The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have a small problem. And it is the problem common to all socialists, as the late great Margaret Thatcher once pointed out.

The Democratic Socialists have, it seems, run out of other people's money … https://t.co/ypo25AHaCd

— Virginia Kruta (@VAKruta) January 22, 2024

And not only has the DSA run out of money, they can’t seem to figure out why people don’t want to support them anymore. Please sit back and enjoy the schadenfreude.

The DSA — which has led protests against Israel over the Jewish State’s retaliatory response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack — is deep in a seven-figure hole and desperately in need of a way to stanch the red ink, members acknowledge.

“We will cut $500,000 from staff-related expenses. We will first ask for volunteers from both director-level and bargaining unit staff to have their position cut and receive severance,” according to a proposal advanced by members of DSA’s National Political Committee affiliated with its Marxist Bread and Roses caucus.

“If necessary, we will then explore initiating lay-offs according to the DSA union’s contract,” the DSA officers said.

The situation appears to be a case of an organization that blindly seeks utopia and professes support of the working class clashing with reality — forcing it to have to balance a budget like the rest of America and even contemplate layoffs hated by labor unions.

So, what went wrong here for the DSA? Well, there’s a few of things. First, it turns out that when they support political candidates who make the big time (Congress), those politicians turn into – well, politicians. Hilariously, Jamaal Bowman (D-Fire Alarm) has apparently stopped paying his membership dues, and the organization is greatly pissed off at their one-time poster girl, AOC, for throwing her support behind Joe Biden in the 2024 election. What sellouts, right??? Without the big names coughing up the big bucks, or fundraising for the group, the DSA has found itself in a financial hole. Wait, why doesn’t Bernie Sanders just sell off one of his houses? He has more than one, the greedy jerk. Time to redistribute some of that sweet, sweet wealth!

Second, the DSA has been spending money like a drunken sailor. Get a load of what their own publication is bragging that they managed to cut.

For 2024, DSA is projecting $5 million in income and $7 million in expenses. That means we eventually need to come up with $2 million to break even. Treasurer John L. (Red Star) suggested the goal of maintaining a deficit of $821,000-$921,000 which would buy us another year to solve the problem. (That has serious risks, however, as that may use up so much savings that we will not be able to afford a convention in 2025.) With that goal in mind, the NPC (National Political Committee) should make at least $1.1 million in cuts during this budget cycle.

B&R (Bread & Roses, the DSA caucus writing this piece – Ed.) led the effort (twice!) to finally cut the largest single personnel expense of all: the exorbitant National Harassment Grievance Officer (NHGO) contract that cost us $360,000/year. The NHGO’s contract will be terminated at the end of March this year, which is strangely more than was even budgeted for, so unfortunately this doesn’t help us meet the deficit goal. The NLC co-chair pay is also not included in the budget, but it was also cut (which we strongly disagree with for reasons described below).

Ohhhhh boy. They just blew $360,000 on a NATIONAL HARRASSMENT GRIEVANCE OFFICER position, and like Jack Sparrow, they’re now wondering where all the rum has gone. The truly side-splitting part of that statement? The position isn’t even going to be eliminated until MARCH, which means that they have more than two months left to pay out on this contract! The rest of the article talks about why it’s so important to keep paying the DSA leadership – what, you expect people to lead protests FOR FREE??? HAHAHAHAHAHA.

As B&R member Allan Frasheri wrote previously, “Mass membership workers’ parties around the world — like Sinn Fein in Ireland and Die Linke in Germany — elect an executive leader or leaders (often called the party ‘leader,’ ‘president,’ or ‘chair’) at their conventions. These political leaders are charged with representing the party externally to unions, other organizations, and the general public and help oversee the internal administration of the party. To be able to carry out these responsibilities, these positions are full-time and paid… The model of these parties around the world is a stark contrast with DSA’s structure. Because NPC and NPC Steering Committee members often have their own full-time jobs, they have less time to dedicate to either the internal direction of DSA or to external political leadership.”

There is simply no way for an all-volunteer board to truly spend the time necessary to be political leaders. These stipends allow NPC members and YDSA NCC members to free up their time for DSA — through reduced work hours, more money for childcare or meal delivery or car payments, or the extra mental capacity from more breathing room in their personal expenditures. Otherwise, unelected directors will be the only ones with the capacity to set the political direction of DSA. Leadership stipends are not a luxury; they’re an essential part of DSA’s democratic character and a mandate from convention delegates.

But there is a third, bigger, and deeper problem within the DSA. It is that they have thrown in behind Hamas – and are splitting off members as a result. The warning flags went up last October, right after the group picked sides after the invasion and massacre of October 7th.

The reckoning for the DSA in the wake of Hamas’ attacks on Israel could mark a realignment at the extreme end of the Democratic Party. Progressive politicians looking for an endorsement from the DSA have long faced a Middle East litmus test, answering questions about whether they’ll boycott Israel and if they back Palestinians “living under occupation.”

In Michigan, Rep. Shri Thanedar officially renounced his DSA membership, saying in a statement Wednesday that he won’t “associate with an organization unwilling to call out terrorism in all its forms.”

In Los Angeles, DSA-endorsed City Council member Nithya Raman rejected the group’s rhetoric late Tuesday, saying a national DSA statement on the attacks “failed to reckon with the horrors committed by Hamas and was unacceptably devoid of empathy for communities in Israel.”

