The Future Starts Now: An Account of the 2025 DSA National Convention

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The Future Starts Now (Rochester DSA delegate account)

Author: Gregory Lebens-Higgins | Published: 2025-09-12 | Source: advocacy

Summary

A delegate’s narrative account of the 2025-dsa-national-convention, published by the Rochester DSA chapter (whose newsletter is confusingly named “Rochester Red Star” — it is a chapter publication, not the red-star-caucus). Written under the convention theme “Rebirth and Beyond,” it is the most readable end-to-end walkthrough of what passed and why, organized around five themes: internal democracy, party-building, labor, internationalism, and antifascism.

This is the source that confirms the co-chair claim explicitly and by name: “Megan R. (At-Large) (Red Star) and Ashik S. (Wilmington) (Groundwork) were reelected as Co-Chairs” — i.e., megan-romer, a member of the Marxist-Leninist Red Star caucus, holds one of DSA’s two national co-chair seats, and was reelected, meaning she already held it from 2023. It also notes the new NPC is composed, “with one exception,” entirely of caucused members.

On the party question it is unusually direct: the section header is “DSA is a Party.” It reports R07 Principles for Party-Building (Marxist Unity Group) passing 641–551, committing DSA “to the goal of becoming an independent mass socialist party” while explicitly making the ballot line secondary — DSA will bring “our independent organization and program to races whether on a Democratic, independent, or third-party ballot line.” This is the clearest statement in the corpus of the dirty break strategy: not a third party, but an independent party operating through the Democratic ballot line.

On Gaza discipline it confirms the strongest version of the claim: R22 passed 675–524 and makes material support for Zionism an expellable offense, over objections from Socialist Majority Caucus and Groundwork that the ambiguity invites politically motivated expulsions. An amendment to strip the expulsion provisions failed. Fifty-seven chapters had already passed similar resolutions. The decision whether to censure alexandria-ocasio-cortez over her Iron Dome vote was left to the new NPC.

Key Claims

  • Co-chairs reelected: Megan R. (At-Large, Red Star) and Ashik S. (Wilmington, Groundwork). New NPC is composed of caucused members with one exception.
  • R07 Principles for Party-Building (MUG) passed 641–551: commits DSA to becoming an independent mass socialist party; “a ballot line is not the primary goal or indication of political independence.” A separate proposal to run on an independent ballot line (R33-A02) failed.
  • R22 “For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA” passed 675–524, making material support for Zionism an expellable offense; the amendment removing expulsion provisions failed. 57 chapters had passed similar resolutions previously.
  • R36 — Unified Democratic Socialist Strategy for Palestinian Solidarity — devotes resources to BDS, state/local legislation, student activism, union trainings.
  • R18 / CR05-A04 / R33: a Congressional Subcommittee under the National Electoral Commission to identify viable 2026 midterm races, and to “identify, recruit, and support a viable democratic socialist candidate for President” in 2028.
  • CR05 (NEC consensus) prioritizes DSA members as candidates and establishes a Socialists-In-Office network. CR05-A03 requires the NPC to meet with federal candidates and weigh NEC and member input.
  • R34 “Workers Deserve More, Forever” program renewal passed 900–291; the competing MUG/R&R program (R34-A01) failed.
  • CB01 (Democracy Commission constitution/bylaws package) passed with 82% approval: expands the NPC, facilitates chapter–National exchange, sets leadership expectations.
  • CR01 chapter affiliation agreement: minimum standards — adopt the Code of Conduct, at least one meeting a year with voting rights for all members, a digital platform for intra-chapter communication.
  • CR08 unified grievance policy passed.
  • R27 (Bread & Roses) on staff–member relations passed with 58%; staff are barred from caucus membership. R44 (LSC staff-spending cap) failed by eleven votes.
  • One Member One Vote defeated twice: R06 (federal endorsements) ruled out of order by the Chair; CB02 (national leadership elections) voted down on the merits with only 39.8% support.
  • CB04 STV/ranked-choice for delegate elections passed.
  • Budget: ninety percent of DSA’s budget comes from member dues; a 2024 budget crisis was resolved with staff layoffs.
  • CR10 (National Labor Commission): salting, organizing Amazon, federal-worker solidarity, May Day 2028 general strike prep, Labor Solidarity Fund and EWOC support. CR10-A01 (partyist labor strategy) failed.
  • R42 Labor for an Arms Embargo (Carnation Program) passed; the Springs of Revolution strike-readiness amendment R42-A01 failed at 35.4%. A delegate noted “less than one-fourth of the hands in this room raised when asked if [delegates] were in a union.”
  • R01 (one democratic Palestinian state, LSC) and both competing amendments failed.
  • CR02 International Committee consensus resolution passed; DSA commits to organize with Progressive International.
  • Convention closed with solidarity messages from Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío Domínguez and Jeremy Corbyn, who is building Your Party on DSA’s model — “a new Atlantic Alliance.”
  • Mamdani’s win framed by Co-Chair Ashik S. as “the culmination of eight years of work.”

Direct quotes worth preserving

“Megan R. (At-Large) (Red Star) and Ashik S. (Wilmington) (Groundwork) were reelected as Co-Chairs.” — Gregory Lebens-Higgins

Why citable: a DSA chapter’s own publication confirming, by name and caucus, that a member of the self-described Marxist-Leninist caucus holds one of two national co-chair seats — the single-sourced hostile claim now has an insider source.

“A weapon is a weapon. You either support ending funding for genocide, or you don’t.” — Rep. Rashida Tlaib, convention keynote

Why citable: the sharpest on-the-record intra-left rebuke of AOC in the corpus, from a sitting member of Congress at the DSA podium.

“The only people that can decide what DSA does are DSA members.” — Connell H. (River Valley), arguing for R07

Why citable: the party-building case in one line — DSA as a self-directing organization that runs its own candidates, not an endorsement clearinghouse for progressive Democrats.

“If they can find a way to ratfuck us, they will.” — Peter T. (East Bay), arguing against One Member One Vote

Why citable: the internal-security argument against mass membership votes, in the delegates’ own idiom — useful color on how DSA thinks about its own vulnerability to outside influence.

Connections

Entities mentioned: dsa, red-star-caucus, megan-romer, zohran-mamdani, alexandria-ocasio-cortez, democratic-party, Ashik S., Rashida Tlaib, Jeremy Corbyn, Groundwork, Socialist Majority Caucus, Springs of Revolution, Marxist Unity Group, Bread & Roses, Libertarian Socialist Caucus, Carnation Program, Reform & Revolution, Progressive International, Your Party (UK) Concepts referenced: entryism, democratic-socialism, dirty break, rank-and-file strategy, anti-Zionism, BDS Events: 2025-dsa-national-convention, 2025-nyc-mayoral-general Debates: is-the-dsa-taking-over-the-democratic-party, is-democratic-socialism-different-from-socialism

Contradictions / Tensions

  • Resolves the wiki’s flagged single-sourcing on the co-chair claim — but note the framing gap: the hostile source treats a Red Star co-chair as evidence of capture; this source treats it as unremarkable pluralism (“Despite the obvious disagreements represented by these ideological groupings, delegates from the convention left as allies”).
  • Confirms Gaza endorsement discipline at its strongest reading (expellable offense), and records that the internal opposition came from the moderate caucuses on civil-liberties grounds — the intra-DSA critique the wiki lacked.
  • Vote totals here match metro-detroit-dsa-2025-convention-results exactly (R07 641–551, R22 675–524, R34 900–291), giving high confidence in the numbers.
  • The R42 vote count differs across sources: this account says “passed by a show of cards”; the Detroit tally records 347–86, a much smaller electorate than other votes, consistent with a thinned late-session floor.
  • Notes and rebuts the Atlantic’s post-convention criticism that too little time was spent on Trump — relevant to is-the-dsa-taking-over-the-democratic-party.

Notes

The outlet name is a trap: “Rochester Red Star” is the Rochester DSA chapter newsletter and is unrelated to the red-star-caucus. Rochester sent seven delegates plus one alternate; the author was one of them. A longer account and the full Proposal Compendium are linked from the piece.