The Mamdani Threat

America stands at a crossroads. Both the Woke Left and Woke Right are exerting outsized influence over the political center, reshaping the national conversation at an alarming pace. Against this backdrop, New York City is heading into its most consequential mayoral election since 1993, when the city faced a crisis of crime, economic instability and political upheaval.

Today, the challenges are just as urgent: skyrocketing cost of living, worsening public safety, deteriorating public services and a widening ideological divide intensified by the rise of Zohran Mamdani. His campaign embodies the agenda of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Mamdani does not simply represent a left-wing alternative. He represents a movement that openly despises America, glorifies violence and terrorism, and seeks to dismantle the police and other institutions that keep citizens safe.

Moments of crisis create openings for extreme movements to flourish, and the DSA is ready to seize this one. Since 2016, the DSA has been steadily building political power, learning how to win elections and creating a formidable field operation. Their campaigns are not amateur efforts. They are run by seasoned operatives, staffed with disciplined and ideologically committed volunteers. Mamdani himself has worked on multiple campaigns and understands exactly how to construct and execute a winning strategy.

The DSA’s most effective weapon is its calculated use of the Democratic Party as a Trojan horse. By disguising hardline socialist candidates as mainstream Democrats, DSA activists slip into power through low-turnout primaries in deep-blue districts. Once in office, they push an agenda far outside the mainstream.

That agenda includes abolishing police, prisons and border enforcement; weakening the U.S.' foreign alliances and prioritizing foreign extremist causes over public safety at home.

"We collaborated with the Zohran Mamdani Campaign ... we wrote the platform with him."

Daniel Goulden, NYC DSA Member

Mamdani is not an outlier. He is the face of the DSA’s strategy. As a New York Assemblymember, he authored the anti-Israel bill “Not on Our Dime!” that targeted pro-Israel charities.

However, Mamdani's record extends well beyond foreign policy. He is aligned with efforts to strip resources from law enforcement, weaken border protections and expand government control over housing and industry. His campaign is built on promises of “free” public services paired with the dismantling of traditional institutions, offering a vision that mirrors the most uncompromising elements of the DSA platform.

In Mamdani, the movement has found a candidate who can translate its ideology into real political power.

Within DSA, hatred of America and its institutions is a badge of honor. Members call the United States a “dying empire” and describe their duty as “facilitating the defeat of our own nation.” Others celebrate violence by Hamas and Hezbollah as legitimate “resistance,” while describing police as oppressors to be abolished. This rhetoric is not fringe. It is central to the organization’s identity and has become the litmus test for leadership and endorsements.

"The role of socialists ... is really to facilitate the defeat of our own nation."

Amy Wilhelm, National Political Committee Member, Seattle DSA

"We're inside the home of empire. We're inside the house. It is our job here. As they [Hamas] fight there, we fight here....we're doing our part our duty in this fight against empire."

Ahmed Husain, National Political Committee Member, Springs of Revolution

Such calculated alliances and open contempt for America expose the DSA’s true nature. Today, the DSA is not just a political machine but an organization with deeply troubling values. It is explicitly anti-American, antisemitic and anti-Israel. Its sympathies lie with terrorist regimes, authoritarian dictatorships and movements that place the blame for all the world’s ills on America, capitalism and so-called "imperialism."

This report lays out a clear overview of who the DSA is and what its members stand for.

From their open contempt for America to their embrace of extremist causes, the DSA’s own words and actions reveal the true character of the movement.

From there, it becomes clear what Zohran Mamdani represents: the embodiment of the DSA’s most radical agenda and where this movement intends to take both New York and, ultimately, America.

Who is the DSA?

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in America with close to 80,000 members and 239 chapters nationwide. Its youth wing, Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), has close to 114 chapters in various educational institutions in American colleges and high schools.

DSA has evolved since its founding in 1982 from a 6,000-member, pro-Israel group with the modest goals of socialist reform within the Democratic party to a virulently anti-American, anti-Israel, revolutionary movement that now aims to completely dismantle the U.S. political system and replace it with socialism, Marxism and, in some cases, anarchy.

