DSA for the Masses: Organizing the Anti-Fascist Majority
On the popular New York City-based morning radio show The Breakfast Club, host Charlamagne tha God recently asked rising mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani what he means when he calls himself a “democratic socialist.” Mamdani prefaced his answer by quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr:
“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God’s children.”
He then explained that the first person who inspired him to call himself a democratic socialist was Bernie Sanders in 2016, and how democratic socialists believe that all necessities—food, healthcare, housing, etc.–should be provided for everyone by the state.
By referencing MLK Jr. and Bernie, Mamdani connected his own politics to two of the most respected American socialists, and his recent stunning upset victory in the Democratic primary shows that this democratic socialist tradition still appeals to many Americans. As DSA approaches its first convention under the second Trump administration, we must continue to build on the democratic socialist tradition, with the goal of establishing a mass movement that resists an emboldened fascist and white supremacist movement, empowers the working class, and fights US imperialism at home and abroad.
The multiracial working class needs a serious and strong Left movement in the US that can convince a majority of people that it is willing to fight for them, and DSA must focus on the external work to show it is serious about building it. The best hope we have seen to break away from this cycle of the weak corporate Democrats falling to fascist Republicans is through a mass left-wing coalition, as we witnessed during Bernie Sanders’s two presidential campaigns.
However, since 2020, the Left has become increasingly fractured. In particular, DSA has spent much of the recent years consumed by internal strife and infighting, which have distracted from unifying mass campaigns. The threat of a strong fascist government—one that is is infringing on civil liberties, illegally detaining and deporting people, and cutting necessary aid to millions of starving people around the world—and the inability of the Democratic Party leadership to effectively counter it increases the necessity of building a united Left to offer an alternative for the multiracial working class.
“We must revisit the prior decade of organizing to decide how we can make the greatest impact on restoring the Left to provide a real challenge to both Trump and the fascist right and the neoliberal corporate Democrats.”
During the first Trump administration, DSA stood at the forefront of a coalition of progressives and radicals and appeared on the brink of threatening the status quo with an agenda of democratic socialist mass politics. However, despite Trump’s return to the White House and the rising crisis of a fascist state, the organized Left has turned inward and largely abdicated mass political engagement, avoiding participation in the emerging anti-Trump coalition.
With convention less than two months away, we must revisit the prior decade of organizing to decide how we can make the greatest impact on restoring the Left to provide a real challenge to both Trump and the fascist right and the neoliberal corporate Democrats. I do not intend to reexamine the specific DSA feuds over the previous decade, which can be found elsewhere, but I hope to review what has worked for DSA in the past, and contributed to the growth of the wider Left, what we are doing now, how we should move forward, and what we lose by failing to meet the moment.
If the Left remains in its current fractured state and DSA does not return to mass politics by bringing allies into a coalition, the remaining coalition that stands up to Trump will be weaker and fail to promote the socialist principles needed to make a new world possible.
My caucus mate Patrick T. Shepherd recently wrote in this publication about how Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential run, along with the mass opposition to Donald Trump’s victory, revitalized the Left and turned DSA into a national force. Several other liberal and progressive organizations, such as Indivisble, Our Revolution, and the Sunrise Movement, also emerged out of the progressive wave following Bernie Sanders’s primary in 2016 and the anti-Trump resistance in 2017, but only DSA pinpointed capitalism as the cause of our problems and offered a solution to counter the far-right through a member-led democratic socialist organization.
As a result, DSA more than tripled in membership—going from 7,000 members in 2016 to 25,000 members in 2017 and continued to grow for another 4 years, pulling off several electoral victories in Congress, state legislatures, and local elections. None of the other organizations matched the excitement or energy that DSA carried, and the organization appeared to be on the brink of effectively challenging both major political parties.
The media noticed this momentum of a new socialist wave in the US with headlines such as: “Since Trump’s Victory, Democratic Socialists of America Has Become a Budding Political Force” in The Nation, “Donald Trump Has Made Socialism Cool Again” in Mother Jones, “With Donald Trump as President, Americans Are Flocking to Socialism” in In These Times, “Is socialism in the United States having a moment?” by PBS, “More Americans joining socialist groups under Trump” in Al-Jazeera, and “The Millennial Socialists Are Coming” in the New York Times.
