In the months leading up to the New York City mayoral election, there had been some unease in leftist online spaces about the possible results. Polling consistently showed for months that Cuomo was running behind Mamdani, and it may not have even mattered if the race narrowed to the two men. No, the anxiety over the election results was not whether Zohran Mamdani was going to win, but how Mamdani would govern. Every statement was scrutinized for possible concessions; every compromise seemed to portend even more.

Before the primary election, the dream of a leftist mayor could bathe in the promise of his most ambitious proposals without having to dwell on the realities of politics. Now that the general election is over, these very real concerns will need to be confronted, and those who decry electoral work (or of running DSA candidates on the Democratic party line) seem ready to call out any betrayal of the DSA by Mamdani. But  it’s important to first understand what a ‘betrayal of DSA’ would look like, or even mean. 

I’ve heard a similar spiel answer this question countless times at general chapter meetings and branch meetings, and in conversations with the press and interested non-members – what is DSA? The response generally includes some of the following phrases: We are a multi-tendency, multi-caucus organization; we are a mass-politics organization that is dedicated to anti-capitalism, anti-racism, and anti-imperialism; we include people from a broad range of ideological backgrounds on the left. Sometimes people talk about our ‘agenda’ in a local context, and sometimes they talk about national policy goals, like a Green New Deal or universal health insurance. Sometimes people talk about concrete next steps, and sometimes they talk about long-term ideals, like democratizing the workplace or decommodifying housing. All of this is to say that many people have overlapping, yet still different, ideas about who and what we are as an organization, and why we exist. These definitions are all true, but not completely true. How, then, can we be ‘betrayed?’ 

To start off with an obvious example, Mamdani could cancel his membership and denounce the DSA. Maybe he will do this after some huge break with NYC-DSA leadership in the future; but I doubt it. 

Oftentimes, activists will talk about an elected official ‘betraying’ their constituents. This may take the form of accusing them of abandoning their campaign promises, or opposing what they had promised to support. Other times, activists just use the language of the ‘betrayal’ to mean that policies which they oppose are harming constituents. Plenty of MAGA activists will accuse left-wing politicians of ‘betraying’ America by allowing ‘open borders.’ 

In this case, Mamdani will almost assuredly be accused of betraying New York by the right and center when he simply pursues the policies he has campaigned on. But in the former, there could also be campaign policy reversals that may be considered a betrayal of DSA. 

The New York Times asked Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of NYC-DSA, about Mamdani’s then recent policy choices and whether they would alienate him from cadre membership.

While none of the issues mentioned were part of the core affordability agenda (except, arguably, taxing the rich, although one could argue the spending is what matters more than the revenue raising), Gordillo makes clear that it’s more about the stance of the mayoralty and with whom it positions itself that will determine whether there is a betrayal. But what about the specific policies?

I think this is a gray area because of the nature of politics. In any negotiation, political or otherwise, you always demand more than you think you’re going to get. The other side will assuredly do the same. When the other side scoffs at your proposal, don’t offer concessions before they’ve made a counter-offer. So, with this in mind, it’s possible to see that not all of Mamdani’s agenda will get enacted, or that he even thought these policies could be enacted. If you want to lower universal pre-K from four years to three, you don’t ask for 3K. The other side will always fight expansions of welfare programs, so Mamdani might as well stake out a maximalist demand, knowing that he may have to negotiate down to a phased-in timeline or something later than 6 weeks. Would settling for less be considered a betrayal of the campaign promise, and therefore DSA? It probably depends on how much is compromised.

By now, the reader may feel the framework I have outlined here is nothing more than a slippery slope into rejecting accountability for our electeds. Rather than arguing that social democracy is good enough, I am asking us to think more fundamentally about what we are as an organization, and what expectations members can make of others. Consider first, for example, the differences between NYC-DSA and the national DSA’s agenda. 

Time and again, both New York and national political media sought to tie Mamdani to planks of the DSA’s platform. The New York Post accused him of dodging questions about enforcing misdemeanors. NPR at least had the decency to quote our national website when they sought to define DSA’s priorities. When pressed on his position on nationals, Mamdani always clarified that his platform is on his campaign website, not on DSA’s. NYC-DSA leadership has also pointed to discrepancies between the chapter and national. The differences between the two reflect the varied backgrounds and experiences of members from across the country, and how delegates sought to shape national priorities at successive conventions. Part of the backgrounds and experiences that some delegates brought reflect a dearth of political power or opportunity from their chapters’ region; moreover, the political ideologies and tendencies which guide strategies in rural or suburban America no doubt differ from that of blue state, urban organizers. Again, these are all parts of DSA, but not completely DSA. 

