday, February 27th from 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM at our office 1916 McAllister as we make zines, buttons, and brainstorm a logo together for the PSAI working group! No experience necessary. Please feel free to bring your own craft to work on as well Masks will be required and provided.

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Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee (ETOC) Fundamentals of Tenant Organizing Watch Party

Looking to deepen your understanding of housing work on the ground? Interested in building durable tenant power in SF? Come learn how to organize tenant associations, fight landlords collectively, and build toward radical tenant unionism in San Francisco. The last ETOC watch party is this Saturday, February 28th, at 11 AM at our office (1916 McAllister), focusing on turning socialist analysis into mass tenant struggle: investigation, campaigns, and building real tenant organizations that can win. If you’re serious about anti-landlord work, this is where to plug in.

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Sip and Stitch

Enjoy yarn arts or other crafting? Come craft with comrades! On Sunday, March 1st, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM at Coffee to the People, 1206 Masonic Ave, we’ll be knitting, crocheting, needlepointing, and more! Bring your current project or come learn something new!

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From Silence To Solidarity: Standing With The Iranian People

Iran has been in the news a lot lately. Protestors have taken to the streets to demand social and political change. The government has responded by killing and injuring thousands of protestors, conducting mass arrests, and shutting down the internet and telecommunications. In the meantime, the US has used these developments as a pretext to carry out a dangerous and illegal imperialist escalation against the regime. While these developments are recent, they build off of several threads–on the one hand, a long history of US imperialist intervention in Iran from the overthrow of Mossadegh to the dollar imperialism we see today; on the other, several decades of resistance and struggles by the Iranian people for political and economic change.

As leftists, how do we make sense of all this? Join DSA SF as we discuss Iran’s history, Iranians’ current realities, and the role that the Iranian left has played in standing up to US imperialism and to the current regime. As we take on this complex but critical conversation, we aim to break free of the false, harmful dichotomy of supporting imperialist designs for regime change on the one hand and viewing Iran’s regime uncritically on the other. Together we can work to build a socialist anti-imperialist understanding of the Iranian people’s resistance and right to self-determination.

Join us at 1916 McAllister St on Sunday, March 1 at 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM. RSVP here.

In Part I we described the mainstream political landscape of Los Angeles, the large scale and the major constituencies of the single-party Status Quo Coalition: a wing of wealthy corporate and business Democrats in an uneasy coalition with multiracial liberal democracy blocs of non-profits, labor organizations, and ethnic interest groups. Since publication, another dramatic series of events has shaken up the 2026 Mayoral race in Los Angeles. Center-left Austin Beutner is out of the race following the death of his daughter, while a shocking last-minute announcement from Councilmember Nithya Raman has introduced a new set of challenges for Los Angeles’s DSA chapter to reckon with, sparking hot debate within the membership about the nature of the chapter’s relationship with endorsed Socialists in Office (SIOs). The media comparisons to Zohran Mamdani have only intensified, but the differences between both the candidates and their local political contexts remain stark enough for LA Times columnist Gustavo Arellano to take note. 

To help make sense of the moment, we will describe how DSA-LA’s endorsements have evolved in response to the local factors sketched in Part I, and how our victories have in turn begun to reshape that political landscape. DSA’s 2025 National Convention resolutions defined an ideal-but-not-exclusive candidate archetype: the “cadre candidate.” We include some evaluation of our endorsees’ relationships with the LA chapter, as this concept looms large in the post-Zohran DSA environment and colors many chapter activists’ perspective on endorsements. We start with a brief history of the chapter’s electoral endorsements since 2020.

2020

Nithya Raman was modern DSA-LA’s first endorsement for LA City Council, running a 2020 campaign that centered on the city’s wasteful and cruel approach to homeless sweeps and opposing the power of organized landlords. For Los Angeles, Raman was a transformational candidate, the first to unseat an incumbent in a generation. 

Far from a core or “cadre” member, Raman only joined DSA in the leadup to her campaign, and has never been an organizer within the chapter’s ranks. Rather, she joined DSA after co-founding the SELAH Neighborhood Homelessness Coalition. At the time, DSA-LA was organizing across renters and unhoused tenants and against the inhumane policies of the city through campaigns like Street Watch LA and Services not Sweeps. Raman’s campaign was backed by the Services Not Sweeps Coalition that included both DSA-LA and SELAH. Though the vote was contested, her campaign received endorsement from DSA-LA and National DSA, and the chapter ran a robust member campaign in support – but notably, never represented a majority or even a plurality of her grassroots volunteer campaign.

Councilmember Raman’s relationship with DSA-LA, and indeed the broader Angeleno grassroots left, has been strained. At the time of her victory, Raman had made no explicit commitment to ongoing engagement (often referred to as co-governance) with DSA-LA — and no Socialists in Office program yet existed within the chapter to enable such ongoing engagement. Though Raman was consistent in her support for renter protections and a humane homelessness policy, she still shies away from adopting the “democratic socialist” label, and her relationship with the chapter almost broke in 2024 when membership approved a censure over accepting an endorsement from a small pro-Israel Democratic club during her hard-fought reelection campaign.

