The Activist Editorial Board summarizes the first day of the 2024 YDSA national convention. “Turbulence,” was the word keynote speaker Sumaya Awad used to describe the current political climate as she addressed an audience of 136 members of YDSA for the organization’s online convention.  Awad’s words reference the volatility and uncertainty that have been defining…

The post Activist Updates: 2024 YDSA Convention Day 1 appeared first on YDSA.

The authors outline the need for student unions in this current political moment and why YDSA should take on this long-term project. YDSA has the opportunity to bring this revolutionary model of organizing here first. From organizing the first undergrad student labor union at the University of Oregon, helping establishing the city of Columbia, Missouri as a…

The post For R21: The Potential of Militant and Democratic Student Unions appeared first on YDSA.

Democratic Party leadership claims that the threat to democracy posed by a second Trump presidency and Republican-dominated Congress is real, and they are correct. The Republican Party is clear in its intention to undermine essential market regulations and basic individual rights. With the backing of a loaded Supreme Court, Trump’s administration stands to finally break the promise held out by Democrats throughout the rising tide of fascism: that we can defend democracy through our legal system. When that tide breaks, it will most immediately impact trans and reproductive rights, the unhoused, immigrants, and asylum seekers—but it ultimately will affect us all.

Nevertheless, the Democratic Party’s actions contradict its own apparent concerns. For example, while touting the value of free speech and protest, the Biden administration has overseen the crackdown on student protest across campuses nationwide. This does nothing to distance Democrats from the charge of repression that it levies against Republicans. Furthermore, instead of allowing for a competitive primary process (ironically, something permitted by the Republican Party), the Democratic National Committee saw to it that Biden was effectively the only candidate on the ballot. Even before Biden’s disastrous debate and the question of his cognitive decline, unprecedented thousands of Americans expressed their will for another candidate by voting “uncommitted” or “no preference” across the country—not least because of his commitment to funding Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Democracy may be under threat, but it is already compromised today.

People want to stand up for democracy, yet with Biden at the helm, the Democratic Party reveals itself to be unable and unwilling. Following the recent attempt on Trump’s life, Democratic Party leadership has been more interested in the symbolic high ground, calling for national unity against “political violence.” The hypocrisy is blatant. On one level, this calls for unity with a candidate and party who incite the very violence at issue. On a deeper level, however, the Democratic Party fails to reconcile this call for unity with the state of violence it has perpetuated. Biden may be the first president to stand on a picket line, but he has done little to nothing material for the American and global working class. While Biden has focused our attention on “shrinkflation” and “hidden fees” (admittedly insidious practices), the prices of housing and healthcare continue to rise. Instead of moving to socialize these costs, the Biden administration funds war abroad, which benefits everyone from landlords and developers to insurance agencies and weapons manufacturers. Meanwhile, working people suffer degradation and death.

Given these conditions, the Democratic Party rightly appears bought by capitalist forces, which allows the Republican Party to (falsely) claim it will oppose “elites” in the name of those most desperate. Behind the culture war he stokes, Trump (like populists the world over) taps into real pain felt by the working class. In order for the Democratic Party to stake any claim to legitimacy, it must field a candidate who will rise to the moment and confront the threat of fascism without hesitation, all the while attacking its root economic causes. That candidate is not Joe Biden.

From the City of Charlotte to Mecklenburg County and beyond, join the call: it’s time to drop Joe!

Let the following know it’s time to drop Joe:

Alma Adams: (704) 344-9950

Chuck Schumer: (202) 224-6542

North Carolina Democratic Party: (919) 821-2777

The 2024 Republican National Convention marks the consolidation of the American Right around Donald Trump and his fascist agenda. Despite months of media fanfare over various alternative candidates, Trump easily secured the nomination with over 98% of the vote. By contrast, the Democratic Party is bitterly divided over whether Biden should withdraw.

