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- [00:00]
Podcast Announcer
This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human.
- [00:05]
Narrator
When teenager Joy Morgan discovered the religious group Israel United in Christ, she believed she'd found the truth. Many believe she found a cult. Then she disappeared. The new podcast, the Missing Sister, explores her story, the family she left and the religious group she found.
- [00:21]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
You know when you get that feeling like you just, I don't want to be here. I want to get out. Like, I want to go here now.
- [00:27]
Narrator
All episodes available now. To binge listen to the Missing sister on the iHeartRadio app at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:35]
Grace Mauser
Here at the Happiness Lab, we're serving up some hot takes for the summer. Big ideas that just might reshape how
- [00:40]
Narrator
you think about your well being.
- [00:42]
Grace Mauser
Like the radical notion that we should get rid of small talk completely.
- [00:45]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
We talk about current events. We talk about what you do for a living.
- [00:48]
Grace Mauser
But not, do you love what you
- [00:49]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
do for a living?
- [00:50]
Grace Mauser
Is this your dream job? For more surprising ideas backed by psychological science, check out our new series, Happiness Hot Takes. Listen to the Happiness lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Betrayal Weekly is back with brand new stories from threatening text messages disturbing a small Midwestern town. It was from an unknown number. Who else is getting these messages? Why did it start with us? To long cons and stolen identities.
- [01:22]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Who lies about being this sick? This was the last time I ever believed a word she said.
- [01:28]
Grace Mauser
Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:35]
Podcast Announcer
Can superstars even exist the way they used to?
- [01:37]
Grace Mauser
2016 was sort of that last era of monoculture where we still consume things in community.
- [01:46]
Podcast Announcer
Everybody wanted to be Beyonce at that point.
- [01:48]
Grace Mauser
I don't think we'll ever see another Rihanna.
- [01:51]
Podcast Announcer
What does it mean to be black
- [01:52]
Grace Mauser
and eat in America?
- [01:54]
Podcast Announcer
You will never make me feel bad
- [01:55]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
for being a black girl. For being a black American girl ever.
- [01:58]
Podcast Announcer
From music to food to the conversations shaping black culture, right now, Therapy for black Girls is bringing it all to the mic. Listen to Therapy for black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
- [02:12]
Grace Mauser
Cool Zone Media.
- [02:18]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Welcome to It Could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis. For the past few weeks on Executive Disorder and some regular episodes of this show, most notably the DSA Red Scare, I've been covering the ongoing battle for the future of the Democratic Party, spurred on by a recent wave of electoral victories by DSA in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and most notably New York City. Where last month the DSA doubled their block of socialists in office. This episode is another installment in this informal series and this time we are going straight to the source by talking with the co chair of the New York City chapter of dsa, Grace Mauser, in an interview where we talk about everything from the chapter's electoral strategy to their theory of power and what organizers can learn from New York City DSA's recent string of success. So without further ado, here is my interview with Grace Mauser, co chair of NYC dsa. To start on like the most like broad picture aspect, what is the Democratic Socialist of America if people are not super familiar with like what the organization actually is or what the point of the organization is?
- [03:35]
Grace Mauser
Sure. Thanks so much for having me. So dsa, Democratic Socialists of America is a political organization. Legally we're a nonprofit. We're a 501c4 which enables us to engage in a lot of different types of campaigns, including electoral campaigns. But also we're very involved in labor work and we often partner with unions and with rank and file workers for both internal union reform purposes and external demands. We do issue based campaigns. For example, in New York City, our Immigrant justice working group ran a very successful effort to conduct know your rights trainings earlier this year that trained over 5,000 people in the city. So we do a lot of different types of things, including social things. We have like book clubs and softball leagues and things like that.
- [04:32]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
The Run Club is a very formidable political group in this city.
- [04:37]
Grace Mauser
The Run Club is very popular. It's true, it's true. They've really taken off. And how we are structured is that there is a national dsa, so national organization. And then there are, I believe, over 200 chapters all across the country. New York City is by far the largest, I think for more than twice as large as the next biggest, which is la. And the chapters engage in localized work. But then we also tried to have participation from chapters on national campaigns and questions. I would say we're not a party, not usually Americans, but some people call us a party or think we're a party. We don't have a ballot line, but we do run people in primary elections, usually in Democratic primaries, because we want our members to select and endorse candidates that they think will represent not only their interest, but the interests of a broader working class space. And then we want people who are elected to actually collaborate with DSA and other outside organizations in a real and serious way that the Democratic Party simply does not encourage and sometimes even even tries to Stop.
