DSA is thrilled to endorse Richie Floyd and wholeheartedly supports his re-election to St. Petersburg’s city council! Richie is one of the most historic DSA candidates of our time, and we will fight alongside him once again!

A few years ago, Richie Floyd became the first openly self-identified socialist to win an election in Florida since the early 1900s, and he became St. Peterburg’s youngest council member!

While many of Florida’s elected officials remain openly hostile to socialists and insist on pushing red-bait culture war hysteria, Richie held his ground fighting for tenant’s rights, reproductive rights, and the entire working class of his city and state.

Richie is part of a slate of candidates in the Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash fundraising project!

By Ian AM and Jess N

With 16 resolutions and four amendments, the ramifications and nuances of the decisions presented for the 2026 annual convention for Metro Detroit DSA are enough to make your head spin if you’re a new member not thoroughly steeped in internal politics, caucuses and coalitions.

Let’s demystify that.

Beyond all the resolutions, amendments, debates, factional squabbles and general commotion ahead of convention, the broader political divide in our chapter boils down to three big questions:

1. Do you want Metro Detroit DSA to center ambitious, external-facing campaigns that deliver meaningful wins for our communities, like Money out of Politics or electing Cadre candidates like Chris Gilmer-Hill or Denzel McCampbell? Or should we focus on internal political education, reading groups and following the lead of smaller left or liberal advocacy groups?
2. Do you want Metro Detroit DSA to grow more accessible to every member of the working class so that it may evolve into a true mass movement as part of a National DSA with membership in the millions? Or would you rather Metro Detroit DSA maintain some degree of exclusivity with smaller ranks so that it may center more committed, ideologically pure members who have read “enough” theory?
3. Do you trust your comrades that you elect to handle administrative decisions so that we can meet the urgency of this polycrisis with decisive action? Or would you rather we spend valuable organizing time at GMs relitigating every decision of the democratically elected Steering Committee?

As a Metro Detroit DSA member attending our annual convention, most every vote you cast will essentially support one side or the other of these three key decisions.

For example, the Unity in Action resolution proposes we vote, as a chapter, to elect nine members to a commission to deliberate and propose structural changes. These proposals would take effect only if the membership voted to adopt them.

In other words, it creates a democratic and multitendency body tasked by the membership with developing proposals that address complex organizational challenges. In doing so, it streamlines the process of drafting and proposing effective yet broadly popular structural changes, which is a complex undertaking in and of itself.

For clarity, every member already has the power to make these proposals with or without the passage of this resolution. Creating a commission dedicated to this purpose simply ensures that proposals to organizational issues will indeed be created for members to consider.

The argument against this resolution is that it is anti-democratic to elect any other member to perform a specialized task for the chapter. The claim is that members should lead. It remains unclear why the chapter members we ourselves would elect to this commission would not count as “members leading.”

It’s ultimately a decision between a party-like structure focused on outward facing organizing vs. an absolutely “flat” participationary democracy — one with a high bar for participation in decision making and a focus on internal debates among factions.

DSA has had this debate before. In fact, this was the main debate in DSA nationally in the period leading up to the 2017 and 2019 conventions. Eventually, the side favoring a party-like structure won decisively.

It’s a good thing they did, because that orientation is the one that has allowed DSA to grow to over 100k members nationally and to achieve historic victories like the election of Zohran Mamdani in NYC.

Resolution 8 proposes that general meetings include a balanced mix of 30 minutes for political education, 30 minutes for working group and committee updates, and 60 minutes for our democratically-endorsed campaigns. It also gives the democratically elected Steering Committee the ability to be flexible with setting the agenda based on the needs of the organization and our membership.

Conversely, the amendment proposes 60 minutes of virtually every meeting be devoted to political education and reactive discussions of current events, with no requirement that it include any discussion of campaigns or other actionable next steps. Under this amendment, discussion of our campaigns and outward facing organizing would strictly be reduced to 35 minutes.

