Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda: A Vision for a Nimble, Mass‑Oriented DSA
DSA-LA members marching on May Day 2025
By Chris K. | DSA-LA
In the fall of 2020, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) showed what was possible. A nimble, outward-facing organizing strategy brought in 13,000 new members in just six weeks–5,000 in the week of the election alone. National leaders at the time coordinated messaging, planned with chapter leaders and coalition partners for various election outcomes, and projected a confident, relevant presence in U.S. politics.
Fast forward to four years later and 30,000 members fewer (a responsibility shared across NPCs). Facing the re‑election of Donald Trump and an even more polarized, dangerous terrain, the current majority leadership of the National Political Committee (NPC) chose a different path– one marked by retreat, internal focus, and organizational contraction.
The result? Missed opportunities, demoralization, and a failure to organize a wave of mass energy into DSA.
But it didn’t have to be this way. With a different vision—one grounded in mass organizing, agile political strategy, and real national leadership—DSA could have played a central role in shaping the post‑2024 terrain.
As Nicos Poulantzas once warned:
“There is no such thing as a ‘pure’ revolutionary moment… Revolutionary strategy must always be rooted in the concrete political conjuncture.”
— State, Power, Socialism (1978)
This article is both critique and invitation at a juncture — a look at what was lost, and what we can still build together.
2024 Was Predictable — And We Should Have Planned for It
The political terrain of 2024 was not a surprise. Former President Trump remained a heavily favored nominee the entirety of the year. Vice President Harris was the de facto incumbent with deep structural weaknesses who succeeded an even weaker actual incumbent embroiled in an ongoing genocide in Gaza. The Left had time — and precedent — to prepare.
In 2020, DSA conducted serious scenario planning on a national level, convening chapters representatives on mass calls. We mapped potential election outcomes and developed messaging, organizing strategies, and public narratives for each. This work empowered chapters, guided members, and strengthened our political clarity. We had clear, if imperfect, arcs for action at all levels of the organization. We tied action to the 100k drive, a massive member-driven recruitment campaign. These plans culminated on Election Night with a large comms-organized livestream featuring national DSA and YDSA leadership, endorsed electeds, and comedians – a stand-to spot in case the night required rapid membership mobilization.
And best of all, we followed up this momentum with even stronger campaigns. The Green New Deal Coordinating Committee, beginning with a Fall 2020 national summit of ecosocialists, launched a coordinated, highly-political arc of external-focused campaigns starting with a December 2020 day of action. This in turn, in coordination with the NPC, National Labor Commission and staff, morphed into a large-scale national PRO Act campaign. Our campaign brought in 1700 volunteers – mostly members who felt like they didn’t have onramps to meaningful work in their chapters or at-large – who made more than a million phone calls to expand union organizing rights.
In 2023 we did this all over again with two back-to-back Strike Ready campaigns that created chapter capacity with a host of strike ready captains, robust organizing/comms support, tracked/organized pickets, and engaged in large solidarity coalitions. We moved in sync with two huge external events: the Teamsters UPS Contract and the UAW auto strike.
In contrast, 2024 say the new NPC majority offering nothing particular when the general election arrived. No strategic preparation. No organizing roadmap. No communications framework.
No plan other than the release of a pamphlet with vague politics and importantly no course of action nor arc for what next.
For sure there could have been and nearly was a course. Hundreds of members participated in the Uncommitted campaign, which had a strategic impact in Democratic primaries. Groundwork and Socialist Majority NPC members pushed (correctly) for it to be centered in national organizing efforts (if episodic and mostly run by chapters but still countrywide in nature and goal). The current NPC majority was not enthusiastic.
What could have happened:
Political clarity and consensus that centered the looming Trump threat first and foremost–as was passed in the 2023 convention.
Scenario-based planning that created motion, buy-in, strategy around the possibility of a Trump win.
Mass calls, leadership check ins, and deployment of organizing staff to support chapter leaders to prepare and mobilize the members around scenarios.
A meaning making, rally point mass call the night of the election.
A proactive, coalition building plan and consistent meetings with major unions, left organizations, immigrant rights groups, labor-community outfits, etc at the top.
Re-engaging with labor-led countrywide spaces that we had been major partners with 2021-2023 such as the Coalition for Workers Power and the Strike Ready coalitions with the Teamsters and UAW.
Creating chapter-level action kits, comms guidance, talking points, and distributed tools like sample press releases, downloadable signs/flyers.
Spending effort building plans and infrastructure to recruit, absorb and immediately engage new members, learning from 2020 and starting many months before as we did the last time.
Instead, our leadership abdicated responsibility in a moment of strategic urgency.
When It Mattered Most, We Were Absent
Throughout 2024, despite the gravity of the national moment, DSA launched no major national campaigns. There was no mass recruitment initiative like in 2020. No national messaging on Trump that showed any consideration to differences if he won or lost. No organizing hooks for chapters to engage broader layers of people radicalizing under the weight of rising authoritarianism. And as we swung well into 2025, this vacuum continued, even as countrywide mobilizations harnessed millions, and chapters such as LA continue to be deep in motion around ICE raids.
