A member of the National Political Committee saw the consequences of the blockade and the potential for international solidarity as part of DSA’s second delegation to Cuba.

The post Clouds Over Havana appeared first on Democratic Left.

by Aaron L

Since the April 2025 Chapter Convention, MADSA has slowly been reconfiguring its electoral strategy. Two key events emerged from the 2025 Chapter convention. First was the passage of a pair of resolutions: “Doing Politics in Public,” and “Towards a Local Political Program.”  These resolutions oriented the chapter to the work of mapping out the city’s power structures, our membership’s distribution within the city, and interfacing with the public to generate a political program based on the needs of the city’s population. The second key event was the Electoral Working Group’s failure to recharter. This all pointed MADSA’s electoral work in a specific direction of building up a ground-floor strategy that aimed for the common council races in 2026 as the time to implement the work of the program and powermapping resolutions. This was reaffirmed in the August General Meeting with a district by district strategy to approach the 2026 common council races.

Then in August, murmurs of MADSA’s endorsed State Assemblymember, Fran Hong running for governor began to surface. Rep. Hong announced her campaign for Governor on September 16th, with a launch party on the 17th. Following this, a Members-only town hall occurred on September 29th. The chapter was not consulted before Rep. Hong’s decision to run was made. Further, as of the September General Meeting, the Electoral Working Group was rechartered. Adding to the emerging maelstrom of electoral ongoings, former DSA-Endorsed Common Councilor Julianna Bennet (and now two other dsa members) have announced runs to fill Fran’s vacancy in the 76th district. There is a mess of electoral opportunities and priorities. 

As the old adage goes, the DSA is at a crossroads. MADSA stands at a juncture between continuing on the path of intentional building locally, or chasing a bold statewide campaign which we have little leadership of. It is no doubt a thrilling proposition to be involved in a Gubernatorial run and to be a legitimate piece of the engine which drives that campaign. However, to engage in such a campaign is to set aside the greater project of building our own vehicle which we ourselves have the keys to. 

The decision on whether or not to endorse Rep. Hong’s campaign has not officially been made. For the long-term electoral building of the chapter, and for Rep Hong’s lackluster ability to meet DSA endorsement standards, the chapter should not endorse Fran Hong for Governor. 

DSA Endorsement Standards

One last piece of the springtime reimagination of the chapter’s electoral operation, was the passage of a new “Endorsed Candidate Policy.” This set standards which every candidate seeking the endorsement of the chapter would have to uphold, as well as the commitments from the chapter in terms of contributions to the endorsee’s campaign. Emerging from the town hall with Rep. Hong there is substantial doubt of her ability to uphold those standards. In response to a question about committing to endorsing the DSA’s candidate to fill her now-vacant 76th district seat, Rep. Hong expressed that she did not plan to endorse in the race. The endorsed candidate policy outlines that any endorsed candidate would be expected to endorse DSA candidates in other races. The lack of hard commitment by Rep. Hong to do so casts a shadow over any potential endorsement. Additional answers on questions about aligning with national DSA priorities in party-building, divestment from Israel, and explicit socialist branding and policies left much to be desired. 

The National DSA convention of August 2025 passed the National Electoral Commission’s consensus resolution which calls for the DSA to:

Build political independence from the Democratic Party establishment by prioritizing running cadre candidates for state and local legislative office who:

• Have backgrounds as activists and organizers within DSA, the labor movement, and aligned organizations. 
• Publicly identify as Democratic Socialists and use their campaigns to overtly and proudly promote and advocate for Democratic Socialism. 
• Work in deep collaboration and coordination with their local DSA chapter, both in their campaigns as a candidate and once in office as an elected official.

Rep. Fran Hong’s answers in the town hall fell short of those guidelines. The majority of Hong’s engagement with the DSA has been around endorsement for her campaigns. There has been little to no “deep collaboration” with the chapter. Her background in DSA is largely as a paper member, not one who is active in discussions or chapter work. As a member at the town hall pointed out, her campaign website did not initially use the word “socialist” anywhere on it. Several weeks after the town hall, Hong did add the label of “democratic socialist” to her campaign website. 