And so it is essentially a decision between prioritizing external-facing campaigns or internal political education.

At the end of the day, the decisions that we will collectively make at convention are not as complicated as they may seem.

We are deciding whether we wish to focus our efforts inward on those already “in the club,” or focus outward on the working class that we are trying to organize.

And we are deciding whether we trust the comrades we democratically elect — to unpaid and demanding volunteer positions — to act with integrity and handle administrative matters in good faith, or whether we will let factional resentment convince us that no comrade in a leadership position can be trusted with even the most basic tasks.

My co-author and I trust our comrades to elect effective leaders and to hold them accountable by voting them out the very next year if they fail to meet our standards.

We’re here to organize on campaigns that deliver working class wins that matter and involve our community.

And we’re here to build a mass movement that includes as many members of the working class as possible, all fighting to beat fascism and win socialism in our lifetimes.

Are you?

Beyond the Slogans, What’s Convention Really About? was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Ian A.M.

Labor and political education are two of the most important spaces for our efforts to build socialism in our lifetimes here in Metro Detroit. In this article, I’m arguing for three amendments that empower every member.

Amendment to R16: A Level Playing Field for an Open, Fair and Democratic Debate Series

As a “big tent” organization with a range of political traditions and tendencies, it’s vital that our members understand the various and often conflicting visions for the future of our chapter and organizing work.

The original resolution, R16, proposes a series of five debates for our general meetings discussing these topics. Holding debates regarding our organization, political theory and how we approach our work is indeed a critical and healthy measure for our chapter’s democracy. I suspect most members, despite tendency or caucus affiliations, would agree that a debate series is beneficial.

However, the resolution bases the series of debates on the book A User’s Guide to DSA. This is a publication that is now a few years old and doesn’t necessarily reflect the current status of debates in DSA today.

Besides, should we really ask our members to buy a specific niche book in order to understand the debate series they’re agreeing to at convention? The topics are not listed anywhere in the resolution, nor readily available online anywhere the book is listed for sale (Labor Power Publications, Amazon).

In short, members are being asked to agree to debates with almost zero context, and it’s not realistic to expect most members to proactively seek out this information in less than two weeks while they are also seeking to understand the ramifications of 15 other resolutions and three amendments.

This amendment allows the full membership to have a say in the topics of the debate to ensure all perspectives are presented fairly and given equal consideration.

In brief, the amendment empowers any member in good standing to submit a topic for consideration, and allows the full membership to vote on which five of the submitted topics should be selected for the debate series. For transparency, members submitting a topic must state any caucus affiliation.

A healthy debate starts with bringing everyone and all perspectives to the table to set the terms and topics. This amendment does just that.

Amendment to R4: Ensuring Democracy in Political Education Leadership and Sessions at General Meetings

As democratic socialists, we believe in member-led democracy and the core tenet that all members should have a say in how our chapter operates. That includes political education, a function and committee of the chapter that exists to support your own political development.

Therefore, you should have a say in the leadership of the committee and what topics and material are covered at the political education sessions at general meetings.

This amendment has two key pieces. First, it allows any member in good standing to propose and vote on the topics for this year’s political education sessions at general meetings.

Secondly, it grants every member in good standing the right to vote for the Chair of the Political Education Committee.

At first blush, you would be forgiven for thinking these are terms that every member of an explicitly democratic organization would find agreeable. The argument I’ve most often heard in opposition to this amendment is that in order to have a say in your own political education and the design of sessions facilitated for your benefit, you must first make time to routinely join the Political Education Committee’s meetings, which these days take place exclusively in person.

While that’s reasonable enough on paper, at present, only 10–20 members of our 1,300 member organization routinely find time in their busy lives and other crucial organizing efforts for the Political Education Committee’s meetings. In short, that means political education sessions for around 200 members at our general meetings are decided by a self-selecting group that represents less than 2% of the full membership. That is not a healthy democratic process, least of all for something that can be as partisan and contentious as political education.