For his Vice President, Trump anointed JD Vance. Vance seeks to make demagogic appeals to “working class interests” such as banning abortion nationwide, attacking gay marriage and trans rights, and eroding what little democratic rights workers have in the United States. This attack on the workers’ movement serves Trump’s plans for aggression against Mexico and other international states abroad, in addition to giving unwavering support to Israel’s genocide in Palestine. Vance presents himself as a working-class Heartland Everyman in an effort to cover up the corporate elitism that anchors every single one of their policies. In reality, Vance is a Yale-educated Silicon Valley venture capitalist and multimillionaire running to cut taxes for his tech billionaire friends.

Trump’s far-right politics come as no surprise – but many on the Left were caught off-guard by Teamsters President Sean O’Brien’s speech at the RNC. In his speech, Sean O’Brien claimed that “elites have no party. Elites have no nation. Their loyalty is to the balance sheet and the stock price at the expense of the American worker.” After his appearance, he praised an article written by far-right Senator Josh Hawley as “100% on point” that promoted JD Vance’s framing of the class struggle as between a socially conservative working class and a socially progressive “elite.” 

O’Brien is wrong. Elites—the capitalist class, who live through exploiting working-class labor and extracting rent from us—have two parties. Both Republicans and Democrats serve the interests of capitalists, blocking policies that will serve working-class people, from universal healthcare to housing for all. O’Brien was elected to reform the Teamsters and fight for working people, not to cut deals with millionaire fascists like Donald Trump and JD Vance.

The solution is for working-class people to take political power for ourselves—to seize the schools and the warehouses, to disarm the police and close the prisons, and to build a real democracy that does not answer to the rich. This is socialism at its core—the fight for democratic control of every part of our lives, allowing us to build a world without starvation, war and corporate greed.

However, we can’t win this fight alone. Capitalism is an international system, dependent on the exploitation of workers across the world. To make and sell an iPhone, capitalists rely on coltan miners, many of them children, in the Congo; manufacturing workers to assemble them in China; and longshoremen, truck drivers and retail workers to ship and sell them in the United States. To keep the system running, capitalists depend on the division of nation-states and on military power to hold them in line. Just like how you can’t strike with only half of your shop, we can’t beat capitalism with only workers from one nation. Patriotism splits the labor movement and makes us easy prey for the bosses.

Trump and Vance are not the first reactionaries to make promises to union leaders: In the early 1920s, Benito Mussolini promised legal protection for the eight-hour day, creation of a minimum wage, and an “economic parliament” where both workers and corporations could have direct control over the economy. Instead of delivering on his promises, his regime engaged in mass layoffs and pushed wages down by up to 60%. He crushed the labor movement and set up fascist-controlled unions in its place. Workers rose up in response, taking the streets and occupying factories, and the fascists responded with brutal police repression.

To beat the parties of Trump and Biden and end the genocide in Gaza, we need a party of our own—one with a program that fights for workers of all races, genders and nationalities, queer and straight workers, trans and cis workers, able and disabled workers, rural and urban workers, the employed and unemployed, uniting all of us into one struggle against exploitation and oppression. DSA is committed to seeing this struggle through to the end, which is why our members are in the streets of Milwaukee protesting the RNC, and why we will be bringing the fight to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month. This is why DSA is putting forward the For Our Rights program: an economy for the working class, an end to war, and a new, democratic constitution. In 2024, workers deserve better. The only thing that can defeat the far-right for good is a mass movement of working people: Join DSA to help us build it.

We call on all chapter leaders to urgently mobilize your chapters and communities, building a movement for our program demands and against Biden and Trump. Call your membership, recruit from the community, and hit the streets—it’s time to shape history in the making. 

All Power to the International Working Class!

The post All Power to the International Working Class – Statement on the Republican National Convention appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

In this episode, Tripp Fuller of Homebrewed Christianity podcast joins to talk faith that's beautiful enough to be called good news, a process vision of socialism, fiction and popculture as the fullest expressions of humanity, and miscellaneous nerdiness. Join us October 17–19 in Denver for theologybeer.camp ! Use the coupon code TAKEHEARTHOBBIT for $50 off your ticket. Email us at religioussocialism@gmail.com if you plan to come, we'd love to meet up.

