We, the Democratic Socialists of America, will not apologize. We stand up for what’s right | Opinion

Highest minimum wage in the country.

Green energy that cleans our air and lowers our bills.

Protecting tenants from exorbitant rent increases and evictions.

Universal preschool, free and public for all children, paid for by taxes from the rich.

These are just some of the wildly popular and life-changing policies that members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have achieved through local grassroots organizing for millions of Americans across the country in recent years. And they were largely absent from Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign.

In recent weeks, however, many of us have been experiencing political déjà vu. After a Democratic presidential candidate took a right-wing stance, boasted Republican support, and subsequently lost to former President Donald Trump, the experts, consultants and donors behind the strategy are turning to the media to blame “the left.” We are told in OpEd after OpEd and on cable news stories day after day that even our simple association with Democrats has turned voters away from candidates we have nothing to do with.

Since none of these experts, consultants or donors are organizers, they do not understand what DSA is.

When you join DSA, you become part of a grassroots organization whose best recommendations are those that fueled the labor and civil rights movements of the 20th century. Whatever your background, you’ll not only learn more about the world of politics, but you’ll also gain the skills you need to become an organizer who can change it for the better.

From electing hundreds of socialists to local, state and national offices across the country to passing transformative legislation, from speaking out in solidarity with workers striking against greedy bosses to organizing mass protests in search of justice, DSA is building a militant organization. .

DSA’s goals are set out in our Workers Deserve Better 2024-25 platform – our economic and social vision for thriving working-class communities and universal public services, and a true democracy that works for us all. And our vision of a just world is the exact opposite of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

Just compare what’s on offer in the healthcare industry. Right: Prop 2025 jeopardizes the future of Medicaid by cutting funding and restricting eligibility in ways that could cause widespread suffering. At the center, the Biden-Harris administration could only propose changes to existing health care policies that do nothing for the more than 25 million people who still lack health care. But at DSA, we are building Medicare for All: free, universal health care that ensures everyone can get quality care.

Too extreme?

What about the dreaded “open borders” that the center and right are so afraid of? What does it really mean to have an open border? This means that we believe that all people have the right to move freely in the hope of a better life, including Jews fleeing the Nazi extermination of the Holocaust; my own family left Bangladesh during the military dictatorship following the US-led genocide in 1971; millions of people have fled their homes across the Middle East since 2001 as a result of the US War on Terror; and Mexicans looking for work after unfair trade agreements like NAFTA destroyed their local economy.

As UAW President Shawn Fein argues, migrants crossing the border are scapegoats for the real threat to the working class: billionaires who profit from the division of the workforce.

They blame us for losing the race to Harris because of our advocacy for the Palestinians. DSA is unabashedly committed to organizing for a free Palestine. The fact is that ending the US-sponsored violence that scholars widely call genocide in the Gaza Strip is now the position of most Americans. President Biden’s failure to listen to the anti-war movement and hold Israel accountable cost his party just as it did Lyndon Johnson in 1968.

As perhaps the most famous American democratic socialist, Martin Luther King Jr., wrote in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”: “The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we become extremists because of hatred?” or out of love? Will we become extremists to perpetuate injustice or to spread justice?”

Whether Democrats decide to support truly life-changing programs that motivate ordinary people to get off the couch, or decide to continue running “Republican lite” campaigns for no one, our membership grows with people who are going to fight for and win what they want. which is right. The only thing we won’t do is apologize for it.

Ashique Siddique is the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

The views expressed in this article are those of the author.