The DSA’s shot in the arm came in 2016 with Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and the subsequent rise of popular socialist politicians in the Democratic Party such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, members of the so-called “Squad.”

Today, with 80,000 members, the DSA has become a powerful force inside the Democratic Party, pulling the party to the far left and increasingly taking over the voice of both the party and its activist base.

Despite AOC’s fantastical Green New Deal proposal and Omar’s open and virulent antisemitism, these Squad members were elevated by House Democrats, who saw in their popularity an energized new generation ready to replace the aging kingpins of the party.

In 2014, when the DSA made a decision to actively back Sanders, a self-declared “democratic socialist,” the organization had only grown by 500 members in 25 years. By 2017, in the aftermath of the Democratic Party sidelining Sanders for Hillary Clinton, an “establishment” candidate, the DSA’s membership swelled to 24,000.

The infusion into the organization of a younger, angrier base who felt betrayed by the “system” has pulled the organization to the far left. This has included the adoption in 2017 of a staunch anti-Israel, pro-BDS stance that is now one of the DSA’s central, defining principles.

DSA’s Subversive Transformation

DSA was founded through the merger of two groups: the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and the New American Movement (NAM).

The DSOC, which began in 1973, was an outgrowth of a faction from the then-folded Socialist Party of America led by Michael Harrington, DSA’s co-founder and its most influential leader in the organization's early years.

NAM, a small socialist group dedicated to feminism, was established in 1971 to replace Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which dissolved in 1969 amid internal strife.

Harrington, a firm anti-Communist and supporter of Israel, believed in grassroots organizing and working within the system, namely the Democratic Party, which he hoped to gradually win over to his agenda. He eschewed the radicalism of SDS but believed in and continued the group’s anti-war and anti-imperialism objectives.

While Harrington advocated for gradual change through electoral politics, his long vision included collective ownership of key industries and expanded social welfare programs. The organization’s early platform reflected these goals and also spoke to racial and gender equality.

Today, the political legacy of Harrington’s DSA is non-existent, and the man who started the organization is reviled by his own movement.

‘Entryists’

DSA's shift from its moderate and pro-Israel beginnings to its current revolutionary, pro-Marxist, anti-Israel platform is due to what Maurice Isserman—DSA co-founder, former SDS member and now a history professor at Hamilton College—refers to as “entryists.”

“What do I mean by ‘entryists’?” asks Isserman in an article in The Nation explaining why he left the DSA after 41 years. “In left-wing parlance, the term refers to tightly organized groups who, without sharing the beliefs of larger and more loosely organized bodies, join and proceed to either wreck or, where possible, capture them for ends at odds with the spirit and purpose of the original members.”

Today, the “entryists” in the DSA, says Isserman, have pushed anti-Israel activism into a “singularly important role” in the organization (see below “DSA’s Increasingly Anti-Israel Stridency”).

Entryists have “also served other purposes for DSA’s new sectarian leadership,” he says, “furnishing a convenient stick to beat DSA’s moderate wing if it wasn’t willing to embrace the most extreme positions on the Palestinian question—up to and including denying Israel’s right to continued existence.”

Isserman writes that he resigned from the DSA “to protest the DSA leadership’s politically and morally bankrupt response to the horrific Hamas October 7 anti-Jewish pogrom that took the lives of 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and saw over 200 hostages carried off to Gaza, both groups of victims including children and infants.”

On October 7, 2023, the DSA’s powerful National Political Committee (the organization's ruling body) issued a statement declaring, “Today’s events are a direct result of Israel’s apartheid regime—a regime that receives billions in funding from the United States.” No mention was made of Hamas or the terror group’s victims.

The same day, the DSA’s New York City chapter promoted an October 8, 2023 rally called “All Out for Palestine.” At the event, with terrorists still active in Israel, speakers glorified the killings, including the slaughter by Hamas of hundreds of young Israelis attending a music festival.

To the laughing crowd, one speaker celebrated the killings at the festival, which took the lives of at least 300, saying, “...the resistance came in electrified hang gliders and took at least several dozen hipsters.”

Current Leadership

The National Political Committee (NPC), the DSA's leadership body, is elected every two years by delegates from chapters at the organization’s national convention. The NPC directs the organization’s political and organizational agenda, which is broadly defined by the same delegates.

