Tell Gov Whitmer to support AG Nessel’s Anonymous ICE Reporting Platform!

In the wake of ICE’s murderous campaign to kidnap our neighbors and restrict our Constitutional rights, we call on Governor Whitmer to support Attorney General Nessel’s recently launched anonymous reporting platform. We call on Whitmer to form an accountability commission to review ICE’s many crimes and constitutional violations. This group of masked secret police has been terrorizing communities with impunity for far too long.

Michigan will not be safe until we know that we have the ability to hold ICE accountable for their many assaults upon our communities and country. Our residents must also be able to do so knowing they are protected by our State from what has been proven to be an extremely corrupt and vengeful Trump regime.

• Anonymity & Privacy Protection: Individuals can now report misconduct without revealing their identity or contact information.
• Secure Evidence Submission: Photos, videos, and documents can now be submitted securely to protect the integrity of the evidence.
• Independent Oversight: Reports MUST be reviewed by an impartial body, ensuring transparency and fairness in the investigative process.
• Legal Protections for Whistleblowers: Michigan residents who report abuses MUST be protected by state and federal whistleblower laws.
• Collaboration with Advocacy Groups: The platform MUST work closely with civil rights organizations to ensure that the process remains accessible, credible, and effective.

The post Break the ICE: Accountability for ICE appeared first on Grand Rapids Democratic Socialists of America.

The surge of ICE harassment, raids and deportations in the second Trump administration has focused unprecedented attention on the problem of anti-migration enforcement. In the wake of the murders of Renee Goode and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, we have not seen the likes of this mobilization on any major political question since the peak of the Black Lives Matter Movement. A recent opinion poll shows that nationally, a near-majority of the population now supports abolishing ICE. We need to seize this moment and keep the momentum going to make sure that this is achieved.

This milestone, evidence of a growing collective aspiration for an abolitionist, socialist future, should have translated into decisive planning at the state level. As a dues-paying member and invited panelist for Danbury Unites for Immigrants attending virtually, I left the meeting appreciating the earnest effort while recognizing some missed opportunities. What follows is offered in a spirit of comradely critique, with the aim of strengthening our shared work.

Civilization rises and falls—sometimes in meer moments. Pompeii, Nagasaki, the Sack of Rome, Atlantis… Sometimes I think about how short life could have been and whether that’s better or worse than dying when you’re older. I think about people that have survived horrors—Holocaust survivors who lived through death camps but died in a car accident. My own grandmother who immigrated to the United States from Iran completely by herself, lived with my grandfather who was an abusive drunk (although loved her), lived through a global pandemic, and then, DURING the pandemic, got cancer, and passed away just before she could see me get married. Throughout this whole time, friends of mine were having children. Babies were born, people died, and life carried on. But times were scary. We didn’t know what was coming next. So the question remains: does life actually find a way? Is it responsible to have children and carry on a legacy when you know the dangers around every corner? 

I would like to begin this section by briefly channeling the collective spirit of our Fascist friends. Don’t be alarmed […]

Polling from mid-2025 showed 62% of Democratic voters felt a change in party leadership was needed. These voters are shown to feel that current leaders are not doing enough to fight against Trump’s creeping (if not galloping) authoritarianism. This divide is likely to expand in the face of an underwhelming response to the occupation of Minneapolis and the clearly recorded execution of two of the city’s citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

This past Saturday, the Connecticut Democratic Socialists of America (CT DSA) held an emergency meeting to organize around abolishing United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). There’s been a lot of news about ICE lately, as many of the other recent articles on the Nutmeg Socialist cover.

The Midwest Socialist’s Editorial Board

Leonard

Pronouns: he/him/comrade

Neighborhood: Hermosa

Outside of Midwest Socialist: I’m on the North Side Blue Line steering committee, and I’m co-chair of the Political Education committee. 

Outside of DSA: I’m an occasional freelance writer, editor, and proofreader, and I work as a crossing guard for Chicago Public Schools, assigned to Northwest Middle School. My wife, Anna Forsher, is also very active in CDSA, and we love travel, sports, and having fun together.

Currently Reading: Seth Harp’s The Fort Bragg Cartel and Chester Himes’ Plan B.

Book Every Socialist Should Read: André Gorz’s Farewell to the Working Class.

If I could have dinner with three people dead or alive, who would it be and why? D. Boon, Nina Simone, and Joe Hill. Great music, great conversation with three passionate Marxists who led with their politics but also created unforgettable music.

