Last week, the Maine Coalition for Palestine organized a protest of ICE detention of Columbia University student leader Mahmoud Khalil. Since then, ICE has operated as the Trump Administration’s secret police, abducting a growing number of immigrant organizers for exercising their right to free speech and protesting the U.S.-sponsored genocide in Gaza. The list includes Rumeysa Ozturk, Yunseo Chung, Badar Khun Suri, Momodou Taal, Ranjani Srinivasan, as well as farmworker organizer Alfredo Juarez Zerefino. Maine DSA member and Portland District 2 City Councilmember Wes Pelletier spoke at the Portland Mahmoud Khalil protest and DSA chapters around New England issued a joint declaration reprinted below against the ICE abduction of Rumeysa Ozturk.

***

New England DSA chapters demand freedom for Rumeysa Ozturk

Yesterday, ICE agents abducted Rumeysa Ozturk, a graduate student and pro-Palestine activist at Tufts. 

The kidnapping comes after almost 400 ICE arrests in Massachusetts, as well as the doxxing of Ozturn by the pro-Isreal website Canary Mission. 

ICE’s abductions—of Ozturk, Khalil, and many others—is an unprecedented attack on basic civil rights in the name of U.S. Empire, whether those detained are peaceful political activists or undocumented migrants seeking safety, jobs, and a better life. 

We must stand up against this brazen attack on Palestine, free speech, and the right to protest.

We must stand in solidarity with our neighbors and communities under attack from Trump, ICE, and all agents of imperialism. 

Governor Healey, the courts, and the Democratic Party establishment are not coming to save us—we must mobilize, agitate, and organize in our workplaces and campuses to defend working-class rights. 

In Solidarity,

Berkshires DSA, Boston DSA, Boston University YDSA, Cape Cod DSA, Connecticut DSA, Maine DSA, Northeastern YDSA, River Valley DSA, Simmons YDSA, Southern New Hampshire DSA, Upper Valley DSA, Worcester DSA

[Listen next: Maine DSA podcast on Bowdoin College Gaza encampment]

Wes Pelletier speech at March 18 rally for Mahmoud Khalil in Portland

I’m here to lend my voice to everyone here to call for the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil who was illegally detained and is facing deportation. This is part of a sadistic assault on working-class immigrants across the country. It’s part of a broader attack by this administration. In fact, the attack has been going on for a long time, but there’s also something new. This casual separation of families, this destruction of Black and Brown lives has been going on for years but what’s new is that the veneer is off, the idea that these are not white supremacist policies has fallen away. We now have a government that is hell bent on creating fear and uncertainty among everyone.

These are obviously very frightening circumstances. We’re facing a clear and present danger, but it’s also an opportunity. We have a lot of people who are not used to the machines normally reserved for others now turned on them. Yes, it’s scary, but there is an opportunity for solidarity. That solidarity does not come automatically and it’s going to take a lot of work. We need to do what’s right. Meanwhile, the liberal institutions that we count on, the Democratic Party and universities like Columbia are immediately acquiescing to fascism and it’s creating this vacuum.

So we need to turn to each other. Here’s what I’m asking everyone here to do. You need to create community, to build organization. You need to find and join an organization that’s got clear rule and decision-making structures that are democratic so you can create organizations that can help tackle these problems. The time to quibble over small differences has passed. We need to come together against a unified enemy. We need to unify to win this fight. We also need to come together in our communities. We need to go out and knock on neighbors’ doors and join community gardens and create tenant unions and more. This is the kind of community that will protect us because fascism thrives on fear of our neighbors. That’s something we see over and over. They want people to be afraid of the people around them. The poor people, Black and Brown, so you will support the people who will crack down on them. We need to create networks to resist that.

This moment is ours. It’s an opportunity even if it’s dangerous. We’re on the precipice of something, but we can get through this. We can create a stronger, more agile, more powerful working class that’s made up of everyone. We will have something bigger if we do it. So I call on you to contact your representatives, even if I don’t know that they’ll do anything! But it’s good to at least be a pain in their asses.

But more than that, get involved in local politics. Call on Mayor Dion, call on the city manager to stop slow rolling a bill that will prevent police from collaborating with ICE. That’s been kept off the agenda for months. Call the sheriff to end the Cumberland County Jail’s contract with ICE. Get involved at every level of your local government because it feels like something where you can feel your own agency. Together we can effect change in our state, in our county, in our towns. And it creates power and it creates community and it creates resistance. I appreciate you all for coming out tonight. Free Palestine!

[Read next: The method to Trump’s Medicaid cut madness]

The post New England DSA protests ICE detentions appeared first on Pine & Roses.

If you’re reading this, you (hopefully) agree that housing is a human right. The Democratic Socialists of America support Housing for All as a main tenet of the national platform, ultimately demanding public housing for all, housing relief and rental protections for all, and abolishment of homelessness (DSA, 2024). While rising housing costs dig deeper and deeper into our pockets, many of our community members continue to find themselves experiencing housing insecurity and homelessness. Colorado Springs shamefully attempts to combat homelessness with their four shelters, known for their ever changing rules, poor food supplies and abhorrent shelter conditions, thousands of unhoused folks go without a place to sleep each night (Pikes Peak Continuum of Care, 2024). With this unforgiving system, too many people are left to fend for themselves while being forced to live on the streets. So, how do we move towards making housing equitable and accessible to all? The Housing First Model may provide some guidance towards eliminating homelessness, along with insight as to the external catalysts and systems that create the circumstances for homelessness to occur.

The Housing First approach provides no-questions-asked housing to those in need, while also offering (yet not requiring) practical support such as guidance in applying for state benefits, financial planning education, substance use cessation assistance, mental health counseling, and job training. A Housing First approach to homelessness and homelessness prevention is based on the idea that housing is a human right. The Housing First Model eliminates any requirements or stipulations that many conventional renters and landlords impose before someone is granted access to housing. By providing housing or rental assistance absent of prerequisites, people are able to focus on things that can help them maintain stable and permanent housing, such as: finding employment, pursuing education, tending to mental and physical health, exploring sobriety and engaging with community. The Housing First model is thought to be beneficial as several studies show that supportive services are more effective when the person offered services willingly participates (Housing first, 2022). In turn, folks in Housing First programs have reported significant personal benefits such as an increased sense of autonomy, choice, and control (Housing first, 2022). This humanistic approach to housing can allow those experiencing homelessness the space and support to thrive in life on their own terms, rather than focusing all of their energy and capacity into surviving.