It’s time we empowered the full membership to have a say in their own political development by letting them choose both the Chair of the Political Education Committee and the topics for our general meetings.

Amendment to R13: Creating Industry Specific Subcommittees for More Effective Labor Organizing and Ensuring Labor Chairs Are Also Selected Democratically

As our organization experiences a second wave of historic growth, our efforts to support labor organizing are expanding accordingly.

Like the above political education amendment, this amendment to R13 has two key elements. The first is creating industry-specific subcommittees for labor organizing. The second is empowering every member in good standing to vote for the Chair of the Labor Working Group.

To better allow labor organizers to coordinate and share knowledge on how to navigate the unique challenges and landscape of their industries, this amendment proposes the creation of several subcommittees to support organizers in specific fields: teachers, healthcare workers, service workers, non-profit workers, auto workers, and more.

This amendment takes inspiration from the commendable initiative many teachers in our chapter have already taken to form their own subcommittee to advance organizing among teachers and find solidarity with one another.

The Amendments of R4 and R13 Bring the Political Education and Labor Chairs to the Exact Same Democratic Standards as the Membership Engagement, Electoral, and Socialists in Office Chairs.

It’s important to note that across the chapter, members in good standing already exercise their right to vote for the chairs of the Membership Engagement, Electoral, and Socialists in Office Committees.

These amendments do not impose any new standards but bring the Political Education Committee and Labor Working Group up to the same democratic processes as these other committees. They establish a more level playing field and give you a say in how your own chapter operates in these vital spaces.

Every member in good standing should have a say in who leads organizing efforts within our chapter, even if they cannot make time to join a specific meeting. After all, it may not align with their work schedule, they may be busy with childcare, are chronically ill, are already at capacity with other vital initiatives within the chapter, have transportation difficulties, lack internet access, etc. That shouldn’t preclude their ability to vote on leadership.

What’s the Difference Between a Working Group and a Committee, Anyway?

Great question! The truth is our bylaws do not make a clear distinction between working groups and committees. At present, the two function identically in our chapter, as smaller groups of chapter members working together toward a certain interest, niche, or set of projects of the chapter.

So long as our bylaws do not make a clear distinction between these two types of bodies and how they should operate, they should be governed under similar practices.

Hopefully, with the passage of the Unity in Action resolution (R11), these ambiguities will be clarified with new bylaw language proposals.

Altogether, the amendments to R4 and R13 bring democracy to the full membership for two key organizing efforts in our chapter and offer you the chance to guide your own political education.

It’s Your Chapter — You Should Get a Say in Political Education and Labor was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This year before our annual membership convention, The Detroit Socialist asked for opinion pieces on the resolutions and amendments up for vote. Below, you will find 18 articles written by our fellow comrades.

In the spirit of democratic conversation, there are opposition articles. If you are interested in continuing the conversation before convention, please reach out to one of the co-editors (Taína S. or Casey G.) on Slack.

Our intention as editors of The Detroit Socialist is to provide a space for MD-DSA members to share our voices. We hope to provide a good faith platform for people to explain their resolutions and the reasoning behind them in a public forum.

Thank you so much to our writers, especially for your patience as we navigated these new waters and found them a little choppy.

Please enjoy the 2026 Resolution Extravaganza. We look forward to seeing you all at convention!

Resolution Articles:

All articles have links to the original resolution text.