The latest NPC election took place in August 2025. The committee consists of 27 members: 25 regular members and two representatives from YDSA. The outcome of this election revealed just how extreme DSA has become, even by its own standards.

Newer radical factions, such as Springs of Revolution and the Marxist Unity Group, gained significant power and influence, both in leadership, the number of NPC seats they won and in their resolutions that were passed.

Megan Romer of the Red Star caucus, which advocates for a Marxist-Leninist takeover of America, was elected as co-chair of the powerful NPC.

Old-guard caucuses, such as Socialist Majority and Groundwork, were openly ridiculed and mocked for being ineffective and out of touch with the movement’s direction, despite Ashik Siddique of Groundwork being elected co-chair of the NPC alongside Romer.

It is worth noting, however, that Siddique is on board with the extreme rhetoric of DSA’s most radical faction. Just a week after the October 7, 2023 attack, Siddique posted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan understood as a call for the destruction of Israel.Siddique has been calling for the dismantlement of “empire” (i.e., America) since at least 2019.

Romer has written, “...we do not, in fact, condemn Hamas and ... no socialist should …”

Romer has repeatedly expressed her hatred of police, calling officers “pigs.” When asked who she was taught to hate as a child, she responded “cops” and declared, “I was an abolitionist before I was a socialist … You can’t have police abolition under capitalism, because police are the armed agents that hold capitalism together.”

DSA Goal: Destroy America

As a whole, DSA casts itself as a movement explicitly built to confront U.S. power. The organization has described the need for a broad, disciplined left to challenge imperialism, writing on X that, “The best tool we have to fight empire is a mass, resilient socialist organization.”

DSA’s internal factions push that national project in even sharper terms.

The Marxist Unity Group calls for socialists to “fight to overthrow the Constitution,” denouncing it as a tool of “capitalists and slavers” and demanding that its legitimacy be destroyed through agitation and revolution.

The Red Star Caucus openly declares that it “strives to weaken and ultimately dismantle [the] US empire,” insisting that socialists must oppose America at every turn and reject any position that does not directly undermine U.S. power.

These statements do not reflect a reformist movement, but rather an organization that sees America itself as the enemy to be defeated.

Leaders and rank-and-file members often speak in even more explicit terms.

Ahmed Husain, NPC Member and Founder of Springs of Revolution

Ahmed Husain, a sitting NPC member and founder of the DSA faction Springs of Revolution, has repeatedly framed DSA’s work as a direct fight against American power and influence.

At a June 5, 2025 event hosted by NYC DSA and allies titled Logistics of Empire: International Shipping and the Fight for a Free Palestine, Husain described the United States as the “home of empire” and urged members to treat domestic organizing as a battlefield, saying, “We need to get really creative because it is our duty here. We're inside the home of empire, we're inside the house. It is our job here as it is, as they fight there, we fight here. There's multiple fronts. We have to keep fighting.”

Husain then called for continuous, organized pressure on U.S. institutions, insisting that “we have to keep fighting. So as we discuss, let's think as creatively as possible, as courageously as possible, what can we do because it's going to take a lot of work, we're going to need a lot of people.”

Husain has also taken to X with even more explicit rhetoric:

• June 12, 2025: “...this is a fight for liberation from the decaying fascist American empire.”
• Jan 15, 2025: “silly to watch the two genocidal parties of the genocidal united states of america argue over which of them put an end to the genocide they were carrying out together.”
• Sep 11, 2024: “...you cannot cure empire of bloodlust, you can only kill it”
• Jun 16, 2023: “...down with the US empire.”

Frances Gill, NPC Member and Groundwork Caucus Leader

Frances Gill, a sitting NPC member and leader in the Groundwork Caucus, declared that DSA has “a unique responsibility to act from the heart of empire, the belly of the beast,” adding that “the most important thing that we can do is take that empire down from within.”

Her remarks are a direct call to dismantle the United States from within.

Gustavo Gordillo, Co-Chair of NYC DSA

Gustavo Gordillo, the co-chair of NYC DSA, wrote, “DSA should start a campaign to get the US to return the 8 states it stole from Mexico.”

