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OPINION: The Queer Case For Bernie Sanders

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Voting in the Democratic primary tomorrow? Our editor-in-chief, Marilyn Drew Necci, wants you to know why she thinks you should vote for Bernie Sanders.

Virginia’s Democratic primary happens tomorrow. We’ll be one of 14 states voting for our pick to take on Donald Trump in the presidential election this November. By the end of the day tomorrow, one third of the delegates who determine the Democratic nominee will have been apportioned. The result of Super Tuesday will be extremely significant to determining who becomes the Democratic nominee for president. And I’m here to do what I can to convince you that that nominee should be Bernie Sanders.

It’d be easy to get caught up in the horse race here, to start making comparisons between Bernie Sanders and the other candidates left in the race (which, as of last night, no longer includes an openly gay candidate), but what I’d like to do here is focus on the reasons why Bernie would be a great candidate for the LGBTQ community of Virginia and the United States — and how he’s been the sort of politician we LGBTQ people should support for his entire half-century in politics.

It goes back to his first run for office, which took place in 1972. Today, Bernie’s famous for being the most successful independent politician in the United States in modern history, and it was always that way; in 1972, when he ran for governor of Vermont, he was a candidate for the anti-war Liberty Union party. And in addition to opposing the Vietnam war (which was still going on at the time), he made a statement in a campaign letter that was unequivocally in favor of gay rights: “Let’s abolish all laws dealing with abortion, drugs, sexual behavior (adultery, homosexuality, etc).”

Of course, Bernie lost that election, and his 1974 run for Senate and 1976 run for governor were no more successful. But in 1980, now a true independent candidate, he ran for mayor of Burlington, the most populous city in Vermont, and won. During his time as Burlington’s mayor, he was able to go beyond campaign statements and put his legal authority behind initiatives for LGBTQ rights. In 1983, he signed a resolution declaring June 25 to be Lesbian and Gay Pride Day in Burlington, writing at the time, “In a free society we must all be committed to the mutual respect of each others lifestyles.” Archaic language, it’s true, but that was nearly 40 years ago, and very few elected officials anywhere in the United States were being anywhere near this supportive of our causes.

In the early 80s, Bernie also supported the first-ever gay pride parade in Vermont, in spite of plenty of strong and vitriolic condemnation from many different sectors of the Burlington citizenry. But the LGBTQ people of the area appreciated him. “I thank you sincerely for your endorsement of Lesbian and Gay Pride Day in Burlington,” read a 1983 letter sent to Bernie by Vermont’s Bob Skiba. “Your endorsement gives me more reason to be glad for your re-election.”

Even back in the 80s, a truly tough time to survive if you were transgender, Bernie’s leadership in Burlington helped make the city one of the safest places in the country for trans people to live. Amber LeMay, who founded the League of Drag Queen Voters, moved to Burlington in the early 80s seeking a more accepting place than her Ohio hometown. “I was impressed with the open and vocal gay community,” she told the Daily Beast, pointing to Bernie’s leadership as a major factor in the progressive atmosphere Burlington had in the 80s.

From what I understand, [Sanders] didn’t do anything specific for the gay community. He just treated them like he treated everyone else. He gave opportunities and the gay community took him up on them.

It wasn’t just support of easy symbols like pride parades that showed Bernie’s commitment, even in the 80s, to LGBTQ rights. 1985 also saw a housing ordinance passed in Burlington that prohibited discrimination in housing on the basis of sexual orientation. We just got that protection here in Virginia last month! “It is my very strong view that a society which proclaims human freedom as its goal, as the United States does, must work unceasingly to end discrimination against all people,” Bernie wrote at the time. “This law will give legal protection not only to welfare recipients, and families with children, the elderly and the handicapped — but to the gay community as well.”

This statement sheds light on another important positive aspect of Bernie Sanders’ candidacy. Bernie’s focus, as a democratic socialist, on class issues often leads people to condemn him on the basis that he doesn’t focus enough on issues of social justice. But in reality, for Bernie and for the democratic socialist movement as a whole, issues of economic class and social justice are often inseparable. In 1990, when Bernie won a seat representing Vermont in the US House of Representatives, he met with Keith Goslant, a liaison to the Governor of Vermont for LGBTQ issues.