Upcoming Events

Wednesday, July 17 (5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Phonebank for Extreme Dean (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, July 17 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): What is DSA? (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Thursday, July 18 (5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Phonebank for Extreme Dean (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Thursday, July 18 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Palestine Solidarity Anti-Imperialist Working Group (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Friday, July 19 (12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.): Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, July 20 (10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Extreme Dean Door Knock Mobilization (Meet at Jefferson Square Park, corner of Turk & Laguna)

Sunday, July 21 (10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Team Jackie Mobilization w/ California Nurses Association (Meet at Precita Park, 3200 Folsom)

Sunday, July 21 (1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.): No Appetite for Apartheid Work Session (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, July 22 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Meeting (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, July 22 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)

Saturday, July 27 (10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Team Jackie Mobilization w/ Harvey Milk Club (Meet at TBD)

Saturday, July 27 (1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Platform / Education Meeting (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Sunday, July 28 (10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Extreme Dean Door Knock Mobilization (Meet at TBD)

Monday, July 29 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Ecosocialist Monthly Meeting (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, July 29 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Organizing 101 (In person at 1916 McAllister)

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

Events & Actions

Extreme Dean Door Knock Mobilization

Come out to knock doors for the Dean Preston campaign this Saturday, July 20th! We’ll meet at Jefferson Square Park (corner of Turk & Laguna) at 10:00 a.m. 

Jackie Fielder Mob with California Nurses Association

We’re so proud to have received CNA’s endorsements! Come out next Sunday, July 21st with your favorite nurses of CNA to talk to voters in Bernal! We’ll meet at Precita Park (corner of Precita & Treat) at 10:00 a.m.

No Appetite For Apartheid Mobilization

Join the Palestine Solidarity Anti-Imperialist Working Group in launching an SF No Appetite for Apartheid campaign! We’re meeting next on Sunday, July 21st from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at 1916 McAllister.

Inspired by long-standing Palestinian boycott tactics and the BDS call, we are canvassing local stores and asking them to pledge to become Apartheid Free by dropping products from companies complicit in the genocide of Palestinians and colonization of Palestine. It’s time to turn up the heat on this apartheid regime and take apartheid off our plates with the #NoAppetiteForApartheid campaign.

Sign the BAD! Petition

Bay Area Divest! (BAD!) is a new coalition that believes we must invest our public funds in our communities, NOT in repression, war, or genocide! DSA SF officially endorses BAD!, along with East Bay DSA, AROC, Palestinian Youth Movement, AFSC, Palestinian Feminist Collective, JVP, CodePink, and several other great organizations. Please sign the petition to join BAD! in refusing to allow our public funds to go towards supporting genocide and occupation:

Behind the Scenes

The Chapter Coordination Committee (CCC) regularly rotates duties among chapter members. This allows us to train new members in key duties that help keep the chapter running like organizing chapter meetings, keeping records updated, office cleanup, updating the DSA SF website and newsletter, etc. Members can view current CCC rotations.

To help with the day-to-day tasks that keep the chapter running, fill out the CCC help form.

In the last week of its term, the Supreme Court decimated the regulatory state, declared open season on the unhoused, and crowned the president king. There is no way out of this crisis other than winning the battle for democracy against the capitalist regime.

The Constitution establishes a political order explicitly designed to enshrine rule by elites. It divides the working class across state boundaries and constricts their representation to a small number of representatives selected through constrained political processes dominated by wealthy donors. The Supreme Court, using the self-conferred reactionary power of judicial review, takes this even further.

The unelected Supreme Court is rearranging an already undemocratic government into a collection of authoritarian states presided over by a monarch “elected” through a byzantine anti-democratic process. Congress is a fig leaf on plutocracy, now so gridlocked they can only agree on rubber-stamping more war spending.