Speaking at a March 2025 rally in support of anti-Israel agitator Mahmoud Khalil, Gordillo declared, “They make figures like Hamas and, quote unquote, terrorists into effective enemies ... The terror comes from the capitalists and their pawns ... the terror comes from the fascist governments and their ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] squads.”

Mirah Wood, DSA International Committee

Mirah Wood, a member of the DSA International Committee, has openly called for America’s destruction.

She posted, “preemptive death to america for this section.”

In another post, she wrote, “Glad we agree Amerikkka should be destroyed we all have unity over one great and necessary project for humanity.”

In June 2025, she added, “trash nation, bds the USA” and, “there's always room to say death to israel and death to America.”

Jorge Rocha, DSA International Committee

Jorge Rocha, a member of the DSA International Committee, frequently frames U.S. policy and American identity in explicitly hostile terms.

He posted, “to decry the Axis of Resistance as it stands up to the imperial hegemon, this great Satan, and its colonial settlement 'Israel' is to repeat the same tired arguments used to defend the existing orders of past monarchs, empires, and colonies. / you must choose a side.” (The “Axis of Resistance” refers to an Iran-backed network of paramilitary groups, while “this great Satan” is a direct reference to the United States.)

Rocha has also used the term "Americanism," calling it “a fascist ideology not unlike Nazism and Zionism.” He declared that “The Palestinian resistance are the heroes fighting on behalf not just for themselves but for all humanity” and urged that “The Zionist movement and US-led imperialism must be totally and completely defeated by any means necessary if we wish to live in a just world for everybody not just the rich.”

Rocha has further argued that “people should be armed so long as the state is armed,” language that endorses armed resistance as a legitimate response to state power.

Ethan Eblaghie, Springs of Revolution and NYC DSA

Ethan Eblaghie, a member of NYC DSA and the DSA faction Springs of Revolution, echoed the same calls to confront and dismantle the United States.

He referred to America as “the belly of the beast,” aligning with language that casts the U.S. itself as the central enemy.

Eblaghie described American symbols as inherently oppressive: “The American and Maryland flags carry every ounce of indigenous genocide, slavery, settler colonialism, and penal capitalism...”

Militant Anti-Israel Agenda

The DSA’s descent into militant anti-Israel politics has been neither accidental nor sudden. It has been the product of years of internal battles, power plays and an escalating litmus test on the “Palestinian question” driven by hardline factions and their allies.

In 2022, that internal struggle reached a boiling point. Two prominent anti-Israel groups -- Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) along with other Arab-led, anti-Israel groups -- issued a formal boycott of DSA over its perceived soft anti-Zionist stance. Specifically, the groups objected to a decision by the DSA’s National Political Committee (NPC) to dissolve the DSA’s BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group.

The dissolution was tied to an internal dispute over disciplining then-Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) for his perceived support of Israel. The working group advocated expelling Bowman from the DSA while the NPC objected.

Citing procedural issues such as noncompliance with organizational standards, the NPC voted to dissolve the working group and absorb it into the NPC-controlled International Committee. Backlash was fierce, causing the NPC to unanimously reverse the decision.

By the 2023 DSA National Convention, the anti-Israel activist push had grown bolder. A resolution titled "Make DSA an Anti-Zionist Organization in Principle and Praxis" was introduced, but tabled and referred to the NPC for further consideration.

The next year, the NPC passed a watered-down version of the resolution. The 2024 resolution denounced Zionism and set standards for political candidates seeking an endorsement from the DSA, but did not include enforceable measures such as expelling members who support Zionist causes.

At its most recent convention in August 2025, the DSA adopted its strongest and most militant anti-Israel measure yet, a resolution titled “For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA.”