- [06:02]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
So obviously within the name of DSA there's democratic socialism and socialism more kind of broadly. What does DSA mean by socialism? I mean, I've seen multiple articles specifically in the Atlantic, really, really concerned about what socialism means and the quote unquote Trotskyist tactics that DSA is, is, is employing. There's been a whole bunch of, whole bunch of media coverage being scared of, you know, communism and socialism. But what does like DSA mean by socialism?
- [06:35]
Grace Mauser
So DSA is what we call a big tent organization. There are a lot of different ideologies that our members embrace. Some people are more social democrats that you might find to be the standard in some European countries. Some people identify as communists, for example. So what we mean by socialism we try to make really concrete and demand based. We're looking at things like universal healthcare, passing bills like Medicare for all. We are trying to make housing more affordable by expanding the role of government in the housing market through things like what Zoran Mamdani just help do, freezing the rent. We are trying to make universal childcare free. Right. Like public education as it currently exists is functionally socialist. Right. It's the government providing free education and child care for millions of children. And for some reason it arbitrarily starts at five years old. We're saying, what if we had that but a little bit sooner. So we try to center our demands on these really material ideas. One, because it enables not only leftists of all different stripes, but all sorts of people to come in and identify with these ideas because they know it would help their lives, but also because winning these things will take a very long time. So my day to day is not so much concerned with what the economy should look like in a hundred years, but what we can achieve in the next five, 10, 20 years. And you know, even if I'm not a communist, but if I were, we're not going to be communist in 10 years. Right. So what matters is actually making people's lives better now and using the government to do that which, you know, American politicians, socialists and not have done for many decades before.
- [08:41]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
You were talking about like how DSA is organizing to like see what the country could be like in like five to 10 years. And I think something that people might not be aware of is the past work that New York City DSA has done the past five to 10 years. Right. I think people certainly saw or were drawn to DSA around the election of Zoran and you know, maybe this most recent like Slate win, but this is, this has been kind of a long term project of like building power and, and experimenting with electoral strategy and canvassing and like this, the specific path to victory. So could you speak a little bit how NYC DSA has achieved like this winning streak, especially like in the past year and like the build up to that winning streak?
- [09:24]
Grace Mauser
Definitely. New York City DSA really got serious in 2016, both because many people were inspired by Bernie Sanders and then many people were horrified by the ultimate victory of Donald Trump in that presidential election. In 2017, we took on our first electoral races in the modern era. There was two city council races. We lost both of those, but we did learn a lot and we gained a new member via one of those races. But something we learned is that we could certainly run field campaigns. And by field I mean canvassing and door knocking. But we also saw that, hey, actually a lot of the skills that are required in other parts of the campaign like communications, political maneuvering, fundraising and budgeting, these are also things we think that our members can do. And we really tested that out in 2018. We endorsed AOC that year. But in some ways the bigger chapter project was Julio Salazar state senate race where we had members not only on staff, but also basically helping in a volunteer capacity almost every aspect of that race. And we won. So from there we learned that we could teach ourselves and begin to replicate the skills of not only canvassing, but all these other skills that the political class and the consulting class in particular want to believe that they have a monopoly on that they're so hard to understand that you simply must pay them tens of thousands of dollars. So we have built out from there. We have now 16 socialists in office at the state legislature level, not only in New York City, but also in the Hudson Valley and in Buffalo. And we have four city council members and now three congress members. Some of those came post surron, but most of them came pre seron and it was just really nose to the grindstone kind of work, knocking on a lot of doors, replicating skills, fundraising from small dollar donors. And we lost some of our races. I think we've probably lost a little less than half of the races we'd won. But we took some big swings, but strategic swings. So these kind of skills developed over time and really form the foundation and the backbone of Ziron's campaign. So for many, Zaran seemed to come out of nowhere. But his first campaign event, his field launch in December of 2024, when no one had really heard of him as a serious candidate, had 500 people at it, which I would guess is bigger than any other candidate had at any point in the race. And that's because DSA members knew him, were really excited about what this meant, and also knew exactly what kind of work would be required to make this race successful. And it was work of basically building out huge infrastructure and knocking on millions of doors so that we could talk to voters.