Housing first is not only a compassionate approach to preventing and eliminating homelessness in our community, but it provides economic and social benefits as well. In Colorado Springs, it costs approximately $58,000 to provide services such as shelter, police, fire and medical emergency services to 1 chronically homeless person each year (City of Colorado Springs, n.d.). According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness (2022), cities can see a yearly savings of around $23,000 per person housed in a Housing First program. These programs also lessen the social costs of homelessness: by utilizing Housing First programs and principles, we can dismiss the city's desire to hire more police and prison personnel, lessen the strain on emergency services like hospitals and emergency rooms, and reduce tensions between housed and unhoused communities.

As we continue to fight for Housing First policies and housing for all legislation, we must organize at the local level to change the minds of our neighbors. Luckily, there are many ways to join our fight for housing for all, including talking about these issues  with your neighbors and community, connecting with grassroots organizations (like DSA!), participating in your local politics and elections, showing up to city council and town hall meetings, and engaging in mutual aid with those around you. Another great opportunity to work towards Housing for All with a Housing First approach is coming up on April 1st, 2025 with Colorado Springs’ General Municipal Election. Colorado Springs’ DSA chapter has proudly endorsed fellow socialist Maryah Lauer for city council in district 3. Maryah is a steadfast candidate that we can count on to push for Housing for All policies with a Housing First approach while serving her community on city council. As a long-time community organizer herself, Maryah has built personal rapport with Colorado Springs’ unhoused community, so she understands how city council can play a larger role in eliminating and preventing homelessness through the sympathetic lens of the Housing First model. Maryah also plans to work towards DSA’s goal of Housing for All by expanding on renters protections and implementing restrictions on the purchase of housing stock by private equity and investment firms. If you’re looking for more ways to get involved and flex your socialist muscle, please visit https://maryahfordistrict3.com/ to learn more, volunteer, or donate!

References

City of Colorado Springs. (n.d.). Homelessness Prevention and Response. https://hr.coloradosprings.gov/homelessness-prevention-and-response 

El Paso County Colorado. (2024, January). Housing Our Future: City of Colorado Springs Housing and Community Vitality Department. https://epc-assets.elpasoco.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2024/02/EPCPH-2016-Annual-Report_-Final.pdf

Housing first. National Alliance to End Homelessness. (2022, March 20). https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/ 

Pikes Peak Continuum of Care. (2024). PIT Totals. 2024 Point-In-Time Count. https://www.ppchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/PIT-Count-Summaries-1.pdf

All out to free Rumeysa!

This is a developing story.

By Henry De Groot

SOMERVILLE, MA – Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tuesday evening.

According to Ozturk’s attorney, sources report, Ozturk has a valid F-1 visa and was returning home to meet with friends and break her Ramadan fast when she was detained by federal agents, near Electric Avenue and Mason Street in Somerville, just a block away from Tuft’s campus in Medford. Some reports indicate that agents had been circling her neighborhood in unmarked vehicles for several days.

The university administration reports they were told that Ozturk’s visa has been terminated. They shared the following statement:

In March of 2024, Ozturk was one of four authors of an Op-Ed in the The Tufts Daily, the school’s student newspaper, titled “Try again, President Kumar: Renewing calls for Tufts to adopt March 4 TCU Senate resolutions.” The article called on the universities’ administration to implement the anti-genocide resolutions adopted by the Tufts Community Union Senate, a body of the student government.

Ozturk is a member of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local 509. Union members reported to Working Mass that the local’s higher-ed members are organizing turnout to the rally this evening.

Her attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai, has filed a petition of habeas corpus in Massachusetts federal court for her to be released. US District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued a 3 page ruling that Ozturk was not to be moved out of the state without prior notice.

The action comes as ICE reports that it arrested 370 migrants across Massachusetts after a multi-day raid.

This detention is just the latest in a series of actions targeting university students, workers, and faculty as Trump carries out his election promise to deport foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian and anti-war efforts.

Ozturk was listed by the right-wing doxing website Canary Mission, which targets pro-Palestinian activists back in February 2025. The site had screenshotted her March 4 article.

Activists are calling for an emergency demonstration at 5:30 p.m. at Powder House Square Park.

Henry De Groot is the managing editor of Working Mass.

[[{“value”:”

All out to free Rumeysa!

This is a developing story.

SOMERVILLE, MA – Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tuesday evening.

Ozturk is a member of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local 509.

According to Ozturk’s attorney, sources report, Ozturk has a valid F-1 visa and was returning home to meet with friends and break her Ramadan fast when she was detained by federal agents, near Electric Avenue and Mason Street in Somerville, just a block away from Tuft’s campus in Medford. The university administration reports they were told that Ozturk’s visa has been terminated.

Some reports indicate that agents had been circling her neighborhood in unmarked vehicles for several days.

Her attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai, has filed a petition of habeas corpus in Massachusetts federal court for her to be released.

The action comes as ICE reports that it arrested 370 migrants across Massachusetts after a multi-day raid.

This detention is just the latest in a series of actions targeting university students, workers, and faculty as Trump carries out his election promise to deport foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian and anti-war efforts.

Activists are calling for an emergency demonstration at 5:30 p.m. at Powder House Square Park.

“}]] 

Federal workers have many of the same rights as private-sector workers with a few crucial distinctions.

The post What are my union rights as a federal worker? appeared first on EWOC.