The Democratic Party protects the power of the Supreme Court, paving the way for the next Trump administration’s program of crushing the workers movement and waging war against China. DSA demands an end to judicial supremacy, putting power into the hands of the people.

We do not live in a democracy. To fully end the fascist threat, the working class needs to fight the capitalist political system, which is enabling a transfer of near-absolute power to Trump. We need to win the battle for democracy.

This is why DSA is putting forward the For Our Rights program: an economy for the working class, an end to war, and a democratic constitution. 

Become a DSA member today to join the fight!

The post Statement on the Recent Supreme Court Rulings: Fight for Democracy! appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

On March 14, 2024, ROC DSA unanimously passed a resolution calling on our members and comrades within the movement “to submit a blank vote for the [New York] presidential primary.” This “Leave it Blank” campaign was organized by DSA chapters across the state as part of a nation-wide effort to demonstrate the lack of popular support behind President Joe Biden, by electing “Uncommitted” delegates to the Democratic National Convention. In Rochester, 11% of Democratic primary voters turned in blank ballots.

As a result of the Democratic Party’s refusal to hold an actual presidential primary, this form of protest was all that remained available to register dissent within the nation’s prescribed democratic pathways. At the time, the “Uncommitted” campaign was heavily criticized by Democratic Party operatives, suggesting it could hand the election to Donald Trump. Yet now they cannot deny what we have seen all along: Biden is unfit for office.

At Biden’s first presidential debate against Trump, who he has frequently presented as a threat to democracy, Biden floundered. He failed to articulate meaningful opposition to Trump’s policies, went out of his way to attack migrants, and appeared generally unwell. Following the debate, Biden’s poll numbers continue to cave, all but guaranteeing a Trump victory in November.

While the pundit class focuses on this demonstration of cognitive decline, Biden’s real unfitness for office comes as a result of his material and moral support for genocide. As he boasted at the debate, “We are providing Israel with all the weapons they need and when they need them,” and “We are the biggest producer of support for Israel than anyone in the world.” Even before the debate, Biden’s poll numbers were crumbling on account of this stance. No supporter of genocide is a “decent man,” despite the media’s insistence.

It is clear: In order to defeat Trump, Biden must withdraw from the contest. As DSA’s National Political Committee recognized, “If Biden is the nominee in November, Trump will be president in January.” In addition, due to his failure to stem the flow of Palestinian bodies, he should resign. We are disappointed by nominal “socialists” who have attached themselves to this legacy.

As socialists, we realize we cannot rely solely on electoralism. Too often we have seen capitalist governments respond to socialist electoral victories with brutal repression. But to build a mass movement we need space to maneuver. Trump presents a particular threat to socialist organizing, and a destructive outlet for the alienation of the working class. His campaign’s response to the attempt on his life shows foreboding signs of violent retaliation against the left.

ROC DSA will continue to focus on building a better world in our backyard. We will support projects for community vitality, protect access to abortion, and seek relief from predatory corporations. These campaigns will help us to solidify a block of the working class able to take back power from the oppressive capitalist class. Ultimately, we must organize beyond the two-party system. If you agree this is necessary, we call on you to join DSA.

If Democrats believe their own rhetoric regarding the danger of a second Trump term, they too must follow through with action.

Click here to read the statement from DSA’s National Political Committee: Drop Out Biden.

The post Still Uncommitted: President Biden Remains Unfit for the Job first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

DSA SF condemns the DSA National Political Committee (NPC) for their recent vote to endorse Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). Though the NPC put conditions of a stronger commitment to Palestinian liberation for her endorsement, these conditions were established without expectation of commitment from her end. 

On July 10th, the NPC’s endorsement of AOC was rescinded before we could get a clear response from her on these conditions. This withdrawal does not erase the fact that the NPC decided to endorse her despite her posturing around Palestine. NYC-DSA also continues to endorse and have a relationship with AOC. 

We believe a strong commitment to Palestinian liberation is the bare minimum required of any socialist elected official.