1. R2–26: Why We Need “Continuing Towards Mass Membership Activation” by Joseph Green
2. R4–26 (with reference to R16 and A1-R8–26): Political Education at our Monthly General Meetings by Amanda Matyas
3. R5–26: Why We Need the 2026 Consensus Resolution of the Socialists in Office Committee by Ian SB.
4. R6–26: Building the Tradition: Why Metro Detroit DSA Needs a Mobilization Working Group by Rodney Coopwood
5. R7–26: Let the Members Lead by Collin P.
6. R8–26: Why We Need A Scalable, Balanced Model for a Growing MD-DSA by Francesca S.
7. R9–16: Electoral Campaigns and You: Why the Electoral Consensus Resolution by Aaron B.
8. R10–26: For Full Disclosure in Campaigns by Lauren Trendler
9. R11–26: MD-DSA: Everybody In, Nobody Out by Phil B.
10. Response Piece to R11–26: Against The Unity in Action Commission: Democracy Is a Practice, Not a Brand by Rodney Coopwood
11. R13–26: Open Debate Is Necessary For Developing Socialist Politics & Practice by Peter Landon
12. R14–26: Building a Pipeline, Not a Fence. Why We Need Term Limits and Real Democracy in Metro Detroit DSA by Jonathan Mukes
13. R15–26: Building Admin for The Party by Justin Skytta
14. R16–26: Experiencing R16 as a New Member by Fatima H.
15. R16–26: A Democratic DSA Is Strong to Act in the World by Jane Slaughter & Amanda Matyas

Amendment Articles:

1. A1–R8: Agitation, Deliberation, Education: An Amendment for a Radically Democratic General Meeting by Chris W.
2. A1-R14–26: For Leadership Development, Reasonable Term Limits, and Institutional Memory by Phil B.
3. A1-R16–26, A1-R24–26, A1-R13–26: It’s Your Chapter, You Should Get A Say in Political Education and Labor by Ian AM

The Detroit Socialist’s 2026 Resolution Extravaganza was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Ian AM and Jess N

With 16 resolutions and four amendments, the ramifications and nuances of the decisions presented for the 2026 annual convention for Metro Detroit DSA are enough to make your head spin if you’re a new member not thoroughly steeped in internal politics, caucuses and coalitions.

Let’s demystify that.

Beyond all the resolutions, amendments, debates, factional squabbles and general commotion ahead of convention, the broader political divide in our chapter boils down to three big questions:

1. Do you want Metro Detroit DSA to center ambitious, external-facing campaigns that deliver meaningful wins for our communities, like Money out of Politics or electing Cadre candidates like Chris Gilmer-Hill or Denzel McCampbell? Or should we focus on internal political education, reading groups and following the lead of smaller left or liberal advocacy groups?
2. Do you want Metro Detroit DSA to grow more accessible to every member of the working class so that it may evolve into a true mass movement as part of a National DSA with membership in the millions? Or would you rather Metro Detroit DSA maintain some degree of exclusivity with smaller ranks so that it may center more committed, ideologically pure members who have read “enough” theory?
3. Do you trust your comrades that you elect to handle administrative decisions so that we can meet the urgency of this polycrisis with decisive action? Or would you rather we spend valuable organizing time at GMs relitigating every decision of the democratically elected Steering Committee?

As a Metro Detroit DSA member attending our annual convention, most every vote you cast will essentially support one side or the other of these three key decisions.

For example, the Unity in Action resolution (R11) proposes we vote, as a chapter, to elect nine members to a commission to deliberate and propose structural changes. These proposals would take effect only if the membership voted to adopt them.

In other words, it creates a democratic and multitendency body tasked by the membership with developing proposals that address complex organizational challenges. In doing so, it streamlines the process of drafting and proposing effective yet broadly popular structural changes, which is a complex undertaking in and of itself.

For clarity, every member already has the power to make these proposals with or without the passage of this resolution. Creating a commission dedicated to this purpose simply ensures that proposals to organizational issues will indeed be created for members to consider.

The argument against this resolution is that it is anti-democratic to elect any other member to perform a specialized task for the chapter. The claim is that members should lead. It remains unclear why the chapter members we ourselves would elect to this commission would not count as “members leading.”

It’s ultimately a decision between a party-like structure focused on outward facing organizing vs. an absolutely “flat” participationary democracy — one with a high bar for participation in decision making and a focus on internal debates among factions.

DSA has had this debate before. In fact, this was the main debate in DSA nationally in the period leading up to the 2017 and 2019 conventions. Eventually, the side favoring a party-like structure won decisively.

