Watch What I Do, Not What I Say: A Primer on Caucuses in DSA Leadership, 2023–25
SMC Editorial Board Note: This piece is not an official caucus statement, but the opinion of the author.
At the last biennial DSA National Convention in August 2023, the election of the new leadership body was greeted with much fanfare and some confusion as a historic moment. A leader of the Rochester, New York, chapter enthusiastically added this sentence to the chapter’s new-member orientation slides:
A small coalition of communist caucuses now hold the majority on the National Political Committee.
What is this “small coalition” that now holds the majority in the National Political Committee (NPC), DSA’s national political leadership body and legal board of directors?
A couple of guides to DSA caucuses are out there. They tell us, roughly, what each group claims it’s all about. That’s useful, but I find it much more enlightening to look at the track record of the caucuses to understand who’s who in DSA’s national leadership.
The good news is that you don’t have to look at fine distinctions and learn a lot of acronyms to get a good sense of what’s what. There are basically two tendencies in DSA.
The Two Tendencies
The mass-politics tendency envisions an organization with millions of members, which grows by welcoming everyday people and demonstrating in practice and through collective struggle—in the electoral arena, on the shop floor in labor unions, and beyond—that the working class can win governing power and can enact transformational reforms. This tendency measures success in terms of real-world power to reshape society toward a socialist future.
The sectarian tendency longs for a purer and necessarily smaller organization that will transition very soon into an ideologically cohesive, separate political party with elected officials who owe allegiance to the party’s elected leaders (see Footnote 1 below); this tendency measures success in terms of DSA’s appeal to already organized vanguardist sects and prepares for a final crisis of capitalism to sweep a socialist party into power.
Indeed, since August 2023, the NPC has had two quite firm blocs.
Acting as a single bloc, Red Star (3 NPC members, including paid co-chair Megan R.), Bread and Roses (3 members), Marxist Unity Group (MUG) (2 members), Ahmed H., and Luisa M. have implemented a joint agenda. (Ahmed recently started a group, Springs of Revolution, and Luisa has launched a caucus, 21st Century Socialism.) This is the sectarian bloc.
Likewise acting as a bloc, Groundwork (4 members, including the other paid co-chair, Ashik S.) and Socialist Majority (2 members) have pursued a joint agenda. This is the mass-politics bloc.
What have been the competing agendas of these blocs?
This guide will cover the following areas:
The Elephant in the Room: Confronting Fascism
Are Socialists Our Enemies? Endorsing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
A Change of Theory: Considering a United Front
The Elephant in the Room
The epochal question in 2023–24 was whether MAGA would fully capture the American state.
A year before the presidential election, the NPC met to discuss potential outcomes and how DSA might organize up to and through the election. Some members of the sectarian bloc argued in the November 2023 NPC meeting that a second Biden term would be practically indistinguishable from a second Trump term. They thus saw no urgency in opposing Trump. Members of the mass-politics bloc, on the other hand, warned that a second Trump term posed a very real fascist threat, in contrast to another neoliberal Biden term.
This contrast is most evident in a resolution introduced at the February 23–24 meeting of the National Political Committee by Comrade Renée P. of Socialist Majority. (Follow this DSA member–only link and see NPC minutes for Feb 23-24, 2024.) It reads, in relevant part, “DSA commits to work to defeat Trump in the 2024 election, without endorsing the Democratic nominee.” The resolution was defeated 6-10. The sectarians, joined by YDSA representatives, voted no.
Socialist Majority brought forward a different proposal that the NPC eventually endorsed: to use the Democratic primary (such as it was) to pressure Biden to stop the genocide in Gaza.
The “Uncommitted” campaign had emerged as a way to apply such pressure. Arab-American leaders Abbas Alawieh and Layla Elabed set out to urge Michigan voters to elect delegates to the Democratic National Convention who were “Uncommitted” to Biden instead of voting for Biden delegates. (Comrade Elabed is a member of DSA and of Socialist Majority.) Their goal was a modest 10,000 votes, but they got 100,000, or over 13 percent of primary voters.