“He was very upfront that he was looking at us as a member of the working class, and what did we need as a part of that group,” Goslant told the New York Times in 2015. According to Goslant, Bernie told him at the time that even if he wasn’t in a position to introduce bills advocating for LGBTQ interests, he would sign on.

The crowd at the Arthur Ashe Jr. Athletic Center for the Bernie Sanders rally on Thursday. Photo via Bernie Sanders/Instagram

As a member of Congress, where Bernie has been either a Representative or a Senator for 30 years, he stood against LGBTQ discrimination at times when that was a very lonely fight. Bernie was one of few in Congress who thought in 1995 that Bill Clinton’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy didn’t go far enough, and pushed for full inclusion of gay people in the military. At one point, during an argument on the House floor, he responded to a Republican candidate who’d made reference to “homos in the military” by asking: “Was the gentleman referring to the many thousands and thousands of gay people who have put their lives on the line in countless wars defending this country?”

In 1996, Bernie opposed the hateful Defense Of Marriage Act, which was a direct roadblock to the progress LGBTQ Americans had made at the time toward marriage equality. In 1999, he voted against a bill that would have prevented adoptions by same-sex couples.

In the 00s, when his home state of Vermont was making some of the earliest progress toward marriage equality, Bernie supported both Vermont’s 2000 legalizing of same-sex civil unions and the state’s 2009 legalization of same-sex marriage. He encouraged then-President Barack Obama, who still wasn’t supporting marriage equality at that point, to get on board. “I am proud that Vermont was a national leader in legalizing gay marriage,” Bernie stated in 2011. “I believe the example that Vermont set has helped change people’s attitudes all across America. I also hope that it will help shape the thinking of all our elected leaders, including the president.”

Since the election of Donald Trump, we’ve seen a lot of LGBTQ rights get rolled back at the federal level, but Bernie has taken firm stands opposing all of these discriminatory Trump administration measures. He stood against the transgender military ban, and has opposed Betsy DeVos’s rollback of the Obama-era guidance that extended Civil Rights Act protections to transgender students. In a 2017 Facebook post, he wrote,

The attacks against transgender people are part of a bigotry which has got to end. To young transgender people I say: We stand with you. We will not allow Donald Trump or anyone else to take away your rights. We have got to continue to fight to protect and support all children in this country.

If you needed evidence that Bernie does now, and indeed, always has supported the LGBTQ community, I would hope you’re convinced by now. But there are still more reasons for the LGBTQ community to support Bernie Sanders, reasons that go beyond our direct interests to some of the many intersectional issues that have become a much-needed focus of LGBTQ activism in recent years.

Income inequality is the big one. Many marginalized communities suffer from lower pay and fewer economic opportunities, and the LGBTQ community is no exception — regardless of the myth that we’re all affluent shopaholics. The sad truth is that LGBTQ parents are three times as likely as straight parents to be raising their children in poverty, and one in five LGBTQ adults still makes less than $12,000 a year. Bernie’s continued push for a living wage in this country may not be an obvious LGBTQ issue, but the fact is that it would be a huge help for our community to have a president who supports such an initiative.

The same can definitely be said about Bernie’s Medicare For All plan. Trans people in particular suffer from less than adequate health care coverage. The 2015 US Transgender Survey found that one in three survey respondents had had negative experiences when seeking health care, and one in four avoided seeking health care treatments out of fear of discrimination and harassment. Most crucially, one in three respondents did not seek health care because they couldn’t afford it. Bernie’s health care plan would end all of that; creating a country in which not only queer, trans, and non-binary people but absolutely everyone could see a doctor when they were sick without having to worry about how they’d pay for it would be, for many of us, downright revolutionary.

I could go on, citing Bernie’s humane policies for undocumented immigrants, support of free four-year college and cancellation of $1.6 trillion in student debt, commitment to reducing emissions and being part of a movement toward a greener, more livable world, and more. If you’d like to know more, you can find plenty of info at feelthebern.org. Right now, I’ll just say that we as LGBTQ citizens of this country, have a responsibility to do what we can to make this a better place to live — not just for ourselves, but for all marginalized and disadvantaged people. I believe the best way we can do that is to send Bernie Sanders to the White House.

