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Many East Bay DSA members were among the enthusiastic canvassers for Richmond mayoral candidate Claudia Jimenez. Sue Wilson, Richmond City Council/RPA photo.

The top of the ticket statewide races and big city primaries grab the headlines, but at the local level and in smaller municipalities DSA members have been working hard to elect working class champions as well. In some cases the reward was winning outright or landing in the top two for the November 3 election runoff. In others our DSA candidates didn’t get there, but working on their campaigns strengthened the infrastructure of the chapters for next time. Here is an example of each: the mayoral race of Claudia Jimenez in Richmond, and the longshot lieutenant governor campaign of Oliver Ma as it played out in Orange County. 

Claudia Jimenez for Richmond Mayor!

The stakes have never been higher in Richmond, California. Chevron recently agreed to a $550 million dollar settlement with the city and the race is on to see if that money will be controlled by progressive politics or conservative business politics. The Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) endorsed Claudia Jimenez as their candidate for mayor: she is a proud Colombian immigrant, community organizer, city councilwoman, and political mentor to many of us who live in Richmond. East Bay DSA, often perceived as an Oakland-heavy organization, endorsed her mayoral campaign this year and members devoted significant people power to assisting her throughout the primary. 

Up to twenty EBDSA members showed up to the widely promoted canvasses. A core group of DSA members also attended weekly canvasses and phonebanks in the months leading up to the primary. Claudia has spoken at membership meetings and participated in debate at our convention. Our chapter’s monthly “Socialism Beats Fascism” event dedicated its May meeting to promote Claudia’s campaign and helped plug new members into volunteering with her. This is EBDSA’s best support so far for an RPA candidate and we are exploring more ways to support Claudia heading into the fall, such as organizing fundraisers and putting together a policy research team. 

DSA members are attracted to the RPA’s principled and highly successful track record in city government. Richmond currently has the lowest homicide rate in city history, a million-dollar legal defense fund for immigrants targeted by ICE, a mental health crisis response team (ROCK) that assists in emergency calls alongside police, and the city has extracted itself from high-cost debt swap investments that kept us in financial peril for decades. However, not everybody is a fan of such progress. Claudia’s opponents include Chevron, which doesn’t like being held accountable; the local police association, which thinks all settlement money should be used on overpolicing; and groups associated with AIPAC, who didn’t like Richmond leading a wave of municipalities calling for a Ceasefire in Gaza. All have deep pockets which is why fundraising for the November election is going to be key for Claudia victory! You can donate now at www.claudiaformayor.com! 

Working on the Oliver Ma campaign revitalized OCDSA.

Oliver Ma Campaign a shot in the arm for OCDSA

It is June 2nd, the primary election night, in a crowded brewery in Santa Ana, California and conversation is flowing while televisions on the wall show the current state of each race. The room is filled with comrades from the Orange County Democratic Socialists of America (OCDSA) and the United Auto Workers union, Local 4811 (many of whom are in both organizations). Everyone here has spent the previous months canvassing their neighborhoods, phone banking, text banking, and even hand-writing postcards for Lieutenant Governor candidate Oliver Ma. When Ma, who actually grew up in Orange County, comes into the bar everyone starts chanting his name as he passionately starts a speech about how we collectively ran a grassroots campaign to be proud of.

Oliver Ma did not end up getting enough votes to move forward to the November election, receiving nearly 620,000 votes, or 7.3%. But the campaign was a shot in the arm for Orange County DSA. The campaign came at the opportune moment when the Electoral Committee of the chapter needed direction and revitalization. Since the conclusion of the Oliver Ma campaign the committee voted through new guidelines and expectations for the endorsement process, as well as helpful tips for those looking to apply for OCDSA endorsement.

During an open call with California DSA earlier this year, Oliver Ma described his intentions with the campaign. He described a campaign that would ideally uplift, train and funnel the people working on his campaign into DSA, whether or not he won the election. From the perspective of OCDSA this plan worked. We had current members who had their first canvassing experience for a democratic socialist candidate they actually wanted to endorse instead of a corporate Democrat. We have had new members come in from the campaign, energized and ready to move towards the next committee project. Just like any socialist project, we will learn, train, and do better next time.

The threatened explosion of a military contractor’s toxic storage tank caused the evacuation of 50,000 mostly working class residents of Orange County.

