Energized by Zohran Mamdani’s primary triumph, 1,200 DSA members came to Chicago to chart the group’s future.Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get The Daily Prospect Monday through Friday. [link removed]

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**AUGUST 14, 2025**

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The Democratic Socialists of America are at an inflection point. Donald Trump is president, Zohran Mamdani just won New York City’s mayoral primary, and 2028 is on the horizon. I went to their convention, held every two years, to see how they’re responding [link removed] to the moment. I found a group that, while sometimes distracted by internal debates, is ready to build power and fight fascism.

**– Emma Janssen, Kuttner writing fellow**

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ZACH CADDY

DSA Convenes, Argues, and Celebrates [link removed]

It’s been a tumultuous decade for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and an even more intense year. So when 1,200 delegates from across the country came to Chicago last weekend for the group’s biannual convention, there was much to debrief. And argue about. And celebrate.

Most recently, New York City DSA member Zohran Mamdani burst into national attention after winning the city’s Democratic mayoral primary, beating Andrew Cuomo and becoming a national target for Republicans (and some Democrats). It’s impossible to ignore DSA’s hand in his win: The organization created a network of tens of thousands of canvassers who spent months going door-to-door in all five boroughs to bring voters Mamdani’s socialist message, tightly focused on basic economic issues.

DSA badly needed that victory. Last summer, the organization was hit with three major electoral defeats. First, in the most expensive House primary in history, AIPAC money and corporate Democrats pushed Rep. Jamaal Bowman from his New York seat. Bowman had a complicated history with DSA over his record on Israel (some members had sought to expel him) but nonetheless was endorsed by the group and had been proof that socialists could gain federal office.

Just two months after Bowman’s loss, Missouri Rep. Cori Bush lost her seat in much the same way. The third defeat was the dispiriting presidential campaign and Trump’s eventual election, which left many DSA members all the more disillusioned with American electoral politics and the Democratic Party’s stance on Palestine.

Every two years, DSA delegates from across the country meet to vote on resolutions and elect their National Political Committee (NPC), which largely steers the group’s direction, though local chapters retain a great deal of autonomy. This year, reckoning with the wins and losses of 2024 and 2025 was top of mind, along with crafting the organization’s response to the genocide in Palestine.

Walking around the massive Chicago convention center that housed the convention, I could see the organization’s concerns and tensions just by looking around. Members wore keffiyehs on their heads or draped over their shoulders. Some caucuses (ideological groups within the DSA) had their own hats (green for the electorally focused Groundwork Caucus), T-shirts (the communist Emerge Caucus had a nice cherry blossom design), and bandanas (worn by the moderate Socialist Majority Caucus). I worried at first that some of these caucus dynamics would unfocus the group and push so-called “sectarian” debate to the forefront. But I left with a much stronger view of the organization, which emerged united on many of its most crucial questions.

“I think it is a critical juncture for the organization. This moment is clearly very dire,” said Colleen Johnston, who joined DSA after President Trump took office in 2017. “Fascism is barreling through the country. And so the urgency is definitely there. And the question for us is: How seriously and clearly are we going to be meeting the moment with urgent, focused power-building demands that are going to unite a broad coalition of people to fight fascism?”

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