Organizing in Florida means organizing on hard mode. Our state has a far-right Republican trifecta in office, led by Governor Ron DeSantis, which has attacked the rights of the working class and oppressed communities. Unions represent a measly 5% of the workforce and are being squeezed further by attacks on public sector unionization. While Florida now has the second-worst income inequality in the country, the state continues to pass onerous preemption laws that strike down even basic protections for working people;  Orange County’s rent control law and Miami’s Tenant Bill of Rights have already suffered this fate. The state has banned abortion and gender-affirming care for minors and instituted censorship and book bans on educators. With the full backing of the federal government, the state has constructed a concentration camp in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” an inhumane prison where undocumented people (or anyone alleged to be one) are held without trial and without rights.

While the rest of the country reels from a wave of reactionary legislation under Trump 2.0, for Floridians his second term is just another escalation, albeit a major one, in the repressive strategies that we’ve endured over the past six years. And with Republicans beating centrist Democrats for statewide office by double digits in the past two election cycles, their power appears entrenched for the time being.

How does this sustained attack affect the attitude and consciousness of progressive and leftist Floridians? Anecdotally, I would argue there is currently a prevailing sense of doom and nihilism. When I speak to educators, they feel demoralized by the successful attacks on their academic freedom and rights as workers. When I speak to fellow trans people about our goals and aspirations, they almost always place “leaving Florida” at the top of their list. Even those who are still going to protests and political events do so out of an obligation to “do their part,” not out of any hope that the left can actually win this fight. 

A key cause of this demoralization is the complete retreat of Democratic opposition to the far-right. The Florida Democratic Party, dominated by parasitic consultants and corporate money, has doubled and tripled down on a strategy of tacking to the “center” rather than championing policies that would transform the lives of working class people. The Biden administration acted powerless to enact policies that would meaningfully redistribute wealth or protect oppressed people in red states, while the local Democratic establishment (and too many leftists) made excuses for the administration. Now, national Democrats have all but abandoned contesting our state; local Democrats, meanwhile, have literally given up on challenging some “moderate” Republicans, evidenced by Daniella Levine-Cava and Democratic consultants’ efforts to protect an incumbent Republican in House District 113. Worst of all, the Democrats destroyed any sense of moral credibility with large sections of their base by funding and supporting Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Florida Democrats have been some of the genocide’s most depraved and bloodthirsty supporters and have invested hundreds of millions in state and local funds into buying Israel bonds.

Another challenge is the lack of a strong, left-wing alternative to the two capitalist parties, or even the recognition that such an alternative can be built! This is the case across multiple terrains of struggle. In the social movement sphere, there have been recent bursts of agitational energy: led by activists in the streets and on college campuses, examples like the mass walkouts for academic freedom in 2023 and indigenous-led protests against Alligator Alcatraz have been truly inspiring. Unfortunately, however, these disparate actions have yet to coalesce into a coherent movement. Many protests have either failed to channel attendees into long-term organizing or have funneled attendees into volunteering for dead-end Democratic campaigns. In the electoral sphere, the situation has only deteriorated further. While progressive nonprofits in the early 2020s were backing ambitious, left-wing candidates for State Attorney positions, they have since retreated to campaigning for centrist, pro-imperialist Democrats like Annette Taddeo and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. In those spaces, you’re far more likely to hear talk of “harm reduction” and “picking our opponents” than you are to hear about the need for a real alternative to the Democratic Party.

In the labor sphere, the predominant form of unionism in Florida, and across the US, is “business unionism,” which views the role of unions as fighting narrowly for the interests of workers in a particular company or industry rather than for the whole working class. This leads to prioritizing finding compromises between capital and labor rather than supporting class struggle. In more concrete terms, this means that local unions will often prioritize self-preservation and defending against attacks from the state without necessarily having a longer term strategy to fight fascism or build a political alternative (for example, by endorsing centrist Democrats and even right-wing Republicans for office). Even unions like the UAW and the Teamsters, which have become more militant and democratic nationally thanks to rank-and-file caucus organizers, have Florida locals that are more conservative than the union at-large. For example, UAW and Teamster locals in South Florida voted for the more conservative leadership candidates in their most recent national union elections. Discussions of Shawn Fain’s call for unions to align their contracts for May Day 2028, setting the stage for a potential general strike, are generally muted and decentralized in Florida.