On Thursday, May 21st around 3:30 p.m., a hazardous chemical leak was reported from a GKN Aerospace plant in Garden Grove, California. The chemical leak was caused by an overheating storage tank for methyl methacrylate, a toxic chemical used in the production of plastics such as those in airplane canopies. The failure was caused by a faulty valve in the tank’s cooling system leading to a rise in tank temperature and pressure. Additional safety mechanisms from GKN to halt the reaction on May 21st also failed. As a result, the GKN tank threatened a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion (BLEVE), endangering the lives and homes of thousands of Orange County residents.

Located in the middle of a working class neighborhood, the emergency prompted an evacuation order from city officials which displaced approximately 50,000 residents for five days before being lifted on May 26th. The threat was resolved with emergency response from OC Fire Authority to cool the tank as well as a partial crack which relieved tank pressure and heat gradually.

Major hub for military contractors

GKN Aerospace, a subsidiary of the British-based Melrose Industries, is an aerospace parts manufacturer serving contracts for plane engine parts and airframes with private and public sector clients. A 2025 report shows that 35% of Melrose Industries’ revenue from airframe sales comes from defense contracts, such as the contract for canopies for the F-35 fighter jet produced by Lockheed Martin. Currently, 48 of these jets are in use by the Israeli military to facilitate genocide in Palestine. GKN additionally serves contracts producing military parts for BAE, Leonardo, Airbus, other Lockheed Martin projects, drone projects for Anduril (an Orange County-based defense contractor), and direct government defense contracts. The GKN Garden Grove plant began operating in 2004 according to reporting from the LA Times.

The GKN Aerospace emergency highlights the glaring contradictions in the political economy and developmental priorities of Orange County. Southern California has been a major hub for defense contractors since World War II. Its location provided proximity to many of the largest military bases in the US, ideal geography and climate for weapons testing, and a massive supply of white- and blue-collar labor already trained for weapons production fueled by immigration waves and federal investment. The resulting economic development empowered a growing class of white suburban defense industry executives who relied on extracting the labor of Southern California’s diverse working class in urban manufacturing for private profit. 

The organization of Orange County’s military-industry class went beyond economic interests, becoming the epicenter of the Cold War counter-revolution in the US and generating political machines which led Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to the presidency. Decades of deindustrialization have since destroyed most of the manufacturing base of Orange County. However, toxic plants remain siloed in marginalized communities like Garden Grove, threatening the same workers on whose backs Orange County’s capitalist class arose in the first place. After intervening years of capitalist deregulation, we are left with a harrowing chemical emergency created by a system of interconnected political and economic interests hostile to workers in Orange County and abroad.

Community response

In response to this emergency, the Orange County community has shown an inspiring dedication to direct mutual aid, with volunteer organizations including Orange County DSA, 714 Mutual Aid, Costa Mesa Mutual Aid, Orange County PSL, World Central Kitchen, and many others helping organize the delivery of food and essentials to sheltering Garden Grove residents. Our community understands what our politicians do not: we protect us. In the absence of a political infrastructure committed to the needs of the working class, we must continue to build networks of solidarity, mutual aid, and community defense capable of supplanting our atrophied state capacity.

Garden Grove residents are still struggling in the wake of the evacuation. Workers in Garden Grove are facing missing paychecks, unreimbursed hotel stays, and the stress of a narrowly avoided environmental catastrophe. Predictably, most insurance companies are refusing to pay out on claims for these losses. As capitalism repeatedly fails to provide care and safety for the working class, Orange County DSA remains committed to supporting the needs of Garden Grove workers and opposing the interests of the military-industrial complex in Orange County.

Red scares often attack teachers and public schools with threats of censorship and assaults on academic freedom.  NEA graphic.

As the Trump Administration continues to blame its failures on anyone left of the far-right, the federal Department of Education (DoED) has just taken another step towards what can only be called a new Red Scare.  In late May, the DoED unveiled a press release that proposed several critical changes to how institutions of higher education are accredited. If implemented, these reforms would force universities to, among other mandates, hold “policies that support, promote, and appropriately prioritize intellectual diversity” and implement “academic freedom protections.” 

The overwhelming majority of universities already insure intellectual diversity and academic freedom. Conservatives just want to use universities as platforms to push their anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-democratic, and socially backwards ideas to the next generation. They despise these “woke propaganda factories" because they promote critical thinking skills and intellectual diversity which empower students to question the systems and ideas their ideology relies on.

DSAers must acknowledge that these reforms will not just be used to deny funding from universities who refuse the DoED’s demands, they will make campus organizing much harder. As the largest and most successful socialist organization of the century, we cannot pretend that these developments won’t affect DSA and the broader left. 