Organizing Advice: Remember that you’re in the struggle for the long haul and don’t get too frustrated when you don’t see immediate wins. Like the saying goes, you’re planting the seeds of a tree whose shade you’ll never enjoy.

Publications: MWS writing here; Jacobin pieces here; lots more on my website, Immortal Science, here.

Binx

Pronouns: they/them/any

Neighborhood: Logan Square

Outside of Midwest Socialist: I serve as one of the chapter’s Harassment and Grievance Officers, as well as one of the co-chairs of the chapter’s Red Rabbits Committee. As a founding member of the RRC, I am also involved with the DSA’s National Security Commission.

Outside of DSA: I work for a non-profit doing social services and I am a staff editor for Sundress Publications. I have a dog, who I love more than anything on this earth, and I’ve gotten into crocheting lately. I’m working on a sweater for her.

Currently Reading: Urusla K. LeGuin’s “Always Coming Home,” and “M: Son of the Century” by Antonio Scurati (translated by Anne Milano Appel)

Book Every Socialist Should Read: Instead of recommending a book, I want to recommend subscribing to Lux Magazine. It’s literally the best magazine out there, especially because it’s a Marxist Feminist publication. Not only are the print magazines glossy and gorgeous, but the journalism is impeccable. Cannot recommend Lux enough!

If I could have dinner with three people dead or alive, who would it be and why? I would have dinner with Pier Paolo Pasolini, Audre Lorde, and Seamus Heaney. Pasolini having lived through Mussolini’s dictatorship as a gay writer, producer, and director; Lorde at the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality during the American Civil Rights movement; and Heaney being an anti-imperialist during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. As a poet and an anti-fascist myself, I think they’d each share some deeply valuable perspectives on poetics and politics from their experiences.

Organizing Advice: IT IS OKAY TO TAKE BREAKS. PLEASE TAKE BREAKS. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THIS WORLD, TAKE A BREAK. I am so serious, burn out will make you a demon to those around you. Do yourself and everyone in your life a favor by taking some time for yourself. IT IS OKAY.

Publications: Visit binxperino.com to check out the creative work that I’ve published over the years! Around Chicago, you can find copies of my chapbook Pure Light (2023) in various bookstores. You can also just enter my name into a search engine, if you’re nasty.

Nick

Pronouns: He/Him

Neighborhood: Andersonville

Outside of Midwest Socialist: I’m a member of the Communications Committee.

Outside of DSA: I’m a songwriter and musician, and I play in bands regularly around Chicago. I’m also a software engineer, avid Bulls fan, and I enjoy long bike rides by the lake.

Currently Reading: Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven.

Book Every Socialist Should Read: Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis.

If I could have dinner with three people dead or alive, who would it be and why? Neil Young, Tracy Chapman, Gil Scott Heron. Three uniquely talented and accomplished musical artists with deeply held political perspectives that they aren’t afraid to express in their work. I could learn a lot from each of them.

Organizing Advice: Have patience and show up consistently! It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Matt

Pronouns: He/They

Neighborhood: Northwest Side Blue Line Branch

Outside of Midwest Socialist: I served as Chicago DSA’s Political Education Coordinator from July to December 2024.

Outside of DSA: I have a master’s degree in history, and I am particularly interested in the history of East Germany, the Eastern Bloc, socialist/labor history, and the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries more generally. I speak fluent German and conversational Spanish, I collect currency from around the world, and I am a member of the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA).

Currently Reading: Just finished Blue Collar Empireby Jeff Schuhrke, about the zealous anticommunism of the AFL-CIO, its very active collaboration with the CIA, and its successful efforts to undermine democratic trade unionism at home and abroad during the Cold War. I am now rereading the classic alternate history novel The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick.

Book Every Socialist Should Read: Everything for Everyone by M.E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi. It’s a speculative oral history of a global anarcho-communist revolution that takes place from the 2050s to the 2070s. It is one of my favorite works of fiction of all time.

Another very formative book for me was Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, a memoir of the author’s experience as a war correspondent embedded with an anarchist militia in the Spanish Civil War. It’s the book that taught me that socialism could be more than just the aesthetic of the banners and slogans of the bygone USSR, but a revolutionary experiment relentlessly advancing the cause of equality, radical democracy, and human freedom.

If I could have dinner with three people dead or alive, who would it be and why? Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, and Eugene Debs. They are easily my three favorite socialist figures of the twentieth century.

Organizing Advice: Intellectual pursuits are being hollowed out by social media, AI, and relentless attacks on public education. In this context, learning becomes a revolutionary act. Do your own reading, your own writing, and your own thinking. Your brain will thank you.