Taken together, the crisis facing the working class in Florida is an acute version of what the working class faces across the country and the world: what my caucus, Reform & Revolution, would call a “triple crisis” of consciousness, organization, and leadership (For more on what a “caucus” is, I would recommend this article). Generally speaking, the working class in the US lacks a developed class consciousness; an understanding that capitalism is the problem, that the working class has the power and leverage to overthrow capitalism if we organize, and that the solution is socialism. This leaves room for everything from reformist consciousness, to nihilism, to outright conspiratorial thinking! This lack of consciousness can be attributed in large part to the collapse of working class organization, through the weakening of organized labor, social movements, and left-wing parties, impeding our ability to come together and democratically debate tactics and strategies. The lack of consciousness and organization impedes the development of socialist leadership, who can do the essential work of arguing publicly for socialist politics and steer the masses towards confronting the capitalist class. In their absence, many people receive their politics from establishment politicians, corporate media, and unaccountable influencers. These crises work dialectically, in that they are interrelated and serve to reinforce each other.

In response to the triple crisis, socialists have a dual task. First, we must rebuild the movements of workers’ and oppressed peoples in this country. This means organizing unions in our workplaces, taking part in social movements in the streets, and building DSA into a mass socialist party. Second, as a revolutionary Marxist I believe we need to fight for Marxist ideas within these broader movements: that capitalism is the cause of our present crises, that socialism is the solution, that we need a revolution to end capitalism, and that the working class is the only social force with the ability to win that revolution. We cannot stand on the sidelines when real movements kick off and inspire ordinary people into action, nor can we allow those people to get funneled into the same dead-end strategies of Democrats and nonprofits. Socialists need to be part of the struggle, to win people over to our ideas and present ourselves as a viable political alternative.

A Socialist Alternative to the Capitalist Parties

After Florida Democrats’ disastrous performance in the 2022 midterm elections, activists within the state party attempted to diagnose its key issues. In an op-ed published at the time, a Democratic activist described the party as a “consultant cartel” that pays exorbitant amounts to political operatives to provide terrible advice and produce TV ads and mailers, rather than investing in long term infrastructure like community offices and local chapters. The party’s candidates ran on uninspiring, centrist messaging, like Senate candidate Val Demings airing TV ads about her record as a police chief and pledging to never “defund the police.” Worst of all, the party’s internal structures were highly undemocratic and favored those who could horse trade with party insiders, rather than allowing grassroots activists to meaningfully make change. At the time, the op-ed’s author advocated for the party to “get its act together” by investing in community organizing, running candidates on working class populist, and reforming the party’s undemocratic internal structures. Evidently, none of these things happened, and the author of that op-ed later switched to “No Party Affiliation” over the Democrats’ support for the genocide in Gaza.

While the Florida state party is especially incompetent, the qualities described in that op-ed ring true for the Democratic Party as a whole. The party has a decentralized structure, made up of a constellation of establishment politicians, lobbyist groups, corporate donors, PACs, and supporters in labor and nonprofits; all that unites them is a common party brand. The actual institutions of the party that activists can attempt to take over – the Democratic clubs, local and statewide parties, caucuses and committees – have no power over which candidates run on the party’s ballot line and limited control over the real levers of power. A state party can change its platform or even renounce corporate donations, but it will have little say over the conduct of candidates and their super PACs.

It is no accident that the Democrats are so undemocratic and hostile to the left —  both the Democratic and Republican Parties are fundamentally capitalist parties, funded and backed by the largest billionaires and corporations in the world, and hostile to the working class. But unlike the Republicans, the Democratic Party must uphold the interests of the capitalist class while also appearing to represent the interests of its base among the working class, people of color, women, and LGBTQ community. What this looks like in practice is the Democrats putting the interests of big business first while attempting to co-opt popular movements. Sometimes they do this successfully: in 2020, Democrats brazenly adopted the rhetoric of the Black Lives Matter movement while Democratic mayors criminalized protestors and candidates like Val Demmings condemned efforts to “defund the police.” Other times, when the interests of capitalism and imperialism are irreconcilable with popular movements, the Democrats are put at odds with their own base. Activists across the country have experienced this contradiction on issues like the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Socialists have been able to make serious gains by running candidates in Democratic primaries, like Zohran Mamdani and Rashida Tlaib. At its most effective, this strategy can increase our candidates viability in an electoral system that is hostile to third party and independent candidates. The decentralized nature of the party also makes it difficult for Democrats’ to formally stop us from running on their line, though that certainly hasn’t stopped them from trying. But this approach is untenable in the long term: our involvement in the Democratic Party comes with major pressures to cozy up to its establishment and associate ourselves with its toxic brand. This can lead otherwise popular left-wing leaders like AOC or Bernie Sanders to make demoralizing political mistakes and betray the broad leftwing movement. Examples of such opportunism abound: both Bernie and AOC supported Joe Biden remaining in the 2024 presidential race after his abysmal debate performance; AOC infamously lied that Kamala Harris was “working tirelessly” for a ceasefire; and AOC has continued supporting funding Israel’s Iron Dome. Moves like these are logical if your goal is advancing your own position within the Democratic Party, but they are ruinous and demoralizing to your base if you are trying to build a political alternative.