Upcoming Events

Wednesday, March 26 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Intro to Socialism (Zoom)

Thursday, March 27 (5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.): Education Board Open Meeting (Zoom)

Thursday, March 27 (5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.): Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Imperialist Working Group (Zoom)

Saturday, March 29 (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.): Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Imperialism Reading Group: Ten Myths About Israel (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Sunday, March 30 (12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.): Spanish for Organizers (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Sunday, March 30 (1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.): Know Your Rights Canvassing (Meet at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, March 31 (5:50 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Electoral Board Meeting (Zoom)

Monday, March 31 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, March 31 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)

Tuesday, April 1 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Turnout Tuesday for Vision Drive (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, April 2 (6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): New Member Happy Hour at Zeitgeist (In person at Zeitgeist at 199 Valencia)

Thursday, April 3 (7:00 pm. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigration Justice Working Group Meeting (Zoom)

Saturday, April 5 (12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): Chapter Local Vision and Strategy Meeting (Location TBD)

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

Events & Actions

Turnout Tuesday on 3/25 (Today!) for Spanish for Organizers

Join your comrades in making calls and sending texts to let folks know about the upcoming Spanish for Organizers training. We’ll be meeting at 1916 McAllister today (Tuesday, March 25) from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. RSVP here!

Spanish for Organizers

Join the Immigrant Justice Working Group for Spanish for Organizers! Come learn and practice basic Spanish phrases for organizing. All skill levels welcome. We’re meeting on Sunday, March 30, at 12:00 p.m. at 1916 McAllister. See you there!

Can’t make it to Spanish for Organizers or are feeling extra inspired to encourage turnout? Come through for our Turnout Tuesday on March 25 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at 1916 McAllister. We’ll be making calls and sending texts to let folks know about the Spanish for Organizers training. RSVP here.

Capital Reading Group

DSA SF has started a Marx’s Capital reading group! We’ll be meeting every other Sunday from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at 1916 McAllister St. and also on Zoom. We’ll meet on April 6th to cover Chapter 1. We’re reading the new translation published by Princeton University Press. You can also join the #capital-rdg-group-2025 channel on the DSA SF Slack for additional information and discussion!

Socialist Job Fair Reportback

Our first socialist job fair was a huge success! On Sunday, March 16, we had 140 registered attendees come down to the Unite-HERE Local 2 HQ to learn about union, worker co-op, organizing, and salting job opportunities from representatives of 14 union locals and organizations. Facilitating this matchmaking and engagement not only helps job-seeking socialists and bolsters worker power in the city economy, it provides an alternative job pipeline that challenges the logic of capitalist exploitation. More to come!

If you’re interested but were unable to make it, or want to follow up and need contact info, reach out to the Labor Working Group at labor@dsasf.org.

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.

by Gregory Lebens-Higgins

We live in a world of detachment; disconnected from our material surroundings, separated from one another, and desperately seeking distraction from our isolation. The unease is measured in deaths by alcohol and suicide, the frequency of mass shootings, and hours spent looking at our phones. An “epidemic of loneliness” is decried in mainstream media, but with incomplete analysis and stunted solutions. Unsurprisingly, “Work … appears to be of little help.”

This condition of alienation emanates from capitalism, circulating through the system and shaping the way we live and relate to one another. Capitalism perpetually drives our atomization into socially disconnected nodes of extraction, replacing social bonds with self-interested economic exchange.

Capitalism alienates workers from their labor. Under a capitalist mode of production, production is directed for profit and dependent on wage labor. The status of wage-laborer is not voluntarily assumed by the worker. This class of “free labor” had to be created, a task accomplished by the enclosure of common lands, the severing of feudal bonds, and advances in technology. 

Opportunities to escape the compulsion of rent under capitalism were foreclosed. Where economic coercion failed, violence was ready to step in. At the end of this process of primitive accumulation, the means of production—machinery, raw materials, and productive land—were securely in the hands of a capitalist ruling class. 

Workers came to relate to the object of their labor—the means of life—not by direct exchange with nature, but through the mediation of capital. Workers are forced to sell their labor power, manufacturing commodities that are in no part theirs, nor produced for their direct subsistence. “[T]he process of production has the mastery over man,” says Marx, “instead of being controlled by him.” The worker is transformed into an appendage of a much larger and impersonal machine. 

The worker must then act as a consumer, relying on the market for food, shelter, and other necessities. These objects are produced for profit, and the worker relates to them as exchange value, available only for purchase. Thus, crises of overproduction are unique to capitalism—goods destroyed or left to rot because workers’ wages are insufficient to effect their realization as capital.

This mass of commodities also shapes our world, carrying unintended externalities—whether cars, guns, smartphones, or pesticides. Still, democratic decision-making over production is largely foreclosed, with consumer choice the only recognized input.

Workers cannot escape their condition (despite the promised payoff of “hard work”), because wages are calculated only for social reproduction—the capacity to reproduce workers’ labor power. The surplus value of their labor (i.e., what remains after the subtraction of wages), is extracted through the production process and alienated as capital. This surplus value comes to dominate workers as thoroughly as the commodities they produce. Capitalists invest surplus value not only toward the further expansion of their capital, but to protect their power with lobbying, union busting, and corruption. 

These means are used to secure ever greater control over workers. In effect, every increase in production leads to a decrease in their freedom. “Labor itself progressively extends and gives an ever wider and fuller existence to the objective world of wealth as a power alien to labor,” says Marx. We need look no further than the divergence between increasing productivity and stagnant wages to illustrate this point.

Capitalism also heightens our experience of social alienation. Production is premised on competition, and workers are pitted against one another to offer their labor for the lowest wage. We come to relate to one another as exchange values, with mutual exploitation propelling our interactions. We are left with the question, “What can I get from this person?” We are all indoctrinated into the false consciousness of capitalism, driven to accumulate by any means necessary.

Social bonds are dissipated by unasked-for innovation. “The bourgeoisie cannot exist,” claims Marx, “without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.” Every space is increasingly marketized; cut off from its public use. The occupation of social space now comes with an entrance fee, limiting opportunities for socialization not mediated through capital. This enclosure has led to a proliferation of online spaces where people can escape into a digital realm; dispersing the psychic anxiety of the reality crumbling around them by yelling into the void.