Publications: I write alternate-history themed settings for an independent tabletop roleplaying game publisher. I have also written for the Baffler, Chicago DSA’s Red Star Bulletin, and on my own (woefully out-of-date) Medium page.

Chase

Pronouns: He / Him

Neighborhood: Lincoln Square / Ravenswood

Outside of Midwest Socialist: I co-lead the Lincoln Square Social / Member Club, part of the Member Club pilot program within Chicago DSA. The focus is to activate, organize, and connect together members of Chicago DSA in Lincoln Square and the surrounding neighborhoods. 

Outside of DSA: Outside of DSA I work as a CPS Substitute teacher, and am currently completing my Masters in Education. I love learning languages, and speak German mostly fluently and Portuguese fairly well, with experience in several other languages. Additional passions of mine are Worldbuilding, watching movies, drawing, and writing. I am in fact working on publishing (on my substack) at least twelve short stories this year. 

Currently Reading: Currently I am reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I recently also finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick. 

Book Every Socialist Should Read: I don’t know if I know a very novel answer to this question, but I did read Kim Moody’s Rank and File Strategy recently; especially for those organizing within the US today, I think it’s a good read. 

If I could have dinner with three people dead or alive, who would it be and why? This is such a difficult question. There are so many people I’d want to meet! I’ll give a shot:

1. Oetzi the Iceman: I actually saw his body on a trip to Italy, when I lived in nearby Austria. I would give anything to talk to anyone from the Neolithic, as I find the period, the dawn of “Civilization,” endlessly fascinating. Plus, he’s the oldest cold case in history!
2. Justinian II: Byzantine Emperor, last of the Heraclian dynasty. His great great grandfather, Heraclius, saved the Empire from the Parthians, only to lose half of it again to the nascent early Islamic Empire. Justinian II himself is interesting for being deposed, his nose cut off, exiled to Crimea, only to kill his guards, escape, and depose his deposer’s deposer (before being later again deposed). I’ve always thought he’d make a great subject of a book I’d like to write someday, so I’d love to chat!
3. Ursula K. Le Guin: I was not so much a fan of Le Guin when she was alive, but became one after her death. Earthsea and Always Coming Home are dear to my heart and great inspirations to me as a writer and as a human being. I would love the chance to talk to her and have her critique my own work!

Organizing Advice: Get to know your comrades! It’s hard to organize with somebody that you don’t know very well. 

Publications: I have not published anything for MWS as of yet, but I do have a substack! If you like short fiction of varying types follow my substack at @leerbaker1 (Lee R. Baker is my pen name). My plan for this year is to release 12 short stories in 12 months. 

Alec

Name: Alec Hudson

Pronouns: he/him

Neighborhood: Lincoln Square

Outside of Midwest Socialist: SEIU 73 member, Chicago DSA jack-of-all-trades.

Outside of DSA: New dad, history nerd, soccer fan, and traveler.

Currently Reading: The Paris Commune: A Brief History (Eichner, 2022), The New Deal: The Depression Years, 1933-1940 (Badger, 2002), The Socialist Challenge Today: Syriza, Corbyn, Sanders (Panitch, Gindin, & Maher, 2020).

If I could have dinner with three people dead or alive, who would it be and why? Karl Marx for a good time, Eugene Debs to learn what it took to build a mass socialist party, and Gracchus Babeuf because I’m obsessed with the French Revolution and its role in establishing modern socialism/communism.

Organizing Advice: Stay curious and keep learning new skills!

Feel free to reach out via midwestsocialist at gmail dot com or send us your work!

The post Our Editorial Board: The Comrades Behind Midwest Socialist appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

This is an opinion piece written collaboratively by the Migrant Rights Working Group and was not voted on at a general membership meeting. Opinion pieces from sub-bodies do not reflect the opinions of all members and are not chapter approved statements.

Without reservation, the Salt Lake Democratic Socialists of America (SL DSA) firmly oppose any and all immigration detention within Utah. We reject the Federal Government’s racist, nativist, and exploitative approach to immigration policy, and are appalled at the intentional and cruel humanitarian crisis it has created. Recent leaks uncovering plans for an immigration detention facility in Utah threaten to continue the state’s ugly history of participation in large scale, racially-targeted internment. These past and present attempts to suppress immigrant communities are not only an affront to the fundamental notion of intrinsic human dignity, but also a cudgel wielded against the interests of the working class. They obscure the identities of the true architects of our exploitation, redirecting responsibility for our justified feelings of bitterness and discontentment away from oppressive regimes and economies and onto the precarious and undocumented; those who are, in fact, our allies. 