Regardless of these tensions, the impact of her win on the electoral landscape in Los Angeles is undeniable. Despite the entirety of the Status Quo Coalition (including late interventions by Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi) supporting her opponent, Raman’s election began to hint at the electoral influence of the new DSA core constituency: young, multiracial, low and middle-income renters dissatisfied with the city’s neoliberal status quo. That such a constituency could organize and seriously disrupt the city’s comfy electoral order set off alarms among LA’s established powers.

2022

The impact of the new democratic socialist constituency roared into full force when two new DSA-endorsed candidates, directly inspired and endorsed by Raman, defeated incumbents from LA’s multiracial liberal democracy blocs. 

In 2022, Eunisses Hernandez unseated former Latino-labor stalwart incumbent Gil Cedillo in Council District 1, a rapidly-gentrifying district containing Highland Park, a neighborhood friendly to socialist candidates. Cedillo’s history as a labor leader with SEIU and a champion for undocumented immigrants in the State Assembly had established him firmly on the labor edge of the Status Quo Coalition. His city council tenure demonstrated clearly the compromises and contradictions of his Latino liberal bloc – its flexibility to become an early endorser of Bernie Sanders in 2016 while simultaneously embracing support from real estate and business interests.

Hernandez was also decidedly not DSA cadre, joining the chapter during the endorsement process and with a background in anti-carceral political advocacy, the founder and former director of abolitionist nonprofit La Defensa. In office, she has been among the most outspoken members of the socialist bloc, and has organized in office extensively with the chapter in her district.

Hugo Soto-Martinez, representing Los Angeles’ socialist hotbed neighborhoods in Echo Park and Silver Lake, is the clearest LA example of a cadre candidate. From 2018 until his campaign launch, he organized within DSA-LA in the chapter’s NOlympics campaign, and then its Central Branch as a pandemic-era neighborhood organizer. Council District 13 office staff are active DSA-LA members in the central branch, and a burgeoning district committee is taking shape in CD13 to enable mass engagement among constituents. Importantly, Hugo was politicized in and maintains his primary political home in Los Angeles’ labor movement, particularly UNITE HERE Local 11, a fixture of LA’s powerful immigrant-led service and hospitality union sector with a long history of involvement in municipal politics.

The elections of Soto-Martinez and Hernandez coincided with the LA Fed Tapes leak and signaled a shift in the Status Quo Coalition. Soto-Martinez’s deep labor connections allowed him to win endorsements from a significant portion of Los Angeles’ strongly-incumbent-preferring labor federation. Hernandez’s ties to the broad anti-carceral and abolitionist nonprofit world solidified opposition to police funding as a core value of the newly forming political bloc, which has been repeatedly outvoted on questions to expand LAPD. DSA-LA’s non-electoral campaigns in support of workers, immigrants, and renters are increasingly co-organized with LA’s unions, while organized socialists grow in number and organization among some of labor’s rank and file. Los Angeles’ status quo coalition has begun to slowly reshape itself: DSA and the progressive edge of Los Angeles labor and justice-based nonprofit worlds are coming into connection, and police, landlord, and commercial interests are cleaving in reaction. It remains to be seen how durable or consistently ideological this realignment and its associated movement connections are.

2024

By the end of 2023, DSA-LA had to confront the limits of organizing a candidate as loosely aligned as Nithya Raman. Both a censure and revoking her endorsement were put to a chapter vote, with 60% of votes cast approving the censure, and 40% in favor of revoking the endorsement altogether. The endorsement stood, the chapter mobilized a field campaign, and Raman squeaked out a 50% win in the primary round, avoiding a runoff against LA Police Protective League and landlord backed challenger Ethan Weaver.

Additional endorsements in this cycle focused on spurring growth in the chapter’s San Fernando valley branch: longtime chapter member Konstantine Anthony, who cruised to victory as an incumbent on Burbank city council, and the unsuccessful runs at Burbank and LA council seats for Mike Van Gorder and Jillian Burgos.

2024’s general election added Ysabel Jurado to the city council bloc, a tenant attorney who replaced disgraced labor figure Kevin de León. Jurado, who spent two years as an organizer with DSA-LA’s Power Mass Transit campaign leading into her campaign for office, notably received the support of the LA Fed. It was a startling turnaround for de León, who was previously a poster child for the Eastside ethnically Latino Labor-supported Status Quo Coalition. But mainstream Democrats all the way up to Joe Biden had called on Kevin de León to step down in the wake of the leak; de León responded by not only remaining in his seat, but seeking reelection. The optics of the moment were surely clear to the Fed, and Jurado became the first DSA-LA member in the modern era to secure their powerful endorsement.

