Glad I found this place. As I try to get back on the forums. Here’s a bit from some thoughts I put together.
Workers Deserve More contains important democratic proposals, but democratic socialists also have to defend democratic space right now, while building the political coalitions necessary to change society.
And the working class is not a faceless mass waiting to be organized. It is already organized in labor unions, tenant organizations, immigrant rights groups, Black civic institutions, reproductive justice organizations, environmental movements and neighborhood organizations.
The challenge for democratic socialists is not to invent these movements. It is to help connect them into durable political power.
That is where I see democratic socialism in practice.
I see it in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose campaigns have connected economic demands with grassroots organizing and broad democratic participation.
I see it in Bernie Sanders, whose presidential campaigns brought millions of working people into a political movement centered on economic inequality, labor rights, health care and democratic participation.
I see it in Rashida Tlaib, whose politics connect working people’s demands with racial justice, immigrant rights and community organizing. I see it in Zohran Mamdani and the coalition politics that propelled him onto the national stage.
And I see it in Angie Nixon, a Florida state legislator and more recent DSA member whose political work reflects the kind of coalition building democratic socialists should embrace: connecting working people’s economic concerns with racial justice, community organizing and their everyday needs.
These leaders do not agree on everything. Neither do their supporters.