Over the past several months, internal ICE documents have emerged that outline a plan utilizing US military resources to establish “facilities to house as many as 10,000 people each” in several locations across the country, including Salt Lake City. After the failure of Florida’s taxpayer funded “Alligator Alcatraz” which was shuttered after violating detainee rights, disregarding local government and tribal rights, and dismissing environmental concerns, one would think that Utah’s leaders would express more hesitation to ride shotgun on this wild spectacle of waste and abuse. Sadly, it is not so: Utah’s state-level and congressional leadership, in submissive fealty to Trump’s agenda, refused to comment, much less openly oppose the effort. With new leaks indicating a warehouse near Salt Lake City International Airport as the intended location, there has been mixed response from local officials. The only official acknowledgement from Salt Lake City has been a rather passive reminder from Mayor Erin Mendenhall that a detention center at the location would run afoul of local zoning ordinances; on the other hand, Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson admirably condemned the plan and committed the county to fighting it “using every available tool.” In the face of such inconsistent leadership, we salute the people of Utah that showed up in the early hours of January 13^th to make their opposition perfectly clear. While the owners of the rumored detention center site ultimately denied their intent to sell or lease to ICE, it is abundantly clear that ICE’s continue working to build the infrastructure necessary to execute their authoritarian directive. Considering today’s fresh atrocities and with historical perspective, SL DSA’s stance is rooted in one critical message: never again. 

“Never again:” a much-needed refrain which calls us to remember Utah’s record of hosting racial concentration camps within its borders. In 1942, Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, directing the Secretary of War to “prescribe military areas […] from which any or all persons may be excluded” and provide for them “other accommodation as may be necessary.” EO 9102 established the War Relocation Authority, and assigned it the task of “[effectuating] a program for the removal…of the persons or classes of persons designated under [EO 9066], and for their relocation.” In the text of these two executive orders, which speciously argued for the need to protect against foreign espionage and sabotage, Roosevelt identifies a single justification: national security. 

Two of the sites that provided for that relocation program, which in total detained approximately 120,000 people of Japanese descent, were the Topaz War Relocation Center in the desert west of Delta, Utah, and the Dalton Wells Isolation Center, a disciplinary camp outside Moab. From 1942 to 1945, 11,000 people were incarcerated in the Topaz camp, making it the fifth largest city in Utah over its three years of operation. Prisoners were given “loyalty questionnaires,” with those not deemed sufficiently loyal sent to more restrictive isolation facilities like Dalton Wells. A unique stain on state history, these concentration camps were the result of a government empowering itself to decide whose rights were sacred, and whose were forfeit. 

---

The stage is set for another monumental crime of a scale that promises to shock Utahns to our core; and in this crime, we will be complicit. We cannot say we did not see it coming. 

---

Now, these actions are justified with the same warlike rhetoric and appeal to the maintenance of national security. Equating immigration to a “foreign invasion” and making use of military largesse, ICE and the US military are coordinating on a facility in Utah that could have a capacity nearly the size of Topaz. This facility could have up to 10,000 beds, with detainees potentially housed in weather-vulnerable soft-sided tents. We are now living through a moment that demonstrates that although history doesn’t repeat, it does rhyme: the Trump regime engages in racial profiling, deports citizens and legal residents, targets and sanctions those critical of the regime, and offers excuses and justifications for its most violent excesses. The stage is set for another monumental crime of a scale that promises to shock Utahns to our core; and in this crime, we will be complicit. We cannot say we did not see it coming. 

SL DSA’s stance is one that increasingly resonates with the people of Utah as we face a hostile government intent on stripping away our rights. We demand: no detention centers in Utah, no cooperation with ICE, and full solidarity with our immigrant community. We reject any false distinction between “good” and “bad” immigrants, “legal” and “illegal” immigrants, and immigrating the “right way” and the “wrong way.” These distinctions are nothing more than the flimsy judgements of an immoral power structure with no respect for our rights, protections, or human worth. Finally, we reject the increasingly brazen lies of the Trump administration, as it claims “If you are here legally and contributing, you have nothing to fear.” In fact, cases of arrest based on ICE’s refusal to accept documentation, employment records, payment of taxes, or even while following the official immigration process all fall apart under the barest scrutiny. There is no logic, no rule of law, and no respect for human beings in ICE’s “enforcement” activities. 