The capitalist class is also alienated. Though they own the means of production, they are similarly separated from its object. Commodities are produced for profit rather than any meaningful consideration of their use value. The capitalist cares not whether he produces school buses or precision bombs.

The protection of ruling class status requires war on humanity. To maximize profit, workers must have their wages reduced, hours extended, and be employable “at will.” In search of new markets, capitalism sponsors slavery, colonialism, and reckless resource extraction. 

At some level the capitalist cannot avoid acknowledging their guilt. In the Twilight Zone episode “Printer’s Devil,” a newspaper editor who exchanges his soul for success exclaims, “You’ve caused tragedy, you’ve destroyed life and property. I didn’t bargain for this!” “Oh yes, you did,” responds the devil. “But you put it out of your mind. You thought you’d get everything for nothing. That’s not the way life works.”

Though the rich view themselves as gods, they confront the same mortality we all do. This self-conception can never correspond to reality, leading to inevitable dissatisfaction. They are driven to ever larger displays of grandiosity to prove their worth, outward expression compensating for an absence of inward reflection.

The capitalist class cannot experience shared humanity, since their existence is in opposition to its continuation. Instead, they descend into hedonism. “Our bourgeois, not content with having wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives,” observes Marx. Seeking distraction in ever greater novel pleasures, they descend into the perversions of Epstein and the rituals of Bohemian Grove.

The working class can defeat the capitalist engine of alienation by acknowledging our shared struggle and turning toward cooperation. Only by finding common cause will the working class be motivated to use its limited free time not for escapist pleasures, but to build an alternative political project. Such self-sacrificing solidarity is required to seize the means of production and reorient production toward humanity rather than profit. When the means of life are made available to all, new social structures will take root in our shared humanity and alleviate our alienation.

The post A is for Alienation first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

Note: This report was written by the 2024-25 Executive Committee and originally presented to Madison Area DSA membership ahead of the March 2025 Chapter Convention. This public-facing version has been edited or abridged in some places.

Executive Committee

• Bonnie W, co-chair (she/her)
• Adithya P, co-chair (he/they)
• Jason M, administrator (he/him)
• Nathan J, treasurer (he/him)
• Halsey H, communications coordinator (she/her)
• Alex P, membership coordinator (he/him)

Introduction

The re-election of Donald Trump and the chaos of the first 100 days of his return to office have dominated the headlines and occupied the minds of our members lately. But as our annual convention meets in this uncertain and uneasy environment, our chapter should take time to reflect on all that we have accomplished since our convention last March.

This report is not intended to be an exhaustive account of everything our chapter and members have done in the past year. Rather, we intend to highlight critical achievements, pressing challenges, and new opportunities that will help guide future decision making. Every contribution made by our members, no matter how large or small, is crucial in building the organization and world that we need and deserve: one ordered on the flourishing of human potential, and not endless exploitation and accumulation.

What We Did This Year

Madison Area DSA is a membership organization, funded entirely by dues, optionally paid by our members directly to the chapter on a monthly basis, and from national DSA on a quarterly basis. Our numbers, our time, and our money are the resources we have to fight back against a rising fascist tide. Growing and maintaining our membership, therefore, is an organizational imperative. We are pleased to report that in this moment of national crisis, our chapter has attracted many new members, and reactivated lapsed members, who are motivated and ready to work in socialist organizing.

• Just this month, Madison Area DSA reached 440 members in good standing (MIGS). This set a new all-time high for the chapter and surpassed the previous membership peak in 2021. Since the November 2024 Presidential Election, we have added over 100 new members.

• Our chapter’s average meeting attendance over the last year was about 44 people, or 38 if only members are included. From April through October attendance was mostly in the 30-40 range, while post-presidential election there has been a large increase–about 80 in November, dipping to the 50s for December and January, and then over 90 in February. The February meeting is the largest known MADSA meeting ever!
• After moving from two chapter meetings each month to one in late 2023, this year the executive committee (Exec) decided to lengthen the monthly chapter meetings from 90 minutes to 2 hours. This was in response to both an increase in business (from regular chapter-wide deliberation over the School Meals priority campaign to political education to the fall election and DSA’s response), and a sense that discussions were not being allowed enough time to build collective political analysis and understanding.
• In early March 2024, we endorsed the Wisconsin Uninstructed campaign to urge then-president Biden to stop the genocide in Gaza. In close collaboration with UW-Madison YDSA, we hosted four neighborhood canvasses and two campus tabling days, contributing to the 47,800 Uninstructed votes in the April primary election. This was a very fast moving, highly intensive campaign for organizers and volunteers.
• A number of YDSA and MADSA members attended or otherwise contributed to the UW-Madison Palestine encampment protest (aka Popular University for Gaza) that started at the end of April and lasted for almost two weeks. MADSA also endorsed and had different levels of organized involvement with several other solidarity actions over the course of the year: the War Profiteers Out of Madison rally in June (protesting a weapons manufacturing conference), the Not Another Bomb rally in August, and All Out for Lebanon in September.
• At the December chapter meeting following the election, members voted to organize within the local People’s March as well as develop a People’s Platform on which local elected officials could run. MADSA members played a large role in planning the local People’s March which occurred on January 18th, and the chapter had a well-organized contingent present.
• One goal that Exec identified this year was providing more political education opportunities to members. While there is still work to do in this area (for example re-forming a political education committee/working group or similar), there has been fairly regular inclusion of political education programming in chapter meetings, and a reading group around Marx’s Capital (Volume 1) started up in the fall. Other notable political education events for the year included hosting a talk by Professor August Nimtz in April, “Beyond Lesser Evils: Rethinking the Importance of Elections”; and the annual Socialism Conference in Chicago, which the chapter provided financial support for members to attend.
• This year, our chapter made the following electoral endorsements: DSA member Heidi Wegleitner for Dane County Board of Supervisors (uncontested, won), DSA member Francesca Hong for State Assembly (uncontested, won), DSA member Maia Pearson for state assembly (contested, did not win), and the 2024 Madison City and School November Budget Referendums (won). Out of all of these campaigns, we meaningly contributed volunteer time and energy to Maia Pearson’s campaign. Maia was running a slim campaign with only a few volunteers, and our chapter significantly expanded the communications and canvassing her campaign was able to do. Despite this, Maia did not win her race.
• We have a suite of Working Groups, Committees, and Campaigns, and this year they accomplished a lot, from helping new folks unionize their workplace to abolitionist political education to pressuring the school board for free school meals for all. For more information on what our chapter working groups and committees did this year, please see the other reports further down in this document.