The movement grew to other states. Socialist Majority member Seth W. served as organizing and field director and NPC member Renée P. played a leading role as the movement’s lawyer. DSA lent its support through infrastructure and organizers. More than 700,000 “uncommitted” votes were cast. In states that don’t offer an “uncommitted” option in primaries, chapters (such as Rochester, N.Y.) urged voters to cast blank ballots in the primaries in protest.
We can’t call the campaign a success, since Biden and Harris continued to finance and countenance genocide. But it was an organizing win for DSA.
Paralysis
What now, after the primaries were over?
The sectarian majority of NPC remained content with DSA sitting on the sidelines during an extremely consequential political moment—or actually campaigning against Harris.
The debate in the National Political Committee meeting of September 15, 2024, sheds light on why. I am grateful to Comrade Adam B. for his notes from that meeting.
One view was that for people to embrace socialism, they have to lose hope in government and the system; the view favored the destruction of the status quo to encourage pessimism. Comrade Colleen J. critiqued this view as a right-wing framing, not only because we should never wish additional suffering on workers but also because socialists need and seek state power.
Members perceived a surge of energy when Biden dropped out. Did that “energy” represent a yearning for the status quo (in which case it could not be harnessed by DSA) or a yearning for change (in which case it could)? A member from Groundwork argued that the surge came from a fear of fascism; she said Harris could co-opt it in part because DSA has been reluctant to put out a full-throated, independent critique of Trump.
The salient fact here is that the NPC, with its sectarian majority, was still not prepared actively to oppose fascism in mid-September 2024.
Campaigning to Defeat Kamala Harris
The NPC in that meeting went on to consider a proposal put forward by the Marxist Unity Group. (See NPC minutes for September 15, 2024.) The proposal would call on the public “to withhold their votes from Kamala Harris unless she secures an arms embargo on Israel and an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the genocide against the people of Palestine.”
One of the NPC members from MUG said this is the best opportunity to build a constituency opposed to the Democratic Party. He claimed withholding support from Harris would create better organizing conditions after the election, because the proposal would move the working class away from the Democratic Party.
Renée of Socialist Majority said the resolution would commit us to an unstrategic position that would alienate us from those who are scared of Trump. If stopping the genocide and ending our complicity in it were as easy as not voting, then we would do that—but that’s not how it works. We have to continue engaging and organizing.
Ashik S. of Groundwork said he sympathized. He was at the Democratic National Convention and it sucked because we hit the limits of the “Uncommitted” strategy. However, sometimes that’s the best we can do. The reality is we don’t have the power to extract concessions and we have to figure out how we build toward that power. So we are left in the same place as the seven unions who supported an arms embargo: Like UE, oppose Trump, vote for Harris in swing states, and frame issues correctly. Like UAW, don’t scapegoat immigrants and direct your ire toward the billionaires/ruling class. This is how the partners we need are orienting in the presidential elections.
The other NPC member from MUG said their position was not just a moral position. It would represent an effort to organize people in disaffected communities.
An NPC member from Bread and Roses said working-class people have conflicting interests. They have a reasonable desire to keep Trump out of office, and voting for Harris is a reasonable way to accomplish that goal. She said DSA messaging should ignore both candidates and focus on how we’re building our own project instead. Encouraging people to not vote at all will not help us in this moment.
In a rare break with the sectarian majority, Bread and Roses thus opposed the proposal and it was not adopted.
Socialism Beats Fascism
While the sectarians were resisting efforts to oppose Trump, the mass-politics bloc initiated an independent campaign titled “Socialism Beats Fascism” to pursue socialist organizing while opposing Trump. Members traveled to swing states where socialist candidates or initiatives were on the ballot. They canvassed for socialism and for DSA-endorsed candidates, also urging voters to vote in a way that would stop a Trump win. Those who could not travel phonebanked.
The difference in the blocs can be viewed as the difference between the sectarians’ neoliberal individualism and organizing for power. Do we focus on being able to say, “Don’t blame me; I voted for Claudia de la Cruz”? Or do we focus, like the mass-politics bloc, on organizing for power under conditions not of our choosing?