So we find ourselves in a bind: running with the Democratic Party affords us electoral viability, but it also forces us to adopt a toxic brand, one which pressures us to abandon our principles and fracture our base. How have socialists responded? When DSA was first founded in 1982, a majority of our membership favored a strategy called “realignment,” in which socialists enter the Democratic Party with the goal of transforming it into a social democratic party. In 2021, DSA members in Nevada tried putting this strategy into practice by running a progressive slate of members for the leadership of the state Democratic Party. They won the leadership election and, in response, the Nevada party establishment withdrew their funds before the new leadership could take power. We saw a similar instance this year, when the Minnesota Democratic Party overturned its state’s convention vote to endorse democratic socialist Omar Fateh for Mayor, all at the behest of major donors (Fateh narrowly lost the general election). We have consistently run into the same problem: while socialists can technically “take over” the Democratic party’s formal structures, doing so ultimately gives activists little say in the platforms elected officials run on or the way capitalist donors spend their money. And all of this effort comes at great expense to our organizing capacity, resources, and time!

In the years since 2021, it has become clear to a majority of DSA members that there is no future for socialists in attempting to reform the Democrats.This is true at the national level, and it is true in Florida. What we need is an independent, mass socialist party representing the interests of the working class, one which can channel its energy into attacking capitalism. Historically, successful socialist and communist parties did this by offering their members much more than just an electoral machine: they offered whole social institutions. Historically, socialist parties would offer their members and sympathisers a counter-culture and narrative of society that stands in contrast to capitalist culture and narratives, through the development of propaganda, party journalism and an internal social life. A party would engage in all fields of struggle, including running socialists for public office, yes, but also organizing unions, providing mutual aid to its members and broader community, and playing a leading role in street protests. A party’s members would have a guiding program which they can promote and convince people of, no matter which field of struggle they are engaged in.

Within DSA, there is broad popular support for the idea of forming an independent working class party; however, this ambition is tempered by the simultaneous recognition that, in the near term, we will need to continue running candidates in Democratic primaries to remain viable. In practice, this has been the “party surrogate” strategy, wherein DSA acts as a de-facto faction within the Democratic Party while simultaneously building our organization’s independent, party-like infrastructure. But when should we take that infrastructure and use it to form an independent party? A small minority of members support the notion of a “clean break,” in which DSA would immediately stop running candidates on the Democratic ballot line in any races and move to launch a third party ballot line. Many more support a strategy known as the “dirty break,” in which DSA will continue to run candidates as Democrats or independents where strategic, while building up our infrastructure and resources for an eventual “break” from the Democratic Party.

At the 2025 DSA Convention, delegates passed several resolutions that push DSA in the direction of political independence. Resolutions passed that commit DSA to running candidates for US Congress in 2026, running a DSA candidate for President in 2028, and making anti-Zionism a red line for endorsing candidates. Notably, there was also a resolution passed which officially committed DSA to the goal of “becoming an independent mass socialist party” and officially abandoning the realignment strategy. I consider this resolution a step forward, though I disagree with the fact that it doesn’t emphasize the need for DSA to have its own formal ballot line and effectively commits us to the “party surrogate” strategy indefinitely. Instead, I preferred the approach taken by a resolution supported by my caucus at the convention which would have committed DSA to a more formal timeline for the “dirty break,” aiming to launch a party by the end of the Trump administration.

Those of us who recognize that there is no socialist future in the capitalist Democratic Party must continue to experiment with party-building tactics in our own chapters. Local chapters can form “Partyist Committees” to research local electoral laws and determine the viability of forming a socialist ballot line at the municipal level. Chapters can adopt a set of party-like electoral standards for their candidates and commit to researching potential districts to run in, like Miami DSA did at our 2025 Chapter Convention. On a regional basis, DSA chapters can run city or statewide socialist slates, united around a shared socialist brand and common demands.