We must do more as an organization to ensure that our endorsed elected officials have stronger positions on Palestinian liberation. Although the work for this has started locally, we need to go further and establish clear anti-Zionist standards across all of DSA. DSA SF calls on the NPC to commit DSA to anti-Zionism as a principle and policy of our organization. We also call on all chapters nationwide to push forward and uphold these principles at a local level.

AOC has, in her career so far, failed to uphold this basic anti-Zionist standard. This is precisely why many dedicated organizers in DSA advocated against her endorsement. Just this past April, she co-signed a press release expressing strong support for Israel’s “self-defense” including the Iron Dome. She has regularly conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism, from her vote on H.Res. 888, to her smearing of our Palestinian comrades at Within Our Lifetime for their recent protests in New York. She is also still flagrantly campaigning for Joe Biden while he actively backs Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

While the decision to articulate specific conditions in the endorsement is a small step in the right direction, it ultimately fell short of actual accountability for the conduct of DSA’s most prominent endorsed elected official. DSA must apply these standards to all our endorsed candidates before we decide to endorse them, and make endorsement decisions based on our belief that those we endorse will actually follow through.

DSA needs mechanisms of accountability in case these elected officials fail to uphold their commitments in office, especially with regard to Palestine. As our comrades in the Palestinian Youth Movement have recently pointed out, Palestine is the first issue progressive organizations involved in electoral struggle are willing to sacrifice as soon as they face political tension. We have seen this dynamic with AOC, Jamaal Bowman, Bernie Sanders, and more. Our socialist organization cannot continue to make this mistake.

We must recognize the conditions that make these politicians turn their backs on Palestine. The United States’ close ties with Israel compel any politician who gains political power to maintain that relationship. The Democratic party is deeply embedded in this system. As long as the Democratic party is a vehicle through which we agitate for socialism, we will face this contradiction. DSA must resolve this to be a strong ally in the fight against Imperialism.

Whether it’s in Los Angeles or New York City, the transgressions of DSA-backed elected officials regarding Palestine ripple through DSA chapters across the country and make it harder for all of us to organize alongside Arab and Palestinian organizations for the liberation of Palestine. DSA must work to address this at the national level by establishing anti-Zionism as a principle and policy of the organization and supporting local organizers in their efforts to build stronger commitments to Palestinian liberation in their chapters.

DSA SF is proud to have passed an Anti-Zionist resolution just this past January, which has enshrined anti-Zionism as a core principle in our socialist organizing. Over 25 other chapters around the country have now also passed similar resolutions. This was the start of a productive relationship with the Palestinian movement in the Bay Area, a relationship that is growing and flourishing as we continue our organizing against Israel’s genocide and for Palestinian liberation. 

We cannot consider Palestinian liberation to be something candidates commit to on a case-by-case basis. We should not wait until a politician crosses the line to then ask for such commitments. We call on the NPC to pass an anti-Zionist resolution for the whole of our national organization, and to immediately put it into practice. It’s beyond time our organization enshrines anti-Zionism as a core, actionable socialist principle.

To this end, the NPC must ensure that all candidates endorsed by DSA, both locally and nationally, live up to specific anti-Zionist principles. This means the candidate must publicly oppose all funding to Israel, refrain from promoting any organizations or candidates that provide material aid to Israel, refrain from conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, publicly oppose any criminalization of anti-Zionism, publicly support the Palestinian right of return to ’48 Palestine, and publicly support the BDS movement. We must, as anti-Zionist DSA chapters, work together to make sure the NPC passes these standards.

Fighting American Imperialism is an integral part of fighting capitalism. We live in a settler-colony that was built on indigenous genocide and ethnic cleansing. Imperialism has exported the ideology and methodology of settler colonialism to Palestine, as Zionism. Zionism and Imperialism have done irreparable harm to Palestinians. We have a responsibility as socialists in the imperial core to combat this Imperialism from within. A better world is possible. A socialist world is possible, but not without the liberation of Palestine.