The 2025 resolution (R22):

• Frames Zionism as a "racist, imperialist, settler-colonial project" and calls for expelling Zionism from DSA's foundational documents
• Demands accountability for DSA-endorsed politicians who do not support BDS or who have voted to give military aid to Israel
• Requires candidates seeking a DSA endorsement to publicly support BDS and reject ties with Zionist lobbying groups such as AIPAC and J Street
• Stipulates that members actively supporting Zionist interests through lobbying, anti-BDS activism or affiliation with Zionist organizations face membership expulsion unless they demonstrate "public reckoning" and commit to anti-Zionist activism
• Moves anti-Zionism from a principle into concrete action, explicitly connecting it with fighting U.S. imperialism and settler colonialism, and positioning Palestinian liberation as central to DSA's struggle
• Includes enforcement measures

Today, the DSA has made anti-Zionism the center of its agenda, becoming ever more strident by the year. Far from boycotting the organization, PYM and SJP, as well as a host of anti-Israel organizations, now work actively with DSA, speaking at DSA’s conventions and organizing anti-Israel events and protests.

This militant approach is having real effect on the organization’s internal culture and on the positions of its politicians, who are pressured to adopt uncompromising anti-Israel stances.

As one NYC-DSA leader admitted:

“MUG and Emerge members had some disagreements with statements Zohran made regarding ‘Israel’s right to exist.’ We used our power as organizers to cash in our goodwill and ask that he stop saying that. We succeeded—even as some in the organization said we were out of line.”

Sidney Carlson White, DSA National Political Committee Member, NYC-DSA

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Endorsing Violence

Within DSA, violent rhetoric is not condemned but celebrated, with members portraying unrest and confrontation as necessary tools for change. Mamdani’s alignment with this culture is clear in his dangerous policies on defunding the police, embracing abolitionism, and promoting approaches to crime that weaken enforcement rather than strengthen public safety.

This mindset is reflected across DSA leadership and membership, where calls to abolish police, praise for violent “resistance,” and open hostility to law enforcement are common. The following statements illustrate how deeply ingrained this culture of abolitionism and violence has become within the organization.

Elements within DSA and its allied networks have openly endorsed or celebrated violence against Israelis and Jews, framing attacks on civilians as legitimate “resistance” rather than condemning them.

On October 7, 2023, while the massacre of Israelis was in full force, the DSA International Committee urged “all DSA members to stand with the people of Palestine. Attend a demonstration in your area. Long live the resistance!”

On October 8, 2023, DSA held a rally where they gleefully cheered the murder, rape and kidnapping by Hamas of Israelis, including the elderly and children, mothers and babies.

The DSA BDS and Palestine Solidarity group argued that there is no such thing as Israeli “civilians” and said it was “folly" to compare “settlers” with "resistance groups deploying violence to liberate themselves.”

The DSA Liberation Caucus endorsed the brutal murder of two Israeli Embassy staff outside the Washington, D.C. Capital Jewish Museum, calling for the murderer to be freed. The caucus referred to his actions as “righteous” and “justified.” DSA NPC member, Ahmed Husain responded "fuck you" to a post condemning the murder.

DSA members mocked and celebrated the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Talking about how he watched the close-up video of Kirk’s assassination at least 50 times, Joe Sedlak, a DSA Las Vegas member, commented, “... love every fraction of a second of it and it gets better with every watch.”

Christopher Winston, St. Louis DSA leader, posted, “saw that shit and started giggling and kicking my feet and started shouting YOOOOOO like it was world star.”

Cheryl Rivera, DSA Emerge Caucus member, posted, “I wish Charlie Kirk could get shot again, the first 24 hours was so fun …”

James Ray, Philly DSA member, posted, "Kinda fucked that Charlie Kirk is just trying to steal 9/11's thunder like that."

Endorsing Terrorism

From Hamas to the PFLP, the DSA and its leaders openly praise designated terrorist groups, and Mamdani himself has echoed this agenda by defending organizations and activists tied to terror.

DSA factions and members routinely voice support for terrorism, terrorist groups, and even specific terrorists.

• DSA’s Red Star Caucus released an article titled “We Do Not Condemn Hamas, and Neither Should You.” The authors argued that “until this point, DSA has been hesitant to declare solidarity with the Palestinian resistance. It's past time for that to change.”
  
