Caucuses, Resolutions, and the 2025 Convention

Written By Aaron F.

The SMC delegation to the 2025 DSA National Convention.

My path to joining DSA was similar to so many other members: our external campaigns. At the beginning of 2019, I learned about Tiffany Cabán’s underdog bid for Queens District Attorney. She was a democratic socialist and public defender who grew up in the neighborhood I called home, South Richmond Hill. 

Inspired by her story and decarceral platform, I started attending canvasses, where I met many of the New York City DSA members I still organize with today. I recognized just how deeply NYC-DSA was ingrained into Cabán’s campaign, and how aligned the organization’s politics were with my own, as a teenage Bernie supporter. I took the plunge and joined DSA in April 2019.

My path to learning about DSA caucuses was also similar to many other members. It started with seeing the various groups and their members active on Twitter—primarily in the context of factional infighting, of course. I tried to read up on the differences between the caucuses, but I just didn’t get it. Every caucus said a lot of the same things, and the people who talked the most about caucuses seemed to hate most of them. 

I had to organize within DSA for a while and talk with different members about their various perspectives before I started to grasp the distinctions. My time in the Queens Electoral Working Group, watching how endorsement votes could fall on ideological lines, was clarifying. So were the debates at chapter conventions (which I found much easier to grasp than my first national convention in 2021). I came to view caucuses as a necessary evil in an organization where members have strong disagreements on our most pressing issues.

I joined Socialist Majority in 2021, because the caucus’s perspective closely matched my own—particularly the need for mass, democratic politics, a popular front against the right, and using the Democratic ballot line to build a socialist party. (I also realized just how many of the organizers I worked with and respected were already SMC members.) In the years and conventions that followed, I watched as both the chapter and national organization became increasingly polarized along caucus lines. My inclination, along with that of many other SMCers, was to do as little internal organizing as possible, to avoid petty caucus warfare and focus on our external campaigns instead.

The 2023 national convention was a wake-up call. Our presence was weak, and we were outmaneuvered by other caucuses that committed far more resources to their intra-DSA campaigns. Our poor showing on the floor and in the results for the National Political Committee (NPC) election demonstrated that our resistance to internal organizing could have negative ramifications for our external work.

Like many SMC members, I came out of that convention with a newfound appreciation for our caucus’s vision—which I believe to be the most viable path to achieving a socialist future—and a determination to advocate for it in any way I could. I joined our caucus’s new Steering Committee, which I have served on for the last two years, helping to build out our website and guide our political orientation. Under our leadership, Socialist Majority has launched new Points of Unity, written more articles than at any other time in our caucus’s history, grown our membership tremendously (more than doubling in size in the past two years), and evolved and matured into a stronger force within DSA.

When I started writing this, less than a day after the 2025 national convention came to a close, I was exhausted. There was much to celebrate: We had over 150 delegates, with members and friends of the caucus hailing from across the country, from major cities to rural areas. The vibes were electric, from our delegates (armed with brand-new bandanas) spread all across the room, to our packed gatherings at the beginning and end of convention, to our planned Friday night party and our impromptu beach parties. SMC brought the same energy and organizing skills to Chicago that powered campaigns like Zohran’s.

The result? Things went far better for us than at the last convention. Many of our platform items passed on the consent agenda or on the floor, and we voted down some of the most short-sighted proposals. Most importantly, SMC secured four seats on an expanded National Political Committee, increasing our vote share while other caucuses lost ground—a testament to our vastly improved floor organizing. Many members who had attended both conventions described the difference as “night and day.”

But beyond that, this convention felt like a loss. It is remarkable how little the overall composition of delegates changed in the last two years. Just like 2023, the delegates this year were approximately 40% from mass politics tendencies like SMC and Groundwork, with our wing of the organization remaining in the NPC minority and the majority wing neither growing nor shrinking in size by a significant amount.

This year, we were faced with a misguided agenda that prioritized internally-facing resolutions at the beginning of the schedule and buried many outward-facing proposals at the end, well after we would run out of time to consider them. Instead of these items, the agenda prioritized a few caucuses’ proposals related to staff and budgeting. These resolutions addressed important questions and contained some worthwhile ideas. But convention delegates, with our limited amount of context and time for debate, were not the best positioned to decide them. These questions would have been far better taken up by our board of directors—the NPC—who should ideally be the ones to determine the exact percent of our recurring revenue that goes to staff expenditures or the details of our reserves policy.