- [12:50]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Yeah. One of the most impressive things is this sort of like, like parallel campaign structure that, that DSA has, has developed that you don't need to go through the regular channels of like, consultants, sort of like inside baseball of politics. And I get. People often get very confused about, like, what the word like party means. Right. Because party in, you know, Europe, and something very different than what it means in the US but in terms of running in primaries, the DSA often has to go up against the party infrastructure of the Democratic Party establishment itself. And the fact that DSA has been able to, especially in the past two years, like, out organize the local political establishment has been like, one of the most impressive feats. And like, I've been able to see this in person. I'm in Brooklyn in the, you know, the past two months, I had multiple DSA canvassers come to my door. I received a truly absurd amount of mailers. There was, you know, people canvassing on the sidewalk, you know, all the time. You know, same thing, same thing in Ridgewood in Queensland. A lot of canvassers there, especially going into the mayoral race. Something that stuck in my mind a lot is I used to live in Atlanta. Some, like, friends of friends, people I didn't know, but people I kind of loosely knew of, were paid to do canvassing for the 2024 presidential election for the Democratic Party. They were basically just operating kind of like a scam. Like, they did not actually do any of the work. They basically sat in, like, a parking lot and scrolled on their phone. And something that makes the DSA's form of canvassing so different is that the people who are actually involved in it actually care about the political project. Right. They're actually, like, invested in these candidates, invested in, you know, putting forward this, like, working class politics that are not just getting a paycheck from the dnc and that changes the way that they do canvassing on the ground. I know there's. This is something that you refer to as like, the DSA difference. Could you guys briefly touch on, like, what the DSA difference, like, represents?
- [14:41]
Grace Mauser
Yeah, it really, for. For me starts from the endorsement process, which is very long and quite rigorous, but also extremely Democratic. And because of that, people really feel bought in to the races that we endorse. I mean, if you come to an endorsement forum, it's said over and over again, if you would not personally be interested in canvassing for this candidate, do not vote to endorse them. And that's kind of an easy standard. We tried to share with members on top of a lot of strategy and data consideration, and there's a lot of things that go into it, but core is that like, will you go to this? If not, how can we expect others to. That initial buy in, that initial ownership that members have over what races we run and why really extends then into the entirety of the campaign. So our campaigns do have staff, and of course, larger campaigns have more staff, but we also have a practice of really elevating volunteers who show capacity and interest to be more engaged in strategy. So canvassers are also strategic actors. That's sort of the first rung of engagement. I mean, canvassing could just be like, oh, go out and do this. But we really actively seek to create a feedback loop between canvassing and other parts of a campaign. So not only is canvassing data, of course, very critical and tracking ID progress and things like that, but we also teach our field lead to lead canvases, to solicit feedback and to systematize that feedback. What are you hearing on the doors? Did you meet anyone interesting? Should we follow up with that person? And I've seen in real time our messaging overall change because of feedback that canvassers are getting on the doors from the next rung. If a canvasser is really great and excited, we often encourage them to become a field lead. These are pretty intensive and high responsibility jobs. So these people manage logistics, they run trainings, they move materials around. If there are problems or questions that come up during a canvas or after, they're the first point of contact for these volunteers. They're really quite skilled leaders and we try to create as many of these people as possible and that's kind of the next rung of engagement from there. It sort of varies from campaign to campaign, but on most of the campaigns that I've seen, you have robust volunteer teams around all of these functional areas. There's a fundraising team who are trying to execute not only comms and digital strategy, but also peer to peer fundraising and house parties. There is a communications team who, yes, works closely with staff often, but is drafting and helping produce a level of content that, you know, if you're a state assembly race and you have two staffers, it's pretty hard to produce as much content as you might want.
- [18:09]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [18:10]
Grace Mauser
There's research who are helping do oppo and helping figure out what stories we might be able to place in the press. So these areas that can be pretty opaque in some ways and are not often a visible part of the political process, we really try to open up and invite people into and then we talk openly about that in our debriefs and also in our endorsement forums themselves.
