Enjoy your January 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, melting ICE, standing against militarism, 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 — Energy in Darkness
• Apply for the National Arms Embargo Committee and Abolish ICE Committee! Deadline Tuesday 1/27
• Sunday 2/1 — RSVP for Starbucks Strike Reportback with the DSA National Labor Commission
• Are You a Union Member? Check Out Our Hands Off Venezuela Resolution Template!
• Join Labor for an Arms Embargo Trainings Wednesday 2/11 and Wednesday 2/25
• RSVP for Political Education Trainings Thursday 1/22 and Thursday 2/5
• Sign Up for the Housing Justice Commission’s Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee Training Series! Starts Saturday 2/7
• Be Part of the DSA National Editorial Board! Applications due TONIGHT, Thursday 1/15
• DSA is Hiring! Application Deadline Sunday 2/8
• Welcome Our Newest Chapter!

From the National Political Committee — Energy in Darkness

Dear Comrades,

Happy New Year! Just a few weeks into 2026, we’re feeling how intensely the contradictions are heightening across our society.

On New Year’s Day, we celebrated with our comrades in New York City who froze their toes off for hours in the crowd of thousands outside City Hall, inspired by the warmth of collectivism as we watched the inauguration of Zohran Mamdani, who proudly announced he will govern as a democratic socialist mayor of the world’s wealthiest city. While Lucy Dacus sang the historic labor anthem “Bread and Roses,” Bernie Sanders swore in the mayor over a Quran, and Zohran himself touted “DSA meetings” as a core part of the civic fabric of this city of 8 million people, it was hard not to feel deeply moved by how far our movement has come through the past decade of DSA’s massive growth in the United States.

Within just two days, we watched in horror as the Trump administration bombed Caracas and rapidly escalated an illegal military intervention and regime change in Venezuela by kidnapping their President and his wife. Just days after that, ICE agents murdered Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, and we continue to see an all-out siege of the Twin Cities by the occupying force of ICE. You can donate here to support Twin Cities DSA’s ICE Watch and Know-Your-Rights work. Threats of active regime change are escalating against Cuba, and Trump is increasing belligerence against Mexico, Colombia, Greenland, Nigeria, Iran, and more — openly invoking the Monroe Doctrine of naked imperialism from over a century ago, and shamelessly embracing it as the “Donroe Doctrine” to dominate the whole hemisphere to plunder resources.

Next week is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. His internationalist vision is more crucial than ever. In his pivotal “Beyond Vietnam” speech, Dr. King said “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Today, the US is in a zombie state. Our government’s military budget soars past $1 trillion, and the ICE budget balloons larger than the militaries of most other countries — all while basic social services are cut for millions of working class people.

As Antonio Gramsci said: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.” Against all the darkness, we believe this is our time to win. Against the flailing of the monsters leading this regime, we’re organizing everywhere for a gorgeous and more compassionate world for all. Millions of people are realizing what we’ve known all along: as the existing order continues to decay, socialism is what can beat fascism.

Across the country, that’s what DSA is demonstrating. Within hours of Trump’s invasion of Venezuela, our National Political Committee sprang into action with our members to coordinate days of action and say Hands Off Venezuela. DSA chapters quickly organized actions and showed up with thousands across the country to say No War, No ICE. More and more Americans are realizing that abolishing ICE isn’t a radical demand. It’s a rational response to an out-of-control force of state terror that’s still younger than most DSA members today.

MLK Day will fittingly kick off a week of protest across the country, with labor unions and community groups gearing up for a statewide shutdown of Minnesota. We’re calling on people across the country to join a nationwide day of action against ICE terror on January 20, to walk out and show up on the streets.

From coast to coast, chapters are taking on Trump’s fascist deportation machine. DSA organizers from Los Angeles to Chicago to Charlotte are learning from each others’ strategies to help each other protect residents and resist ICE — participating in ICE Watch programs, exposing the malfeasance of ICE agents near Minneapolis as they swapped out license plates before conducting raids to kidnap people, organizing for sanctuary city legislation, and making ICE collaboration a toxic decision for businesses like Avelo Airlines. Within a day of Renee’s killing by ICE, we learned that DSA members helped score a major win to pressure Avelo to cancel their contract with ICE, after chapters across the country threw down over the past year with a boycott campaign to expose their deportation flights and show that tearing families apart is toxic to their bottom line.