  They went further in their support for Palestinian terror groups. In the same article, DSA members rejected the idea that “Palestinian resistance” is only Hamas, describing it instead as “a popular front involving several militant organizations that coordinate through a Joint Operations Room.” They praised not only Hamas but also “Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP),” emphasizing that these groups fight together under what they call the principle of “unity of the fields.”
  
  The authors especially praised the communist factions inside the Palestinian “resistance,” writing: “Palestinian communists’ choice to participate in this alliance is a good thing, and we’re grateful for the good judgment our socialist siblings in the PFLP and DFLP have shown by participating in it.”
  
  
• DSA's Reform and Revolution Caucus published a statement on October 13, 2023, “in solidarity with the Palestinian people resisting apartheid and occupation.” The statement called for " mass protests in the US and around the world” against Israel’s military response to the Hamas massacre and said, “We support a mass armed uprising against the Israeli military, democratically organized, like the First Intifada.”
  
  
• DSA’s Liberation Caucus openly defended Hamas and Iran in its 2025 resolution guide: “CR2-A02: Democratic Socialist Anti-Imperialism – OPPOSE: Continues to place the International Committee and its autonomy under the auspices of the NPC, which as we have seen has been used to strangle and defang statements, such as that issued after the murder of martyr Ismail Haniyah and, most egregiously, insulted values of proletarian internationalism by removing language stipulating Iran’s right to defend itself after the United States bombed it.”
  
  
• Ahmed Husain, a sitting NPC member and founder of the DSA faction Springs of Revolution, has repeatedly voiced support for terrorism and extreme anti-American, anti-Israel positions. Husain, an American immigrant and former organizer for the Arab Spring in Bahrain, declared: “We will root out Zionism from this country. We'll root it out of every campus and every city until it has nowhere left to run. We'll resist every morally bankrupt institution that upholds the genocidal settler-colonial project. We will not stop and we will not rest.”
  
  Husain openly glorified Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar: “Congratulations on your martyrdom, O Abu Ibrahim.”
  
  He has insisted that “Israel never had the right to exist, we’re not giving up an inch” and declared Hezbollah and Hamas as legitimate: “all Lebanon has is its resistance. all Gaza has is its resistance. you don’t get to qualify resistance.”
  
  In his words, “...western imagination ... still can’t conceive the notion of its israeli colony falling apart. but israel will end.” His caucus platform commits DSA to “binding electoral standards” that make anti-Zionism compulsory inside DSA and warns members and endorsed politicians: “you cannot cross the BDS picket line.”
  
  
• Ethan Eblaghie, a member of the Springs of Revolution network and co-author of DSA’s anti-Zionist resolutions, has expressed solidarity with the chief state sponsor of terrorism.
  
  On X, he reposted a message that read: “full solidarity with my fellow Iranians tonight, may God keep you safe from the evil Zionists,” adding his own caption: “🇮🇷❤️ ایران زیبا” (“🇮🇷❤️ Beautiful Iran”). The post referred to Israeli strikes carried out in response to Iran’s missile attack. In June 2025, he posted, “solidarity with iran.”
  
  
• Mirah Wood, a member of the DSA International Committee, said she “could think of no images more stirring and heroic than the resistance fighters [of Hamas] ...”
  
  She further attacked fellow DSA members who called Hamas terrorists, writing: “What is deeply disturbing to me is that this faction of DSA [Socialist Majority Caucus] thinks of the resistance as terrorists not as legitimate anti colonial resistance and what this means for the horizon of their solidarity and their willingness to collaborate with this murderous empire.”
  
  Wood raised the bar for anti-Zionism, stating: “if you don't support the resistance to zionism you are still a zionist.”
  
  
• Cliff Connolly, a sitting NPC member from the Orlando DSA chapter, praised those who support and fight with the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah: "The truest Christians on earth are those fighting alongside Hamas and Hezbollah against genocide. Armed resistance to oppression is a Christian tradition only forgotten ‘in the West.’"
  
  On October 7th, 2023, he posted on X: “Hamas is fighting for the liberation of Palestine.”
  
  
• Megan Romer, DSA’s 2025-2027 National Political Committee (NPC) Co-chair, tweeted: “Read on to learn why we do not, in fact, condemn Hamas and why no socialist should…” and linked to Red Star DSA’s May 2024 article titled, “We Do Not Condemn Hamas, and Neither Should You.”
  