Are Socialists Our Enemies?
In the 2024 primary elections, four DSA members were defending their seats in the US House of Representatives: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman.
Comrades Tlaib and Bush were endorsed by national DSA. Their chapters gave them wholehearted canvassing support and national DSA backed up that support with communications and phonebanks—insofar as possible with a skeleton staff. (See Fig. 1.)
Fig. 1. A tweet from Groundwork on March 11, 2024 captured “The moment the NPC voted to initiate the process to lay off 40% of DSA workers. 10.5 in favor.“ National Political Committee member Laura W. (Bread and Roses) chose “Solidarity Forever” as a background to advocate for laying off 12 full-time employees. Thanks to the efforts of comrades across the board phonebanking, and thanks to the generosity of thousands of DSA members, by late March, the Growth and Development Committee, led by Colleen J. (Socialist Majority) had raised enough funds to “protect DSA’s organizing capacity” and make the layoffs unnecessary. (The NPC nonetheless laid off staff.)
Comrade Bowman had been the focus of the campaign that brought sectarians to power in DSA in the first place. He had voted in favor of $1 billion in supplemental military assistance to Israel in 2021 and gone on a junket sponsored by J Street, a liberal pro-Israel lobby group. The National Political Committee in 2021 condemned his actions but resisted calls to expel him from DSA, noting that we must engage with comrades if we are to move them. Events proved the previous NPC right: Bowman became one of the most outspoken critics of Israel in Congress and a top target for the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC). The NYC chapter went all out in canvassing for him.
What of our highest profile and most popular member, AOC?
While NYC-DSA eagerly supported the candidacy of AOC, the sectarians on NPC hesitated to renew her national endorsement. Targeting Bowman had worked for them, so they wanted to try their hand with AOC.
They said, “Let’s see what members think.” But they pointedly voted down a proposal from the mass-politics bloc for a formal poll. Instead, NPC members opened a form for members to give feedback. A supermajority of the 777 form responses supported endorsement. (According to a tally by Nate K., 534 or 69 percent responded with a definitive “Yes”; 21 or 3 percent leaned “Yes”; 15 or 2 percent were neutral; 18 or 3 percent leaned “No”; and 188 or 24 percent responded with a definitive “No.”)
At long last, the weekend before the primary in which AOC would crush her opponents, the sectarians went against the express wishes of a supermajority of DSA members, and instead agreed to an unprecedented and symbolic “conditional” endorsement. In response, NYC-DSA promptly withdrew its request for a national endorsement. But the sectarians had a point to make, and released a poorly written and inaccurate statement to the press. It resulted in New York Times coverage suggesting that DSA had unendorsed AOC and had done so because she spoke against antisemitism.
Representative Ocasio-Cortez had endorsed Biden for reelection early on; she endorsed Harris promptly after Biden dropped out. At the Democratic National Convention, she said during her primetime speaking slot that Harris was “working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing hostages home.” This was a tactical choice at odds with the tactical choice DSA had made in the “Uncommitted” movement: she was supporting Harris’s candidacy even as “Uncommitted” delegates in the convention hall were insisting on concessions on Palestine.
For the mass-politics bloc in DSA, tactical differences with elected officials are inevitable; DSA must address such differences and prevail by building popular support for our views and by having ongoing (and, at times, difficult) conversations with officials and their staff. Sectarians, on the other hand, envision a style of politics in which DSA insiders make policy and elected officials do as they’re told, or else. . . .
What made this episode remarkable—indeed, shocking—was that DSA, under sectarian leadership, was spending more energy, by far, issuing statements critical of a well-known socialist than it was fighting against Donald Trump or, indeed, for or against anyone else.
It is worth noting that AOC remains a valued member of NYC-DSA. She held a mass call to recruit for NYC-DSA on Dec 3, 2024. On January 25 and 26, 2025, she hosted “DSA 101” meetings in both the Bronx and Queens. And on June 5, 2025, she endorsed Zohran Mamdani as her top choice for the NYC mayoral election.