Learn more about that incredible win on our mass call on Wednesday 1/21 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT: From Solidarity with Minneapolis to a Win Against Avelo Airlines! And then join us for our next ICE OUT call Tuesday 2/3 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT!

Meanwhile, DSA chapters across the country are standing with workers against bad bosses. From Atlanta, to Detroit, to Denver, to Wilmington in North Carolina, to San Antonio in Texas, and beyond, are standing with Starbucks Workers United and saying “No contract? No coffee!” Last month, striking baristas brought the picket line directly to Starbucks’ biggest regional distribution centers in northern Nevada and Pennsylvania, and DSA labor organizers and chapter leaders showed up in solidarity as they faced mass arrest in protest of Starbucks’ unfair labor practices. The largest nurses strike in NYC history is underway, and Mayor Zohran was right there on the picket line in solidarity with 15,000 nurses and many NYC DSA members. 

Socialist elected officials are leading and winning on an affordability agenda for all, and we’re continuing to expand toward our ultimate horizon as socialists: everything for everyone. NYC DSA members have stacked mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team — all the better to deal with the challenges of building municipal socialism in America’s largest city. The right wing is freaking out about DSA member appointments like tenant organizer Cea Weaver, but our movement is strong enough to stand strong against bad faith attacks from the landlord lobby. Within two weeks of taking office, mayor Mamdani began to deliver on a core campaign promise for free childcare for all. We’re not resting on our laurels — DSA chapters are looking ahead to build on our historic wins from the past year and keep contesting exciting races for elected office across the country in 2026.

All this is why more people are part of DSA now than ever. This week we just passed 95,000 members nationwide, our biggest membership milestone yet, with hundreds more plugging in week by week. Our 2025 recruitment drive wrapped right after New Year’s Day, and the results show we’re organizing everywhere. Some of our fastest growing DSA chapters are in places you might not expect — Corpus Christi DSA in Texas; Sonoma County DSA in California; Middle Georgia DSA, and Bluegrass DSA in Kentucky. If you are not yet a DSA member, join us now!

2026 will demand even more energy and courage from all of us, and we know DSA members everywhere will do the most to support each other in the struggles ahead. With our massive increase in membership comes a lot more in collective resources we can use to level up our people power. At our National Political Committee’s first monthly meeting of 2026 last weekend, we committed to major increases in support to the amazing work happening across DSA, with $1 million in direct grant funding we will disburse to chapters throughout the year to sustain and promote our ongoing growth, hiring more full-time staff to support our member-led organizing work, stipends to help support working class leadership of our elected body, and organizing tools to help reach masses of people in our organizing campaigns. 

DSA is more powerful today than most of us could have imagined a decade ago, and we will keep organizing everywhere for the world we know we all deserve to win.

In Solidarity, 

Ashik and Megan
DSA National Political Committee Co-Chairs

Apply for the National Arms Embargo Committee and Abolish ICE Committee! Deadline Tuesday 1/27

As part of the implementation of convention resolutions, last December the NPC chartered two new national appointed committees, the Arms Embargo Committee and the Abolish ICE Committee.

The Arms Embargo Committee will include four liaisons from other national bodies and  At five Large seats. It will provide coordination and develop joint strategies across different bodies carrying out arms embargo-related work. 

The Abolish ICE Committee will include five liaisons from other national bodies and six At Large seats, and will develop a robust national priority Abolish ICE campaign. 

The NPC is soliciting applications for the At Large seats of both committees! Apply by Tuesday 1/27 midnight PT through the Arms Embargo Committee Application Form or the Abolish ICE Committee Application Form if you have relevant experience and are excited to develop DSA’s anti-war or migrant defense national strategies.

Sunday 2/1 — RSVP for Starbucks Strike Reportback with the DSA National Labor Commission

Since Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) kicked off their strike in November 2025, DSA has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with them as they fight for their first union contract to bring dignity, respect, and union power to Starbucks baristas across the country. While the strike continues in Oregon, Illinois, New York, California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Texas, in many cities, SBWU members are back to work. During this strike, DSA chapters across the country have stepped up to support baristas, experimenting with new strategies and building new capacities in the process.