  
• Francesca (Maria) Maviglia, a sitting NPC member from Connecticut DSA, tweeted: “a few days ago I took time to engage with a young comrade in high school who was asking misinformed questions ("but doesn't hamas want to end israel?") that I tried to answer and send him material about. today he liked some of my posts amplifying messages from the resistance :')”
  
  On May 26, 2024, Maviglia posted on X a photo of a man wearing a soccer jersey with the number "7" and the name "Hamas" printed on it. She wrote: "my nuanced opinions on the palestinian resistance:"
  
  In February 2025, Mavigilia praised attendees who broke into “resistance chants” at the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah’s as “heroic.” Nasrallah led the terror group Hezbollah until an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon killed him on September 27, 2024.
  
  
• Parker McQueeny, a member of the DSA Marxist Unity Group (MUG), tweeted: “...Hamas seems basically like an pragmatic and opportunistic Islamic national liberation movement that is willing to be extremely flexible ideogically. but the point is that the attack was not motivated by hatred towards Jews but rather national liberation.”

DSA Spreads Across America

Once dismissed as fringe, DSA has exploded into a national powerhouse with chapters in nearly every state. From fewer than 10,000 members a decade ago, its ranks surged to more than 80,000 by 2025, fueled by radical caucuses and anti-Israel activism.

This growth has made New York City DSA the epicenter of the movement, where candidates like Zohran Mamdani are elevated and groomed for higher office. DSA’s rapid expansion shows how deeply its extremist agenda has penetrated American politics and how quickly it has moved from the margins into the mainstream.

"He comes out of our membership organization ... We can have people like Zohran all over the country."

Ashik Siddique, National Political Committee Co-Chair, Groundwork Caucus

The rapid growth of the Democratic Socialists of America has not only transformed local politics in New York but is now driving mayoral campaigns in other U.S. cities. Two 2025 races illustrate how DSA’s model is being exported beyond its New York stronghold.

Omar Fateh — Minneapolis, Minnesota

Omar Fateh, an active DSA organizer and Minnesota state senator, is one of the frontrunners in the 2025 Minneapolis mayoral race. Fateh, who has been endorsed by the Twin Cities DSA, has consistently echoed DSA’s anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric, accusing the United States of supporting “genocide” and embracing the BDS movement.

On October 17, 2023, 10 days after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, Fateh posted on Instagram a statement he wrote as a senator on the Israel-Hamas conflict. In the statement, Fateh equated [slide 1] Hamas terrorists with Israel, saying, "I am overwhelmed with ... anger towards both the Israeli Government and Hamas who have senselessly injured and killed thousands of people in a matter of days."

He has aligned himself directly with Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral campaign, urging supporters to replicate Mamdani’s victory in Minneapolis.

Willie Burnley Jr. — Somerville, Massachusetts

Willie Burnley Jr., a long-standing DSA activist and Somerville city councilor, is a 2025 candidate for mayor with backing from DSA networks.

Burnley co-founded the Defund Somerville Police Department campaign and has openly promoted an abolitionist agenda “without police and prisons.”

He has described the United States as an “empire” that must be forced “to its knees” and used the slogan “From the River to the Sea” to call for the elimination of Israel.

Burnley has also praised Mamdani’s campaign as a model for DSA-aligned mayoral victories elsewhere.

Conclusion

The Democratic Socialists of America presents itself as a grassroots movement for justice, but its own leaders, factions and members make clear that its true aim is the dismantling of America’s institutions and alliances.

With New York City as its power center and Zohran Mamdani as its most ambitious candidate, DSA is testing how far an extremist machine can go using the Democratic Party’s ballot line and taxpayer-subsidized campaign systems. This report has shown that the threat is not hypothetical. It is real, it is organized, and it is advancing quickly.

The choice for New Yorkers and other citizens is whether to hand City Hall to a movement that openly glorifies violence, undermines American democracy and seeks to replace it with an ideology that has left only economic ruin and repression wherever it has been tried.

DSA Leaders, Members and Politicians