If our organization includes people who describe themselves as communists, Marxist-Leninists, and democratic socialists, it means that our organization will have long-standing disagreements over goals, practices, strategies, and more. When a chapter endorses a candidate for office, though, they are not endorsing a multitude – they are endorsing a single person who is from one of those tendencies, or doesn’t clearly identify with any one of them. When a democratic socialist candidate who believes in a dirty break strategy, for example, gets elected and governs as a democratic socialist who believes in the dirty break strategy, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. It should also come as no surprise that the Maoists or Trotskyists who believe in a clean break would find reason to disagree with this new elected official. But when an organization contains so many multitudes and allows for diversity of thought, it also means that the accusation of ‘betrayal’ is harder to justify. A democratic socialist elected official who governs according to their own beliefs is not betraying the other factions within DSA by not suddenly adopting someone else’s beliefs. You can disagree with someone in shades or degrees, and still appreciate the capacity of your organization to put forward candidates who will advance a movement that allows for greater consideration of left-wing ideas. 

As the Mamdani mayoralty will soon take hold, we should hold true to our vision of a better future and demand the most that we can from him. We do this as we demand the city council, state legislature, and Governor Hochul to work with him, too. That there will be compromises made to his campaign platform, we can only assume. I would never counsel anyone to give over absolute trust to a politician. Just remember, though, that if people accuse Mamdani or others of ‘betraying’ DSA, we should ask if there’s good reason to believe it, or if these accusations are just manifestations of  the ideological and strategic disagreements between people that existed long before the election.

The post What Does It Mean to Betray DSA? appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

This is the first of a three-part series assessing MAGA, developing anti-fascist strategies, and organizing for democracy and affordability in Maine and nationally.

Trump’s had a bad month so far. Although Senate Democrats caved on the shut down, Trump’s numbers have slipped as many voters blame the Republicans for SNAP cuts, federal layoffs and furloughs, and airport chaos. Yucking it up with Saudi Prince MBS failed to distract from his disorganized retreat on the Eptsein files, MTG’s mid-term resignation, and early Wall Street wobbles. Meanwhile, there is a noticeable shift in mood on the left. Katie Wilson won big in Seattle… as did centrists in New Jersey and Virginia. Mainers crushed a Republican referendum to suppress voting rights. Millions turned out for No Kings! rallies in October and significant and sustained opposition to ICE invasions has thrown sand into the gears of Trump’s pet militia. Trump’s chummy approach to his meetup with Zohran Mamdani might indicate he’s feeling vulnerable on the affordability front. All this is to the good, but don’t count MAGA out. 

Trump has accumulated a great deal of power. He has succeeded in remaking the Republican Party into a far-right machine and has done lasting damage to the liberal welfare state. He has remade NATO, crippled the Iranian challenge, and is openly pushing for a coup in Venezuela. The Supreme Court rubber-stamps 90% of what he does. And there is more to come. It is easier to destroy than to build. Moreover, Trump and the MAGA right are building a purified imperialist administrative state that will not “go back to normal” even if Schumer and Jeffries claw back a narrow majority in the House. There is little prospect in the short term for completely reversing Trump’s cuts and evisceration of democratic rights, and even dimmer prospects for reforms and spending on the (limited) scale of Biden’s (failed) Build Back Better.

No one has a crystal ball, but it’s worth thinking through potential scenarios. 

[Read next: Mainers don’t want Janet Mills for Senate]

The first scenario—and the most likely to my mind—is a Reagan-to-Bush-to-Clinton trajectory, that is, frontal Republican attacks on unions, civil rights, and democracy followed by centrist Democratic modifications of the worst excesses. Those modifications will come as a relief, but the danger lies in accepting a “new normal.” Clinton did little to undue Reaganism. Newsom, Shapiro, and Whitmer offer no systemic solutions to the problems ordinary families confront today. Mamdani and Wilson—along with Brandon Johnson in Chicago—may serve as major or minor outliers in fighting for pro-worker reforms, but these will not be championed at the federal level by the Democratic Establishment. Furthermore, the Supreme Court stands ready to strike down any transformative efforts that happen to sneak through. 