Join us for a debrief discussion at the NLC Membership Meeting on Sunday 2/1 at 1pm ET/12pm CT/11am MT/10am PT to go over our strike solidarity organizing, next steps for continued solidarity with the Starbucks Strike, and how DSA members can get involved in building a powerful labor movement in 2026!

Are You a Union Member? Check Out Our Hands Off Venezuela Resolution Template!

The National Labor Commission has created a Hands Off Venezuela resolution template for union members to pass in their union locals and labor councils. Please share this in your chapters and labor networks. 

And if you introduce this resolution in your union, please let us know using this resolution tracker so we can track its progress and follow up with you.

Join Labor for an Arms Embargo Trainings Wednesday 2/11 and Wednesday 2/25

There is no ceasefire. The United States sends more weapons for Israel’s genocide than any other country on Earth. In these trainings, you’ll learn why we need to win an arms embargo to support Palestinian liberation. Map your community, identify allied unions/organizations, set organizing targets, and get your campaign off the ground.

Attend to know what you need to unite your city and stop these shipments! These two-part trainings will recur monthly. You can RSVP here:

• Wednesday 2/11, 8:30pm ET/7:30pm CT/6:30pm MT/5:30pm PT Labor for an Arms Embargo: Introduction
• Wednesday 2/25, 8:30pm ET/7:30pm CT/6:30pm MT/5:30pm PT Labor for an Arms Embargo: Setting Up Your Campaign

RSVP for Political Education Trainings Thursday 1/22 and Thursday 2/5

It’s a new year, and DSA’s National Political Education Committee (NPEC) has old and NEW trainings on the books! 

• Join us Thursday 1/22 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT for our regular training on setting up and running your own chapter political education committee.
• And on Thursday 2/5 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT, join our new Socialist Archiving workshop, The Digital Deep Dive!

To find out more about upcoming trainings, committee goings-on, and all things poli ed, sign up to receive the Red Letter, NPEC’s monthly email newsletter.

Sign Up for the Housing Justice Commission’s Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee Training Series! Starts Saturday 2/7

Start your year with everything you need to know about starting a tenant union! This is a four week training in February, with a two-hour session each Saturday at 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT. We’ll go over the basics of talking to your neighbors, creating collective demands, and how to strategize around the landlord-tenant contradiction. If you bring at least three participants, we’ll find your group a mentor to give you more support as you start your tenant union!

Be Part of the DSA National Editorial Board! Applications due TONIGHT, Thursday 1/15

Applications are DUE TONIGHT to the 2025-2027 DSA National Editorial Board. The Editorial Board is a 9-member body appointed by the NPC that oversees the organization’s two national publications, Democratic Left and Socialist Forum. The Editorial Board is composed of members with various points of view on important political questions. It does not exist to develop a single theoretical or strategic perspective. As a result, the publications reflect the wide range of views within the organization. The goal of the Editorial Board is not to espouse a particular “party line,” but to maintain strong editorial standards for our publications. As such, the process prioritizes familiarity with DSA and editorial experience in appointment to positions on the board.

If you are interested in being appointed to the Editorial Board, please fill out this application by tonight, Thursday, 1/15 at 11:59PM Hawaii Standard Time.

DSA is Hiring! Application Deadline Sunday 2/8

DSA is hiring a Media Coordinator! Applications are due by Sunday 2/8. You can find details here.

Welcome Our Newest Chapter!

Let’s kick off 2026 with a warm welcome to our latest chapter, Central Mississippi DSA! You can find a full list of our chapters here.

The post Your National Political Committee newsletter — Energy in Darkness appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

We stand in solidarity with comrades in the Twin Cities and around the country who demand that ICE be abolished and cruel immigration policies be reformed. We continue to demand that our local and state government bodies cut all ties and coordination with federal “law enforcement” gangs that seek to enforce white supremacy and terrorize the working class. It should not take murders in broad daylight for us to stand up and say: ICE MUST BE ABOLISHED.

Innocent people continue to die in ICE custody. Families in our country – which claims to be a beacon of justice – are targeted every day by racist stormtroopers breaking into schools, hospitals, and other spaces that should be safe for all. Those who are injured, abducted, and killed in these illegal and unnecessary confrontations are afforded no justice. The ripple effects of this violence shatter families and shake entire communities. This is all by design.

