What’s all the hubbub about the DSA?
By Jon Vein
The Democratic Socialists of America is having a moment.
Once a relatively small organization on the margins of American politics, DSA now claims roughly 100,000 members and has helped elect candidates to Congress, state legislatures and city halls. Its influence is particularly visible in heavily Democratic cities, including Los Angeles.
VOTING is at your front door. Photo by Ralph Katieb.
So, what is the DSA?
The answer is more complicated than either its admirers or detractors sometimes suggest.
DSA advocates a number of policies that have significant support within the Democratic coalition: stronger unions and higher wages, paid family leave, affordable housing, restrictions on money in politics, and substantial investment in clean energy.
Healthcare illustrates where broadly shared objectives can lead to substantially different policies. Expanding healthcare coverage toward universality is hardly outside today’s Democratic mainstream. DSA’s proposal goes considerably further, calling for universal healthcare at no cost to individuals while substantially expanding the government’s role in financing and providing healthcare.
Those distinctions become more pronounced elsewhere in DSA’s agenda.
Beyond the Democratic mainstream
The organization’s current national program calls for public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries.
It would abolish the Senate and Electoral College, replace the two-party system with proportional multiparty government, and replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary selected by and subordinate to Congress.
It supports extending full voting rights to permanent U.S. residents who are not citizens.
On criminal justice, the language is similarly explicit. The current program calls for redirecting police funding to public services as “steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system.” On immigration, DSA advocates abolishing ICE, ending deportations and immigration detention, legalizing migration, and granting amnesty to immigrants regardless of status.
Most of these proposals have little prospect of enactment in today’s Washington, and some would require fundamental constitutional changes. But they help distinguish DSA’s long-term objectives from conventional progressive Democratic politics.
The “dirty break” and “dirty stay”
DSA also has an unusual relationship with the Democratic Party.
Despite its name, DSA is not part of the Democratic Party. Socialist organizers and writers have debated strategies commonly described as the “dirty break” and “dirty stay.”
The dirty-break strategy involves running socialist candidates on the Democratic ballot line, where they have a realistic chance of winning, while building an independent socialist political organization that could eventually break away.
The dirty-stay approach envisions remaining within Democratic electoral politics for the longer term while developing an increasingly influential socialist bloc within it.
Relatively small ideological movements can exert influence well beyond their numbers. The Tea Party provides a recent example. It never represented a majority of Republican voters, but through organizing, primary challenges, and pressure on elected officials, it played an important role in moving the Republican Party to the right.
Whether DSA can exercise comparable influence on Democrats remains an open question.
Israel, anti-Zionism, and antisemitism
Israel has become another significant dividing line between DSA and much of the Democratic establishment.
Criticism of Israel or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not inherently antisemitic. Neither is opposition to settlements, support for a Palestinian state, or criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Those are debates over the policies and actions of a government.
DSA’s stated position goes considerably further. The organization supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to end support for Israel and identifies anti-Zionism as an organizational principle. In January 2025, national DSA called for a “democratic secular state, from the river to the sea,” referring to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
That raises a fundamentally different question. Zionism, at its core, is the belief that Jews are entitled to national self-determination in their historic homeland. A single secular state “from the river to the sea” would replace Israel’s existing character as a Jewish state. For many Jews and Jewish organizations, opposition to Jewish national self-determination therefore crosses the line from criticism of Israel into antisemitism. Others, including DSA, strongly reject that characterization.
The distinction is worth making clearly: opposing decisions made by an Israeli government is not the same thing as opposing the continued existence of a Jewish state.
This debate has already reached Los Angeles City Hall. In 2024, DSA-LA censured Councilmember Nithya Raman after she accepted an endorsement from Democrats for Israel-Los Angeles. Its censure letter said DSA-endorsed officials are expected to “co-govern with the chapter” and criticized Raman for accepting support from what it called the movement’s “enemies.” DSA-LA nevertheless retained its endorsement of Raman.
It is possible to acknowledge legitimate criticism of Israeli policy while also acknowledging that antisemitism exists on parts of the political left. Pretending the latter doesn’t exist is no more intellectually honest than ignoring antisemitism when it comes from the right.
A national movement comes to City Hall
Raman was DSA-LA’s first endorsed City Council candidate in 2020. National DSA also endorsed her, and the local chapter mounted what it later described as a “robust member campaign.” Raman’s broader grassroots operation ultimately defeated incumbent David Ryu, the first challenger to unseat a sitting Los Angeles councilmember in 17 years.
DSA was only one part of Raman’s coalition. California DSA itself says its members weren’t a majority or even a plurality of her volunteer campaign. But the election demonstrated the potential for an organized national ideological movement to participate effectively in a traditionally local contest.
DSA-LA subsequently expanded its electoral operation. Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martínez defeated incumbent councilmembers in 2022, and Ysabel Jurado followed in 2024.
The organization has become increasingly systematic about identifying favorable districts, developing candidates, and concentrating volunteers and resources. DSA-LA says its endorsements involve substantial commitments of canvassing, phone banking, research, communications, and other organizational support.
Its own description also makes clear that the relationship is intended to continue after Election Day. DSA-LA’s censure of Raman explicitly referred to endorsed officials “co-governing” with the chapter.
That makes DSA more than an organization that issues endorsements. It is attempting to build an organized bloc of elected officials working toward a common political program.
And now, the mayor’s office
The relationship between DSA and this year’s mayoral race is more complicated.
Raman finished second in the June primary and will face Mayor Karen Bass in November. DSA-LA did not formally endorse Raman in the primary, although its voter guide recommended voting for her. In an internal advisory poll, nearly half of participating DSA-LA members preferred Raman, while about 42 percent supported Rae Huang, another Democratic Socialist candidate.
Raman also has demonstrated considerable independence from the organization. She has broken with other DSA-aligned councilmembers on policing, and, according to DSA-LA’s own voter guide, has said she would not seek to reduce LAPD staffing as mayor.
Meanwhile, DSA-LA is pursuing its “Shake Up City Hall” slate across City Council, City Attorney, and LAUSD races. The organization describes the six-race effort as potentially its largest electoral achievement in a single Los Angeles election cycle.
None of this means every DSA member or DSA-backed candidate supports every element of the national platform. Raman herself demonstrates otherwise. Nor does DSA support make a policy inherently good or bad.
But DSA is also something considerably more ambitious than a collection of New Deal-style Democrats advocating a larger social safety net.
Its own publications describe a movement seeking public ownership of major parts of the economy, abolition or replacement of longstanding governmental and law-enforcement institutions, a fundamentally different relationship with Israel, and an organized political structure capable of influencing elected officials and the direction of the Democratic Party.
As that movement becomes increasingly involved in Los Angeles elections and government, understanding what it supports—and how it intends to build political power—seems increasingly relevant to local voters.
Category: News
