This is a guest post by Michael G., a member of Austin DSA.
The 2028 campaign has already started. AOC is freezing her eggs, pumping iron, and winning Congressional allies. Highly engaged DSA members are planning varied endorsement processes, which will likely culminate in an endorsement of AOC’s presidential campaign soon.
Overlaying this background, DSA has released a platform, which is the product of a long democratic process within the organization. It is a mix of short- and long-term advocacies.
Tension between the stated, emergent agenda and the manichean imperatives of campaign silly season is inevitable in the AOC endorsement process and beyond. But the binding or advisory nature of the agenda currently operates as a proxy battle about DSA’s relation to the upcoming 2028 presidential primaries.
Without recounting specifics, my sense is that those who are most skeptical of endorsing AOC are the most sympathetic to the argument that AOC should adhere to our platform if she is to be endorsed. And those who are most enthusiastic about endorsing AOC are the least sympathetic to the argument that adherence to the letter of our platform should be the criterion for endorsement. But this tension over the so-called “red lines” hides a point of consensus: No major voices in DSA dispute that DSA will not have the power to control or discipline a top tier presidential candidate in the 2028 cycle.
Would be nice, but will not happen.
I propose, therefore, that DSA caucuses should strive not to have a lively debate about the proxy issue of the released platform. It factually won’t be imposed. If the side that wants it imposed wins on those terms, the endorsement will not happen (because AOC probably will not seek endorsement). If the side that wants endorsement beats imposing the platform as a condition, the endorsement will proceed with no firm commitments from AOC. Either way, the platform remains advisory.
There is a more constructive possibility.
It is better to think in terms of what, if anything, DSA’s active and broader membership wants injected into the Democratic primary process that is uniquely a socialist issue—something that isn’t the focus of Never Trumpers, or liberals, or even the best progressives. An issue that would attract broad support now, but that is also ripe for imagining a much brighter future won by the workers’ own hands. An issue that would both increase AOC’s attractiveness as a candidate and would also place more pressure on her to deliver once she wins. An issue the national media will not cover without the heft of a major organizing push directed at the heart of the attention-grabbing presidential race.
The issue is a labor agenda, specifically reversing the decline in union density, which the 2020 Bernie campaign promoted as a plan for Workplace Democracy.1
DSA has been involved in two types of presidential primary efforts in recent years: DSA for Bernie and Uncommitted. Although many consider the failure to field a 2024 candidate a major DSA blunder, one thing it did teach us was how to get millions of votes for an issue *alone*. Combining the candidate advocacy of DSA for Bernie and the issue advocacy of Uncommitted is a constructive possibility that will bring out the best in all of DSA’s current members and capacities.
Popularizing a labor agenda cannot be an afterthought. Every salt will be needed. Every union rep and every union staffer in the organization will have a role. Every Marxist and every street protest leader will be needed to think through how we can really supercharge this issue in the public imagination, and every one of them agrees that workers in motion, with or without AOC as president, is the most important short term goal for the socialist movement. Every veteran electoral campaigner will have a role designing townhalls and barnstorms where workers will be invited in to hear about AOC’s labor plans and the union density agenda.
These workers will turn into electoral margins in key primaries, and the centrality or contribution of the Workplace Democracy campaign to AOC’s campaign will come into focus. The focus cannot occur without people in motion around this issue.
DSA could endorse AOC along with a directive to NPC to run the AOC campaign on the basis of the Workplace Democracy agenda. If the legal structure we pick allows coordination, the directive should direct the NPC to directly coordinate with AOC guaranteeing DSA a position in the planning of her public campaign on this specific agenda item.
If DSA is not in a place to discipline, but also does not want to simply back a populist campaign with no tie-in to socialism, we should seek out this type of constructive engagement.
Endorsing with an offer—and commitment—to run an issue campaign with a crucial reform in addition to support for AOC would help to get DSA on the fighting, visionary footing we need both to actually get AOC through the primary and elect her president.
While I disagree with many aspects of what AOC’s left critics often say about her, there is this issue area the entire organization has never laser-focused on. What is going to be the relationship between a progressive/social democratic president and the effort to increase union density in the United States? DSA has an opportunity to leave it all on the field and shape the answer to that question even if we cannot grab control of a top presidential contender.
I recently read the book written by Daniel Tutt and C. Derick Varn2 cautioning against a full embrace of left populism. They spend a considerable part of the book explaining the deficiency of left populism—so far—to improve the union density picture. One cannot argue with the data, but then again there is no reason why the DSA portion of the broader push for AOC cannot have a decidedly socialist focus by placing union density plans on the national agenda.
AOC for President and Workplace Democracy for All!
This is a placeholder concept based on the 2020 Bernie Sanders Workplace Democracy Plan. AOC has not released her presidential policy positions yet. But her campaign website has a labor section prioritizing union density and a jobs guarantee.
Daniel Tutt and C. Derick Varn, The People Are Not One: Socialist Strategy After Left Populism (Revol Press 2026).
Single-payer healthcare. That’s the answer. Rampant business unionism and collusion with the boss will continue until the jointly-managed welfare funds are redistributed as taxes to fund a universal health system. It will happen on a state-level first - New York is the most likely candidate with the New York Health Act. To supercharge worker power and militancy, take healthcare off the bargaining table.
>>They spend a considerable part of the book explaining the deficiency of left populism—so far—to improve the union density picture.<< in fact, no Left political strategy has improved the union density picture to date. Hardly seems like a reason to disqualify one particular strategy.