Co-Chair Report and Reflections

Bonnie W, co-chair

Adithya P, co-chair

We have been proud to serve as your Madison Area DSA co-chairs for the past year. We have both served in multiple leadership roles in MADSA over the past several years (including as chapter admin and co-chair respectively in 2023-2024), and this informs our reflections shared below.

Background

Although Madison Area DSA existed since the 80s, its modern era (like most other DSA chapters) began in late 2016 following the first Bernie Sanders presidential run, and the chapter grew quickly but unevenly in leaps and bounds over the next few years. From 2020 to 2021, in the context of the COVID crisis and racial justice uprisings, the chapter almost doubled in membership from around 240 to 440. 

However along with the new members and radicalizing political landscape came internal challenges. All chapter activities moved to Zoom in 2020, which, over time, negatively impacted our ability to form relationships, work together, and resolve conflict. Chapter leaders also faced difficulties in trying to bridge the sometimes siloed, federated nature of our working groups. Efforts to set chapter priorities at previous conventions had mixed results, as most proposals were passed but lacked the focus and collective buy-in to be truly prioritized by the chapter.

These factors, in addition to a period of internal conflict in 2022 and the burnout and exodus of some former leaders disillusioned with DSA, initiated a slow decline in active membership and capacity in our chapter starting in 2022. This mirrored the membership trend in DSA nationally. 

When we joined the executive committee for our first term in 2023, most of the chapter’s active leadership core had disengaged from the chapter, and most exec positions were filled by first-time leaders facing the difficult task of assuming the mantle of both administrative and political leadership. Despite these difficulties, the reduced activity also presented an opportunity to address MADSA’s long-standing issues with siloed working groups, lack of political cohesion, and leadership turnover.

Over the course of 2023, we helped make changes which helped to set the chapter on an upward growth trajectory by the end of the year. We began holding hybrid chapter meetings instead of Zoom-only and reduced meeting frequency from twice to once a month. We started hosting in-person chapter socials. We focused more on membership development at the chapter level and took advantage of support and training opportunities from DSA member-volunteers and staff.

Chapter leadership also made a substantial effort to rethink the 2024 MADSA Convention. We made the Convention a one-day in-person event instead of a two-day virtual event, as it had been for the previous 3 years. We did most voting in-person at the event, instead of virtually after the event, which was a significant shift in chapter culture and helped reestablish decision-making as a collective, participatory process rather than an individual, isolated task. Lastly, in order to refocus the chapter on a unifying strategic mission, we moved away from voting through a slate of chapter “priorities” in favor of voting through one priority campaign.

Politically, the year 2024-2025 was defined by the fight for Palestine and the election of Trump, sharpening the urgency of our organizing. For our chapter, it was a year of growth, campaign work, and renewed political clarity. Through it all, we made key interventions to build our chapter’s strength and impact—now, we take this moment to reflect on what we learned and where we go from here.

General Membership Meetings

Our goal was to increase attendance at general membership meetings and make them a central space for chapter-wide decision-making, discussion, and accountability. To achieve this, we committed to holding one chapter meeting per month, with a social afterward to encourage connection. We experimented with a second monthly meeting in late October but saw little additional engagement, so we stuck to the monthly model. Structurally, we aimed to include updates, political education, and discussion of ongoing campaigns in every meeting, though this wasn’t always feasible. A key shift was increasing the number of votes held at meetings—encouraging working groups and members to bring organizing proposals forward in a ready-to-vote format. This helped move decision-making out of smaller groups and into the general membership, creating a culture where members expected to participate in chapter-wide discussions and strategy. We also improved meeting promotion and divided up meeting roles more intentionally.

These efforts helped increase attendance, with average meeting participation rising from 19.6 in 2023 to 32.2 in 2024, even before the post-election surge. General meetings have become the lifeblood of the chapter, reversing the previous dynamic where working groups were the primary spaces for organizing. While newer members sometimes hesitated to speak or vote against proposals, participation remained high, and the shift toward more in-meeting decision-making helped integrate members into the chapter’s organizing process.

Note: Meeting attendance figures may not be 100% exact for some months.

Increased Transparency

To improve transparency of the executive committee, we made the #executive-committee Slack channel public, allowing members to see our discussions and deliberation. We also created and maintained documents explaining chapter resources and processes (like the chapter Quick Start guide, tutorials on how to use our texting platform, etc), making it easier for members to access important information. Additionally, we strove to share bi-monthly executive committee reports, which were shared via Slack and email to keep the chapter informed on exec votes, membership, the treasury, etc. Unfortunately, we failed to release a report between Oct. 2024 and March 2025.

Nevertheless, these efforts received positive feedback through word of mouth and our exec survey, showing that members felt positively about increased transparency. We recommend the next executive committee improve on this by making minutes of exec meetings more readily available to general membership and provide a record of decisions made by Exec in written or verbal reports at chapter meetings.

Commitment to External Work

We took on a number of large external-facing campaigns the past year, including the Uncommitted primary campaign in early March, the launch of the School Meals Campaign in April, support for the UW-Madison Palestine encampment in early May, the Maia Pearson State Assembly primary in June and July. School meals work continued through the fall and winter, interspersed with other initiatives like coordinating local Palestine solidarity rallies, the October endorsements of local budget referendums, and the People’s March in January.

As outlined elsewhere in this report, we saw major successes in some of these efforts. There was a collective sense of urgency to meet the political moment in 2024, as well as a shared desire among active membership to re-establish our presence locally after spending most of the previous year rebuilding the chapter. Madison DSA’s profile grew with increased media coverage and local visibility, and our increased presence was an important factor in our post-election membership growth and causing more people to see our chapter as a potential political home for them.  