Armed thugs wearing masks do not keep us safe; they keep people scared. Fascists encourage violence and fear because they are scared themselves. They are scared of what we can accomplish when we stand together. They are terrified of losing their grip on power. They want us to lay down and give up our resistance to their racist agendas, but we refuse to cower in fear in the face of authoritarianism. ICE represents a horror that a caring society will not allow, and we in Madison join our comrades in Minneapolis and around the country in standing up and fighting back.

We call upon everyone to stand together in this moment against fascism. We must fight all further funding of ICE and similar carceral spending. Democratic politicians are running scared, worried about the optics of “abolishing ICE” or “defunding”, but we know that the vast majority of humans want our resources invested in actually helping people, not on building cages and propping up an engine of cruelty. 

Defund ICE, build real housing! 

Defund ICE, invest in education! 

Defund ICE, fund the resources that allow us all to thrive! 

We refuse to let the fascist Trump regime and their gestapo rip us apart, and we refuse to be silenced. A better world is possible: a world without ICE.

The excursion into the politics of the Obama presidency fails to reckon with the escalating crisis of the Trump era.

The post “Ella McCay” misses the moment appeared first on Democratic Left.

What does it mean that so much of the discussion around Renee Good emphasizes her vaunted status as a mother and a citizen, and tends to elide the fact and significance of her queerness? Which characteristics does this focus tacitly endorse as meriting protection and which are prone to fall out of our analysis? We are right to identify that these ticks in the boxes of ‘moral goodnesses’ did not and could not protect her – her whiteness, her status as a mother, her smile. But we also need to understand which characteristics endangered her and which are, further, responsible for the propagandistic effect of the snuff film DHS produced of her.

Renee Good was a non-conforming, unsubmissive, queer woman. This is enough for a Nazi to advance on her vehicle and shoot multiple rounds in her face as he calls her a “fucking bitch”. Good’s queerness, both in her choice of partner and her practice of solidarity politics, is material to her targeting and execution. To queer is precisely to intervene into and resist hegemonic structures of power; to queer is to bend the arc of normativity’s force. To queer is to insist on the dignity of a life that the supremacist state wishes to eliminate: to legislate or incarcerate or convert away. Renee Good’s queerness is thus manifestly relevant to her resistance, and to the state’s justification for her targeting and murder.

I argue here that we must also pay attention to the racialized violence that, as I discuss in an earlier piece, accompanies gendered violence and which tends to be even less articulated in mainstream discussion. Renee Good is not the first person to be killed by the secret police, or even shot at in their cars. And in the wake of her murder, DHS and ICE moved to occupy Minneapolis, adding to their terror-from-a-distance of threatening food stamps and childcare money. The occupation has made a beeline to the most vulnerable communities, among them Somali and Native communities, attacking and abducting people with a speed and volume that prevents the same depth of articulation of each resister’s life. Yet we see the same principle acting in all cases: the targeting of what white supremacist domestic policy has identified as threats to this oppressive order.

The inability to countenance the violence ICE is enacting as a matter of course on black and brown people and communities– or our susceptibility to the normalization of the agency’s charter to target these populations since its inception in 2003– has a meaningful impact on the kind of carceral abolition we can imagine and demand. We understand the history of police in america as a history of slave catchers: an agency devoted to the perpetuation of the legal status of Black people as owned property, as chattelized beings without bodily autonomy and without rights and protections. In this way the police as they exist now continue to be agents of the United States’ white supremacist project, the very same project that ICE and their terror tactics pursue. That is why, to every call to abolish ICE, we add the call to abolish the police: the existence of armed groups tasked with the ideological order of the country is a threat to everyone, even to those who have footholds within that order. 

Above, I call the video released by DHS of Renee’s execution a “snuff film”. I am not the only one to identify this as a propaganda tactic, as a call to the misogynists and gaybashers: ‘see, if you join ICE, you can execute “lesbian bitches” with impunity’. We can imagine the quickening of the fascist’s pulse as they take in this de facto recruitment video, even as all of our hearts sank watching (or avoiding watching) the same. I write this piece in an attempt to make plain the logic of ICE’s operation, so that we do not see Good’s execution as an exception insofar as she was white, a mother, and a citizen, but that we rather understand her queerness as dissent, understand queerness itself as a target for elimination, and understand how this is continuous with ICE’s genocidal plans against Black, Native, Latin@, and other racialized people. In my opinion this understanding is crucial to forging and enacting solidarities that are critical in this moment, and in the moments which develop from it. 