Top Photo: Bernie in Richmond VA, via Bernie Sanders/Instagram

Richmond Feels The Bern At The Arthur Ashe Center

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Less than a week ahead of Virginia’s primary, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders energized a near-capacity crowd at the Arthur Ashe Jr. Athletic Center on Thursday.

“In case you didn’t notice it, there are a lot of people in this room,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders to a crowd of thousands at the Arthur Ashe Jr. Athletic Center. 

The city of Richmond welcomed presidential candidate, self-described democratic socialist, and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Thursday, less than a week before the Virginia primary. The event, which was originally planned for the 1500-capacity National, was moved earlier in the week to the Arthur Ashe Jr. Athletic Center, in order to accomodate the expected crowds. According to the Washington Post, the Richmond fire marshall estimated 4,700 people in attendance. 

The crowd at the Arthur Ashe Jr. Athletic Center. Photo via Bernie Sanders/Instagram

“Don’t complain about your student debt, don’t complain about climate change, don’t complain about racism or sexism or homophobia. Your complaints don’t mean anything,” said Sanders to the crowd. “What means something is standing up and fighting.”

Charlottesville City Council member Michael Payne, Virginia Director of CASA in Action Luis Aguilar, and the first Latina elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, Del. Elizabeth Guzman (D-Woodbridge), took the stage before Sanders to excite the crowd about the progressive campaign. 

“We believed in Bernie four years ago; he had a consistent message of progress, he had a base here in Virginia that believed in his message and voted for him, despite the establishment being against us,” said Guzman. “He has won Iowa, he has won New Hampshire, he has won Nevada, and we are getting ready to deliver Virginia to Bernie Sanders.”

Indie rock singer Lucy Dacus, who grew up in Richmond and is a member of the popular band Boygenius, performed a solo set before No BS! Brass Band also performed songs including “You Need To Vote.”

No BS! Brass Band performs for the crowd. Photo by Branden Wilson

The Independent Vermont Senator addressed several of his key campaign issues during the rally, including ending voter suppression, equal pay for women, providing universal child care, raising teacher’s salaries, implementing universal health care, making public colleges tuition-free, and legalizing marijuana. 

“There are some things a president can do through executive order, there are other things that need legislation. Turns out that one of the things you can do with executive order is legalize marijuana in every state,” said Sanders, to which the crowd reacted enthusiastically with “Bernie” chants.  

“I’ve been supporting Bernie since 2016 because he’s the only progressive Democrat that’s actually talking about the problems we have as a country, such as income inequality, or the fact that our political parties aren’t working for working class people,” said Blair Wilner, a current Ph.D student at the University of Virginia. 

Virginia will be one of 14 states who will hold their presidential primaries on March 3, known as Super Tuesday, when 33.8 percent of delegates are awarded to the candidates for the nominating convention. The South Carolina primary, which awards 63 delegates, will take place on Saturday, February 29. 

Bernie speaks. Photo by Branden Wilson

According to Five Thirty Eight, a poll analysis website founded by Nate Silver, Sanders leads in Virginia with a 24.8 percent polling average, while Joe Biden is closely behind at 19.8 percent. 

“We won the Nevada caucus, and that is getting the establishment very nervous,” said Sanders. “They are staying up days and nights trying to figure out how they can stop us, and when they see a turnout like this, they get even more nervous.”

The Vermont senator remains the Democratic front runner after three primaries and caucuses have been held. With 45 pledged delegates, Sanders holds a lead over other contenders Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Mike Bloomberg, Tom Steyer, Tulsi Gabbard, and Amy Klobuchar. 

Donald Trump is running for reelection in 2020 against whoever the Democratic nominee will be. As of Feb. 26, Realclearpolitics.com has Senator Sanders with a 4.7 point national lead over President Trump, according to an average of numerous polls conducted. The general election will take place Tuesday, November 3. 

Photo via Bernie Sanders/Instagram

“It gives me no pleasure to tell you this,” Sanders told the audience. “The sad truth is that we have a president today who is a racist, who is a sexist, who is a homophobe, who is a xenophobe, who is a religious bigot. And no matter what your political views may be, you understand that is not somebody who deserves reelection.”