Towards a Florida Socialist Slate

Beneath the triumphant declarations from the far-right that Florida is now Trump country, seeds of resistance are sprouting across the state. Trump’s approval ratings have plummeted in Florida and across the country, and many working-class Latino communities that swung hard towards Trump in 2020 and 2024 now feel betrayed by his administration’s policy of mass deportations and brutal austerity. We see that, despite Democrats’ total collapse in Florida, there are still electoral majorities for ending bans on abortion, legalizing marijuana, restoring voting rights for millions of felons, and raising the minimum wage. Protest attendance is up, with “No Kings” and anti-ICE protests inspiring thousands to pour into the streets, and so is DSA membership, as chapters across the state experienced first a “Trump-bump” at the end of last year then two “Zohran-bumps” in the summer and fall.

None of this implies an imminent socialist electoral majority, far from it. But what it does mean is that there exists a growing discontent with Trump and the Republicans’ billionaire agenda in Florida, one which does not yet have a coherent political vehicle. This opens up opportunities for DSA to elect viable socialists to city council, school board, and state house in left-leaning districts across the state. We’ve already seen modest successes from this local strategy in Florida. In 2021, Pinellas DSA proved that a democratic socialist can win: having mobilized a diverse coalition of socialists, labor, and progressive organizations, the chapter managed to elect Richie Floyd to the St Pete City Council. Even more impressively, they won both a district-wide primary and a citywide general election, electing a Black socialist in a system which specifically disenfranchises African-Americans.

While victory is not a guarantee – in 2024 both the Pinellas and Pensacola chapters supported candidates for office who ultimately lost – it is almost certainly true that there are more Florida districts with untapped potential for DSA-driven electoral wins. Most of our chapters, my own included, haven’t even tried yet! By attempting to run an electoral campaign, DSA chapters can build institutional knowledge, knowledge which is shareable across chapters and eminently developable. Chapters can learn vital skills like canvassing, phonebanking, starting a chapter electoral program, and running an endorsement process, which will make future electoral runs easier to start. Even a losing campaign can provide a chapter with mountains of electoral data which will show us our areas of support in our communities and the demographics we most appeal to, which can shape our strategy for years to come!

I believe that, in the lead-up to the 2026 midterms and 2027 local elections, DSA chapters across Florida should conduct research on local electoral districts, pass a set of party-like electoral standards at the chapter level, and try to field cadre candidates from their own membership to run for public office. Our candidates should run as open democratic socialists, promote DSA and encourage people to join, and use their campaign messaging to draw a line between the capitalist class and the working class. And, in the event that multiple chapters run candidates, we should publicize that our chapters are collectively running a “Florida Socialist Slate” through social media posts, press releases, and a launch call.

Already, there are the makings of a potential slate across Florida:

• In Pinellas County, St Pete City Councilman Richie Floyd will be running for re-election in 2026 with the support of Pinellas DSA.
• In Broward and Palm Beach County, congressional candidate and Broward DSA member Oliver Larkin is primarying centrist Democrat Jared Moskowitz in Florida’s 23rd Congressional District, and the Broward chapter is currently weighing endorsing him.
• In Pensacola, the Party for Socialism & Liberation (PSL) is running its own candidate for Mayor, Jasmine Brown. Unlike other longshot PSL campaigns being run across the country for high-profile offices, the Pensacola mayoral race is a nonpartisan race with a relatively low win number, making it more winnable for a grassroots candidate. While she is not a DSA member, there will certainly be discussions within Pensacola DSA over how to relate to the campaign and whether to officially endorse Brown.
• In Miami-Dade, our Electoral Working Group has spent the past year researching state legislative and local races to potentially run candidates, and will most likely draft a candidate for the 2027 municipal elections.

Running our candidates as a slate, even if mostly a symbolic gesture, would be an inspiring and invigorating move for working class and oppressed communities across Florida. In what is sure to be a high-profile election year, Florida’s largest socialist organization making a collective move for power could generate excitement, earned media attention, and volunteer energy. Unlike previous campaigns for ballot initiatives, running socialist candidates for office will afford us the opportunity to have broader conversations with our neighbors about policies that uplift working class Floridians. We can also present a unified worldview in our campaign messaging: our analyses of abortion bans, climate change’s role in Florida’s environmental disasters, and the rising local prominence of far-right politics should tie these struggles together. Our electoral work should highlight how these challenges are entirely dependent on each other and require solidarity to fight back against them. After years of blow after blow being dealt to Florida’s working class with seemingly little resistance, DSA chapters must take the lead in a serious fightback against the far-right’s domination of our state.