The second most likely scenario is a third Trump term, whether headed by Trump himself or his heir. We should not underestimate the MAGA elite’s determination to hang on to power by any means, legal or otherwise. A recession may undo them temporarily, but Reagan used the 1982 recession to smash unions, strip social spending, demoralize his opponents, and consolidate his popular and ruling-class support. Authoritarian figures are often able to ride out chaotic circumstances as long as there is no coherent alternative. If you had to bet on Schumer or Trump in a political brawl, who do you think would come out on top?

A third scenario could open up with a massive electoral rejection of MAGA in 2026 and some initial rise in social struggle, leading to an AOC-type victory in the presidential primary and a related qualitative shift in the level of class struggle, perhaps anchored by a national strike on May Day 2028. This scenario poses the greatest threat to the billionaires as a class and MAGAism as a movement. It’s the perspective we should fight for, but it’s also the least likely outcome in my view. Why? 

Despite Trump’s wobbles, the underlying balance of forces between the oligarchy and the working class still tilts strongly in favor of the rich. The billionaires tolerated the liberal welfare state—expansive public education, civil rights legislation, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—for a long period. From Reagan to Obama, both parties hacked away (sometimes drastically) at it over the long neoliberal era, but they did not eradicate it. The billionaires adapted and learned to get what they needed from the state under the given circumstances as they paid ever diminishing taxes in exchange for social control at home and global control abroad. 

Trump has opened a new path for them. And they are demonstrating an inclination to rule in a different way. They are not only surrendering to Trump out of moral cowardice, they are also plowing trillions into AI, oil, banking, military production, etc. Lip service to climate change is out, an ugly feeding frenzy is in. The bankers are sensing hundreds of billions in windfall profits by privatizing Social Security and public education. Besting China and breaking unions are their organizing principles and nearly a trillion dollars a year in military funds will buy off any “constitutional” brass in the Pentagon. The billionaires might have been slow to Trump’s party, but they’re drinking from the punch bowl now.

Against this juggernaut, elites in the liberal political class are unable to imagine a world beyond free-market neoliberalism. Like the billionaires, Schumer and Jeffries are not only political cowards, they see incentives for their own social layer in containing the resistance to those strategies that land them back in charge. This makes them a weak force in the face of Trump’s lust for power. However, they are not without resources: they have practically unlimited money, a small stable of national Democratic politicians who have figured out they must at least posture as radically anti-Trump, and, most importantly, no more than the beginnings of an organized opposition to their left. 

[Read next: The case for Troy Jackson]

Despite some recent counterexamples (Mamdani, UAW stand up strikes, ICE protests, etc.), the U.S. working class remains fractured. A historical process of sustained class struggle is the only means to construct new consciousness and mass organizations. This process could develop relatively quickly (several years), but we are starting from a very low level of organization, so it will most likely be more drawn out than in previous periods of heightened class struggle in the U.S. (1905–1919 or 1933–1938, for instance). There are other enormous challenges, including social media spectacle, generational activist discontinuity, the dispersion of working-class life, robber barons’ ability to withstand company-specific strikes, international production and distribution, etc. None of that is insurmountable, but it speaks to the continuing vulnerability of class-based challenges to both liberalism and MAGAism.

Socialists argue that fascism is a counterrevolutionary, extraparliamentary movement posing falsely as a challenge to capitalism. However, once they come to power, fascists rule in the interest of, and with the support of, the capitalist class. These two aspects must be considered simultaneously. In Germany, the fascist movement came before the fascist state. However, Italian fascism came to power earlier as a political force several years before it succeeded in completely remaking the state in its own image. For instance, resistance leader Antonio Gramsci retained his parliamentary immunity until 1926, four years after Mussolini’s assumption of power. In the Spanish, Chilean, and Argentine cases, varying combinations of fascist movements and military maneuvers via the armed forces led to fascist (or fascist-type) states. The German and Italian cases might be classified as “fascism from below,” while the Spanish, Chilean, and Argentine cases may be classified as “fascism from above.” The Jim Crow State in the U.S. and Modi’s India represent varieties of the species.

In my mind, what matters most here is directionality. It is less important to classify MAGA as a “fully” fascist movement and more useful to determine its potential to move in that direction. In my view, Mamdani was right, “yes,” Trump is a fascist. But does it matter how we define MAGA?

Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, “Know thy enemy and know yourself and you will not be defeated in one hundred battles.” No one bats 1.000, but his point stands. If Trump and MAGAism are lurching towards fascism, we need to study their strengths and weaknesses, redress our own shortcomings, and develop specific initiatives to drive a wedge into their base. 

I will return to this question next week in Part 2 with some lessons from past generations and strategies we can pursue today to shift the balance of forces in favor of the working class.

[Read next: No Kings! speech by Portland city councilor Wes Pelletier]

The post MAGA one year before the 2026 elections appeared first on Pine & Roses.

By Blair Goodman — Political Education Working Group, Madison DSA

Madison, right now

Across Dane County, our campaigns against jail expansion, corporate developers, and layoffs at TruStage all run into the same brick wall: a system that divides and disciplines labor along racial lines. Anti-Black racism isn’t an add-on to class struggle—it’s a core method by which exploitation keeps reproducing itself. This piece offers a framework for connecting those dots in our local work.

1) Capitalism’s birth in racial slavery

Modern capitalism was built through dispossession and enslavement—the twin thefts of land and labor. Plantations were early financial instruments linking human bondage to credit, insurance, and global trade.

W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction showed that enslaved labor was integral to world capitalism, and that the Civil War’s “general strike of the slaves” was the first mass withdrawal of labor in U.S. history. He also named the wages of whiteness: the social privileges that kept white workers tied to their own exploitation.

2) The logic of racial capitalism

Each transition—from slavery to sharecropping, from industry to mass incarceration—reshaped rather than removed racial rule.

3) Ruling-class strategies of division

From Bacon’s Rebellion to Reaganomics, elites have used racial politics to stabilize profit.
After Reconstruction, terror and “Black Codes” rebuilt cheap, coerced labor.
In the industrial North, corporate leaders hired across color lines to break strikes and then incited mob violence to keep unions weak.

The New Deal’s exclusions of agricultural and domestic workers preserved segregation inside the welfare state. Later, Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” and Reagan’s “welfare-queen” myth converted white resentment into a new austerity consensus.

4) Anti-Black racism in the contemporary economy

• Labor: Black and brown workers dominate low-wage logistics and care work; white workers are overrepresented in management and tech.
• Policing and prisons: Incarceration functions as labor discipline under the 13th Amendment exception.
• Finance: Redlined credit and predatory loans siphon wealth from Black communities; the 2008 crash transferred billions to banks.
• Environment & health: Toxic exposure, food deserts, and hospital closures show how profit literally costs lives.

Corporate “diversity” rhetoric and right-wing culture wars both mask this structure.

Resistance—from teachers’ strikes to warehouse walkouts—shows multiracial solidarity can still rupture it.

“Anti-racism isn’t a distraction from class politics—it’s how we build working-class power that can actually govern.”

5) What this means for organizers

• Integrate racial analysis into every campaign. Whether the issue is housing, healthcare, or wages, trace how racial inequality shapes the field of struggle.
• Center Black working-class leadership. Leadership development and cadre training should deliberately cultivate Black and marginalized organizers—not tokenism, but strategy.
• Reject false binaries. Universal demands (like Medicare for All) only transform society if implemented through racial justice.
• Challenge whiteness as a relation. Build reflection and accountability—not guilt—into your organizing culture.
• Connect local fights to systemic critique. Show how each campaign teaches lessons about racial capitalism and how collective action can dismantle it.

The goal is not moral reconciliation but power: a unified multiracial working class capable of governing society in its own interest.

6) Political education & collective memory

• Pair readings of Black Reconstruction, Black Marxism, and Hammer and Hoe with local labor history.
• Map your shop or neighborhood: who gets which jobs, services, protections—and why?
• Debrief campaigns not only on tactics but on leadership and racial dynamics. Document lessons so they become chapter memory.

Political education isn’t a classroom—it’s the loop between struggle and understanding.

Use this next week

• Bring this piece to your WG or union meeting; connect one paragraph to a current Madison fight.
• Host a 60-minute discussion using the five organizer implications above.
• Send local examples (housing, policing, labor) to #redmadison for follow-up coverage.

Sources & further reading

• W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America (1935)
• Oliver Cromwell Cox, Caste, Class and Race (1948)
• Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism (1983)
• Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
• Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (2016)

About the author: Blair Goodman helps political education at Madison DSA. This piece is part of our ongoing effort to tie local campaigns to a rigorous understanding of racial capitalism.