Additional electoral resolutions which passed at the convention included plans to run labor candidates, which once again emphasized their branding as democratic socialists. Resolution 20 aims to run labor candidates and develop communications that: “emphasize their labor identity and program in addition to their identity as democratic socialists.” Resolution 33 calls for running a presidential candidate “who will primarily publicly identify with and promote DSA, socialism, and/or a left-labor coalition rather than the Democratic Party.” Rep Hong roughly fits that third qualification, but not in a concrete and committed manner. A loose commitment from the representative to point volunteers from the campaign towards the DSA was as good as it got in the town hall. 

Previous conventions oriented the national DSA  towards prioritizing “cadre candidates” in electoral work. Within the DSA context, a “cadre candidate” is one who has been a long-standing active member. A member who has developed and grown politically with the DSA. A member who is loud and proud with identifying the DSA as their political home, and one with strong ties to other members and to the membership of their chapter as a whole. Fran Hong is not a cadre candidate. Though a long running relationship exists with the chapter, Rep Hong has not been firmly in the chapter’s orbit, nor has she played an active role in the day to day organizing of the chapter. She has participated in the free school meals campaign, but was not a driving, leading force therein. All that to say, though she is a DSA member, she is not a DSA candidate. Look no further than the decision to run for governor without first coming to MADSA or any other DSA chapters statewide for proof of this. 

This connects to the other side of why not to endorse Rep. Hong for governor. The long-term electoral strategy of the chapter. 

Long-Term Electoral Strategy

The decision nationally, as well as locally, to prioritize cadre candidates in electoral work is no whim. It is a deliberate choice for the benefit of the long-term electoral development of the organization at the national and local level. If we are to build an electoral project which is up to the task of fighting the creeping fascism from the federal capital; If we are to rival the socialist party and the progressive movement of a century ago; Then we must build intentionally from our own ranks. 

Francesca Hong, for all of her strengths, is not a MADSA-developed member. She is not a DSA cadre, and this campaign is not under DSA leadership. 

A flashy run for an executive position at the state level is not the most productive use of MADSA resources. To place significant resources behind a candidate who does not act as if she is our own candidate weakens our ability to build campaigns with cadre members of the chapter. It will be a monumental undertaking to get Rep. Hong within a stone’s throw of the governor’s office. The commitment of canvassing at a level to make this either a winnable campaign, or an effective agitational campaign is immense. The chapter was without a chartered electoral working group for several months of this year. Is this campaign the best place for us to pick up that work? 

We have decided on a general electoral strategy. One of building up capacity in Madison and aiming to win races at the common council level in districts with high membership density. One of building our own platform and our own program for socialist politics in Madison and beyond. One of running candidates drawn from the active ranks of membership who will place the chapter in the driver’s seat of the campaign.  One where the relationship with the chapter is undeniable and unshakeable. To endorse Fran Hong’s campaign and to offer substantial resources from the chapter to her campaign is to divert from that strategy before it has had the chance to come to fruition. 

Now one might feel compelled to induce the old proverb “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” Why focus on hypothetical future candidates when we have a stellar gubernatorial candidate right here in front of us? And to answer this question I will turn to the legendary socialist Eugene Debs. In his essay “Danger Ahead” Debs stated that:

“I yield to no one in my desire to see the party grow and the vote increase, but in my zeal I do not lose sight of the fact that healthy growth and a substantial vote depend upon efficient organization, the self-education and self-discipline of the membership, and that where these are lacking, an inflated vote secured by compromising methods, can only be hurtful to the movement.” Rep Hong is a good candidate for governor. Amongst the Democratic Party field she stands out as stellar. However, if we are to build the DSA, we cannot hitch ourselves to the best of the Democratic field at any given time and hope for the best. Even if that best Democrat is a DSA member and has received endorsement in the past.

Our priority should be DSA candidates, running as DSA candidates. It would not be a stretch to say, in response to the bird and bush adage, that we in fact do not even have a bird in the hand. We do not have, in Representative Hong, a compelling enough candidate to be worth sacrificing the progress we have made in developing our own independent, socialist electoral project in Madison.

