Democratic Socialists of America

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a multi-tendency, democratic-socialist, and labor-oriented political organization in the United States. Its roots are in the Socialist Party of America (SPA), whose leaders included Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas and Michael Harrington. In 1973, Harrington, the leader of a minority faction that had opposed the SPA's transformation into the Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) during the party's 1972 national convention, formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC). In 1982, it merged with the New American Movement (NAM), a coalition of intellectuals with roots in the New Left movements of the 1960s and former members of socialist and communist parties of the Old Left. Upon the DSA's founding, Harrington and the socialist feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich were elected co-chairs of the organization. The DSOC, which Harrington described as "the remnant of a remnant", and, after the merger, the DSA soon became the largest socialist organization in the United States. Initially, the organization consisted of approximately 5,000 ex-DSOC members and 1,000 ex-NAM members. The organization retained around 6,000 members until large membership boosts from the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign, the presidential victory of Donald Trump, the 2018 election of DSA member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2021, membership peaked at over 95,000 and the number of local chapters was 239, before declining to around 85,000 members by 2023. The organization is credited with the rise of millennial socialism, as the median age of its membership was 33 in 2017, compared to 68 in 2013. The DSA's stated goal is to participate in "fights for reforms today that will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people", with a long-term aim of social ownership of production as public enterprises, worker cooperatives, or decentralized planning.