A recurring theme across many of the campaigns was that they often came together on short notice or with extremely aggressive timelines. Many also happened concurrently or immediately after other efforts concluded, and were bottomlined by a small group of the same chapter leaders who were juggling multiple projects and other leadership responsibilities. This resulted in an organizing environment where we deprioritized the crucial steps of debriefing and reflecting on work we had done in favor of taking on new work.

Chapter leaders had less time to devote to important questions of larger chapter strategy and political leadership, and spent less time communicating with other members and leaders and maintaining alignment on shared organizing goals. Falling into a rut of doing the work and losing touch with a guiding political vision is a prime recipe for burnout. Despite these shortcomings we see a lot of room for growth in the chapter this year, especially with many newer members looking to start new chapter work. We look forward to seeing new projects take shape and get developed collectively by membership.

One shortcoming of our priority campaign selection process at last convention was encouraging members to develop fully-formed campaign proposals before bringing them to chapter convention. The School Meals Campaign won majority support from membership both for David O’s strong vision, but also for the level of development and detail in the proposal. However, this led to some pitfalls when actually running the campaign, where despite David’s support other members struggled to build confidence and a sense of ownership organizing around the issue, and too often deferring on political and strategic questions to overburdened campaign leadership. 

One lesson from this is that to build stronger leadership and buy-in, more members need to be involved in the process of developing strategies and vision for external campaigns, even if that means taking more time for campaigns to take shape and launch. More members taking ownership in this process is key to the further political development of the chapter.

Depoliticization

This reflected another chapter trend in 2024 – a depoliticization of the way we assessed our work internally and externally through an explicitly socialist lens.

While general membership weighed in on questions of strategy for ongoing work, these discussions sometimes de-emphasized the political dimension – not just considering what work to take on and why, but taking time to question and examine the ideological priors undergirding those strategies. This stemmed from a lower level of political development among active chapter membership and leadership compared to several years prior, and a lack of confidence applying a socialist analysis to our organizing methods and understanding of history. 

For example, the school meals campaign’s original proposal invoked the legacy of the Black Panthers’ free breakfast programs. However the campaign and chapter never set aside time to learn and discuss the historical context those programs arose from, analyze how those conditions did or didn’t map onto our own, and reflect on what other lessons to take from previous generations of socialists. 

Our attempts to place more emphasis on political education were haphazard, although we see significantly more chapter interest and opportunities to reprioritize this in the coming year. Developing members’ confidence in applying a socialist analysis informed by theory and history to their work is an important step to building a larger body of leaders and organizers in the chapter. While we made significant steps in building our organizing practice last year, we hope this year the chapter combines that with more engagement with socialist theory, further sharpening our practice.

Member and Leader Development

Our goal and continual challenge as a chapter was to re-engage membership by developing more members into active participants and future leaders. To do this, we made a number of changes to practices. Our February 2024 membership drive reinstitutionalized the practice of structured listwork of our membership; listwork being the practice of tracking outreach to and development of members. Listwork had not been done in the chapter in several years. This year, the practice was maintained in some working groups and campaigns. Exec also started doing listwork periodically to better track engagement and leadership development of active chapter members. 

We also focused on delegating more entry-level tasks—such as setting up for meetings and processing sign-up sheets—to newer members, helping them build familiarity with chapter operations. Exec held two Leadership Roundtable retreats in June and December with working group and committee leaders to talk about membership development and strategize about collective work.

We had major success with revamping our monthly New Member Orientations (DSA 101s) and putting more emphasis on organizing new and prospective members to attend. Over the course of the past year, we made major overhauls to the presentation and our distribution of organizing labor around the events. In the fall we began regularly textbanking new and prospective members and had two members running the orientation, improving attendance to 5-8 people a month. This increased exponentially following the election, and we overhauled the format to meet the demand. Our November NMO had over 50 attendees, and we enlisted other chapter leaders to help facilitate breakout groups. Attendance remained above 30-40 in the last two months, and we began delegating more meeting roles to other newer members on the revived Membership Committee, which has yielded positive results. We intend to continue with this format going forward and encourage other chapter bodies to consider similar practices for delegating more responsibilities for meetings and events.

This year, we saw growing pains balancing continued internal membership engagement with a renewed focus on external-facing work. Our February 2024 membership drive helped develop many active members who took on larger leadership roles following the 2024 Convention on Exec, working groups, and the school meals campaign. We struggled to backfill their contributions on the membership committee, and a significant amount of membership work between the March convention and November election was performed by our membership coordinator Alex P and other members of the executive committee.

In the coming year, we recommend chapter leaders increase focus on membership development, such as the training series we held in February covering 1:1 organizing conversations and strategic campaign planning. Another area of emphasis for the chapter this year should be focusing more attention on leadership development and supporting current chapter leaders. Due to previous leadership turnover and loss of institutional memory, many new and existing leaders in the chapter did not receive as much support as needed to ensure they were in a position to succeed and help develop other leaders behind them. New and existing working group leaders were placed in difficult positions and some were unaware of all the resources and tools available to them through the chapter and national organization. This led to leaders being tasked with too many responsibilities and stretched thin.

Overcommitment also led to constantly planning and coordinating new actions and events, and we too frequently fell into the trap of core leaders taking on too many tasks themselves in order to meet tight deadlines. This came at the expense of opportunities to develop other members, creating a cycle where potential new leaders were less prepared to step up because they hadn’t gotten enough experience in lesser roles, because those were being done by existing leaders who were too busy to develop new leaders. One example of this was the YDSA-led People’s Org Fair the weekend after the election. Seeing the event planning well behind schedule, several members of the executive committee stepped in the week before the event and took on significant responsibilities planning panels and developing programming themselves, rather than working to identify other members who could be asked to take on these tasks.

Following our co-chair terms, we intend to help build more intentional leadership development opportunities in the chapter for both current and prospective leaders, and we hope to start breaking the cycle of leadership burnout and turnover that has plagued the chapter in previous years. We believe that with the influx of new members we have many potential new leaders who can develop and step into elected and middle leadership roles across the chapter in the coming year.