- [18:37]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
I guess something else that people might not be fully aware of. There's, there's kind of like two ways of like fielding candidates. Candidates can be DSA endorsed and then you can have DSA members who then run for office. And for the people who are more kind of like outside of the organization but seek, seek a DSA endorsement. If they secure it, they then get access right to this, to this, this whole, like, on the ground, like, organizing network. And that can be very appealing. But there's certain things that endorsement is like, contingent on in terms of, like, platform. As you said. It's a pretty, it's a pretty intensive process actually, to get a DSA endorsement.
- [19:19]
Narrator
In 2015, teenager Joy Morgan discovered strangely compelling YouTube sermons from the religious group Israel United in Christ, or iuic. Her initial curiosity developed into devotion. She distanced herself from friends and family, embraced new identity, immersed herself in the IUIC and believed she'd found the truth.
- [19:39]
Grace Mauser
IUIC is the best family that I've ever had.
- [19:42]
Narrator
In fact, she had found what many called a cult. And On Boxing Day 2018, joy disappeared forever. In the new six part investigative podcast, the Missing Sister, Charlie Brinkhurst, Cuff and Freeturn explored Joy's story, the family she left and the religious group she found.
- [19:59]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
You know when you get that feeling
- [20:00]
Grace Mauser
like you just, I don't want to be here.
- [20:02]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
I want, I want to get out. Okay? I want to go home.
- [20:04]
Podcast Announcer
Now.
- [20:04]
Narrator
It's a story about truth lies, a young woman yearning to belong and a family still waiting for answers. All episodes available now. To binge listen to the Missing sister on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [20:19]
Podcast Announcer
What did black music, food and culture teach us about who we were becoming?
- [20:23]
Grace Mauser
2016 was sort of that last era of monoculture where we still consumed things in community.
- [20:32]
Podcast Announcer
From Beyonce and Rihanna. Everybody wanted to be Beyonce.
- [20:35]
Grace Mauser
I don't think we'll ever see another Rihanna.
- [20:38]
Podcast Announcer
To soul food, memory, identity and the stories we carry through black culture.
- [20:42]
Narrator
What does it mean to be black
- [20:44]
Podcast Announcer
and eat in America? So we were this group of people
- [20:47]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
who knew how to work the land, who knew how to live with the land.
- [20:50]
Narrator
We make it do what it do.
- [20:52]
Podcast Announcer
Therapy for Black girls is bringing together the color conversation shaping black life right now.
- [20:56]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
You will never make me feel bad for being a black girl for being a black American girl ever.
- [21:01]
Podcast Announcer
Therapy for Black girls is bringing it all to the mic. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
- [21:11]
Grace Mauser
From daily news to dating fails conspiracy
- [21:13]
Narrator
theories to cooking with celebrities who can't
- [21:16]
Grace Mauser
actually cook, Amazon Music's got the most
- [21:19]
Narrator
ad free top podcasts ready to entertain included with Prime.
- [21:29]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word.
- [21:36]
Grace Mauser
My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana. Twas a lovely suv, an inexplicably queenly offer.
- [21:45]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight we we feast. An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana.
- [21:56]
Grace Mauser
Pickup fees may apply.
- [22:03]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
After the series of victories New York DSA has had the past few months. Has that affected the size of the membership in any notable ways? Is that grown the amount of on the ground volunteers, whatever the next campaigns are?
- [22:16]
Grace Mauser
Oh, absolutely. I mean of course we are subject to like macro political trends, right? We see large jumps when there's a presidential election like we saw in 2016. I saw it again in 2020 and in 24. But you know, not every campaign results in a huge membership boost. I think they do all result in a large capacity boost because even if we're not gaining new people numeric, expanding the skill set of people who are there. But last year certainly we gained a lot of lot of members between the time that Zaran announced his campaign in the fall of 2024 and now we've almost tripled in size in New York City and between the primary elections this year, so June 23rd and today, so about a month, we have gained over a thousand members. So we are obviously helped along by like high profile wins too that the media is really interested in covering. And then we get kind of more eyeballs on, on our ideas and more interest in the project overall. So there are some, some wins that result in a lot of members, but every win I think expands capacity and even losses expand capacity because we're teaching people these skills and we're able to better replicate ourselves for future cycles.