The four-person bloc of Socialists in Office has achieved policy wins, most recently leading the way for city council to respond to years of organized pressure by the Keep LA Housed coalition. Tenants in rent-stabilized housing have won significant relief from exorbitant rent increases for the first time in 40 years, as well as codified anti-harassment provisions. A focus on services over sweeping encampments has shown promise in lowering the horrific rate of unsheltered homelessness in the city, though the scale of the problem remains overwhelming, and the economic outlook under Trump increasingly bleak. Major labor-backed initiatives to increase wages for tourism workers were passed over fierce opposition from LA’s tourism industry. The socialist bloc can often win alignment from progressive council members, but sometimes functions as a distinct minority that takes dissenting or protest votes, particularly regarding police funding.

This alone is a departure from norms in city government. Since at least the early 2000s in the wake of Los Angeles’ last charter reform, Los Angeles City Council established an ever-growing culture of consensus, under which items were only brought to a vote once they had overwhelming support. Under Council President Herb Wesson prior to Nithya Raman being seated, council consistently held a 99.9% unanimous vote rate. Though these habits are beginning to break, the expectations of “executive consensus” among LA’s “mini-mayors” remains a source of conflict between movements and their candidates.

2026

In the 2026 endorsement cycle, new candidates resemble the mix of longtime DSA organizers and movement allies that characterize NYC-DSA’s endorsed candidates. Challenging Los Angeles’ most conservative incumbent in Council District 11, Faizah Malik is public policy attorney for progressive policy shop Public Counsel, and like Raman and Hernandez, joined DSA-LA as a part of her preparation to run for office. 

Estuardo Mazariegos, running against termed-out councilmember Curren Price’s hand-picked successor in Los Angeles’ most impoverished District 9, is a director in the community organizing, base-building NGO Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). A member since mid-2020, he served for a time as a coordinator for DSA-LA’s South Central-Inglewood branch. These two candidates were both leaders on behalf of their employers in the successful Los Angeles rent stabilization campaign alongside DSA-LA, building trust and goodwill.  

Marissa Roy, our endorsed candidate for city attorney, may have the tightest links with the chapter: a member since 2021, she strengthened her organizing skills through leadership in electoral working groups, while also being a regular participant in DSA’s political decision-making. Roy is also involved in various non-socialist political organizations around Los Angeles – most notably the Working Families Party (WFP), but also including the circuit of Democratic Party clubs and progressive Democrat-affiliated political organizations like the California Women’s List. On the strength of her legal career, which kicked off with campaigns to end worker misclassification and wage theft in the Port of Los Angeles, Roy has secured endorsement from the LA Fed, as has Faizah Malik.

If the increasing willingness of Los Angeles Labor to support democratic socialist candidates for municipal office heralds a realignment of LA’s historic powers further towards a politics of class— of tenants and workers against landlords and bosses— this realignment is ongoing and incomplete, with Estuardo Mazariegos splitting labor support in his race with two other challengers. It has also triggered a backlash. Los Angeles’ business associations, typified by the anti-DSA PAC “Thrive LA”, has singled out Eunisses Hernandez as their top target this cycle, while drafting another business challenger to Hugo Soto-Martinez, forcing DSA to split our resources in defending multiple candidates. But in response, labor at large is backing a massive independent expenditure to support the re-election of Eunisses Hernandez as well as the insurgent Faizah campaign.

A left-labor political pole

To date, conditions in Los Angeles have incentivized a focus on LA city council rather than state legislative seats. The imperative to win those seats has primarily surfaced candidates who sit at the intersections of DSA with other elements of Los Angeles’ existing movement and progressive networks. The significant power of LA’s council seats has allowed DSA-backed council offices to win major policy victories, while also complicating messaging as movement and candidates try to build shared inside-outside tactics and strategies, with all the contradictions that effort entails. These victories have brought DSA-LA increasingly into alignment with the left wing of organized labor and Los Angeles’ robust nonprofit sector, aiming to sow the seeds of a left-labor political pole mobilized against Los Angeles’ committed capitalist interests.

Of course, winning a campaign is only the very beginning for a socialist in office— everything changes when an upstart “outsider” begins to experience the pressures of the “inside”. This has profound implications for organizers, as winning powerful positions with outsider candidates cannot be decoupled from the practice of political coordination, democratic decision-making, and an empowered chapter membership actively engaged in the institutions of civil society. Our core belief is not in any given candidate, but in the transformative power of a democratic socialist organization – one that emphasizes a deep commitment to the twin goals of member political education and member democracy.

In our next piece, we will do a closer examination of key players and electoral strategies among DSA and the Angeleno left, as well as the challenges facing DSA-LA as the organization navigates governance and mass organizing in the newly-forming left-labor political landscape.