Virginia’s primary election will take place on Tuesday, November 3. Virginia has open primaries, so you do not have to be registered as a member of a party to vote in its primary. You can find your polling station at elections.virginia.gov/citizen-portal/

Top Photo: Bernie takes the stage. Photo by Branden Wilson

Van Hollen, Beyer Propose Surtax On Millionaires

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As income inequality grows, a number of candidates for president have proposed taxes on wealthy Americans. Now VA Congressman Don Beyer and Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen are using legislation to pursue that goal.

The richest 1 percent of Americans control more wealth than the entire middle class combined, according to the Brookings Institution – a striking sign of income inequality that has accelerated since the Great Recession.

A bill introduced last week by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, and Rep. Don Beyer, D-Virginia, aims to narrow the wealth gap by adding a surtax on millionaires.

Under the proposal, a 10 percent surtax would be levied on households that earn more than $2 million annually, and on individuals that make more than $1 million. The tax would generate an estimated $635 billion in revenue over ten years, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

“The point here is to ask the very wealthiest Americans to do more to invest in the success of the rest of the country,” Van Hollen said in a Nov. 7 MSNBC interview. “Ninety-nine-point-eight percent of taxpayers will not pay an additional dime.”

The tax would apply to all forms of income, including salaries, investment income, and long-term capital gains, giving the measure a degree of comprehensiveness that Van Hollen said is essential to a successful tax on the wealthy.

“Right now, very wealthy people make a lot money off their money, and we don’t see any reason why people who earn a paycheck should be penalized relative to them,” he said.

Van Hollen’s bill, which also is co-sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, comes amidst a slew of plans to tax the rich from 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls.

Joe Biden, the former vice president and centrist frontrunner, has a plan to raise the income tax on capital gains from 20 percent to 39.6 percent for those earning more than $1 million annually.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, have made their plans to radically alter the tax structure central tenets of their campaigns, billed as ways to pay for their ambitious social programs.

Warren would increase taxes on households earning $50 million or more, which is roughly 75,000 households, according to her campaign. The senator’s plan is to tax each dollar of income above the $50 million threshold at 2 percent. Billionaires would pay an additional 3 percent tax.

“A thinner and thinner slice of the top has taken a massive amount of wealth while America’s middle class has been hollowed out,” Warren tweeted Tuesday. “We need a… big, structural change so that our economy and our government works for everyone.”

Sanders’s plan taxes the so-called “super rich” even more aggressively. He proposes a progressive tax structure, starting at 1 percent for earners with $32 million or more in income, and going up to 8 percent on incomes over $10 billion.

Sanders, a Democratic socialist, has stated bluntly that billionaires should not exist in the United States.

“We cannot afford to continue this level of wealth and income inequality and we cannot afford a billionaire class whose greed and corruption has been at war with the working families of this country for 45 years,” he said in an October Democratic debate.

Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman from the University of California-Berkeley, who helped the candidates draw up their plans, estimate that Warren’s tax plan would generate $2.75 trillion over a decade, and Sanders’s plan $4.35 trillion, though other leading economists have disputed those figures.

Depending on who is asked, higher taxes on the rich are either the solution to an ever-expanding wealth gap and a way to pay for a stronger social safety net, or a strain on the economy that hampers growth and kills the motivation of individuals to become millionaires and billionaires.

“You’re going to completely disincentivize capital investment, which is going to be very, very bad for economic growth,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a September interview with The New York Times. “Taxing capital is not a good thing for creating economic growth, and if anything we should be looking at how we create more incentives for economic growth.”

According to an analysis by Saez and Zucman, if Warren’s and Sanders’s tax plans had been implemented in 1982, the combined wealth of the 15 richest Americans today would be cut by 54 percent and 79 percent, respectively.

Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest person in the world, is worth approximately $160 billion, but would be worth $86.8 billion today if Warren’s tax plan were in place for the last 37 years. Under Sanders’s plan, he would be worth $43 billion.

Skeptics of a wealth tax point to Europe, where several nations have abandoned a tax on extreme wealth. In 1990, 12 European countries had wealth taxes, but now it’s down to four: Belgium, Norway, Spain and Switzerland.