In 2020, fear and outrage instead of paralysis over Trump helped spark a recruitment wave — growing us almost to 100,000 members. That only happened because we together built the infrastructure and messaging to absorb and organize many thousands into DSA.
In 2024, that energy was left to dissipate. Local chapters did what they could. But without national will and infrastructure, without shared language, our organization stagnated. “Workers demand more” was an empty slogan.
Ralph Miliband put it bluntly:
“In politics, abstention is itself a form of action — one which almost always benefits the enemy.”
— The State in Capitalist Society (1969)
Silence is a political choice. And it was the wrong one.
Staff Layoffs and the Hollowing Out of Capacity
In early 2024, the NPC laid off a significant portion of DSA’s national staff. The organization for better or worse (and that observation is highly subjective) lost all of its senior leadership and nearly half of unit staff in the fallout. These layoffs devastated our already strained infrastructure and organizing capacity — affecting everything from chapter support to comms to political education.
Again there was no path forward offered. No plan to rebuild. Nothing short nor medium term.
Contrast this with 2020-2021: when budget strains threatened capacity, DSA mobilized national fundraising, stabilized through recruitment, and invested in organizing growth. Staff when engaged as partners and embedded/accountable with the more motivated, on-the ground leaders of the org beyond the NPC were often invisible but significant parts of that success.
In 2025 due to the tremendous growth of several mass movements across the nation (and importantly a major electoral political victory in inside a Democratic Party primary), DSA did start growing again. This is good and a testimony to the important ongoing work of chapters but the scale is so much lower than it could have (and was in the past) and we were out of position to play critical leading roles in the massive mobilizations.
What could have happened:
Transparent financial planning
Shared responsibility with large chapters
Mass fundraising pushes tied to a clear political strategy
Staff retention and growth plans rooted in long‑term organizing
A non-hostile, non zero-sum approach to the staff union
Poulantzas again reminds us:
“The working class cannot constitute itself as a political force without organizing itself in a mass party that intervenes directly in the political field.”
— State, Power, Socialism (1978)
An organization that cuts its own legs out from under it cannot walk — let alone lead.
Political Leadership Means Taking Sides — and Taking Risks
Despite Trump’s re‑election campaign dominating national politics, DSA took no national position on the presidential race. There was no scenario planning. No series of mass calls. No strategic line. No call to action.
At the same time, the 2025 Zohran Mamdani for NYC Mayor campaign surged, becoming a national symbol of multiracial, working-class left electoral possibility. But the weakness and occasional real liability of having a national endorsement from DSA (which has been watered down by lack of support and resources, as well as the arbitrary, constantly changing post-facto dictates of the NPC) held us back from an even stronger, more lasting moment.
In both cases, political confusion trumped political leadership.
Miliband again offers clarity:
“It is not enough to claim to speak for the working class. Socialist leadership must connect with the working class through its struggles, its institutions, and its hopes.”
— Parliamentary Socialism (1961)
What could have happened:
Revamped democratic endorsement process
Clear strategic frameworks for engagement
National media, fundraising, and organizing support for Zohran and other candidates
Mobilization against Trump’s return to power
DSA is not a debating society. It’s not a parliament of factions. We exist to organize, take sides, and change history.
What a Mass DSA Could Still Look Like
We don’t need to imagine from scratch — we have done this before.
A pragmatic, movement-oriented DSA can:
Launch national recruitment drives linked to events, crises, or campaigns
Provide robust comms, training, and political support to local chapters in coordination with staff to deliver capacity boosts both for rapid response and to supplement day-to-day organizing.
Build active national and regional partnerships with unions, immigrant rights coalitions, tenant orgs, climate networks, and racial justice groups
Rebuild national staff with a strategic organizing and communications mandate
Lead from the front during moments of political polarization
Create a national comms strategy with narrative strategy, audience analysis, and timeline.
Engage and energize members in direct consultation and direct election of its leaders with one member/one vote mechanisms.
Launch external-focused, national scope campaigns with clear on-ramps for rank-and-file members.
Poulantzas wrote:
“The historical tragedy of the working-class movement has been the difficulty of forming a political organization that is both mass-based and capable of effective intervention at the level of the state.”
— Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (1975)
Tragedy is not destiny. But it is a risk if we remain inward focused, fragmented, and afraid. In August we, the members of DSA, have the all-important opportunity to change the course of our organization. The continuing “Zohran moment” shows the immense possibility when we leave the shibboleths behind and unite across tendencies around real motion and joint work.
Show up for mass politics and for a change in course. We need you.
—
Chris K. served as the national communications director for DSA 2020-2024 and is a Los Angeles-based delegate to the 2025 DSA national convention. Many thanks to the many uncaucused, Socialist Majority, Groundwork, former Bread and Roses delegates who contributed a wide range of feedback to this.