For the first time in generations, DSA made many Americans once again “imagine an alternative to capitalism,” which leftist writer Mark Fisher deemed no longer possible just years earlier. In Bigger Than Bernie: How We Can Win Democratic Socialism in Our Time, Meagan Day and Micah Uetrict recognized the new DSA in 2017 as:
“ideologically diverse, but united in its disdain for business-as-usual Democratic Party politics—which it identified as inadequate to combating the mounting threat of the Right under a Trump presidency—and its goal of making socialism mainstream.”
Socialism, and DSA along with it, were becoming a mainstream force in the US due to its ability to speak to the masses and offer actual opposition to the rising far right.
Unfortunately, DSA failed to maintain its momentum during the Biden years. Despite DSA picking up some exciting local victories like the Build Public Renewables Act in New York and a record minimum wage in Renton, and participating in some significant national coalitions such as Strike Ready and the Uncommitted Movement, internal infighting overshadowed most of the national campaigns that DSA participated in and set the organization back. Re-examining the specifics of the different political line fights is not necessary to stress just how much time DSA members wasted over the last four years on factional fights that interfered with constructing a socialist mass movement that brought more people in and built our power.
Fellow SMC member Vincent Lima covered much of the internal battles in a previous article, but these internal fights took national precedence over external-facing mass work and sapped a lot of organizing energy from DSA. This, in turn, hampered our response to the second Trump administration and, prior to Mamdani’s recent electoral victory, DSA no longer appeared at the center of the anti-MAGA resistance movement.
Lima discussed the Bernie and AOC rallies that DSA has been largely absent from, but the first significant sign of this retreat from outward facing anti-Trump work was during the “We Are Worth Fighting For” mass call with over a hundred thousand live viewers that was hosted by Ash-Lee Henderson, former co-executive director of the Highlander Center, and endorsed by numerous progressive organizations including Indivisible, MoveOn, the Working Families Party, and several labor unions, but notably DSA declined to endorse it in two different votes by the NPC.
“We are witnessing the breakout of large amounts of unrest targeted at the Trump administration, without DSA at the forefront to meet the masses.”
The unwillingness by NPC members in caucuses such as Red Star, Marxist Unity Group, and Bread and Roses to distinguish between the far right and the Democrats led DSA away from coalitions it formerly participated in. National statements prior to the election also carefully avoided calling one candidate worse than the other or making recommendations, and we have also seen very few public statements since Trump’s inauguration against either the Trump administration or Democratic Party leadership. At the national level, as DSA appears paralyzed by its divisions and fails to seize the moment, the Democratic Party now appears more concerned about criticism from liberal and progressive groups like MoveOn and Indivisible.
We are witnessing the breakout of large amounts of unrest targeted at the Trump administration, without DSA at the forefront to meet the masses. DSA should support any anti-Trump protest from the Left instead of applying purity tests to them and thereby allowing liberals to control the anti-fascist and anti-Trump narrative. “No Kings Day” protests, endorsed by Indivisible, 50501, ACLU, Showing Up for Racial Justice, MoveOn, the Communications Workers of America, the Organization for Black Struggle, and many other progressive groups, took place on June 14th across the country to counterprotest Donald Trump’s military parade. In many cities, CodePink and other left organizations held anti-war and pro-Palestine protests that accompanied the No Kings Day events.
However, DSA declined to formally participate in the coalition because some members of the NPC majority voiced concern about some protesters potentially waving American flags or dressing as Uncle Sam, since the protests occurred on Flag Day with a theme opposing monarchy. While there was a second vote days before the protests which passed—which led to an email to chapter leaders the day before the protests encouraging them to attend—the initial decision not to support the No Kings protests meant DSA was ill-prepared to be an active partner in the planning of the protests. By then, it was too late for many chapters to get involved, communication of DSA’s late partial endorsement did not reach most members, nor did the logo get added back to their website.