“The convention adjourned without debating resolutions about trans rights, the climate crisis, YDSA, or—most egregiously—our response to Trump and rising fascism in the United States.”

In an attempt to remedy this situation, the “Put Politics First” agenda change would have moved the most technical budgeting resolution down in the agenda, while moving up resolutions such as fighting the Trump administration, transgender rights and bodily autonomy, Green New Deal campaigns, youth organizing, and creating a new national program for DSA, along with their corresponding amendments. Unfortunately, this change was voted down, in part due to an understandable reluctance among delegates to entertain any changes from the floor. Because the agenda change was not adopted, the convention adjourned without debating resolutions about trans rights, the climate crisis, YDSA, or—most egregiously—our response to Trump and rising fascism in the United States.

(We passed some items relating to fighting Trump and ICE on the consent agenda, but without any discussion of our strategy or reflection on their merits. Resolutions like SMC’s “To Defeat Trump, Turn Toward the Masses” and its accompanying amendment from Bread and Roses would have spurred important conversations that we needed to have at this convention, before another two years of a fascist administration. Instead, the agenda avoided any substantive deliberation about DSA’s approach to a second Trump term, despite deep disagreements about what that approach should look like.)

This resulted in a convention that felt fundamentally hollow, particularly on the first and longest day, with debate stretching until eight in the evening. After we moved past the more technical proposals, things picked up on the second day, when we moved into debating our approaches to electoral, labor, and international work. The last day was the most externally-focused, with key questions about Palestine, our platform, and party-building coming to the floor. Even on proposals where SMC’s position didn’t carry the day—motivated by powerful speeches from our members—I was glad to see delegates debating these critical issues and determining DSA’s outward-facing orientation for the next two years. I wish we could have done that so much more.

Of the proposals we did discuss:

  • We passed the SMC resolution I co-authored, “Seize the Moment! Defeat Corporate Democrats and Elect More Socialists,” on the consent agenda almost unanimously. It commits DSA to running a slate of congressional candidates in the 2026 midterms and creates a Congressional Subcommittee under the NEC to research districts in collaboration with chapters. Socialists must take advantage of the Democratic establishment’s plummeting popularity to present our alternative approach to fighting Trump.

  • Also on the consent agenda was ”A Unified Democratic Socialist Strategy for Palestine Solidarity,” written by a multi-tendency group of Palestine solidarity leaders. It too passed nearly unanimously, demonstrating that DSA is—and has been for quite a while—an anti-Zionist organization committed to organizing for an end to the genocide and a free Palestine.

  • Delegates overwhelmingly approved the Democracy Commission Structural Reform Proposal, which included several organizational reforms, including expanding the NPC from 16 seats to 25 seats. This was written and supported by every major caucus except for one: Red Star, which led a doomed effort to split up the package (also supported by Libertarian Socialist Caucus) and vote down NPC expansion. This naked attempt to hold onto power failed by a wide margin and likely hurt Red Star in the NPC elections.

  • The Groundwork-authored proposal ”One Member, One Vote for National Leadership Elections” failed. Delegates were unconvinced that they should share their power to elect the NPC with the rest of DSA’s membership. This subject received far more comprehensive debate before convention than during it, and will likely continue to be discussed in the years to come. A suggested potential compromise would be electing DSA’s co-chairs by One Member, One Vote, which might attain more cross-tendency support. 

  • The convention voted down LSC’s ”Resolution on Staff, Contractors, and Budgeting” by exactly 11 votes. Passing this resolution would have been a mistake, as it would have restricted our number of national staff and required every convention to approve budget line items. These issues are best addressed by the NPC, not delegates, and this resolution was the chief example of the rigid, inward-facing proposals that the agenda committed us to spending too much time on.

  • We committed to running a socialist candidate for president by passing Groundwork and Bread and Roses’s ”Unite Labor & the Left to Run a Socialist For President and Build the Party,” and to running a slate of labor candidates by passing SMC’s ”Workers Will Lead the Way: Join with Unions to Run Labor Candidates.”