The last two administrations have had mixed success legally compelling colleges to bend the knee to its policies. Some colleges like Brown and Columbia have capitulated while others like Harvard and UCLA are still resisting. At the state level, MAGA activists have been increasingly hacking away at public education, with some states funding “hostile takeover[s]” of entire universities.  The Trump White House is now looking to change the rules completely (again), and (Y)DSA must be ready to organize with students and faculty against them, or risk losing momentum.

Red Scare exhibit number one is Joe McCarthy in the late 1940s and early 1950s, who lent his name to the phenomenon, but there have been other red scares in US history, including the one unfolding today.

Not Out of Nowhere

These proposed reforms did not come out of nowhere. Far-right discourse around higher education has saturated social and national media for decades. Conservatives have long tried—and failed—to build institutional power from within public universities. In recent years, the rapid spread of Turning Point USA has created magnets for the most racist and hateful students on campus; even without Kirk, they remain one of the fastest-growing fascist youth orgs in the country. 

However, astroturfed campus organizing hasn’t afforded conservatives much institutional power inside higher education. Many of the noted Youtube college campus crusaders have burned out—or gone cold—since the first years of Trump 1.0. Now with unchecked power over the government, conservatives are opting for a sweeping, top-down approach to higher education reform.

This is a scary reminder that the long held conservative tradition of discrediting and dismantling higher education never truly dies. With the certainty of capitalism’s boom-bust cycle comes the recurring fear of its logical solution. When we look at the history of Red Scares in the United States, it can be hard to tell when one begins and one ends. Historians are undecided on exactly how many distinctive Red Scares there have been, but there can be no doubt that the current scare we face has the potential to be more consequential than that of the McCarthy-era.

The chill of McCarthyism

During the Red Scare you probably learned about in school, the chill of McCarthyism was felt across many industries, especially in higher education. The general anti-communist paranoia amongst post-WWII U.S.A. was exploited and catalyzed by McCarthy and the Eisenhower administration. McCarthyism would go on to plague leftist organizing in the United States for generations.

But even McCarthy’s Republican party eventually turned on him when they grew tired of his aggressive rhetoric and interrogation tactics. His reign ended with a whimper because the president was forced to step in to save the “decency” of the Republican party. But what about the GOP of today? They’re in a much better position to engage in McCarthyism than McCarthy. Trump 2.0 has a trifecta control over the government, with his cult following stretching across his cabinet, congress, and supporters. McCarthy was lambasted by his party for having “no sense of decency,” but the MAGA movement has proudly solidified itself and the GOP as ardent defenders of pedophilia, abuse of power, and treasonous corruption. Let's be real: do we expect the feckless Democratic party to step in and defend higher education?

DSA demographics

DSA appeals heavily to the working class, but an overwhelming majority of our membership still comes out of higher education. In a 2021 Growth and Development Committee survey, a resounding 80% of members held a bachelor's degree while one of every ten members worked in academia. This correlation between attaining higher education and holding more progressive views has not only been known for decades, it is increasingly getting stronger. Conservatism relies on servile minds that are unwilling to question boogeyman narratives, and willing hold multiple contradicting positions. Leftists, and even progressive liberals, are more often skeptical of systems and the status quo in large part due to their critical thinking skills. This is not to say that uneducated workers are not or cannot become leftists, but data consistently shows they are not flocking to the cause. 

Even among our most recent growth spurts, new membership continues to be young and educated. DSA Ventura County doubled their membership during the 2025-26 academic year after committing to a college campus recruiting campaign; this resulted in a radical revitalization of the chapter and the sprouting of at least one YDSA club. With over 150 YDSA chapters currently leading campus organizing efforts, it is safe to say academia remains one of the most reliable pipelines for DSA growth. 

These campus organizers have already demonstrated their importance in recent electoral campaigns, providing volunteers, chapter leadership, and long-term organizational capacity. Recent electoral gains—including multiple citywide wins in L.A., and mayoral wins in NYC and D.C.— underscore the growing organizational capacity of DSA across the country. These victories would not have been possible if not for the thousands of volunteers who were recently activated and empowered by our growing coalition of lefty organizations. 

College students have far more free time than other demographics, especially if they are privileged enough to remain solely focused on school. As they contend with the uniquely bleak country they are inheriting, several political avenues beckon to them at the crossroads of alienation, disenfranchisement, and radicalization. They can keep their head down and hope the world fixes itself, join a democratic club and hope the status quo prevails, succumb to fascist grievance politics, or courageously believe a better world is possible. 