Wisconsin once boasted the strongest bastions of the Socialist Party in the country. Milwaukee, until the win of Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race, was the largest city in the country to have socialist leadership. In 1924, Wisconsin was the last state to cast electoral college votes for a left-wing third party. The legacy of socialism and socialist electoralism in Wisconsin runs deep. If we are to add to that legacy and to write more chapters in the illustrious history of Wisconsin socialist politics, we must continue on the path we set ourselves at the last chapter convention. Slow and steady independent building is the path forwards.

Milwaukee DSA Voting Eligibility Rules

Milwaukee DSA bylaw 3.1 defines members as, “those individuals whose dues are paid in full to DSA, who reside and/or work in the Greater Milwaukee area (Milwaukee County and the surrounding counties of Kenosha, Ozaukee, Racine, Washington, and Waukesha). Individuals may not be Members without being DSA members.”

Milwaukee DSA bylaw 3.5 states, “All Members shall be eligible to … vote in all elections and matters brought before Members, after having been a Member for no less than thirty (30) days …”

According to the above Milwaukee DSA bylaws, a Member must meet the following criteria in order to vote in all resolutions and elections:

• A Member’s dues must be paid in full for the duration of the 30-day period leading up to the day they become eligible to vote.
  • Lower rates are available and encouraged for Members with less financial means; dues waivers are available in exceptional circumstances.

• A Member must live and/or work in or near the Greater Milwaukee area.
  • Note that a person cannot be a Member of Milwaukee DSA without being a Member of DSA national.

• A Member must have enrolled or renewed their membership in DSA at least 30 days prior to the date that a vote is held or the election is opened. 
  • In an instance when a person was a Member for at least 30 days in the past, canceled their membership or let it lapse, and then renewed their membership later than 30 days before the start of an election, that member is not eligible to vote in said election. 

If you are not already a voting Member of Milwaukee DSA, take the first step right now by joining DSA or renewing your membership.

If you have questions about membership or dues, DSA has a helpful FAQ page. You can also email membership@dsausa.org. 

Events & Actions

Events with a are especially new-member-friendly!

Tuesday, January 13 (6:30 PM – 7:30 PM): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (Zoom & in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Tuesday, January 13 (7:00 PM – 8:30 PM): EWOC Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing Training (Zoom & in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday, January 14 (6:45 PM – 9:00 PM): DSA SF General Meeting (Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Thursday, January 15 (5:30 PM – 6:30 PM): Education Board Open Meeting (Zoom)

Thursday, January 16 (9:30 AM – 10:30 AM):  District 1 Coffee with Comrades (Breck’s, 2 Clement St)

Saturday, January 17 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM): HWG Food Service (Castro St & Market St)

Sunday, January 18 (11:00 AM – 1:00 PM): No Appetite for Apartheid Consumer Pledge Canvass (Outer Sunset Farmer’s Market & Mercantile, 1994 37th Ave)

Sunday, January 18 (1:00 PM – 3:00 PM): SF EWOC Flyering (TBD)

Monday, January 19 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM): Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (Zoom & in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Monday, January 19 (6:30 PM – 7:30 PM): DSA Run Club (McClaren Lodge)

Tuesday, January 20 (6:00 PM – 7:00 PM): Social Housing Meeting (Zoom & in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday, January 21 (6:00 PM – 7:30 PM):  What Is DSA? (In person at 1916 McAllister St)

Thursday, January 22 (6:30 PM – 9:00 PM): DSA Board Game Night (TBD)

Thursday, January 22 (6:30 PM – 7:30 PM): Public Bank Meeting (TBD)

Thursday, January 22 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Immigrant Justice Working Group Meeting (Zoom & in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Friday, January 23 (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM): Maker Friday (In person at 1916 McAllister St)

Saturday, January 24 (11:00 AM – 1:00 PM): Physical Education + Self Defense Training (In person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Sunday, January 25 (5:00 PM – 6:00 PM): Tenderloin Healing Circle Working Group (Zoom)

Monday, January 26 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Tenderloin Healing Circle (In person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

SF EWOC Flyering

Our next NA4A consumer pledge canvass will be on Sunday, January 18th from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM at the Outer Sunset Farmer’s Market! We’ll meet at 37th and Ortega. This will be the first consumer pledge canvass of 2026, so let’s kickstart the year on a high note and continue our momentum from 2025 on making SF apartheid-free! RSVP HERE.