Americans for Tax Reform, led by the highly influential conservative tax policy advocate Grover Norquist, called Warren’s wealth tax, “a nightmare to administer, would double the size of the IRS, would fail to generate revenue that supporters claim, and has failed every time it has been tried in the past.”

Saez and Zucman argued in a recent Washington Post op-ed that the failure of any tax is not the fault of the tax itself, but the fault of government to allow the tax to succeed.

“Governments can choose to make them work or allow them to fail, and European governments made wrong choices, letting tax avoidance fester,” they wrote.

A poll by Politico and Morning Consult earlier this year found that more than three-quarters of Americans favor raising taxes on the rich.

The marginal tax rate for the wealthiest Americans reached 91 percent in 1944, according to the Tax Foundation, but has steadily declined since then. In 2017, the Republican-controlled Congress and White House cut taxes on the top earners by more than 2 percent to 37 percent, which will exacerbate income inequality, according to the Tax Policy Center.

“Trump’s Tax Scam helped the rich and left workers behind,” Van Hollen tweeted Nov. 7.

But his, or any other Democratic plan to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans will require bipartisanship, at least as long as Republicans control the Senate.

The 2017 cuts led by President Donald Trump and former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, passed without a single Democratic vote.

Written by Dan Novak, Capital News Service. Top Image: Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) and Congressman Don Beyer (D-Virginia), via Wikimedia

Loose Tweets Sink Ships

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Social media hate directed at Catholics and presidential candidates led to gubernatorial appointee Gail Gordon Donegan’s resignation.

“Abortion is morally indefensible to Catholic priests bcuz it results in fewer children to rape.” 

These are the words of Gail Gordon Donegan, who was recently nominated to the Virginia Council on Women by Governor Ralph Northam. Her unapologetically offensive social media presence led to a public outcry over her anti-Catholic tweets, and she resigned her post on August 28, less than two weeks after she’d taken it. 

On August 16, Gov. Northam appointed Donegan to the Council, which advises the state’s executive branch on matters pertaining to women. Before the kerfuffle over her social media presence erupted, Donegan was best known for founding the memorably named Brass Ovaries PAC, a political action committee formed in 2018 with the goal of supporting women running for office. She had also been a longtime member of the Democratic Committee from her home city of Alexandria, and written various op-eds and letters to the editor relating to local Alexandria issues such as education.

At the time of her nomination, Northam spokesperson Alena Yarmosky said that Donegan “has spent years advocating on behalf of issues important to women across the Commonwealth.” However, after offensive anti-Catholic tweets were found on her Twitter account, Catholic groups and bishops in Virginia called for her resignation and questioned the initial appointment. 

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Donegan tweeted from the account @satirclAlx, with the name “Satirical Alexandria – Rated Fx by the NRA.”  In March 2011, she tweeted “Go tell a Catholic they have dirt on their forehead. #waystooffend.” Her tweet regarding Catholic rape of children, quoted above, was posted in 2010. 

Now-deleted Tweet by Gail Gordon Donegan, @SatirclAlx

The Catholic Diocese of Arlington’s Chief Communications Officer, Billy Atwell, issued a statement calling for Donegan’s resignation.

“Governor Northam’s appointment of Gail Gordon Donegan to the Virginia Council on Women is disappointing, particularly given her documented use of social media to offend members of the Catholic faith,” stated Atwell. “Ms. Gordon Donegan has a record of ridiculing Catholic beliefs and practices, and trafficking in stereotypes that would disqualify her from this role had they targeted any other category of persons. Her statements are offensive to human dignity, and fail to reflect the depth of character one would expect of a leader in our Commonwealth.” 

Deboarah Cox, an official for the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, also issued a statement about the posts: “We would expect anyone appointed to a council or commission for the Commonwealth to be respectful of all faith groups and civil in his or her public comments — including social media — given their status as a representative of the Commonwealth, appointed by the governor.” 

Donegan defended her tweets on August 21, telling the Richmond Times-Dispatch that “Psychological studies show that people who swear make better friends… And they’re smarter.” 

The following day, she told the Times-Dispatch, “I will say for the record that my father was severely beaten in Catholic foster homes and I am an atheist. My father was orphaned at age 4, sent to live in Catholic foster homes and severely beaten until he ran away at age 14.” 