In our ongoing work, our goal is to mobilize, organize, and educate the working class, ultimately engendering and reinforcing solidarity within it. This objective necessarily must include working class immigrants. If a portion of the working class is deemed unworthy of protection, the rights of the working class as a whole cannot be assured. 

Words on a page, however, are not enough. As wages are depressed, as landlords are permitted to use immigration status to threaten tenants, as bosses and managers benefit from workers’ stolen labor, the consequences of this authoritarian regime will affect us all. This regime and the capitalist economic structure that gave birth to it requires systemic exploitation in order to sustain themselves. At its best, it must demand silence; at its worst, it requires complicity and total obedience. In order to justify this system and its cruel repercussions, we are invited to despise and ostracize our fellow human beings. As socialists, we refuse. We invite you to join us in that refusal, and struggle with us to build a better world that is inclusive of us all.

ETA: Credit where credit is due to Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, who in her 2026 State of the City address, elaborated on her firm opposition to ICE operations in the city.

No, there is no terrible thing happening coming for you in some distant future. But know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness? Forget pity. Forget even the dead, if you must. But at least fight against the theft of your soul.”

― Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

The post Never Again: Revisiting the Tragedy of Mass Detention in Utah first appeared on Salt Lake DSA.

Imagine the last five DSA meetings you have been to. Do you feel like you could, without providing excuses, invite a friend or coworker to each of those meetings and feel confident they would walk away with a positive impression of our ability to make change? Would they come away with a sense that our project is worth committing valuable time to?

The national DSA Growth and Development Committee recently reported that more than one in three DSA members have joined within the last year as the horrors of Trumpism spur people into action. Our organizing efforts and electoral wins, especially Zohran Mamdani’s in New York, show a path toward a better future. In this membership bump, like others in the recent past, we are faced with the question of how we successfully “onboard” new members and broaden our reach even further. While our growing wealth of collective experience has improved our abilities in these areas greatly (revamped DSA 101s and 102s and the work of the Membership Engagement Committee have been big successes), there is still plenty of room for improvement. For the majority of our meetings, we need to ensure that the answers to the above questions are resoundingly “Yes and yes!”

We can accomplish this by bringing a basic level of professionalism and competency to our own political practice and in turn, to DSA. As socialists, it can be uncomfortable to use words like “competency” and “professionalism,” because we understand how these terms are used in the context of the late-capitalist workplace to create the impression (and only the impression) of a meritocracy. We can reject that framework while still recognizing that if we look and act like a mess, we are less likely to attract new members, retain existing members, and succeed in our political efforts. Luckily, we are not starting from scratch – working people have cultivated decades and even centuries of know-how we can draw from and rely on.

Accordingly, if we consistently focus on perfecting these known basics of organizing skills and political development, we will have done most of the work of building competency. If we look to sports for a parallel: when a professional athlete reaches the top of their game, they do not transcend the fundamental rules and concepts of the sport. Rather they realize them expertly and bring their special talents to bear within that framework. If you’ve ever watched videos of professional athletes training, you will note that even once-in-a-generation talents consistently do basic drills. They do this not in spite of their expertise, but because it is what makes them expert. The basics are not just the foundation that everything else is built upon, they are most of the game.

So what are the fundamental organizing skills and what is fundamental to socialist political development?Fundamental organizing skills are the means and methods by which we build relationships of trust among ourselves and structure our decision making and collective action. These are a combination of soft skills, which can be applied broadly across a variety of pursuits, and hard skills specific to the task of socialist organizing. None of it is rocket science, and some of these skills might come naturally to certain people. No matter what, being intentional about it makes all the difference. Without going into too much depth on specifics, the core tenants of organizing skills involve:

• Being able to read and relate to people to understand where they are coming from. The term “buy-in” can be a useful shorthand, but the core is taking the time to understand what is motivating people and what they would like to contribute to the organization. Painting a picture of how someone’s contributions are meaningful to the project of building a better world is how we build engagement and capacity.
• Making sure that strategy, ideas, and debates are legible and meaningful to a broad spectrum of membership. We need to have clarity of purpose and action to be effective. Achieving legibility means honing the ability to run meetings effectively and making sure that people know what is going on through effective communication. This can include everything from social media posts, to scheduling meetings and communicating agendas well in advance, to one-on-one meetings with comrades who want to get more involved.
• Building relationships by following up. While our members don’t all need to be friends, we do need to be comrades. This means building a basic sense of trust and the willingness to understand each other. This is the cornerstone of a healthy democratic culture. Building these relationships requires intentional effort. Being welcoming and friendly is a must, but we also must make sure that we are doing the basic leg work that can help us keep in touch. This can include making sure meetings have sign-ins to help with list building and that collective and individual follow-up happens after each event, especially with new members.
• Developing comradely values, most especially patience and empathy. I’ve noted that the folks who tend to stay involved in the moment for the long haul are those who exercise patience with the organization and their comrades. Patience doesn’t mean abandoning a sense of urgency; rather, it means recognizing that imperfection is a fact and that there are no shortcuts in the work of building mass organizations. Likewise, empathy doesn’t mean being excessively kind or withholding criticism, but it does mean recognizing that, in general, folks are doing the best they can at any given moment, and this is the starting point for getting better.

