The minimum wage is the highest in the country.
Green energy that cleans the air and lowers bills.
Protection for tenants from excessive rent increases and evictions.
Universal, free and public preschool for all children, paid for by taxes on the rich.
These are just some of the wildly popular and life-changing policies that members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have, through local grassroots organizing, won for millions of Americans across the country in recent years. And it’s largely absent from Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign.
But in the past few weeks, many of us have experienced political deja vu. After the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party was attached to the right, boasted of the endorsement of the Republicans, and then lost to the former President Donald Trump, the experts, consultants, and donors behind this strategy took the media to blame the “Left”. We’re told in OpEd after OpEd and in cable news segments every day that even mere association with Democrats turns voters away from candidates with no affiliation.
Since there are no experts, consultants, or donors as organizers, they do not know what DSA is.
When you join DSA, you become part of a mass organization whose best reference is that of the labor and civil rights movements of the 20th century. Whatever your background, you not only learn about the world of politics, but the skills of being an organizer that can change for the better.
From electing hundreds of socialists to local, state, and national offices across the country, to passing transformative legislation, from showing solidarity with striking workers against greedy bosses, to organizing mass protests in pursuit of justice, DSA built a fighting organization. .
DSA’s goals are included in the “Workers Deserve More” platform for 2024-2025 – an economic and social vision for a thriving working-class community and universal public services, and a true democracy that works for all of us. And our vision for a just world is the antithesis of the Heritage Foundation Project 2025.
Compare what they offer in terms of health care. On the Right, Project 2025 jeopardizes the future of Medicaid by cutting funding and limiting entitlements in ways that will lead to mass suffering. In the middle, the Biden-Harris administration has only tweaks to offer to existing health care policies, which do nothing for the more than 25 million people who still can’t afford health care. But at DSA, we advocate for Medicare for All: free universal healthcare that ensures everyone has access to quality care.
Too much?
What about the “open borders” that the center and Right fear so much? What does it mean to have open borders? It means that we believe that all people have the right to move freely in the hope of seeking a better life, including Jews who fled the extermination of the fascist Holocaust; my own family left Bangladesh during the military dictatorship after the US massacre in 1971; the millions displaced from their homes in the Middle East since 2001 as a result of the US War on Terror; and Mexicans looking for work after unfair trade deals like NAFTA crippled the local economy.
As UAW president Shawn Fain argues, migrants crossing the border are scapegoats for the real threat to the working class: billionaires profiting from a divided workforce.
They accused us of losing the Harris race by advocating for Palestine. DSA has not respected organizing for a free Palestine. The reality is that ending the US-funded violence that scholars call genocide in Gaza is now the majority American position. President Biden’s failure to address the anti-war movement and Israel’s responsibility has harmed his party in the same way Lyndon Johnson did in 1968.
As America’s most famous democratic socialist, Martin Luther King Jr., wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, “The question is not whether we will be extremists, but whether we will be extremists. Will we be extremists for hate. or for love? will it be extremist to preserve injustice or to increase justice?”
Whether Democrats decide to pursue truly life-changing programs that motivate ordinary people to get off their couches, or decide to continue running “Republican lite” campaigns for anyone, our membership is growing with those who will fight and win the truth. The one thing he will never do is apologize.
Ashik Siddique is the co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
The opinion expressed in this article is only from the author himself.