My husband is an ex-Catholic and he’s not offended by my tweets.

Northam was asked Thursday at an event promoting electric school buses if he knew about Donegan’s tweets before the appointment, but he declined to comment at length. 

“I just want to reiterate that I don’t condone that kind of language,” Northam said. “And if she had chosen to stay on the commission, I would have encouraged her to refrain from any type of language that would be offensive to other folks.” 

More recently, Donegan also directed her crass language toward other groups, referring in 2017 to Boy Scouts as “pussy snowflakes,” in response to an article about a Colorado Cub Scout being kicked out of his scouting group after asking a state senator questions about gun control.

Last year she wrote, “Bernie Sanders and his shithead followers need to fuck the fuck off” in response to a March 2018 protest planned against Hillary Clinton by the pro-Bernie group Our Revolution. That protest was eventually cancelled. 

While the outcry against Donegan and her tweets came from many corners, condemnation wasn’t universal. On the blog Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta wrote a post encouraging Northam to stand by Donegan.

Nothing Donegan said is as bad as things Catholic priests have done. A guy who works for an organization that covered for child molesters for decades is in no position to stake a moral high ground or suggest Donegan offended ‘human dignity.’

However, on August 28, the same day that blog post was published, Donegan offered her resignation, saying that she did not want to distract from the Council’s work, as reported by CNS News. 

“I’ve spent over a decade working on behalf of important women’s issues in Virginia,” Donegan said. “At the same time, I have also been the author of a Twitter account that focused on covering Northern Virginia politics from a satirical angle from Alexandria — which is why the account is named @satirclalx. I recognize that some of the jokes I told crossed the line, and I apologize to those who were hurt by them.” 

Donegan has certainly paid a price for loosely speaking her mind about sensitive political issues on social media. She’s not the first political figure to do so, and it seems unlikely that she’ll be the last.

Additional reporting by Marilyn Drew Necci. Top Image via Facebook

Fist & Rose: Democratic Socialism Remains Focused on the People 

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*This article originally appeared in RVA Mag #34, on the streets now at all your favorite spots. 

Socialism is no longer a dirty word in American politics. American democratic socialism has experienced a resurgence following Bernie Sanders’ narrow primary defeat in the 2016 presidential primary, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning 2018 primary victory in New York’s 14th Congressional district. 

The renewed popularity of the ideology is reflected in the whirlwind growth of the nation’s largest socialist organization, Democratic Socialists of America. The organization’s dues-paying membership has grown from 6,000 in 2016 to more than 45,000 today. 

In Virginia, Democratic Socialist and Marine veteran Lee Carter made waves within the state’s political establishment when he upset Republican incumbent and House Majority Whip Jackson Miller in Virginia’s 50th district during the 2017 off-year elections. 

Carter’s campaign was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America and Sanders’ political action committee, but not the Virginia House Democratic Caucus. Carter won by an astounding 10 points against a better-funded, better-supported incumbent in a formerly conservative district. 

The DSA has 13 Virginia branches, in localities including Charlottesville, Richmond, Fredericksburg, Roanoke, and Norfolk. Of these, only the Richmond chapter, designated a 501(c)(4) in April 2017, is fully-accredited. 

Since forming, Richmond’s membership has grown from 20 to 165 members. Co-chair Austin Gonzalez attributed the steady growth to enthusiasm generated by Carter’s electoral upset, along with Ocasio-Cortez’s victory over incumbent Democrat Joe Crowley. 

“Our membership on a local level, and on the national level, typically sees a bump when the DSA is in the news,” he said. “With Lee Carter, it was really a legitimizing effect … legitimizing us as an actual entity that matters within the state of Virginia.” 

Richmond’s rapid growth has also sprung from grassroots coalition-building. Like DSA National, Richmond DSA is a multi-tendency organization that works with groups along the leftist political spectrum, ranging from far-left libertarian socialist and anti-fascist groups to center-left organizations like the Democratic Party. 

“DSA is more well suited than most organizations to coalition-building because we welcome any beliefs within the left, any tendency,” Gonzalez said. “A lot of people are at a point where they want to contribute, they want to help, they want to get involved, and a lot of people are just looking for a place to start. For a lot of people I think DSA helps them find that place to start.” 