To develop as socialists, we must possess a baseline analysis of capitalism and theory of change rooted in the collective experiences of past and present socialists. Capitalism is a moral outrage, but working toward change requires sober analysis of where we are at as an organization and the conditions we are working in. This will allow us to draw on history, theory, and our own creativity to chart a path forward.  Without going into too much depth, some of the core tenants of socialist political development as we understand it within DSA involve:

• Understanding that capitalism is working as intended, necessitating both reform and revolution. Developing this understanding requires a study of economics and the historical development of capitalism. Such a study demonstrates that the system is not broken, but working as intended. It therefore must  be swept into the dustbin of history. We need reforms in the here-and-now to improve lives and help develop our capacity to make change. At the same time, our ultimate goal must be upending the current order via democratic means to establish a socialist society where the economy is democratically controlled and unjust coercion is abolished in all its forms.
• A recognition of the centrality of the working class as agents of change. The idea of the multi-racial working class as the protagonist of history is easy to say, but harder to make real. We live in a world where nearly all people have internalized capitalist ideology in deep and fundamental ways. Our task is to overcome this by developing class consciousness through action, and to bind that consciousness together organizationally so it can translate into the mass action necessary to make sweeping changes. Socialists believe that workers are in the best position to effect change because our role as the sole producers of value under capitalism is, potentially, an immense source of political power. Recognizing this idea is one thing, but to truly work towards its realization requires an important deconstruction of liberal theories of change through political education work.
• Honing your ability to engage in comradely discussion and debate. Because democracy is a central value for socialists and vital to building a meaningfully mass organization, it is imperative that we take time to deliberately hone our ability to participate in the process of democracy. This means taking responsibility for developing ideas and perspectives by engaging with socialist writings (past and present) and having good faith constructive debates with comrades. Approaching this work with intention and humility as individuals is how we prepare ourselves as a collective for the hard work of deciding what it is we ought to be doing.

So how do we double down on the fundamentals? There is of course no silver bullet, but I do want to highlight that this will be a major focus of our Political Education Committee over the next several months. In that time frame, we will be spinning up a monthly series of skills trainings with rotating subject matter, as well as another semester of Socialist Night School. I encourage members, and especially newer members, to attend these events and approach them with an open mind. Even if you are coming into DSA with some organizing skills or a political background, talking about these things with fellow members and attending a training is bound to bring new perspectives, whether the material is something you already know or something you are just learning for the first time.

Similarly, my ask for experienced leaders and chapter members is that you attend these skills trainings and our Socialist Night School the way that a professional athlete approaches practice drills. There is value in revisiting skills that you’ve used before and have already developed with a sense of humility, asking yourself what you don’t know or how you can do something you are good at even better. I’ve been an organized socialist for half my life, and whenever I run or attend a political education event of any kind, even a repeat event, new neural pathways are formed. I learn something new or a new way of approaching or thinking about something. Sharing my experience with a new group of people and allowing their perspectives to shape me has value.

Further, I would also ask those that are either formally or informally in chapter leadership to lead by example and tend to the fundamentals and integrate them into our work. Make sure that meetings are well publicized in advance, that you are doing turnout, that agendas are clear, that meetings start and end on time, that new members always feel welcome, that you are having one-on-ones consistently, and that you are giving others the opportunity to develop their leadership and organizing skills. Consider taking meaningful time in your work with the chapter to have frank, big picture conversations and reflections about how well you are doing on the basics and what steps you can take to make improvements.

No one graduates from socialist political education, and everyone benefits from a focus on the fundamentals. If we want to build a mass movement, we need to sharpen our focus on these basics. We will need to get them right, not once, not a hundred times, but every single day that we are doing the work of building a better world.

The post On Getting The Basics Right (Again and Again) appeared first on Midwest Socialist.