Bodily autonomy means: freedom from police, from incarceration, from state violence. 

Bodily autonomy means: choosing our communities and relations, and the forms of those relations. 

Bodily autonomy means: a right to migration, to assembly, to resistance. 

The struggle against ICE is fought precisely for these freedoms and autonomies, and this makes critical analysis of gender and race– and particularly their joint analysis– indispensable. 

Caitlin Murphy

by Gregory Lebens-Higgins

The experience of living under late stage capitalism is one of perpetual exhaustion. The profit motive has saturated all aspects of life, and every interaction now comes with a cost. The enshitification of products and services leaves the unnerving sensation that everything is broken. And we, as consumers – constantly plugged into technology that commodifies our free time and personal information – are unable to find peace of mind. It is only the compulsion of the utility bill and an empty stomach that keeps us clocking in.

Capitalism relies on a steady supply of value-producing labor, but there are inherent limitations in the animal form of labor power that it purchases. “Within the 24 hours of the natural day a man can expend only a definite quantity of his vital force,” observes Marx. Workers require daily rest and nourishment to return to the site of production with renewed energy for the next shift. Once they become too feeble, either through age or injury, workers must be replaced by the next generation, who are trained with the skills necessary to operate the machinery and follow the commands of their employer.

This process of workforce replenishment describes the “social reproduction” of labor, which feminist critical theorist Nancy Fraser defines as “the activities, often performed by women outside the official economy, that sustain the human beings who constitute ‘labor.’” These activities include birth, childcare, education, cooking, and cleaning. 

In the era of late capitalism, social reproduction is breaking down and the working class is becoming incapable of reproducing itself. Exhausted workers are losing the capacity to effectively perform and the next generation are being inadequately prepared. The rising prices of necessities are leaving families with difficulties affording food and housing, and fewer are having children. Schools are not fulfilling the promise of education, and a college degree comes only with crushing debt, causing shortages for skilled jobs.

Workers are losing control over their time outside of the workplace. The erosion of the weekend and the eight-hour day have led to irregular hours and unpredictable schedules. Part-time work has eliminated entitlements to vacation and sick pay, and technology has increased surveillance on employees and made them constantly accessible to their employer. Stagnant wages and inflation mean that typical pastimes are becoming a luxury, and the disappearance of community spaces is increasing social alienation. 

For those making less than a living wage and unable to make ends meet, support is increasingly unavailable. Funding for emergency housing, food, and healthcare have been cut by a corporate class desperate to discipline labor and plunder state coffers.

This hyper-extraction of value is eroding the liberal framework that made capitalism possible in the first place. Alongside its productive forces developed the ideological myth of capitalism’s capacity to raise the standard of living. Instead, its gains have been funneled to the owner class and the promise of labor-saving technology has been replaced by a nightmare of endless consumption. 

To combat these masochistic tendencies, capital proletarianizes an ever-broader spectrum of society, pulling them into the process of production. The elderly, given the promise of comfortable middle-class retirement under Fordism, are now occupying checkout lines and standing as Walmart greeters. Children, long protected by child labor laws, are being pulled back into the factories with the justification it will prepare them as workers. As a result of Trump’s cuts to the Department of Labor, other child labor violations are going uninvestigated.

The immigrant working class faces hyper-exploitation as the threat of deportation discourages unionization or demands to enforce fair labor standards. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is attempting to reconstruct a racialized social reproduction by incentivizing the birth of American babies.

Production on a socialist basis will transform social reproduction. The maximization of leisure time should be the purpose of labor, rather than an inconvenience of the labor process that the employer wishes to eliminate. Socialism would not mean the absence of labor, but an end to bullshit jobs and toil for the production of profit rather than for the provision of necessities. Those who could not work would not go hungry, but all would mutually benefit, under the principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.”

The post The Breakdown of Social Reproduction first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

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.