The growing membership of Richmond DSA has put it in a position to support local and regional organizations. Some of those groups include The Virginia Defenders, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and New Virginia Majority. 

The group has also supported anti-fascist and anti-racist actions in Charlottesville and Richmond, where white supremacist and neo-Confederate groups have coalesced around Confederate monuments. Instead of leading, Richmond DSA typically acts in a support role. 

Richmond DSA Co-chair Laura M., who didn’t feel comfortable sharing her last name, described their approach. 

“We’re not going to go in and say, ‘We’re going to do that work also.’ We’re going to say, ‘We want to work with you. How can we provide support to you?’” she said. 

Richmond DSA has also implemented their own mutual-aid programs in Richmond and prioritized action on specific local issues. On a national level, the DSA’s most well-known action is the free brake light clinic, which offers to exchange brake lights for anyone in the community free of charge. The program was started by New Orleans DSA to help minimize interactions between the average person and police, and to avoid costly fees associated with traffic violations. Richmond DSA held their second ever free brake light repair on September 3, and plan to make it a fixed monthly event. 

“The biggest goal for DSA is improving the life of the average working individual, and it’s things like that that can make a big difference,” Gonzalez said. 

In addition to the free brake light program, Richmond DSA has created working groups to address key issues affecting working-class communities in Richmond. In January 2018, the group voted to prioritize homelessness, immigrants’ rights, and the creation of a citywide People’s Survey for the year. 

Gonzalez said he’s most excited about the People’s Survey, which is designed to gauge how they can better serve the general population of Richmond, because of “the potential that it has in connecting us with the community,” he said. 

Notably, Richmond DSA has not endorsed any candidates for office in the upcoming election cycle. To date the chapter has only endorsed one candidate, Montigue Magruder, who ran and lost on the Green Party ticket for House of Delegates in Virginia’s 69th district. 

Laura M. said the chapter is more focused on “trying to do what we can to better serve our communities. And that means going out into the community and helping wherever we can, and actually participating in public actions.” 

DSA’s national surge in popularity is largely due to the narrative surrounding the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, in which Bernie Sanders narrowly lost to Democratic Party champion Hillary Clinton. 

Sanders’ populist message resonated across state and political boundaries as he campaigned successfully both in deep-red states and solid-blue urban areas. His run helped bring issues like income inequality, single-payer healthcare, and free college tuition into the national spotlight. 

Since then, the DSA has vastly expanded its network of local chapters across the United States, and DSA-backed candidates have won elections at all levels of government in the past two elections. 

The DSA’s most significant electoral victory occurred in June 2018, when Ocasio-Cortez won her primary. Her win has all but ensured her a spot in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2019 in New York’s reliably blue 14th district. 

This could be a banner year for the socialist organization as a record number of DSA-endorsed candidates vie for elected positions across the country, and although Richmond DSA has declined to endorse any candidates locally, their core mission of direct action for the working class stand to benefit from national wins. 

According to Gonzalez, as long as there is a void of viable left-wing movements in the United States, the DSA’s message will continue to resonate with the average American. 

“People see their wages stagnant, and they see organizations like the Democratic Party not fighting for them,” he said. “People want to be able to see an improvement in the life of the everyday worker. To me that is the absolute goal of DSA, improving the life of the average individual.” 

Democratic Socialists of America use rising membership to fight for social justice in Virginia

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The term “Democratic Socialism” has been thrown around a lot lately in politics. Senator Bernie Sanders openly identified as a democratic socialist in the presidential primaries last year, differentiating himself and subsequently creating a split in base between himself and the more traditional Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. On November 9, 2015, Sanders gave a long speech at Georgetown University about democratic socialism. Sanders helped popularize the term; however, its usage goes far beyond the Sanders campaign.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a grassroots organization that has been gaining a lot of attention as a result of the 2016 election and Donald Trump’s presidency. Formed in 1982, DSA was created when two prior organizations, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and the New American Movement (NAM), merged to create a singular organization. Both organizations had a history of contributing to community organizing, trade unions, and feminist movements. In 1983, the organization had reached 8,000 members, according to the DSA’s website.