- [23:51]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
I'm sure as most people are aware, we are right in the middle of like a huge debate right now over the future of the Democratic Party and, you know, this debate's being waged online, it's being waged in the newspaper, it's on tv, news, tv. And most importantly, right in the. In the primaries. Right. And then eventually the general elections. You know, it seems like every week the Atlantic has a new article out about how scary the Democratic socialists are. As I mentioned, I think today they put out a brand new article about, like, the secret, like, Trotskyism of tsa.
- [24:25]
Grace Mauser
I saw that. Which, I mean, all these articles suggest to me that they neither understand DSA nor do they understand the history or ideology they're comparing us to.
- [24:38]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Yeah, but it's been really interesting, especially after the winds in New York and Colorado and Pennsylvania, hopefully in Wisconsin. But this past month, we've seen more and more, like, establishment Democrats join people like President Trump and Fox News in effectively declaring war on the DSA and, like, the left wing of the party. And, you know, there's this idea that you see in the Atlantic, Washington Post, that, you know, communists and socialists are taking over the Democratic Party. But I think for a chunk of the people listening to this show, their concerns are probably more of the opposite. That by running as a Democrat, these Democratic socialist candidates risk being captured and, like, brought into the very party establishment that they're trying to oppose. I guess I'd like you to speak on, like, what is the nature of the DSA's relationship to the Democratic Party?
- [25:30]
Grace Mauser
Yeah, I mean, the thing about the Democratic Party that I think a lot of media and political pundits miss is that there's no one to have a relationship with. Right. Like, the Democratic Party is three boys in a suit. Like, there's no one to talk to. That's why they can't act like a party does in Europe. I mean, of course, there are electoral and ballot reasons for that as well, but the Democratic Party does not really organize either voters who are Democrats. Right. Like, no one has ever attempted to organize me as a Democrat because I am a registered Democrat. Nor is there really a serious effort to organize Democratic elected officials as a block and move in the same direction. Like, that infrastructure simply doesn't exist. So I feel like the risk of being captured is only a risk insofar as DSA does not try to keep our own people organized and acting as a block, which is very much central to our project. In New York City, for example, we have weekly meetings with both our state legislators and our city council members. And now we have regular meetings with administration officials as well in that mayoral administration that try to keep us all on the same page when we have a big project that we're moving on together like Tax the rich was this last legislative session. We do really active organizing in those meetings. Like, okay, have you talked to your colleague about this bill? Will they move? Do we need to pressure them some way from the outside or do you think you'll get somewhere an internal conversation. So to me, I, I don't feel worried about being captured by the Democrats because the Democrats don't have the infrastructure to capture people. The people who can capture you are like moneyed interests.
- [27:38]
Narrator
Right.
- [27:38]
Grace Mauser
Big corporations.
- [27:39]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Yeah.
- [27:40]
Grace Mauser
And sure, sometimes they act through the Democratic party, but for us that's such a clear red line that I don't feel super concerned about it. The more complicated questions are not so much of capture, but of when do we compromise? Right.
- [27:56]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Sure.
- [27:57]
Grace Mauser
We could be a block of people who vote no on every budget. Right. Every state budget, every city budget is politically compromised. It's not enough. They never tax the rich enough, they never fund public services enough. It's never good. But if we always say no, then can we get any, any wins? What kind of wins are the, you know, the non reformist reforms we might be looking for? And deciding that collectively doesn't mean our choice is always correct. But I think it's much more likely to be correct than if we let even someone who's a committed democratic socialist kind of go out on their own and try to make those decisions by themselves. The collectiveness and the connection to DSA I think is the biggest barrier to the capture that people are worried about. Whereas if we just say no to everything, if we ran as third party, I think, well, if we ran as third party, I don't think we'd ever win. But if we just say no to everything and our orientation is as like a morally upstanding group that doesn't achieve anything, I think we lose our credibility not only in the eyes of like the political class and of other politicians, but in the eyes of voters. Right now we can look at a voter, have a conversation on a door about how we are a different type of politician because look at what Iran has already done. Iran froze your rent.
- [29:32]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Yeah.
- [29:33]
Grace Mauser
We are the group behind Iran. Don't you want more people like him? And if the Ron hadn't frozen the rent, that would be a much harder conversation to have.