The proposed accreditation reforms are more than another policy dispute. If passed, they would inflame a new Red Scare that would threaten the left’s most effective recruiting and organizing institutions. If DSA chapters want to continue building on our current momentum and build capacity, defending higher education cannot remain a secondary concern.

At rs21’s ‘Ballot Box or Barricade?’ panel, part of its Festival of the Oppressed in London on 20 and 21 June, a session on electoral work circled one question and never closed it

America at 250: Our rights and our lives are on the line! THE UNITED STATES of America marks its 250th anniversary in July 2026 with its multiple divided legacies. As we know, the country was founded in the perpetuation of racial slavery, in genocide of the Indigenous nations, in ambitions of vast colonial dominion —… Continue reading Toward Liberation or Ruin?

The United Auto Workers reaffirmed the more militant approach that the union has taken under President Shawn Fain at its convention last week, voting for more funding for new organizing, a bigger strike fund, and divestment from Israel.

A kids’ movie about tech addiction and the terror of being obsolete? Of course Toy Story 5 is a hit — we’re all living through it.

Watch the recording Last week, over 200 participants gathered over Zoom for the public hearing on the proposed reissuance of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Individual Permit (NPDES) for Enbridge’s proposed Line 5 tunnel through the Straits of Mackinac.  Line 5 is a pair of aging oil pipelines that travels across the bottom of... Read more »

The post Deep concerns raised at Line 5 tunnel public hearing appeared first on Flow Water Advocates.

South Asia is witnessing scorching heat waves, with temperatures in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India regularly surpassing 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat is killing an unprecedented number of workers who have no choice but to work under the blazing sun. 

With a clean sweep of electoral wins for Zohran Mamdani’s endorsees and nine out of ten victories for NYC Democratic Socialists of America last night, it’s clear the socialist mayor and socialist movement are major political forces to be reckoned with.

Over 50% of the profits from recent oil supply shocks went to the top 1% of Americans. The bottom half received just 1%. The Iran war likely triggered another massive transfer to the very richest.

Last night’s socialist sweep in New York was built on the organizing power of the Democratic Socialists of America, which has now established itself as the leading political power in the city.

For much of the year, Flávio Bolsonaro, son of Brazil’s former president, seemed to be gaining on Lula ahead of the upcoming general election. But a mix of redistributive policies and right-wing incompetence has put the incumbent back in the lead.

The Founders made expansion the precondition of American freedom. We must find an alternative.

This month, four Palestine Action activists were jailed as “terrorists,” even though the jury didn’t convict them on such charges. The case shows how counterterrorism powers are used to impose extreme penalties on unwanted protests.

How Big Oil’s Dangerously Hot Football Tournament is a Chance to Change the Game

The post 2026 FIFA World Cup & Extreme Heat appeared first on 350.

by Utkarsh Mishra

This article by Utkarsh Mishra examines the human cost of India’s vast informal economy, which employs nearly 90% of the workforce. It traces the realities faced by brick kiln workers, construction labourers, and gig workers, highlighting debt bondage, child labour, unsafe conditions, and the absence of social protection. Drawing on research and workers’ testimonies, the article argues that exploitation is embedded in the organisation of work rather than being an accidental by-product of growth. It also highlights ongoing struggles by workers and the need for greater accountability and labour protections.

by Dr Gopabandhu Dash

India’s rapid expansion of AI and data centres is raising concerns about environmental justice, resource use, and the impact on vulnerable communities. In this article, Dr Gopabandhu Dash examines the growing ecological footprint of data infrastructure, including its demands on water, electricity, land, and its contribution to carbon emissions. Drawing on studies, public interventions, and international experiences, the article argues that the costs of digital expansion are often borne by marginalized populations. It calls for greater public scrutiny, stronger environmental safeguards, and a more equitable approach to technological development.

Unceded Coast Salish Territories (Vancouver, B.C.) – Peoples’ ability to officially interrogate  the controversial Tilbury LNG expansion will begin tomorrow, 25 June 2026, online. It is an opportunity for those with internet access who are concerned about the deadly impact on fragile wildlife to speak out against a project that will fuel even more tankers […]

Investors and Elon Musk insiders have captured the massive gains of SpaceX’s record-breaking IPO, while ordinary households are left holding risk they never chose to take on — and facing the downstream consequences of extreme inequality.