  • Delegates passed Springs of Revolution’s ”For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA,” a mix of good ideas and a few bad ones: namely, stripping chapters of local autonomy over their endorsements and adding unnecessary member expulsion criteria. My amendment striking these provisions and aligning us with the BDS Movement’s campaigns failed; in hindsight, I would have written it differently and been clearer about the parts I found objectionable and why. 

    • A large part of the reason the resolution passed was that the authors watered down the language compared to the 2023 version. They also distributed literature narrowing the resolution’s scope and shutting the door on actions their online supporters have urged them to take, such as mass member purges. This allowed the authors to win the votes of skeptical caucuses and independent delegates, while limiting the resolution’s potential damage.

    • After the vote, the resolution’s supporters found themselves under attack online for remaining in an organization where 44% of delegates (also anti-Zionists) voted “No.” Some resolution supporters were even labeled Zionists themselves for not wanting to purge the “No” voters. Hopefully, this mess demonstrates that ultra-leftist Twitter accounts are not the group we need to cater to and convince to join DSA.

  • We also passed an unamended version of ”Labor for an Arms Embargo,” rejecting an attempt from Red Star and Springs of Revolution to remove all language about running congressional and local candidates who will stand with Palestine. There is a clear convention mandate for using all available tactics at our disposal to win an arms embargo, including building support in labor unions and running local, state, and federal candidates for office.

  • Finally, delegates professed near-universal support for DSA’s current electoral strategy of running socialist candidates on the Democratic ballot line, passing a Marxist Unity Group resolution to that effect, and voting down the only major amendment that proposed a focus on independent campaigns. The questions of whether DSA should engage in elections, and whether it should do so in Democratic primaries, have been settled—at least for now.

And in the final NPC results, while the general political breakdown remained the same, there were some notable shifts within each wing:

  • Socialist Majority gained 3% in our share of rank #1 votes, thanks to improved organizing and messaging compared to 2023. Groundwork dropped slightly by 1.5% while maintaining a plurality of delegates. Abdullah F. of the Carnation slate also won a seat.

  • Red Star, who boast about “leading” the rest of the NPC majority in moving forward with mass staff layoffs, lost 4.9% of their vote share. These votes appear to have largely flowed to the Springs of Revolution slate, which gained 5.7% with their focus on internationalism. While Red Star did hang onto their co-chair seat, their new political line and approach to convention proved to be unpopular in the at-large NPC election.

  • Bread and Roses dropped by 5.5% after two years serving as the NPC swing vote. Meanwhile, Reform & Revolution shot up by 3.1%, thanks to the relentless campaigning of their NPC candidate—and first elected NPC member—Sarah M.

  • Marxist Unity Group and Libertarian Socialist Caucus also increased their vote shares by 2.2% and 1.7% respectively, with the latter securing their first NPC seat in years under an expanded NPC.

It’s undeniable that DSA is increasingly a caucus town. We can see that in NYC-DSA’s election results, where just 5 of our 151 delegates won their seats without running on a formal slate. And as we can see nationally, votes are increasingly along factional lines, with fewer independent swing votes at each successive convention. Many of the results at this year’s convention were decided well before the weekend began, with individual chapter delegate elections predetermining the final outcome.

Whether you think this is a positive or negative development for DSA, the trend is not slowing down. DSA’s future will be determined by caucuses and their internal decisions. The good news is that with an expanded NPC, more caucuses will need to all agree on a particular item for it to receive majority support. I’m hopeful that we can find common ground on electoral, labor, and anti-Zionist organizing strategies. One of our first opportunities to do this will be synthesizing the convention’s electoral proposals into a coherent plan for the next few years of mass DSA campaigns.

If you are dismayed by the results of this year’s convention, or optimistic about the opportunities for future external campaigns, or both (like I am), consider joining Socialist Majority. I’m heartened by our successes and momentum, both at the national level and in chapters across the country. Our continued growth is necessary for our political line and organizing strategy to take root in DSA. We must build a socialist majority and the democratic road to socialist revolution—and we can’t do it without you. 

Aaron F.

Aaron F. is a member of NYC-DSA and Socialist Majority.

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