It’s a good thing they did, because that orientation is the one that has allowed DSA to grow to over 100k members nationally and to achieve historic victories like the election of Zohran Mamdani in NYC.

Resolution 8 proposes that general meetings include a balanced mix of 30 minutes for political education, 30 minutes for working group and committee updates, and 60 minutes for our democratically-endorsed campaigns. It also gives the democratically elected Steering Committee the ability to be flexible with setting the agenda based on the needs of the organization and our membership.

Conversely, the amendment to Resolution 8 proposes 60 minutes of virtually every meeting be devoted to political education and reactive discussions of current events, with no requirement that it include any discussion of campaigns or other actionable next steps. Under this amendment, discussion of our campaigns and outward facing organizing would strictly be reduced to 35 minutes.

And so it is essentially a decision between prioritizing external-facing campaigns or internal political education.

At the end of the day, the decisions that we will collectively make at convention are not as complicated as they may seem.

We are deciding whether we wish to focus our efforts inward on those already “in the club,” or focus outward on the working class that we are trying to organize.

And we are deciding whether we trust the comrades we democratically elect — to unpaid and demanding volunteer positions — to act with integrity and handle administrative matters in good faith, or whether we will let factional resentment convince us that no comrade in a leadership position can be trusted with even the most basic tasks.

My co-author and I trust our comrades to elect effective leaders and to hold them accountable by voting them out the very next year if they fail to meet our standards.

We’re here to organize on campaigns that deliver working class wins that matter and involve our community.

And we’re here to build a mass movement that includes as many members of the working class as possible, all fighting to beat fascism and win socialism in our lifetimes.

Are you?

Beyond the Slogans, What’s Convention Really About? was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Popular education is a method of teaching that centers the voices of students starting from their unique perspectives and situations.

The post How to use popular education to build worker power appeared first on EWOC.

“The animal is immediately one with its life activity. It is not distinct from that activity; it is that activity. Man makes his life activity itself an object of his will and consciousness. He has conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he directly merges. Conscious life activity directly distinguishes man from animal life activity.” – Karl Marx, “Estranged Labour,” Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

Writing is one of the most important inventions in human history. It allowed us to build civilizations, to coordinate social structures across vast distances, and to fuel humanity’s social, political, and scientific development into the modern age. Thanks to the written word, we can read the exact thoughts of scholars who lived many thousands of years ago, communicate complex ideas to millions of people, and build the democratic political movements capable of remaking society for the benefit of working people.

It has never been more important to preserve and expand our ability to write and communicate clearly. Original writing is now being severely devalued by a current of anti-intellectualism, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, and an unprecedented public disinvestment in education. This is why Midwest Socialist wants to encourage Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members in the greater Midwest to develop their own skills at writing and communication.

Learn, Learn, and Learn Again

During the heyday of the democratic socialist movement in the first two decades of the twentieth century, deep engagement with Marxist theory was considered a prerequisite to leading workers in their struggle against oppression. Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Eugene Debs, Antonio Gramsci, and countless others spent years developing tomes of political theory while they organized tirelessly to overthrow capitalism. They did not see organizing and theorizing as two separate activities, but as two integral parts of the same effort.

In the twentieth century, socialist governments considered mass political education an essential step in building a post-capitalist society. In 1961, Cuba sent 250,000 educated people into the countryside to teach millions of poor workers and campesinos to read, virtually eliminating illiteracy on the island within a few short years. The methods developed during this campaign served as an example for the entire Global South, and the model was successfully implemented in other countries around the world.

Socialist states with highly literate populations took this idea a step further. In East Germany, government-sponsored programs established spaces to encourage workers to express themselves creatively, including through prose and poetry. These programs would have been considered wasteful and useless in a capitalist society, but the socialist government of that country saw value in the political development of the working class through creative pursuits.

