DSA for Dummies

A specter is haunting New York politics – the specter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Over the past 10 years, the socialist organization has had its ups and downs, but recently it has been on the ascent, particularly in New York City. Once dismissed as a fringe group of leftists, the group has honed a volunteer-driven political machine that has led to electoral success – most notably as a driving force behind New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s victory.

But the DSA is more than a canvassing operation, it also engages in labor organizing and tenant organizing, as well as legislative advocacy, street demonstrations, political education and mutual aid.

I should know. I was a dues-paying member of NYC-DSA from 2017 until 2023, when I left the organization after joining City & State.

The DSA was created in 1982 out of the merger of two older organizations: the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, which had split from the once-powerful Socialist Party of America; and the New American Movement, which had emerged from the 1960s New Left movement. The new organization’s goal was to push the Democratic Party to the left. For the next three decades, the DSA acted as little more than a left-wing advocacy group. It had some prominent members – including then-New York City Mayor David Dinkins and Rep. Jerry Nadler – but it wasn’t an independent source of political power.

The modern incarnation of the DSA began in 2016, with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ first run for president. Sanders’ thunderous condemnations of “the millionaires and the billionaires” taking advantage of American society, and his vocal support for a New Deal-style expansion of the social welfare state, excited millennial voters who felt estranged from typical politics. This new generation of voters came of age during the global war on terror, 2008-2009 Great Recession, Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter protests, and many had become disenchanted with mainstream politics after backing President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

Although Sanders was not a DSA member, he identified as a “democratic socialist,” as he harkened back to an earlier age of left-wing politics – which led a number of his young acolytes to rediscover and join niche socialist organizations, most notably, the DSA. The massive influx of new members reshaped the organization. As a new crop of young, politically minded organizers were elected to top positions in the group, the DSA became the vanguard for a new leftist political movement. The DSA’s old guard had been relatively aligned with Sanders’ political vision, but the new members moved the group further to the left, embracing more explicitly Marxist theories of power.The DSA began to assert itself as a political force in 2018, when its New York City chapter endorsed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and she went on to defeat then-Rep. Joe Crowley, the third-most powerful House Democrat and head of the Queens Democratic Party, in a stunning upset. By 2020, the DSA had gotten six candidates elected to the state Legislature. Last year, NYC-DSA achieved its biggest electoral victory yet, when it helped get one of its own elected mayor of New York City. This year, NYC-DSA is running an ambitious (some would say overly ambitious) slate of seven new Assembly candidates and two congressional candidates, while also organizing to support Mamdani’s agenda and dealing with an influx of new members excited by the new mayor’s election.

What separates the DSA from other left-leaning groups, like the New York Working Families Party, Indivisible and Justice Democrats, is its commitment to socialist politics. DSA members ultimately agree with 19th century social and political theorist Karl Marx that the problem starts with an economic system that subordinates people’s needs to the market and allows a subset of private individuals to own corporations, property and financial capital, while others must sell their labor for wages. As a socialist organization, the DSA wants to eventually supplant the economic status quo with a socialist economy – one in which all people, regardless of economic circumstances, are entitled to public goods like housing and health care, and corporations are controlled by their own workers.

But that is a long way off. For now, DSA’s elected officials are proposing more modest policies, in line with what other progressive groups support, to expand the social welfare state and rein in the worst corporate abuses.

The DSA has a complex relationship with the Democratic Party. Prior to 2016 or so, the DSA practiced a strategy of realignment – trying to push the Democrats to the left from inside the party’s “big tent.” As younger and more radical members gained power in the following years, though, they sought to break away from the Democratic Party. The “clean break” strategy proposed cutting all ties with the Democratic Party and running candidates on third-party lines. But NYC-DSA quickly realized that candidates had to run as Democrats to be viable in New York City. Jabari Brisport ran for the New York City Council on the Green Party line in 2017 and lost badly. But, he won election to the state Senate in 2020 after running in the Democratic primary. So the DSA’s current strategy is a “dirty break:” gradually build up the necessary partylike infrastructure to eventually break away from the Democrats entirely, while still running candidates in Democratic primaries for now.

Understanding NYC-DSA is quickly becoming essential to understanding New York politics, but the socialist organization can be inscrutable to outsiders. Fortunately, City & State has put together a primer on NYC-DSA’s structure, internal politics, leadership, relationship to elected officials and current slate of candidates.