Maker Friday

Come make with us on January 23rd from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM at the 1916 McAllister office! We’ll be making buttons and zines. Masks required and provided. All are welcome, no experience necessary, see you there!

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

Join DSA SF’s Tenant Organizing Working Group for the Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee (ETOC) Fundamentals of Tenant Organizing course. We will gather to watch this training over four Saturdays in February. The first session is Saturday, February 7th 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM at 1916 McAllister.

NO ICE, NO WAR – DSA Brings Out Hundreds in San Francisco Protest

On Saturday, our chapter co-organized an emergency protest against Trump’s illegal and imperialist war on Venezuela and to demand the abolition of ICE. Alongside our comrades in East Bay DSA, we organized the rally and march within 72 hours, following a national call by the Democratic Socialists of America where our own chapter member, Savannah K., spoke.

This was the first local DSA-led protest and march since 2019. We sent out an email and text message to all chapter members, and organized flyering throughout the Mission, Bernal Heights, Divisadero, Civic Center, the Sunset, and parts of Oakland. Over 1,000 people showed up to attend the rally and march that began at 24th Street BART Plaza San Francisco. The plaza was flooded with red banners, handmade protest signs, and roaring chants in a powerful display of international solidarity with the Venezuelan people. Hazel W. from our chapter and NPC member kicked off the speeches that tied the imperialist attack on Venezuela with the violence playing out on our streets at home. “That same empire reaping violence abroad brings terrorism back home. They murdered Renee Good in Minneapolis. A mother shot down by ICE. They kill our mothers here and bomb mothers in Caracas. They jail our fathers here at home and murder them in Gaza. This is not a coincidence. This is a strategy. They divide us by borders so we don’t see our common enemy.”

We hosted speakers from the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Palestine Youth Movement, Nodutdol, Trabajadores Unidos Workers United, autonomous court defenders, San Francisco Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, Haiti Action Committee, and BAMN. The entire march, we saw a news helicopter circling above, and received coverage from ABC 7 News, KQED, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Our comrades produced our own media posted on our social media channels featuring protest attendees and DSA members.

While a nearby protest organized by Indivisible centered on ICE violence at home, protesters at the No War, No ICE protest emphasized the interconnectedness of both struggles. The No War, No ICE protest sent a clear message that ICE is doing exactly what it was designed to do: terrorize vulnerable workers with impunity. ICE operates hand in hand with the U.S. military and prison industries to create displacement through sanctions, austerity, and war, and then re-victimize migrants as exploitable labor once they arrive in the United States.

The San Francisco and East Bay DSA chapters, along with chapters nationwide, pledge to continue organizing against U.S. imperialism, to oppose unchecked executive war powers enabled by Congress, and to stand in unwavering solidarity with the Venezuelan people, immigrants, workers, and oppressed communities everywhere. To learn more about Venezuela, view this F.A.Q. There has never been a greater moment to join the Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Imperialist working group within our chapter. Join the #palestine-solidarity channel on Slack to get started.

Reportback: EWOC Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing Week #1

Last Tuesday we held our first session of the four-week-long Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) course Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing. Our group met in person at 1916 McAllister to watch the course plenary before diving into a discussion about the material we covered. This week’s topic was “Developing Leadership” and we heard from a federal worker organizer at Glacier National Parks. They spoke about the challenges of organizing in such a large geographic area with little cell service and how identifying leaders in each spread out department was absolutely key. Part of the lecture talked about the importance of charting your workplace, and it was interesting to hear how Glacier National Parks has different charts for the summer and non-summer seasons due to changes in the number of seasonal workers.

The next session will take place on Tuesday, January 16th at 7:00 PM, hosted at 1916 McAllister. It’ll cover the steps of the organizing conversation, a critical skill for organizing in any environment!

If you’d like to get involved with the SF local chapter of EWOC, reach out to the lead coordinator Caitlin S or email labor@dsasf.org. EWOC is a standing topic at meetings of the Labor Board, which are held every other Monday at 7:00 PM, both in-person at 1916 McAllister and over Zoom. Anyone is welcome to attend, and we’re always looking for people interested  workplace lead canvassing, organizer trainings, and volunteer outreach. If you’re interested in organizing your workplace and would like to be connected with an EWOC organizer, fill out the request form here.

A labor lockout is an effort by bosses to block workers from working in the midst of a labor dispute.

The post What is a labor lockout? appeared first on EWOC.

Author: Mike Z

On Wednesday in Minnesota an innocent poet, journalist, and mother of three children was murdered in cold blood by a masked ICE thug. Renee Nicole Good was acting as a legal observer to the ICE raid in question, taking on an extremely important role in documenting the abuses our government inflicts upon us. This woman was just like you or me — an average person who is doing their part to try and help their neighbors in these dark and tumultuous times as our rights and liberties are stripped away and infringed upon daily.

There was a doctor on the scene who was denied access to Renee Good and held at gunpoint. Had the doctor been allowed to reach her, potential life saving care could have been performed. When the paramedics arrived, much like how Israel does when they brutalize a population in the West Bank or Gaza, they were denied access to Renee. They were then forced to walk on foot to retrieve her limp body to transfer to a location where she could be given treatment on the way to the hospital. She was pronounced dead upon arrival, succumbing to her wounds.

Renee Good’s life was stolen. Make no mistake with how the media is trying to spin this narrative, there was no justifiable reason to brutalize this woman, much less murder her in cold blood. There is no conceivable way to interpret the evidence we have in any other way than willful execution of a civilian by the state. 

It is a tragedy that three children, ages 6, 12, and 15, will now grow up without their mother. A six year old child has been made an orphan as a result of this sick transgression. This is someone who could have been the person in front of you in line as you wait in the grocery store checkout with your food for dinner. This family and the communities they inhabit will feel this loss for the rest of their lives. It is an abject tragedy that we cannot come together in the wake of such senseless violence to condemn an action that never should have happened in the first place. Her absence will be felt by many.

Renee Good is not the first person to have been brutalized or slaughtered by ICE and will assuredly and unfortunately not be the last. While other instances of violence lack the damning video documentation that Good’s execution had, that does not diminish the impact of them in any way. Just one day after her murder ICE agents opened fire on 2 civilians in Portland and wounded them – luckily as of now both victims have survived.  On New Year’s Eve an off duty ICE agent murdered a man in Los Angeles for firing off gunshots in celebration. All of this and more happened just in the first two weeks of 2026!

2025 was the deadliest year in the history of ICE – no less than 32 innocent people were murdered by their hands. And that doesn’t even begin to touch on the other various heinous crimes committed on the civilian population from sexual assault to unlawful and brutal incarceration. No doubt more incidents such as these are happening right now. I wish I could tell you things were going to get better, but I think the hard reality is we are in for things to get much worse. The state will be ever emboldened by this development as large swaths of the nation seemingly have been propagandized into not believing their own eyes. As the media manufactures consent for further acts of brutality on the civilian population we enter a new and frightening chapter of the fascist takeover of the United States of America.

With the imperial boomerang quickly finding its way back home, now more than ever we need to be standing with one another as community members with intertwined destinies. It should be clear to us with these startling developments in our country that no single individual will be able to stop these masked thugs from going neighborhood to neighborhood, door to door, acting with unaccountable impunity against our friends and family. The only way we can demand justice for these heinous crimes is collectively. Our government does not care about our outcry as individuals, but together we can make our voices heard in ways that none of us could ever hope to do on our own.

The most important thing for us to be doing at this moment is bolstering the human connections that bind our communities together. If our government will not defend us from an armed Gestapo, we must work to build those defenses together. Find local protests in your area to make your righteous anger known, join in on pressure campaigns to demand condemnation of ICE from our elected officials, help with rapid response networks tracking ICE’s actions in your area, engage in mutual aid to help the families of victims in your neighborhoods, or join an organization working to change the political character of this nation like the Democratic Socialists of America. Together we must stand as one in our quest for justice and rebuke this blatant assault on our base freedoms. We must refuse to allow the tragic martyring of those victims of ICE like Renee Good to be for nothing and ensure that it not be allowed to happen again.

The post A Moment for Renee Nicole Good appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.