- [29:41]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
No, it is really easy to point to the delivering of goods and be like, yeah, this is what we are about and this is actually, you know, improving the lives of workers and like that is what matters. What else Is this whole project for. I can understand that, you know, people are concerned with like the idea of like holding politicians accountable. Right? Holding politicians accountable to this, you know, working class platform that they're running on, that they were elected to represent, that the organizing put them into office to fulfill. But I think one of the biggest ways to do that is through a mass membership organization like dsa because not only does it provide, you know, campaign infrastructure which could help them get reelected if they stick to this vision, but it also provides this sort of like, like, like social bond, this internal process to stay being tethered together while they are serving or occupying a seat of power. And once you're occupying a seat of power, there is obviously constraints on that power and there's going to be contradictions that arise. And I think a lot of people, especially online, view those contradictions as like a bad thing, as like a reason to not engage in this project. Alternatively, I think those contradictions are actually very often a good thing like this that is a sign that history is in progress, that we are actually moving forward and we're going to seek to resolve those like over time. And dealing with those contradictions is good in the sense that we have to deal with them. We actually, we are at a point in our strategy where this is something to be dealt with as opposed to not engaging in this sort of strategy like at all. Right. And the power that a politician has that is running on a working class platform, their power comes from the working class. And the DSA is a manifestation of that. And DSA can be an anchor. But I think there also is these like questions of like this like long term vision. Right. If D.C. candidates are just going to have to like administer capitalism in a more equitable way or if there really is like this, the kind of bigger vision to increase the power of the working class towards some sort of, you know, ultimate class struggle for socialism. And I guess like, is that like balance in their heads between this sort of like equitable administration and like this ultimate class struggle?
- [31:50]
Grace Mauser
Yeah, it certainly is. I mean, thinking about how we actually permanently change power structures and not just kind of mitigate harm, I think is one of the things that separates a socialist from a progressive. Sure. Some ideas that I'm really excited about that I would point to that do some of this, this didn't pass, but I think something like the pro Act.
- [32:17]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Absolutely.
- [32:18]
Grace Mauser
Would that expand and makes it easier for workers to organize themselves and empowers unions is part of that structure and central to what democratic socialists want to do in Fact, right now, actually in New York City, there is a bill held by city council member Tiffany Caban, who's a DSA member and a city socialist in office, called the Delivery Protection act, that would functionally make it extremely difficult for Amazon to consider last mile delivery workers as individual contractors and force them to be employees of Amazon. Which one makes sense? Like, it's crazy that all these people in Amazon trucks that you see all the time are contractors when functionally they're not. Everything that they have to do is controlled by Amazon. And doing that, we're partnering with the Teamsters on it because doing it would make those workers unionizable.
- [33:21]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Yes.
- [33:22]
Grace Mauser
And that's a huge workforce in your city. So that's kind of a labor example. Another piece that I'm really excited about. So yes, Ron froze the rent. That's an extension of, of government power in the market. But one thing that is really promising is that the administration is exploring how to legally recognize and empower tenant unions in a way that, you know, workers unions are recognized so that tenant unions actually have bargaining rights with a landlord. And we don't have all the answers for how that would look. But that's, I think, another example of a type of reform, a type of policy that is explicitly socialist and is actually trying to permanently change the power relationship between tenants and landlords, just as joining a workers union changes the power relationship between a worker and a supervisor. So I'm not saying we have the perfect answers across all policy areas. And certainly there are policy areas that socialists will, will advocate for and get behind that I would consider more progressive because our country and society is a very harsh environment for many people and mitigating harm is in fact something good to do. Yeah, but it cannot be the sole thing we do. And backing these types of non reformist reforms, ideas that change power structures is central to our work.