One-Page Printable Discussion Guide

For WG meetings, study circles, or union caucuses (60 min)
Goal: connect theoretical insight on racial capitalism to immediate campaigns in Madison.

Agenda (60 minutes)

• Opening check-in (10 min): one moment you’ve seen race and class intersect at work or in organizing.
• Read-aloud (10 min): paragraph 5, “What this means for organizers.”
• Small-group discussion (25 min):
  • How does anti-Black racism operate in our current campaign or workplace?
  • Which of the five organizer implications feels most urgent here?
  • What concrete change in practice could reflect that insight?
• Report-backs (10 min): one takeaway per group.
• Closing commitment (5 min): each participant writes one action step to test before the next meeting.

Materials

• Printed or digital copy of the essay
• Whiteboard/poster paper for mapping examples
• Optional: QR link to MADSA events page

by Mickey White

In late 2021, Dr. Fauci stated that we would need to get below 10,000 COVID infections per day in order to reach some “degree of normality.” At the peak of the most recent wave in September 2025, more than two years after the Public Health Emergency was ended because the pandemic was “over,” there were an estimated 1.24 million new cases per day in the US based on wastewater surveillance. Using the CDC’s own estimate of Long COVID risk at one in five, that’s 248,000 Americans disabled by COVID per day.

This is not the “normal” we were promised. We’re experiencing a mass disabling event.

The CDC, a government agency which claims to “control disease,” has a long history of harm that includes withholding treatment from Black men with syphilis in the infamous Tuskegee experiment and mishandling and downplaying the AIDS crisis. Their current policies are causing even more preventable disability and death, because the CDC’s actual function is not to protect public health but to uphold capitalism. Right now, that means sending people to work and school while sick and infectious with COVID. The rich and powerful have access to high-end ventilation and filtration systems, nasal photodisinfection, sterilizing Far UV-C lights, AI-powered wearables that predict illness, COVID-sniffing dogs, routine PCR tests, and personal servants to limit their contact with the public. The rest of us don’t have any of that. Vaccines are one layer of defense, but post-Omicron COVID vaccines only provide about 50% protection against infection for four to six months, and the updated 2024 vaccine was only received by about 20% of the US population (data for 2025 is not yet available). For the working class, masks are simply the best tools we have.

MASKING IS WORKER SOLIDARITY

During the first year of the pandemic, labor, retail, and service workers died from COVID at a rate five times higher than those in higher socioeconomic positions. We’ve known since 2020 that those deaths are disproportionately Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, and disabled people. Even when the acute phase of the illness isn’t deadly, consider the consequences of a COVID infection for the average worker: one hospital stay can result in thousands of dollars of medical debt. Even if not hospitalized, missing a few days of work to recover can result in a loss of income, or the loss of a job. That can be catastrophic for people living paycheck to paycheck. Even a mild or asymptomatic case can trigger a chronic illness which takes away their ability to work entirely, potentially permanently. The same is true when a child is infected and a parent has to miss work to care for them. This isn’t hypothetical, it’s still evident at the population level in 2025. Every broken chain of transmission prevents a loss of income that would push working class people closer to eviction, homelessness, and death.

MASKING IS GLOBAL SOLIDARITY

Because of capitalist greed resulting in vaccine apartheid, the majority of Africans are still not vaccinated against COVID. Vaccination rates are also abysmally low for Palestinians living under occupation due to Israel restricting access; as of August 2022, “more Israelis had received a third dose of the vaccine than Palestinians who had received a first dose.” Since October 7th, 2023, millions of displaced Palestinians have been forced to shelter in crowded conditions, causing rapid spread of infectious diseases. COVID has become one of many instruments of colonization and genocide. Those of us living in the US have the incredible privilege of access to high quality masks such as KN95, KF94, and N95 respirators, life saving tools which are simple, easy to use, far more effective than cloth or surgical masks (even more so when worn by everyone), and relatively inexpensive. I believe we also have a responsibility to use them. Every broken chain of transmission is one less chance for the virus to evolve into the next variant that spreads around the world.

MASKING IS SOLIDARITY WITH DISABLED PEOPLE

People who are immunocompromised or high risk, or who already have Long COVID, haven’t been able to safely access any public space since widespread masking was largely dropped after vaccines became available. Advice from the CDC has been for those people to take on the entire burden of protecting themselves, with perfect precautions at all times without any help from their communities, leading to profound isolation. When we gather in large numbers, we’re responsible for mitigating the risk that spreads to the broader community when our members leave a meeting and go to work, school, grocery stores and doctors’ offices. With 1 in 35 people in New York State actively infectious as of September 29th, 2025, statistically the risk of someone having COVID in a room of 50 people is 76%. Just staying home when sick isn’t enough: more than half of COVID transmission comes from people who don’t have symptoms.