Today, the DSA, which supported Sanders in the Democratic primary last year, recently surpassed 25,000 members, making it the largest socialist organization in the United States since the 1940s, as reported by Salon.

As of July 2017, the organization reported having 164 chapters nationwide, with chapters in cities such as Richmond, Charlottesville, and Washington D.C. There are also several Young Democratic Socialists (YDS) chapters in schools, including Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Virginia, George Mason University, and Virginia Tech.

But why are people joining the DSA?

DSA in Emancipation-Park during Charlottesville protest

Michael, a Vice Chair of the Charlottesville DSA chapter (who requested us not to print his full name for safety reasons), said that he joined the organization because he became disappointed with the Democratic Party after working with them on several campaigns.

“The Democratic Party is very captured by corporate money, and corporate interests dictate a lot of what the Democratic Party does, which constrains the policies you can advocate for,” Michael said. “Whereas DSA, being a grassroots organization, is able to fully advocate for Medicaid for All, 15 dollar minimum wage, prison abolition, all of those really fundamental changes.”

This dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party has also resulted in members running against established Democrats. Earlier this year, Ross Mittiga ran against House Minority leader David Toscano in the Democratic primary for the 57th District seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. Disappointed in Toscano’s corporate donors, as well as his views on issues such as the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and minimum wage, Mittiga decided to take on the job of campaigning against him. Soon after Mittiga decided to run, DSA endorsed him after he met with DSA leadership and spoke at a DSA meeting in Charlottesville. According to Mittiga, DSA’s endorsement was vital in assisting the campaign, as volunteers were able to knock on doors and make phone calls.

“DSA folks ended up being the single biggest source of support I’ve had throughout the whole campaign,” Mittiga said. “We even had high school DSA chapters making calls for our campaign on their lunch breaks.”

Although Toscano outperformed Mittiga in the primary, Mittiga was able to obtain approximately one-third of the vote and pressured Toscano to move further left on some of the issues. Because of this, Mittiga considers his campaign to be an achievement.

“Toward the end [of the] campaign, he went from saying nothing about living wage, to saying very nebulously that he supports a living a wage […] and then, at the very end of the campaign, he started saying, ‘We need to have a living wage of 15 dollars an hour,’” Mittiga said. “People are a lot more alive to his centrism, and I think even more importantly than pushing him to the left, I think we pushed the citizens of Charlottesville to the left.”

After the campaign, Mittiga joined Charlottesville DSA, and is currently working on starting an environmental committee within the chapter.

Austin Gonzalez, Chair of the Richmond DSA chapter, also shared his frustrations with the Democratic Party, and how the DSA can do better.

“We actually fight for radical change in the American political system,” Gonzalez said. “Feasible but radical change rather than reform or gradualism, which is all that you’re going to find within the Democratic party.”

Richmond DSA’s primary focus is currently on dismantling the Confederate monuments that are on Monument Avenue, Gonzalez said.

Democratic Socialists of America

“As a person of color that has lived in Richmond for the majority of my life, it’s not exactly the most reassuring thing to have to drive by these monuments on a daily basis,” Gonzalez said. “With the background of Charlottesville, this would be incredible not just as a moral victory, but an incredible victory for human rights in Virginia.”

Richmond DSA has worked with Food Not Bombs, an anti-militarism group dedicated to feeding the poor and working to end homelessness. Richmond DSA also recently started cleaning bus stops around the city, according to Gonzalez.

“Another thing we think is important is to actually speak to members in these poorer communities to see exactly how we can help them,” Gonzalez said. “Rather just imposing our will on them just for a good photo op.”

As for Charlottesville DSA, Michael said that they’re focusing on issues such as opposing the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, abolishing the Right to Work law, and, in light of the recent events in Charlottesville, focusing more heavily on issues of racial justice.

As the DSA pushes for universal health care at a national level in response to the Republican Party’s various health care plans, members of the DSA are encouraging new people to join.

“I think DSA is an organization that can help break through some of the alienation and help people organize in their local communities,” Michael said. “That’s really the only {way} we’re going to get through the Trump administration, is collectively organizing in a way we haven’t been before.”

*Ryan Persaud is a member of the DSA.