- [35:03]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Yeah, I think this, this sort of tension between this sort of more like social democratic administration of capitalism and like just pushing for, you know, like the revolution or something is of false dichotomy and oftentimes it can resemble the. This is bad because I'm referencing Twitter, but there's, there's this old tweet that's like, don't siege Leningrad, take it immediately. Like don't build working class power, just do the revolution. But if you look at like where the labor movement in the US is right now, we are so behind where the movement was in the 20s and 30s that allowed workers to extract the New Deal. We have a long way to go. To be able to really threaten capital in a serious way. And these minor social democratic policies, rather than being a release valve, could, in fact provide workers more autonomy and the extra time needed to organize and keep building power. Like another thing from Zoron's rent reforms is that the administration is advancing a new rule that landlords could only request proof of income or a credit check, but not both in apartment applications. And like, that would be huge for people. Right. And there is, there's, there's ways to do small stuff like that. Well, also, you know, in a bigger sense, trying to just increase the amount that our society is socialist. Right. That's through public ownership of utilities and key industries, commodifying necessities of life like housing or food, and democratizing the workplace. I've been yelling about the Protect the Right to Organize act in my personal life a lot lately. I've been kind of just like, evangelizing about the proact, because that, that is something that, like, if that, if that gets passed, that would be one of the biggest boosts to working class power that we've seen in probably decades.
- [36:54]
Grace Mauser
Yeah. And I mean, having Clara Valdez is a labor organizer, like, that was her first organizing experience. And yeah, there's no one like that in Congress right now, you know, so I don't know that her first move will be the proact, but it's certainly top of mind for her.
- [37:13]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
That kind of relates to one of the last questions I want to get to. But first, let's do one last ad break. Okay, we are back. How does the DSA actually, like, communicate with and relate to a broader working class base or like, like a broader, like, working class, like, coalition. Right. Because if this is the politics that DSA is about and this is the class that DSA is trying to, like, uplift, what exactly is, like, the nature of the relationship between DSA and the working class?
- [37:50]
Grace Mauser
DSA is striving to be a multiracial working class organization. I would say that right now, the majority, if not entirety, of our membership, not only in New York City, but also nationally, are working class. We embrace a pretty broad definition of that because the only way you get class solidarity is by, you know, refraining from nitpicking who is middle class, who's working class, who's working poor, and like, separating the interests of those groups and recognizing that basically anyone who relies on their own labor in order to live is working class and they have a lot more in common than the people who live off of their own wealth. And that we should be united in basically fighting the interests of the uber wealthy who, who run our lives and run our economy. So I would say we're already a working class organization, but we want to become one much bigger and also more diverse. More people in different types of industry, more people from across different demographics. It's trending that way over the last couple of years, but we need to get more of the people who vote for our candidates to also take the plunge into becoming a member and into actively organizing to better their own conditions. So I'm excited about how things are heading in that direction. It's also true that becoming a multiracial working class organization in the US Is notoriously difficult. You know, country that's divided violently not only by class divisions, but also biracial ones. So we have a. We have an uphill battle, but I think we're moving in the right direction. And voting trends should show that, too. Like, Claire Valdez won a majority of Hispanic election districts in her area. Darielitz won a majority of black election districts in her district. So I think we're seeing that these ideas have more and more mass appeal.
- [40:04]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Yeah.
- [40:05]
Grace Mauser
As voters are looking especially at establishment Democrats who are really just continuously failing to stand up to Trump. And more people are saying maybe we need to try something different. What's. What's the socialism all about?
- [40:21]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
There is an article in New York Times, by the time you're listening to this, like, a few weeks ago, looking at, like, the voting data from the last June primary, and it showed, like, the divisions in voter behavior between, like, DSA candidates and either progressive or establishment candidates was not largely divided by race, but rather by age.
- [40:39]
Grace Mauser
Yes.
- [40:40]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
And I think that is another significant factor in this.
- [40:43]
Grace Mauser
And we're also notably holding on to millennial voters. I mean, trends show that, unlike previous generations, millennials tend to stay fairly left as they age. In part perhaps because millennials aren't really gaining wealth as we age.
- [41:04]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
The capital system has nothing to offer, though.
- [41:06]
Grace Mauser
Yeah.
- [41:07]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
So, yeah. Why. Why would you make, like, the fiscal conservative turn to close out. A few weeks before the June primary, Canary mission started getting very scared of the dsa. They put out this big, this big post on, you know, the, the slate candidates. But once something that I found to be more interesting, rather than just like, you know, talking about who these candidates are, they, they focused a lot on, like, the organizational structure of New York, DSA and how, quote, New York is the testing ground. The machine is already being built. The machine doesn't stop, unquote. Which sounds kind of cool.
- [41:46]
Grace Mauser
Yeah. Right.
- [41:47]
Narrator
They.
- [41:47]
Grace Mauser
They made us sound cool.
