A Response to Heather Cherone and Coverage of Chicago DSA

As a Chicago DSA member, I want to thank Heather Cherone for a recent write-up and video highlighting CDSA’s aldermanic endorsements for 2023. DSA is rightfully a center of gravity in Chicago. However, based on the article and video, people could be forgiven for thinking DSA single-handedly got 6 socialists into City Council in 2019.

I want to clarify that it took all of Chicago’s left-wing ecosystem to win 6 seats in city council. DSA was a major player. But equally important was United Working Families (UWF), which not only endorsed many of these candidates but actively trained and funded their campaigns.

Perhaps most important were the ward organizations like 33rd Ward Working Families (33WWF) and United Neighbors of the 35th ward. These groups worked between elections to form bases in the wards from which to recruit, fundraise, and provide offices to organize and canvass from.

It was UWF that provided a central hub for many of the ward organizations since they affiliated with it years before and UWF had actively worked with them to provide training, a vision to build a party, and funding while connecting them with affiliated unions like CTU and SEIU.

All over the city, it was the collaboration between ward organizations, unions, city-wide activist groups, etc that won these victories. It takes a village to raise a child… and to win a grassroots electoral campaign. DSA was absolutely a part of this, but so were many others.

To be clear, I feel confident in making this assertion because I had an inside view of this collaboration since, in addition to being a DSA member, I am also a member of 33WWF and of UWF.

I want to raise this because I’ve read articles about DSA where, intentionally or not, there is no acknowledgment of the ecosystems that made this work possible. An example is Liza Featherstone’s article, “New York’s Democratic Socialists are Playing the Long Game”.

Since it took the entire ecosystem to do this, I hope all organizations uplift each other and the work it took to win seats in 2019, especially as we prepare for 2023. A larger ecosystem benefits us all and provides a basis to build an alternative to the Democratic Party.

I wonder what other organizations participated in the 2019 elections? Who else do people feel should be uplifted? Who’s ready to work together for our incumbents, and new champions, in 2023?