A Change of Theory
The far right has expanded its base and seized federal power. It is carrying out its agenda of austerity, repression, and consolidation of power deliberately and unflinchingly. It would be a big mistake to consider this an aberration that will naturally correct itself in two or four years.
How are the two blocs in DSA leadership responding to this situation?
With the victory of Nazism in Germany, the Soviet Union, which had encouraged sectarian fighting within the left, shifted strategy. It now called for a nonsectarian, united front against fascism, the defense of bourgeois-democratic norms, and coalitions with the middle class and capitalists. Stopping fascism was the priority.
So far, the sectarians have resisted coalitions with anti-MAGA forces that have been drawing in hundreds of thousands of people alarmed by Trump’s actions. They even resist working with socialists. An event in Colorado offers a graphic illustration of the two blocs’ different theories of change.
On March 21, 2025, Bernie Sanders and AOC held a rally in Denver. With 34,000 supporters in attendance, Bernie observed, “It is the largest rally that I have ever had.”
Our comrades in the mass movement–oriented Fort Collins DSA chapter attended the rally and canvassed participants to join DSA. In a striking flyer (see Fig. 2 below) titled, “Like what they are fighting for? Join your local DSA chapter,” they reiterated some of the things we are fighting for:
Elect socialists like AOC and Bernie
Tax the rich
Unionize your workplace
Fight for healthcare for all
Demand a free Palestine
Stand up for immigrants, women, and trans people
Fig. 2. Our comrades in the mass movement–oriented Fort Collins DSA chapter sought to organize attendees in the Denver stop of the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour.
Meanwhile, some Denver chapter members had their own flyer, from an excerpt written by NPC member Ahmed H., who took the opportunity of the AOC/Bernie rally to attack AOC and Bernie. (See Fig. 3 below.)
The flyer, titled, “Build movements, not heroes,” attacks Bernie and AOC as “politicians seeking fleeting popularity over moral clarity” and argues that “we have outgrown the celebrity politicians who just a few years ago were catalysts of radicalization.”
Fig. 3. A sectarian leader in DSA wrote a flyer claiming democratic socialist icons Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were “politicians seeking fleeting popularity over moral clarity.” The flyer urged people who had come to listen to Bernie and AOC to reject them.
Concluding Remarks
The argument, “We have outgrown Bernie,” is one often made by sectarians in DSA.
If it’s an argument about maturity (“Look ma, no hands!”) then the sectarian majority on the NPC should have something to show for itself after two years in leadership. It does not.
We have certainly grown since Bernie announced his first presidential candidacy ten years ago. DSA was an organization of five thousand, with an average age of 64. In the ensuing decade, our numbers reached almost 100,000 and are now at around 78,000.
Have we grown enough?
I suggest a simple test: when a DSA chapter can call a socialist rally and draw 34,000 people without any “celebrity politicians” in sight, then perhaps we will have outgrown Bernie.
This is not an unreasonable suggestion. The sectarian flyer says our power is rooted in “working class organizations like unions and in mass uprisings in the streets.” Since DSA is not a union, the test of maturity, of adequate growth, should be whether we have the ability to mobilize a mass uprising in the streets.
Until then, we must seize the moment.
Whether it’s AOC and Bernie continuing their tour of the country, or Zohran Mamdani energizing New Yorkers, or members of our chapter tabling at a community event, we can appreciate efforts to build mass support against oligarchy, against fascism, and for socialism. We can draw people into DSA.
Some of these new members will be sidelined into sectarianism; most will become militant organizers who struggle to build a socialist majority in the United States.
Whether DSA does in fact seize the moment depends very much on the outcome of DSA Convention 2025 in August.
Footnote 1: This approach has the advantage of having been tried often in the US Left; it was represented in the 2024 presidential election by the Party for Socialism and Liberation (which won 166,175 votes), the Socialist Equality Party (4,651 votes), the Socialist Workers Party (4,118 votes), and Socialist Party USA (364 votes). (For reference, the Republican Party won 77,302,580 votes and the Democratic Party won 75,017,613.) Sectarians in DSA may one day explain why they do not join one of these ongoing experiments instead of seeking to transform DSA into yet another one.