- [41:49]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
If you ignore all of the, like, horrible, evil parts of the Canary mission write up, it kind of makes New York DSA sound pretty cool. How, you know, it has all These members, almost 100,000 volunteers, all these field leads that coordinates with candidates once they get into office and maintains that connection, helps them, helps them stay accountable.
- [42:08]
Grace Mauser
It's funny, too. They treat it like a big secret, like they're revealing something when, like, I literally just told you the same thing. Right. Like, it's not a secret.
- [42:17]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
But, you know, considering stuff like this and the DSA momentum we're seeing across the country and the reaction is getting from the gop, the president, and the Democratic Party establishment, what can organizers and, you know, chapters around the country learn from New York City, DSA's electoral strategy, or, like, what's. What's something that, I think New York DSA is doing that. That you would like more people to kind of understand or you'd like. You would like people to like, you know, learn from or like, take. Take something away from what we've seen in these past few campaigns.
- [42:48]
Grace Mauser
Yeah. One thing, especially after Zuran, one that I noticed is a lot of people were really focused on his charisma and his communication strategy, which Ziran is certainly charismatic, and his communication strategy was really strong and very intentional. But to me, his communication strategy would have not gone anywhere if one, he hadn't been saying something real that people resonated with. I mean, people are not totally fooled by an. An empty charismatic vessel. I mean, otherwise, Jack Schlossberg would have won in New York 12, I think. But also, there was an extremely robust field strategy that meant when someone saw a video, was inspired or interested, they could immediately find something to do to act on that feeling. And often they could find something to do basically within a mile and within a week of, of where they lived and what day it was. The core of this run campaign was not communications. It was field. And building up that structure and that muscle can take a lot of time. You know, it's hard to, to jump from zero to a mayoral race, but it is possible if you build out the kind of deep ownership from like, an endorsement process and also a culture of not only valuing volunteers, but really, like, depending on. On volunteers. Like, the campaign doesn't work if volunteers are expendable, if volunteers are treated as like an ancillary nice to have. It only works if volunteers are both treated and truly are essential. And that kind of creates a culture where people are valued, where they Become friends where they keep coming back, where they talk to their friends and family about the campaign or things spread out from there. So what I would say both to DSA organizers in other parts of the country, but also just general organizers who are interested in replicating some of the success. I think culture is really key. Centering people who are not staff, who are not the politicians. Making sure that the experience of the campaign is actually built around the experience of a canvasser and moving up from there. And that's how you get a campaign that is not only accountable to the people who are building it, but that's really fun and positive and grounded in people and place and not just in like kind of ideas and videos and things like that.
- [45:49]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
So yeah, yeah, no, this is a real material aspect. It's not this just like idealistic kind of abstract thing that you're participating in or you believe in. It's a real like material process. It's a real engagement. One of the funniest things I've seen recently is that there was a Wall Street Journal article where they sent one of their like hit piece writers to attend all these DSA events. And the write up is essentially, yeah, I had a great time at all these events. Everyone was really nice.
- [46:16]
Grace Mauser
I saw that. Yeah, there was like one of our, one of our incoming assembly members, I opposite was like giving a shout out because he like remembered someone's name and I'm like, yeah, I don't know. Organizers remember people's names. That's, that's a central part of, of our work.
- [46:37]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Where could people learn more about DSA or New York DSA online or by any other means?
- [46:46]
Grace Mauser
So yes, if you're in New York City or even near New York City, you can go to Socialists. There you can see how to join dsa. You can look at our events calendar, which is robust. We're at a point where we have basically at least three events every single day that cover a wide range of geographies across the city, but also interests. There's a Run Club event on, on Friday if, if that's of interest to people. If you're not in New York City, there is almost certainly a chapter where you live. You can go to dsausa.org to join, but also to find your chapter, find out about national work that's going on, especially as it relates to like the ongoing imperialist wars we have that's often held by national dsa. So definitely encourage everyone to check those things out.
- [47:48]
Interviewer (Garrison Davis)
Thank you, Grace, for coming on.
- [47:50]
Grace Mauser
Yeah, thanks for having me. It Could Happen Here is a production
- [47:57]
Narrator
of Cool Zone Media.
- [47:58]
Grace Mauser
For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.
- [48:13]
Podcast Announcer
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.