The Coming Year

As we look ahead, it’s clear that there is always more to do. In a time of rising fascism and ongoing attacks on workers’ rights, the pressure to act is constant. But our mission is not just to act—it’s to act strategically. We must sharpen our socialist analysis to understand the political conditions of our city and country, using that understanding to choose fights that will build worker power and grow our capacity. A healthy chapter and a strong socialist movement require both external organizing—strategic campaigns, coalition building, and political education—and internal work to sustain ourselves, from leadership development to communications and membership outreach. Balancing these priorities is challenging, but we make small advances every day. To grow, we must also reflect, assess our choices, and improve through collective discussion and report-backs, and we encourage every working group, committee and campaign to make these a regular part of your organizing.

At the heart of it all, people stay in the fight because of each other—because of the relationships they build, the struggles they share, and the trust they develop. Strengthening the social fabric of our chapter is just as important as our organizing. We encourage everyone to plan and attend socials, talk to one another, talk to other chapters, and also build community connections beyond DSA. These relationships, particularly connections to DSA leaders across the country, have been central to our personal growth, which we’ve brought to the chapter and we encourage others to do the same.

As co-chairs, we’ve learned so much over the last year, and we’re energized by the growing number of people stepping into leadership and bringing new ideas. We welcome the diversity of political thought, debate, and even disagreement—because through these discussions, we sharpen our analysis and build a stronger movement. We encourage everyone to stay involved, step up, and help shape the future of our chapter!

Treasury Report

Some financial information has been redacted from the public-facing version of this report.

Nathan J, treasurer

1. As our chapter grows, there is a greater need to accurately budget, which in turn requires tracking transactions in a ledger. Besides getting in the habit of budgeting and maintaining a ledger, a cash handling policy was adopted and a reimbursement request form (https://madison-dsa.org/resources/) was created to improve traceability of transactions.
2. Balance: our chapter is financially stable and the balance of funds grew over the past year (April 2024 – March 2025). Budget details are included below, but here is a high level overview.
3. Opportunities for growth: while it is nice to have a growing chapter balance, our chapter can afford to spend more money on outreach. Of our expenses, approximately 35% is for overhead expenses (rent, software, transaction fees, etc.), approximately 50% is for internal chapter development (meetings, conferences, food, etc.), and approximately 15% is for outreach (campaigning, tabling, public events, etc.). Overhead expenses and internal chapter development are necessary but should be viewed as serving the purpose of ultimately growing the chapter through outreach and making a difference in the community.

Membership Report

Alex P, membership coordinator

Adithya P, co-chair

• Membership Numbers
  • As mentioned above, Madison now has over 440 members in good standing as of 3/8/2025, our highest total ever. Members in good standing (MIGS) refer to members up to date on dues, granting them full voting and participation rights within DSA.
  • This time last year, the chapter had about 325 MIGS. Counting constitutional members (members whose dues lapsed within the last year), MADSA has over 490 members today versus around 430 last March.
  • Madison saw a net gain of 56 MIGS (from 312 to 368) over the 2024 calendar year, an 18% increase. Of the 50 largest DSA chapters, only 3 grew at a faster rate than Madison over the same time period. DSA membership nationally grew by 4% during this time.
  • Madison saw a net gain of 108 MIGS (from 326 to 434) in the 4-month period between the election and the end of February, a 33% increase in membership. Of the 50 largest DSA chapters, only 4 grew at a faster rate than Madison over that period. DSA membership nationally grew by 21% during the same time span.
• Membership Trends
  • We saw a MASSIVE bump in membership following both the presidential election and inauguration. This rising trend will likely subside sometime in the next few months, but has not as of yet.
  • As one might expect, interest in the chapter most often correlated with recent chapter activity in public spaces, be it tabling, protest participation while wearing/bearing DSA identifiers, or ongoing campaign actions. This has in part allowed us to maintain our numbers even in periods where National has seen slight membership declines.
  • By far most new members coming to our chapter are ones who have self-selected joining (ie they found us, we did not find them). Going forward, it should be the goal of our membership strategy to utilize campaigns to make more direct asks of people to join our organization. Every action, big or small, is an opportunity to recruit. 
• Membership Committee
  • Following the last convention, much of the existing membership committee participants were heavily involved in other leadership roles in the chapter. The formal organization of the committee went on hiatus during this time, but has since returned in early 2025. The committee is now meeting regularly (every other Wed.) and has been steadily growing in numbers.
    • Much of the infrastructure for comprehensive membership outreach is already established, but will require more hands on deck to utilize. Further growth and development of committee members should be prioritized in the coming year.
  • New Member Orientations have seen a complete re-work, moving towards a more interactive, discussion-centric model intended to allow us to learn about the myriad reasons new and returning members are seeking work in our chapter and organization. 
  • Active efforts have been taken to ensure that at least one chapter social event occurs every month, utilizing a more collaborative planning process that hopefully will see a greater variety of events being sponsored. Additionally, members have been empowered to reach out to others in the chapter more informally to organize smaller social gatherings to build more direct ties of solidarity. 
• Other Work
  • Chapter membership tracking and listwork has been significantly revamped, mostly to integrate automated member tracking and communications through ActionNetwork. Using this, we’ve been able to keep better tabs on what actions members are engaging in, how active they are with chapter events, and automating outreach to inactive and dues-lapsed members. Going forward we hope to see a greater degree of use and integration with ActionNetwork among other working groups and committees in the chapter. 

Communications Report

Halsey H, comms coordinator

The big development in the last year is that we now have a communications committee that meets on a monthly basis. We’re starting to set up some roles and recurring tasks for different platforms, and we have a solid group of people who are doing some great graphic design, for social media and print propaganda materials. We have been posting regularly on our social media, and have a team of people working on making sure we have daily engagement, but there is definitely room for more people to get involved and support that work. Comrade Emerson M. has been making weekly posts across all of our platforms with all of the events coming up each week, and this has been very helpful for making sure we have more regular content and that members and prospective members have somewhere they can always check to see what’s going on. Our email newsletter has gone out roughly twice per month, and that and our other email communications have very good engagement.

