American Socialists Are Bleeding Cash and a Democrat Is Celebrating

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are bleeding cash and facing a $2 million deficit, and Representative Ritchie Torres is celebrating.

Torres, a New York Democrat who has been staunchly pro-Israel amid its war with Hamas, expressed his content with recent reports that suggest the DSA's debts have reached the seven-figure mark.

"The DSA is collapsing in real time under the weight of its own antisemitism and extremism," he told The Sun on Monday. "It is fair to say that I will not be mourning its death or attending its funeral."

Newsweek reached out to the DSA via email for comment.

Over the weekend, a report emerged that the DSA—which has led pro-Palestinian protests against the U.S. response to the war—is facing financial headwinds that could result in layoffs. The Bread and Roses caucus in the DSA published a blog post on Thursday confirming those reports and saying while no one wanted to consider such drastic measures, staff costs would have to be reduced given the "great crisis for capital."

The January 18 post said that the DSA is projecting $5 million in income for 2024, but $7 million in expenses.

"That means we eventually need to come up with $2 million to break even," said Alex Pellitteri, Kristin Schall and Laura Wadlin—members of the 2023-2025 DSA National Political Committee from the Bread and Roses caucus.

The DSA leaders said that while the current sociopolitical climate should be a "really favorable time for DSA"—citing the growing support for Palestinians and for labor groups across the nation—the group has "still been treading water, and things are going to get more challenging before they get better."

A November poll from Quinnipiac University found that the number of U.S. voters who sympathize with Palestinians more than Israelis has grown in the wake of the war, although the majority still have more sympathy for Israelis.

"Biden's disastrous policy of fueling Israel's genocide in Gaza has created the kind of space for an independent alternative from the Democratic Party that has not existed since [independent Vermont Senator] Bernie [Sanders]," they said, but Pellitteri, Schall and Wadlin admitted: "We have not had strong figures at the top of the organization to lead with a political vision that inspires people to become committed socialists."

"Working people are inspired to transform the world, but they are doing it elsewhere," the post said.

Torres, whose office has been vandalized by pro-Palestinian protesters, has previously tussled with the DSA over the Middle East. The congressman, who represents the South Bronx, has accused DSA members of promoting antisemitism by supporting a Manhattan rally that was held in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

"The NYC-DSA is revealing itself for what it truly is—a deep rot of antisemitism," Torres said in an October 8 statement. "The DSA should be universally condemned for its genocidal celebration of Israel's destruction in the wake of Israel's deadliest terrorist attack."

In response, the DSA has held several protests outside his office.

Torres is not the only Democrat at odds with the organization since the fighting broke out in the Gaza Strip.

Representative Shri Thanedar, a Michigan Democrat, renounced his membership in the DSA after the October rally, saying: "I can no longer associate with an organization unwilling to call out terrorism in its form." The DSA has emphasized that it did not organize the rally but acknowledged that the New York City chapter promoted the event "in anticipation of escalatory violence to come" after October 7.

In the Hamas attack that triggered the war, some 1,200 people were killed and Hamas and other militants abducted about 250 people, according to the Associated Press. Israel subsequently launched its heaviest-ever air strikes on Gaza. As of Monday, at least 25,295 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 60,000 wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, the AP said.

While Torres blamed the gap in funding on the DSA's outspoken position on the Israel-Hamas war, the Bread and Roses members pointed to mismanagement from top directors in the organization.

In Thursday's blog post, the DSA leaders said that senior staffers had withheld essential information from elected leaders and imposed their own political objectives that hindered the DSA from achieving its ultimate goal of "a rupture with capitalism."

"As a result, we are now left holding the bag and tasked with cutting expenses just to keep the organization afloat," they said. "It's our responsibility now to learn from our mistakes: not reckoning soon enough with a downturn in enthusiasm, and failing to understand that as a sign that we were not serving our role to champion independent politics as a socialist organization in a time of great crisis for capital."

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