Closer to home, universal public education is one of the greatest surviving accomplishments of the working class movement in the United States. The collective knowledge of humanity is our birthright as working people, and it is our responsibility to engage with these ideas and educate ourselves.

A Hollow Education

The relevance of political broadsheets and hand-printed pamphlets has declined precipitously in the last hundred years, but the necessity to write clearly and convincingly has not. We live in a time when a significant percentage of young Americans are falling behind in school, when college students at our nation’s most prestigious universities are incapable of reading a whole book, and when AI is taking away the livelihoods of creative and intellectual laborers on an unprecedented scale. In this context, reading, writing, and learning have taken on new significance.

Public schools are under attack in the U.S. Compounding the damage of decades of chronic disinvestment, Republicans and Democrats alike have established charter school systems across the country that take state money to fund academies – often with reactionary pedagogical mandates –  and predatory, unstable for-profit schools through “school voucher” programs. These efforts take away resources from public schools and leave students behind. This is in addition to the current administration’s broad anti-intellectual right-wing attacks on science, history, tolerance in the classroom, and the basic principle that education should serve students rather than the state’s extremist political agenda.

Furthermore, all modern forms of mass media are deliberately constructed to turn working people into passive consumers of carefully curated political messages that shut out the possibility of radical change. They shamelessly promote unjust and insane wars, give billionaires and their servants unlimited airtime and space to advance their own agendas while marginalizing progressive voices, attempt to smear left-wing candidates for public office, and turn people away from transformative social and political structures.

AI is just the most recent extension of the centuries-long effort to control what working people know, think, and feel. A recent meta-study by the Brookings Institute highlights the dangers of using this untested technology in classrooms. Evidence is mounting that students and adults alike suffer a “cognitive debt” when they over-rely on chatbots to perform intellectual tasks, rendering them incapable of the basic skills needed to function in society and sharply limiting their ability to develop any kind of meaningful political consciousness.

This is why Midwest Socialist does not accept AI-generated writing and strongly discourages the use of AI writing programs. For too many, an ‘AI-assisted’ piece of writing is the end of a conversation rather than the beginning of one. It is an excuse not to engage with ideas, a way to treat essays and creative writing projects as problems to be solved, published, and put away as quickly as possible rather than an exercise in critical thinking and creativity. In this context, the adage “if you couldn’t be bothered to write it, I can’t be bothered to read it” takes on new meaning.

At a time when it appears possible to offload every intellectual exertion to an unthinking machine, engaging with ideas seriously and honestly is quickly becoming a revolutionary act in itself. Despite all the hype from tech companies, working people are still quite skeptical that AI will benefit society in the long run. We can consciously reject the implementation of technologies that don’t serve the needs of the working class.

Why We Write

“Our task is to make thinkers out of fighters and fighters out of thinkers.” – General Gordon Baker, revolutionary educator

All progressive transformation finds its energy from the creative labor of working people. To give an example from American history, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the face of the New Deal and arguably its most important champion, but he did not implement it. It required legions of skilled, educated, and competent artisans, craftspeople, engineers, laborers, administrators, artists, writers, and countless others working toward the unified goal of transforming society. We are going to need millions of engaged, curious people eager to work to better society. We will build the future we deserve through a combination of organizing, community building, and unshakable solidarity.

Right now, none of those efforts are where they need to be. In the context of economic stagnation and repression at home and abroad, the fight for a better world can at times feel hopeless. Individual action is not enough to reverse the long-term trends of illiteracy and intellectual shortcutting that have plagued our society for decades. We need robustly funded schools, mass political education, a media not beholden to private interests, and an economy that fosters creative pursuits as more than products to be packaged for consumption. But that effort starts by building our own capabilities, collaborating with others, and working tirelessly to create and sustain the kinds of unapologetically socialist institutions that will build a better society.

There’s a reason every child is taught to write essays in school. Writing teaches us to organize our thoughts, to engage with primary sources, and to express ourselves clearly and succinctly to a wide audience. These skills are essential to any political movement. We cannot rely on capitalist-controlled media and obsequious AI to do our thinking for us.