In New York, the DSA lost one of its most prominent members in Bowman, a vocal critic of the Israeli government. His spokesperson confirmed Wednesday that he let his membership expire last year following disagreements on funding Israel’s missile defense system.

“There’s an inflection point that’s happening now,” said David Greenfield, a former Democratic New York City Council member who now works with the Met Council, a Jewish nonprofit.

“The core membership of the DSA has not shown any sympathy at all for innocent victims of Hamas’ barbaric terrorism, where the adults in the room have realized that that’s not a viable path forward for any political party in the United States,” Greenfield added.

In New York, several far-left Democrats boosted to elected office by the DSA condemned a pro-Palestinian rally in Manhattan that the New York City DSA had promoted but later distanced itself from. Attendees had chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied” and one was shown displaying a swastika in a widely circulated photo.

A day later, the NYC-DSA toned down its rhetoric, apologizing in a statement.

But the DSA has still held firm to its core beliefs about Israel: Its statement went on to call for a cease-fire and the end of Israel’s “occupation of the West Bank, the end of the 16-year siege on the open-air prison that is the Gaza Strip and the end of U.S. military aid for occupation and apartheid.”

We have seen these DSA marches and the vile anti-Semitism that they push. Below is the DSA’s own video about their “protest” on December 21st in New York City. They are all in for Gaza, Hamas, and a ceasefire that doesn’t give a damn about the hostages still being held captive in Gaza.

And they wonder why they’re running out of other people’s money?

“DSA long ago fell into the trap of becoming so radical in the name of ‘justice’ that they abandoned the mission of the progressive movement,” said Amanda Berman, founder and executive director of Zioness, a group representing liberal Jews who support Israel.

She said an internal DSA feud in 2022 over whether it should withdraw support for Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-Westchester/Bronx) for visiting Israel left members already admitting they were “bleeding activists and financial resources.

“After Hamas’s brutal invasion of Israel on October 7, DSA doubled down on their strategy of going deep and long on antisemitism, thinking it might get them out of the hole,” Berman said. “Instead, this depraved idea dug them even deeper.

“True progressives, whether in the grassroots or in political leadership, will continue rejecting this extremist group and its hateful ideas in the name of true justice and equity, including for Jewish Americans,” Berman said.

But the DSA officers recommending the job cuts said the left-wing group should be buoyed by the energy surrounding its anti-Israel protests — and seemed puzzled why their bottom line is flailing.

“But how did this decline in revenue, membership, and overall excitement happen in the first place? This should actually be a really favorable time for DSA. We’re living in a moment when revived labor struggles and the fight for a free Palestine are galvanizing so many Americans, particularly young people,” the DSA officers said in a column in the Bread and Roses’ “The Call.”

*tap tap tap* Is this on? Okay. Lean in close, DSA. Here’s the truth. YOUNG PEOPLE HAVE NO MONEY, AND THE ONES YOU ARE RECRUITING HAVE NO BRAINS. YOU ARE SUPPORTING RAPISTS AND TERRORISTS AND MURDERERS. And guess what? EVERYONE NOTICED.

Even one of the co-founders of the DSA quit the organization after October 7th.

My membership in DSA ended with considerably less drama last week, when at a somewhat more advanced age I resigned from the organization via an e-mail. I left 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.

Hamas, a fanatic right-wing religious fundamentalist group committed to the destruction of Israel and the expulsion of its Jewish population, launched its offensive in the early morning hours of October 7, murdering, torturing, raping, or kidnapping those unfortunate enough to encounter its marauders. Bernie Sanders responded the same day declaring, “I absolutely condemn the horrifying attack on Israel by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. There is no justification for this violence, and innocent people on both sides will suffer hugely because of it. It must end now.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded as well, saying, “I condemn Hamas’ attack in the strongest possible terms. No child and family should ever endure this kind of violence and fear, and this violence will not solve the ongoing oppression and occupation in the region.”

DSA’s National Political Committee did not agree with the two most prominent democratic socialists in American public life. Its statement on October 7 made no mention—let alone offering any criticism—of Hamas, declaring instead, “Today’s events are a direct result of Israel’s apartheid regime—a regime that receives billions in funding from the United States.” That same day the New York City DSA chapter urged its members to attend a rally in midtown Manhattan called for the following day by another left-wing group under the slogan “All Out for Palestine.” At that event, on October 8, not 24 hours after the attack, one speaker would giddily note the slaughter by Hamas of hundreds of young Israelis attending a concert in approving terms: “[T]he resistance came in electrified hang gliders and took at least several dozen hipsters.” That got a big laugh. There probably weren’t a lot of DSAers in the audience, and no DSAers spoke from the podium, but the damage was done—and not undeserved. Politically, you’re judged by the company you keep.

An organization that can’t take a stand condemning a right-wing terrorist group that set out to murder as many Jewish civilians, including children and infants, as it can lay its hands on, has forfeited the right to call itself democratic socialist.

The DSA may very well collapse under its own bloated sense of importance and self-righteousness, buried in a financial morass that it has no hopes of getting itself out of. Get the popcorn out and enjoy every minute of it, because it is exceedingly well-deserved.

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Featured image: Becker1999 from Grove City, OH via Wikimedia Commons, cropped, CC BY 2.0