Right now we’re working on creating some templates and how-to guides to get more people plugged in to comms work, to diversify the type of content we’re able to put out, and to make it easier for people throughout the chapter to get their events promoted. We’ve had a lot of success building the capacity of our comms committee, and I’m hoping we can continue to improve our ability to reach people in person and online in the coming year, and to post more photos and videos of all the cool stuff we have going on in the chapter – especially when we have members give presentations or speeches, because that content does really well.

Maine unions are speaking up for their members and their communities in the face of Trump’s attacks. Just this week postal workers organized multiple protests in Bangor and Portland, teachers rallied at Deering High School and Rowe Elementary for full funding of public education, federal workers spoke out against mass firings in Brewer, Social Security workers denounced layoffs that could paralyze the system, and nurses marched on Sen. Susan Collins office, calling on Mainers to defend Medicaid. 

After two months of MAGA blitzkrieg, it’s encouraging to see Maine labor taking to the streets. We’ll need to raise our organizing efforts another order of magnitude to begin to limit the damage Trump and Musk are inflicting on public education, health care, federal workers, and workers in general. But this was the first week where it felt like there were two sides to this fight and marked a stark contrast with the pathetic spectacle of 3 out of 4 (Golden, King, and Collins) of Maine’s congressional delegation voting for Trump’s budget the week before. 

As unions ramp up the fight, it’s worth thinking through what Trump hopes to achieve in the coming year and what drives him. 

First, there’s his obvious thirst for revenge against enemies, real and imagined. It would be a mistake to underestimate his uniquely self-centered vision of politics. This means there is not always a larger objective at play. He might well strip Maine of tens of millions of public education money just because he’s enraged that Gov. Mills had the gall to stand up to him in public. Even if that were to ruin Laura Libby’s run for the Blaine House. 

[Read next: We’ll need popular resistance to defend trans rights in Maine]

Second, Trump’s journey from apolitical playboy to MAGA fascist began when he realized his path to power passed through the right-wing evangelical church and white nationalist movements. Now that he has united and empowered these forces for his own gain, he must feed the monster. Trump’s campaign against immigrant workers will disrupt tourism, construction and agriculture in Maine and most likely lead to higher inflation, but he will reap political power from the fear it instills. 

Third, what is Trump’s economic game plan? This is a big question, including tariffs, foreign investment, AI, and a lot more. But I will focus on just one part of it here: the federal budget and taxation. Trump wants to extend tax cuts for corporations and the richest 1 percent. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts reduced corporate taxes from 35 to 21 percent and cut individual income taxes on the wealthiest from 39.6 to 37 percent. Those cuts cost the government approximately $2 trillion in revenue between 2018 and 2025. Extending the cuts to 2034 will cost another $4 trillion in revenue. The 2017 tax cuts (and COVID spending) ballooned the deficit, and this cannot be done again without threatening the value of the dollar as the global reserve currency—the secret power to the American financial system. So, this time around, Trump has to slash the federal budget in order to pay for his tax cuts. 

When the infamous gangster Sonnie Hutton was asked why he robbed banks, he replied, “Because that’s where the money is.” Where will Trump find $500 billion per year to hand over to his rich pals in the federal budget?

Not all parts of the budget are equally vulnerable, nor equally lucrative. Take Trump’s decree abolishing the Department of Education. Firing the few thousand federal education workers might save about $250 million. That’s not even a rounding error in the $6.9 trillion federal budget. In fact, if Trump succeeds in firing, let’s say, 20 percent of the roughly 3 million current federal employees, that would save approximately $60 billion per year. That sounds like a lot of money, but it’s just 8 percent of the Pentagon budget. 

Eliminating the Department of Education, USAID—he can cross that off his list—and the FBI would free up about $100 billion. Eliminating bigger targets like the Departments of Transportation and Agriculture would cut around $300 billion from the budget, but there’s virtually no chance Trump will cut what are effectively huge subsidies to Big Ag and the auto industry. That leaves the big ticket items like paying the interest on the national debt ($892 billion), the Department of Defense ($872 billion… and rising), and veterans benefits and federal pensions ($500 billion). Trump either can’t, or won’t want to, strip significant funds from these pools. 

[Read Next: Tax the rich, it’s a decent start]

What does that leave? Social Security accounts for 21 percent of the federal budget ($1.5 trillion) and Medicare is about 15 percent ($912 billion). Trump has promised—promised!—not to touch those popular programs, even if his billionaire Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnik might well be more eager to pick seniors’ pockets. It would be foolish to pretend Trump won’t eventually try to cut these programs, but he’s most likely to look for an easier target. 

Which brings us to Medicaid and the associated Children’s Health Insurance Program, which account for about 8 percent ($626 billion) of the federal budget. Medicaid disproportionately serves economically vulnerable portions of the working class, providing subsidized prenatal care, medications, nursing homes and elder care, and serving as a critical safety net for people with disabilities. At the same time, Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals and health care facilities deliver much needed resources to every county in the country. Without Medicaid, rural health care will suffer quickly and drastically. The closure of Northern Lights hospital in Waterville is a canary in a coal mine. Cutting Medicaid by 25 or 50 percent would devastate health care in Maine. Be that as it may, $626 billion must look awfully tempting to Trump.

At the rally to defend Medicaid organized by the Maine State Nurses Association last week, Julianna Hansen, an RN in the neurosurgical and trauma unit at Maine Med asked, “Our seniors, those with disabilities, and our young people are the ones who would most be hurt by cuts to MaineCare [Medicaid in Maine] and CubCare. How can Sen. Collins and our elected representatives even consider taking away this life-saving care?”

It’s a good question. Sonnie Hutton had an answer. Unfortunately, we know what Trump’s will be. If we want a different one from Sen. Collins—or whoever replaces her in 2026—we’ll have to build on what we did this week in the months and years to come.

[Read next: Jared Golden leads, Schumer follows, Trumps wins]

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