If it is indeed true that every cook can govern, as the old saying goes, then any DSA member can write. Not every single person must become a journalist, theorist, or polemicist. There are a million ways to contribute to our struggle. But if you wrote stories on lined notebook paper in the fifth grade, composed multi-paragraph social media posts in response to articles you see online, or simply have had ideas and perspectives on our work and movement, we want to hear from you. 

If you would like to write for Midwest Socialist, contact us through our Google form. Be sure to read our Editorial Policy before submitting. We publish op-eds, articles about leftist history, interviews, left-wing reviews of recently released media and leftist classics, and other forms of writing, and we are particularly interested in original journalism about events happening in the Midwest.

If you have an idea that you need help turning into an outline, an outline you need help turning into a draft, or an article you’re wrestling with, our Editorial Board offers Zoom appointments to discuss your ideas and help you build them into a publishable article. The editorial board doesn’t guarantee that every individual article will be published, but we will work with you to build your project into a piece we can all be proud of. Once you’ve submitted a draft, we will make edits and send a final draft ready to be published.

Writing is a skill that takes time and practice, just like learning a language, mastering a trade, or playing an instrument. The only way to improve is to jump right in, and Midwest Socialist is a great place to get started. We look forward to reading your work.

The post Why You Should Write for Midwest Socialist appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

We are excited to announce our first federal endorsement for 2026!

Oliver Larkin is taking on one of the most war-mongering democrats in Congress, and DSA is proud to endorse him. Four Florida DSA chapters have already endorsed on the ground, canvassing and carrying petitions for Oliver. We will no longer allow billionaire-backed democrats to claim that we have to spend billions on war while healthcare is further decimated — we’re challenging them in the primaries with organized people who can’t be bought.

Oliver is part of a slate of candidates in the Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash fundraising project!

You’ve probably received enough communications regarding this Saturday’s “No Kings” demonstrations, which will be held all across the country. At last count more than three thousand demonstrations are being organized, and there will no doubt be at least one near you.

In case you have been procrastinating, here is a link to find the demonstrations closest to you.

The first of these demos last June had a million or two people attend. The next one, in October, had at least five million. We’re aiming to double that this time, which would put us in striking distance of the 3.5% of the US population that research says is necessary to topple authoritarian regimes in the making. 

Against the backdrop of brutal anti-immigrant violence and preparation for election suppression at home, and clueless trade policy matched with deadly wars abroad, a growing number of Americans are coming out to the streets. These include people who have never been politically involved outside of voting every few years, and progressives who sat out the 2024 presidential elections because they didn’t think there was any difference between the two parties and the two candidates. Within DSA and the rest of the left this often took the form of denouncing the “twin parties of capital”. Which they are. But that picture, drawn without nuance, underestimated what fascism is and does.

Now we know. 

A reasonable question at this point is, ‘What sort of message should socialists be sending to the other demonstrators, and the world, a year into America’s fascist descent?’ You have the opportunity to weigh in on that as you make your protest sign. “No Kings” is a start, not a program. “Workers Over Billionaires” moves us closer to the ideas we need.

This mass demonstration of opposition is absolutely necessary, but not sufficient to stop MAGA from dragging us along on its road to hell. For that we need to be broadening the struggle with other tactics and strategies (mutual aid, mass strikes, non-violent direct action, and electoral politics) that build a powerful anti-fascist movement and lay the basis for moving past the failed politics of the past. What happened in Minneapolis/St. Paul on January 23—‘No Work, No School, No Shopping’—is the best example so far. DSA has joined with labor and community partners in the May Day Strong coalition, which understands “No Kings” as a step toward a sharper critique of capitalism on May 1. On that day we will see how prepared we are to advance beyond a nationwide demonstration to a national movement.

We’ll see you out in the streets this weekend. And then we’ll continue to train and educate and prepare ourselves for the struggle ahead.