“A strong principled Left opposition is needed to stand up to the threat of Trump, and DSA should be at the forefront of it nationally, not standing by self-consciously worrying that we may be mistaken for liberals. ”
To be fair, some chapters and individual DSA members did attend or even organize No Kings protests, but if the national organization had endorsed the event earlier, it could have centered its own socialist message and encouraged chapters across the country to attend and promote in time for them to participate and show its strength in the antifascist movement. Unfortunately, many coalition partners and DSA members were left with the impression that protesting Trump is not a priority for the national organization.
Trump’s rising authoritarianism, which now has him using the Marines and National Guard to quell anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles and beyond, concerns enough Americans that over 5 million people attended in over 2000 cities, including large-scale protests in many previously pro-Trump areas. With far more than just patriotic liberals showing up to express their outrage, No Kings Day was a significant display of an emerging mass movement across the country against Trump and fascism, with support from organized labor. There were American flags, but some were upside down. There were also many Palestinian and Mexican flags, as well as anti-ICE, pro-Medicaid, and anti-fascist signs.
If DSA is serious about growing its power nationally, it needs to build relationships with the working-class organizations that participate in these events. DSA needs to stand up nationally and show allies and coalition partners that we are with them in the fight against Trump. A strong principled Left opposition is needed to stand up to the threat of Trump, and DSA should be at the forefront of it nationally, not standing by self-consciously worrying that we may be mistaken for liberals.
Just as it is clear that Trump will not stop his fascist crackdown, it is clear that anti-Trump protests will continue with or without DSA. By abstaining from participating, we forsake the opportunity to voice socialist principles and take any leadership position in an anti-Trump coalition. We’ve already seen Indivisible surpass DSA in prominence by publicly resisting Trump throughout his second term. The organization largely disappeared from the national scene during Biden’s presidency, but quickly grew from 800 to over 2,000 active chapters after “capitaliz[ing] on the leadership vacuum” from progressives.”
“DSA’s growth is largely due to NYC-DSA and the Zohran Mamdani mayoral campaign, which reflects the kind of democratic socialist mass politics campaigns that spurred earlier growth spurts and the mass politics we want to see DSA continue to embrace. ”
That isn’t to say that DSA isn’t growing. In fact, as NPC member Ahmed observed on Twitter, DSA gained 10,000 new members in 2025. This growth is a second “Trump Bump” and mirrors a similar pattern under the first Trump presidency. However, DSA’s growth rate still lags behind the last two presidential races in terms of new membership. On the other hand, Indivisible is growing at an unprecedented rate, in large part due to taking on more of a leadership role in resisting the far right.
Furthermore, DSA’s growth is largely due to NYC-DSA and the Zohran Mamdani mayoral campaign, which reflects the kind of democratic socialist mass politics campaigns that spurred earlier growth spurts and the mass politics we want to see DSA continue to embrace. The campaign’s popular appeal contributed to the significant growth of the chapter, which, even before his recent victory, gained over 2,400 members and grew by 40% since the campaign began, and has made up almost a quarter of the organization’s growth since then.
The campaign’s success stems from DSA and Mamdani’s ability to run a democratic socialist campaign that coordinates with other progressive organizations and labor unions instead of appealing to the furthest left flank at the expense of mass politics. Mamdani proudly does not shy away from denouncing the evils of capitalism, but he also emphasizes his connection to the democratic socialist tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bernie Sanders, which allows him to build a larger mass base. DSA is experiencing another massive growth spurt since Mamdani’s primary victory, but DSA is growing as a result of, and the fastest in, areas where it is actively pursuing external facing mass political campaigns, not shrinking away from them.
If DSA misses the moment, other (non-democratic socialist) organizations can and will assume leadership. An organization like Indivisible cannot provide the same answers to the masses that a member-run socialist organization like DSA can. Unlike an ideology rooted in democratic socialism, Indivisible’s ideology is based on a principle of extending and improving liberal democracy as a means to counter Republicans. Although I applaud and appreciate their work organizing protests against the Trump administrations, progressive liberalism can only go so far to combat issues caused by the failures of liberal capitalism. Without centering the working class and empowering them over the interests of capital, we will be left with, at best, Democrats who are afraid to stand up to AIPAC or corporate lobbies.
