by DSA is engaging in the fight against Trump, while simultaneously building the socialist wing of the movement.
October 18th was one of the largest days of political protest in US history! (See crowd-counting estimate)
On April 5th, 2-3 million protestors participated in “Hands Off” rallies in 1,200 cities. On June 14, an estimated 5 million people participated in the first No Kings rallies in 2,100 cities – double the size of the April rallies. And on October 18, probably a slightly larger wave of protests of over 5 million protestors erupted in 2700 cities in the US, including a few around the world. This movement is huge and growing!
Trump tries to project an image of invincibility, but his gradually declining approval ratings and these historic protests reveal that he is over-reaching and that he is losing public support.
Our chapter has been debating whether and how to engage with this movement – the largest social movement in the country. This debate is taking place throughout DSA across the country. Many in the Socialists Against Trump working group believe that, while there are legitimate concerns in DSA about the danger that socialist participation might reinforce the problems with the event organizers’ liberal message, these mass rallies are an important step in cohering the mass working-class base that is opposed to Trump. While much of the official messaging of No Kings imply that Trump’s attacks could be stopped by merely electing better politicians (corporate Democrats) and by restoring the traditional social order before Trump came to power, we understand the need to mobilize and organize the base of No Kings protesters to take further action. Most of the working-class base of the No Kings movement agree with us on most of our demands: Medicare for all, ending military aid to Israel, abolishing ICE, etc. While the event organizers do not criticize the underlying capitalist system which is what caused the social crisis and inequality that led to the rise of Trump in the first place — most of the people who engage with these protests are aware of how corporate greed has impacted our democratic rights, even if they don’t use the same language to name the problem. What’s more, unlike the Democratic Party, which engages with the base as only potential voters, and whose most radical strategy begins and ends with appealing to the court system, DSA provides an avenue to actually plug into the political process, through organizing. Therefore we believe that engaging with these mass protest actions, as DSA with a socialist message, is still very important.
To stop Trump, we do need huge rallies, which are very positive first steps. But rallies and lawsuits are not enough. We need an escalating campaign of mass rallies, student walk-outs, sit-ins, labor strikes, and eventually general strikes, to defeat Trump and win concrete specific demands.
Our chapter honored the membership resolution which required us not to endorse the event unless the event organizers agreed to our request for a socialist speaker. We did not offer the event organizers our logo for their promotional materials.
However, not endorsing the event does not mean that we should not mobilize DSA members to intervene at the event to contest for the leadership of this huge growing movement. Sitting on the sidelines would guarantee that this huge growing movement will continue to be mis-led by capitalist Democrats and “progressives.”
Although the event organizers declined our requests for a socialist speaker, at least 100 DSA members still attended because we believe it’s essential to fight Trump’s dangerous attacks on the working class. It’s only a matter of time before some DSA members get arrested, unless we help build a large and more determined movement against Trump.
With at least 100 DSA members in total scattered throughout the huge crowd, 50 DSA and YDSA members coordinated to march together as a vibrant bloc, along with 20 supporters, in the Minneapolis march. DSA may have been the most visible, organized, spirited bloc, giving impromptu speeches and leading anti-Trump, anti-billionaire, pro-Palestine, socialist chants. At the Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and Robbinsdale rallies, we handed out 950 DSA flyers promoting a unique socialist strategy to resist Trump, critiquing the Democratic Party’s failures and capitalism, and popularizing democratic socialism. We handed out an additional 150 flyers promoting our local DSA candidates. We signed up 92 people to DSA’s email and phone list, and invited many people to the next DSA 101 orientation. If we had mobilized more DSA members, we could have recruited even more people to DSA, promoted our priority campaigns, and helped Fateh and our other candidates strengthen their chances of winning their races. Given the stakes of this political moment, as authoritarianism is on the rise, and given the success of our engagement at this No Kings rally, we would urge DSA to take a more flexible approach in the future in order to provide the opportunity to deepen our involvement in the mass anti-Trump movement and allow us to more broadly broadcast our socialist message.
Check out this great short video one of our members published!
Ramy Khalil
Ramy Khalil was the Campaign Co-Manager for Tacoma For All, which won the strongest tenants protections in Washington state through a ballot initiative in 2023. He was the Campaign Manager for Kshama Sawant who was the first independent socialist elected to Seattle City Council in 100 years. He is a member of DSA and its Reform & Revolution caucus.
Emma Fletcher
Emma Fletcher is a labor organizer and member of DSA’s Reform and Revolution Caucus.