Additionally, if we want disabled people to be able to participate in our organization, as well as get the benefits of in person socialization over strictly online meetings, our meeting spaces must be accessible to them. Disabled people are not a monolith, and accessibility needs vary and often conflict. In the case of people who can’t mask for medical reasons, that’s all the more reason for everyone else to mask to protect them. In the case of people who would need others to unmask in order to hear better or lip read, there are other accommodations that could be made, such as interpreters, captionists, amplification, or communicating by text or in written form. If the goal is accessibility for all disabled people, the solution is not to unmask and put people at risk when alternatives are available.

EVERYONE IS VULNERABLE TO LONG COVID

At this point, we have five years’ worth of evidence that COVID damages the vascular system as well as almost every organ in the body, including the brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidney, and eyes. COVID can cause microclots, immune system dysregulation, erectile dysfunction, mitochondrial damage, autonomic dysfunction, and disruption of the blood-brain barrier. Messaging from public health institutions, government, and media makes it seem like “the vulnerable” are a small and insignificant minority, but the reality is that people with one or more conditions listed by the CDC as high risk for COVID make up 75% of the population. If you have veins, a heart, and a brain, you are at risk. A COVID infection can be disabling even if you’re vaccinated, even if you have a mild or asymptomatic case, even if you’ve been infected before. The risk of Long COVID is cumulative, meaning reinfections are just as likely to cause persistent symptoms as the initial infection, and anecdotally, most people I know are getting infected about once a year. There are currently no FDA approved treatments, and most people with the condition don’t receive disability benefits. According to the authors of an article on the immunology of Long COVID, “the oncoming burden of Long COVID faced by patients, health-care providers, governments and economies is so large as to be unfathomable.” Every broken chain of transmission prevents chronic illnesses which diminish our capacity for organizing and surviving under capitalism.

If there’s anything we should have learned from the pandemic, it’s that we’re all connected. When it comes to infectious disease, individual health is dependent on the health of the community; our personal decisions affect other people, and our struggles are linked. The act of masking is solidarity, accessibility, self preservation, and community care. When we say “we keep us safe,” we should mean it.

Visit maskbloc.org to find free masks near you.

The post COVID Safety is Solidarity first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

By: Kelly Regan & Travis Wayne

ALLSTON, MA – On Monday, November 17, sixty people crossed Allston to assemble at Marsh Plaza on Commonwealth Avenue in response to a flurry of rapid-response organizing by Boston Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). 

Community members rallied after ICE’s abduction of nine Allston Car Wash employees on November 4. The raid disappeared people from families across the community as the Car Wash itself closed its doors. Exhaling into frigid night air, angry community members held up signs that read “Bring Them Home,” “ICE Out of Boston Now,” and “Keep Families Together.”

Days after the raid, Boston University (BU) student Zac Segal took credit on social media for calling in ICE. Segal claims to have been calling ICE for months in an attempt to ensure workers were abducted. 

Segal, president of Boston University’s College Republicans, has faced immense backlash from the local Allston community.

“This abduction in my neighborhood, in our neighborhood, is personal,” shouted Destiney McGrann, who graduated from Boston University and organizes with Allston-Brighton DSA. “How dare a member of BU – my school – participate in this act of terror?”

Another Phase in the Sanctuary Campus Movement

Members of the Back Bay Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) mobilized students to the rally. Among them were many students who were themselves vulnerable to abduction abetted by Boston University. 

The institution still refuses to declare itself a sanctuary campus to protect its own immigrant students amidst abductions in its backyard.

“We demand that BU enact policies that they are legally able to enact, to safeguard its community from federal overreach,” said one student organizer. They also noted that, “on the BU campus, over 2000 students have signed the YDSA petition to make BU a sanctuary campus.”

For Boston University students, the organizing campaign to compel the institution harboring Zac Segal a sanctuary campus stretches back to the beginning of the year – when federal attacks began.  

YDSA launched the campaign immediately after Trump took power, echoing back to the 2016-2017 Sanctuary Campus movement, before escalating in April 2025. 

The Sanctuary Campus campaign reached an end-of-winter high point on Marsh Plaza, in the same spot where DSA would rally students and community members in the cold November night several months of federal attacks later. On April 3, hundreds of Boston University students and faculty walked out of classes to assemble at Marsh Plaza to demand a sanctuary campus. Some students conducted a sit-in, which Boston University used to crack down on YDSA, before forty autonomous actors staged a direct action to escalate even further and with greater risk against Boston University in response to the university’s repression on April 16.

After suspending YDSA on April 7, which later regrouped during the summer in the wider Back Bay, Boston University went back to doing nothing: refusing to make any change to make the campus a sanctuary. 

People continued to be abducted – including, devastatingly, nine workers at the Allston Car Wash just ten minutes from campus. 

“ICE is a machine that is shrinking people’s lives,” said Bonnie Jin, co-chair of Boston DSA, “We’re making a parent into a case number, a neighbor into a risk. It’s designed to silence, but we were not built, Boston, for silence.”

Towards Community Defense

Back Bay YDSA already planned and organized a walkout for the end of the week: November 20, moving forward even as three workers detained were released a few days following the rally.

No one stands under any assumption that the moment constitutes anything but a new phase of pressure on Boston University.

“If you’re mad, you should feel the full weight of your anger,” said Hank, a pseudonym to protect one student vulnerable to ICE who stayed home from the rally for their own safety. “Use that anger to lead you to take you to the next step, to organize your neighborhood, your workplace and your campus. Work hard for a better tomorrow.” 

The Allston community is gripped with the rage that Hank calls for – at Boston University, and at the federal government. Rally organizers listed off the organizations to become involved with: DSA, for organizing; Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN), for mutual aid; and LUCE, for ICE Watch. McGrann roused the crowd to shout together:

“When we refuse to bow down, we win. Together, we keep us safe… so today, I beg you to make this commitment to protecting your neighborhood.”

The rally descended into a moment of silence, for the people stolen, before the crowd dispersed into smaller conversations. Jin put the crowd’s sentiment simply:

“Our coworkers are not collateral and our city is not a hunting ground.”

Kelly Regan is a member of the Allston-Brighton branch of Boston DSA. 

Travis Wayne is the managing editor of Working Mass and a member of the Somerville branch of Boston DSA. 

The post Allston Community Seethes and Rallies After ICE Abduction of Allston Car Wash Workers appeared first on Working Mass.

Yesterday Portland became the 12th city in the nation to pass a ban on software used by corporate landlords to coordinate rent spikes. We showed up, and our collective effort helped push the council to a loud and clear approval of this crucial policy!

DSA City Councilors Angelita Morillo, Mitch Green, and Council Vice President Tiffany Koyama-Lane introduced the ordinance to end the use of this price collusion software. On the same day, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield announced a landmark settlement of over $7 million with Greystar Real Estate Partners for using RealPage’s rent-price ripoff software. This significant penalty sends a clear message about what will happen to greedy landlords when they try to use A.I. to raise our rent! 

Portland’s action also reflects a broader movement happening at the state and federal levels. Senator Ron Wyden’s proposed End Rent Fixing Act mirrors the city’s ban and goes further by empowering tenants to challenge landlords in court. Local leaders like DSA-endorsed candidate Dr. Tammy Carpenter, running for House District 27, are leading the charge for stronger statewide rent control and protections for renters that actually give us power to fight back against the landlords that want to rip us off. 

Landlords are on notice: tenants are getting organized, and we’re coming for what’s ours!

The post Victory: A.I. Rent-raising software banned in Portland appeared first on Portland DSA.

With record member turnout, and 96 percent of voters in favor, Buffalo DSA has voted to endorse Adam Bojak for New York State Assembly in District 149. The Buffalo DSA Steering Committee looks forward to working with Adam and his campaign toward a socialist future for Western New York.

Adam has been a dedicated, dues-paying member of Buffalo DSA since 2017. A leader in the chapter’s early years, and previously endorsed for Assembly in 2020, he has organized primarily with our Infrastructure (formerly Housing) and Electoral Committees. Adam’s commitment to DSA and its principles is also evident across a decade of fighting for the working class. In addition to serving as assigned counsel in Family Court, he takes on tenant legal cases pro bono. Over the past decade, he has never charged a housing justice client for services.

Through a robust endorsement process, the chapter determined that Adam’s campaign shares our goals for housing justice, universal healthcare, labor rights, and social equity. Additionally, despite New York’s undemocratic closed primaries and ballot access hurdles hindering Buffalo DSA’s political independence, the campaign nonetheless shows potential to build toward a true workers’ party. For too long, Republicans and Democrats alike have exploited our class and ignored our needs; Adam’s proud, socialist campaign offers us new ways to fight the capitalist status quo and agitate the masses.

Last, but not least, the incredible turnout we saw in this vote shows the strength of the American socialist movement, and of our organization. We urge all members and inspired supporters to help Buffalo DSA sustain our organizing–not just for Adam, but for our entire political project. This is our chance to build on our momentum for Good Cause Eviction and the New York Health Act, and continue to support workplace organizing and the labor movement. 

We need you. Join DSA today and get involved in our committee work, to learn the same skills and principles that brought Adam’s campaign to life.

On Halloween, the Illinois General Assembly voted on a $1.5 billion funding package for public transit in Chicago. This budget funds the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, and PACE, in addition to replacing the Regional Transportation Authority with a new board, the Northern Illinois Transit Authority. 

This legislation comes after the Illinois General Assembly failed to fund public transit during its regular session. CTA leadership, workers, and local leaders spent months raising the alarm. The CTA initially projected service cuts of 40%, including cutting more than half of its bus lines and ending or limiting service on most train lines. This apocalyptic estimate was revised down only after the CTA pledged to increase fares and received an infusion of cash from the Regional Transportation Authority. 

As socialists, it shouldn’t be surprising that a state government led not by working people, but by an “actual billionaire”, didn’t bring this crisis to a just conclusion. 

Instead of rushing to fund the city’s transit, a system nearly a million riders rely on every day, the state government – led by Governor J.B. Pritzker – played a game of chicken with leaders of the city and the CTA by hammering out agreements in private up until the last moment, leaving the fate of workers in Chicago uncertain. 

After passing legislation in the eleventh hour, the governor expects us to applaud his benevolence in not firing the gun he pointed at the heads of the city’s workers. He deserves no credit for averting a catastrophe he helped engineer. 

While the increase in the CTA’s budget has been lauded by political leaders in the Democratic Party, it comes at a cost to working people. The methods of revenue raising – sales taxes, toll roads, and increased fares – all come directly from the pocket of workers in Illinois. These regressive taxes place yet more of the state’s tax burden on working class people while the wealthiest people in our state escape paying their fair share, including a proposed tax on the investments of billionaires that was killed by Pritzker himself. 

As the leading socialist organization in Chicago, CDSA has fought for full funding of the CTA and democratic control of our transit. We cannot be satisfied with any budget that forces workers who are given less and less to pay more and more. Until we win a democratic economy controlled by the working class, our minimum demand remains the same no matter what budget crisis threatens our communities: Tax the rich.

The post Illinois Deserves No Applause for Funding the CTA appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

The Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are calling on the Milwaukee Common Council to overrule Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s veto of a 4% raise for city workers. 

The mayor’s veto comes days after the Milwaukee Common Council—with the vocal support of DSA-endorsed Alderman Alex Brower—voted 13-1 to increase the raises in Mayor Johnson’s proposed budget, which initially only included a 2% pay increase for general city employees. Despite this overwhelming support for the 4% raise, the mayor used his veto pen Tuesday to drop the raises to 3%.

“Mayor Johnson’s letter regarding the veto asks if there is a ‘better way’ to incentivize residency, and we have one: pay a fair wage,” Ian Gunther, chief steward of American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 47 said. “Workers should not pay the price for City Hall’s failure to budget for the workforce that keeps Milwaukee running.”

Union officials with AFSCME, whose members work across multiple departments in the city of Milwaukee, said the 4% raise included in the amended budget was already a compromise of their initial demands.

“The residency tier was a concession, not our demand; we fought for a 6.5% raise for all,” Gunther said. “With inflation at 5.9% over the last two years, and no raise last year, cutting this back to 3% is effectively a pay cut.”

Milwaukee DSA is urging its membership to contact City Hall and tell officials there to support city workers with a 4% raise, overruling the mayor’s veto.

SEE MORE: Tell City Hall to Support City Workers

“Elected officials need to hear from regular people that they support the raises in the budget as amended by the Council, which raised wages by a total of 4%,” Brower, who represents District 3 on the Common Council, said. 

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