The best example of this came in the 2024 primaries when the Indivisible St. Louis chapter endorsed the AIPAC-funded Wesley Bell against St. Louis DSA-endorsed Cori Bush. Instead of the Indivisible chapter spending its resources and energy on challenging a vulnerable Republican in Missouri’s 2nd District, which is centered in St. Louis County, it focused on a primary against a democratic socialist Black woman who was the co-founder of the Congressional Caucus for the Equal Rights Amendment in favor of someone who is now a member of the moderate New Democrat Coalition, received close to $15 million from pro-Israel lobbies, and recently signed on a resolution expressing gratitude for ICE.
“Conventions matter for the direction of the organization and the progressive left movement, and at this upcoming convention, we must decide how DSA should move forward: constructively towards a bigger mass organization, or two more years of political stagnation and paralysis. ”
The irony of a chapter in an organization pursuing the expansion of democracy supporting such a flawed candidate backed by large lobbyists against a true progressive backed by grassroots donors in a safe blue seat reflects the limits and weaknesses of an organization dependent on wealthy donors and large grants to fund it rather than a membership funded and led organization such as DSA. Yet, if DSA does not make itself open and appealing to progressives looking to fight fascism and disenchanted with the status quo of the Democratic Party, more will continue to find themselves joining and supporting organizations with dead-end ideologies. Liberal and “Progressive Except for Palestine” groups will fill the void of those looking for a political home if DSA does not, and thus I urge DSA to stand up as leaders in the antifascist movement and make itself available.
To meet the moment, DSA must orient itself toward the masses and avoid insular political programs. SMC member David Duhalde recently wrote about how conventions matter and also spoke more about it on the Left on Red podcast. Podcast co-host Stylianos Karolidis pushed back on some of Duhalde’s claims that conditions of national DSA matter to chapters and the larger progressive movement, and admitted that as a member who is not in a caucus, he “has no idea what national has done at all since the budget debate.”
Like Karolidis, most uncaucused members do not know what DSA is doing right now at the national level outside of when they hear about infighting or internal controversies, but not because national DSA does not matter, but because the national organization has largely abstained from external campaigns because of how much energy and time the internal feuds over the prior years have consumed DSA. Whether or not one agrees with Duhalde’s analysis, he is correct that conventions matter for the direction of the organization and the progressive left movement, and at this upcoming convention, we must decide how DSA should move forward: constructively towards a bigger mass organization, or two more years of political stagnation and paralysis.
Instead of the infighting and internal sniping that has set back DSA over the past several years, DSA must turn back to mass politics and carry on the democratic socialist traditions embraced by Martin Luther King, Jr., Bernie Sanders, and Zohran Mamdani. SMC recognizes the need for DSA to orient itself toward the masses to build a strong Left able to fight fascism, which is why our platform endorses resolutions such as: “DSA and the Democratic Road to Socialism”, “To Defeat Trump, Turn Toward the Masses”, “From Palestine to Mexico: Fighting Fascist Attacks on Immigrants”, “Workers Will Lead the Way: Join With Unions to Run Labor Candidates”, and “Seize the Moment: Defeat Corporate Democrats and Elect More Socialists.”
What DSA needs is to return to this external-facing work and build a strong Left coalition that empowers the working class and fights fascism. The centrist Democrats are historically unpopular right now and have shown no ability to counter Trump and the MAGA fascist movement, so DSA must look towards building a United Left to challenge them.
Some caucus-endorsed resolutions have focused on reviving the internal strife over the past four years, relitigating debates over electoral discipline or the organization’s relationship with staff. On the other hand, Red Star chose not to submit any resolutions, opting instead for a series of articles that criticized all of DSA’s external work as “reformist” without offering alternative suggestions. Instead of turning inwards and dwelling on what has divided the organization and caused turmoil, we cannot abdicate our responsibility as socialists during the critical moment we are in: DSA must orient itself towards the masses at the upcoming convention to defeat fascism and build a Left that can challenge for power.
DSA members should request that your chapter delegates support NPC candidates and resolutions in favor of outward facing political work that will build support for socialism among the antifascist majority. Contact your chapter delegates and encourage them to support: