A Marxist caucus of the country’s largest socialist organization, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), accused top leaders of having mismanaged funds, leaving the organization in a dire “financial crisis” and facing layoffs.
The left-wing group, which counts Squad members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) among its ranks, is facing a “big deficit” and “a lot of talk about what to cut,” according to a trio of members of Bread & Roses, a national caucus of Marxist organizers within the DSA.
The socialist organization, which played a major role in pushing the Green New Deal into the highest reaches of the Democratic Party, is in a “seven-figure” hole that is probably “too big to fundraise our way out of,” the three socialist activists lamented in a Jan. 18 post on The Call, a publication of the Bread & Roses caucus.
The trio complained that the “financial crisis,” as some members of the DSA’s National Political Committee (NPC) described the situation in a proposal to cut staff, comes at a particularly bad time.
They believe the opportunity is ripe to foist socialism on the American people due to a revival of labor struggles and the Biden administration’s support for Israel in its war against the Hamas terror group.
Ideally, the organization would be “scaling up our operations to meet this moment, hiring fellow capable comrades who are excited to be paid to spend every working day thinking about how to get us closer to socialism.”
Instead, the DSA is “treading water,” deep in a financial hole because “top directors mismanaged our dues.”
“As a result, we are now left holding the bag and tasked with cutting expenses just to keep the organization afloat,” the trio said, adding that the DSA needs to come up with $2 million to break even.
Part of the plan put forward by some members of the DSA’s political committee is to cut $500,000 from staff-related expenses and “ask for volunteers from both director-level and bargaining unit staff to have their position cut.”
“If necessary, we will then explore initiating lay-offs,” they added.
DSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some commenters online pointed out that DSA supported the celebration of Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre of Israeli civilians and argued that they “deserve to be defunded.”
Michigan Rep. Quits DSA
The DSA’s support of an Oct. 8 rally in New York City dubbed “All out for Palestine,” organized a day after Hamas’ brutal massacre in Israeli communities, prompted a Congressional Democrat to quit the organization.
Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.), who is currently serving his first term in office, said on Oct. 11 that he had renounced his DSA membership.
“After the brutal terrorist attacks on Israel, which included the indiscriminate murder, rape, and kidnapping of innocent men, women, and children, I can no longer associate with an organization unwilling to call out terrorism in all its forms,” the Democrat lawmaker announced in a statement.
“Sunday’s hate-filled and antisemitic rally in New York City, promoted by the NYC-DSA, makes it impossible for me to continue my affiliation. I stand with Israel and its right to defend itself. There is no place for moral equivocation in the face of unadulterated evil as we have seen from Hamas,” Mr. Thanedar added.
The “All out for Palestine” rally took place on Oct. 8 in Times Square and was promoted by the New York DSA chapter on X, formerly known as Twitter, although the post has since been deleted.
The DSA’s NYC chapter has since apologized for promoting the rally, writing in an Oct. 10 statement that it believes in “peace, equality, and freedom for all Palestinians and Israelis” while unequivocally condemning “all hatred and the killing of all civilians.”
“On Saturday, in anticipation of escalatory violence to come, we tweeted a promotion of a rally in solidarity with the people of Palestine. We understand why many, including our allies, were shocked by the timing and the tone of this message in a moment of profound fear and grief. We are sorry for the confusion our post caused and for not making our values explicit,” the group wrote.
One of DSA’s founding members, Maurice Isserman, quit the organization in late October to protest the “DSA leadership’s politically and morally bankrupt response to the horrific Hamas October 7 anti-Jewish pogrom,” he wrote in an op-ed in The Nation.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, too, made critical remarks regarding the Oct. 8 rally, saying that the “bigotry and callousness” expressed “were unacceptable and harmful in this devastating moment.”
She remains a DSA member, however.
The DSA, which has over 85,000 members, has a history of supporting various anti-Israel campaigns such as calls for boycott and divestment.
Katabella Roberts contributed to this report.
