There was some good energy in the first 17 minutes of the call; it’s undeniable. But a presidential campaign cannot be about DSA, even if they have 100,000 members across the country. The United States has 250 million voters.

They did acknowledge that the growth of their internal petition was big at the beginning and that it is stagnating.

Let’s see after this call how many new people sign onto it.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

In short, if you know a DSA member who is on the fence, get them to sign the petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/petition-dsa-for-aoc.

Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA)

Our Communist Comrade Justin Buell is pushing CPUSA to also Draft AOC with this old MoveOn petition: https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/draft-aoc-for-president-2024.

Paperboy Love Prince (SDA)

Paperboy Love Prince did a whole 40 minutes based on his experience of being a Perennial Candidate.

The difference between AOC and Paperboy is that DSA’s AOC heard the stories from third parties when she ran for Congress in 2018, whereas SDA’s Paperboy experienced those stories firsthand when he ran in 2020.

The story Paperboy comments on is the games the Liberal right wing of the Democratic Party will play to keep the left out.

The fight in Congress is not what matters; it’s the fight for the mind of the voter that matters, and we, the left as a whole, must go door to door and explain why we must get rid of those people.

Each group in the AOC coalition has different values, different arguments, different histories, and that is why it’s important that each group independently make the case to each voter for AOC.

Here is Hell Gate, a local New York City newszine, which has been chronicling the New Kings Democrats saga: https://hellgatenyc.com/brooklyn-democratic-party-vote-rodneyse-power-rule-change.

If we don’t work together and stop arguing, just like the New Kings Democrats president did when they had me present my candidacy, AOC will not have a remote chance.

Here are the New Kings Democrats, happy to get me with a gotcha question, but it is he who ended up crying on the front steps of the corrupt Democratic Establishment.

The same game happens all over the United States, like in Tennessee, where an outgoing Republican council voted to keep the majority from an incoming Democratic group.

We cannot play that game on the left. We must unite for that task, but we must also remain ourselves. The goal of working together is to get the leftist who has the best chance of moving the needle to the left.

This Trotskyist group wrote it: https://x.com/PamphletsY/status/2094870490053857442.

We can see on Twitter that multiple groups on the left are hoping for a United Front that brings together the extreme left, but they are having a problem with the history of each movement.

The only one who can bring the left together is AOC.

What we need right now is for everyone to stop trying to get AOC for themselves and hoping that their organization will grow more than the others.

Each of our organizations will grow because of AOC, but each of us will grow differently based on our ability to organize.

This is the real test.

Rep My Block will teach how the Democratic Party works, but it’s for each group to define its policy for the United States and get its people known so they can get elected to the DNC.

My dream is that we sing the Internationale at the DNC!

If you want to join us in dreaming that it’s possible, send an email to aoc2028@register.repmyblock.org and follow the prompts.

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

--

Theo Chino

First National Secretary of the Social Democrats of America

Committee of the Second Socialist International

https://socialists.us - (202) 455-0510

As stated before, the goal of AOC 2028 is to bring together all factions of the Left and let primary voters decide who should represent AOC’s candidacy at the DNC Convention.

Our goal at AOC 2028 is not to become a large organization. It is to recruit the right candidates for AOC across the country, representing the various factions of the Left, and let primary voters decide who should represent them at the Convention.

If this is the same group from 2008, I am concerned that we could see the same dynamic that occurred with Zohran, where DSA was able to dominate the Left simply because it has ten times more members than the other organizations on the Left.

You can find their Linktree here: https://linktr.ee/dsa4aoc.

Please check them out, and if you leave a comment, let them know you came from the AOC 2028 website.

Organize!

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

The 2028 Primary Calendar

The DNC released a preliminary calendar with South Carolina being the first primary, with about 130 delegates (2024 numbers) to be shared among the candidates.

We therefore need to find 130 AOC delegates among Democrats who represent the left.

You can follow the discussion by viewing the Bylaws Committee meeting that took place on July 24, 2026.

If you want to be considered for the Delegate Slate for 2028, please register by clicking on the corresponding state on the map at https://aoc2028.us.

The usual rant.

In the past 10 years, I have met thousands of left-wing activists who love to waste time doing nothing productive, and I point my finger at the Rise and Resist type of activists (Rise and Resist is the most corporate of the organizations, with a professionally built website).

But when I drop by the organization and ask the rank-and-file protesters, they don’t know how the Democratic or Republican Party works, they don’t run for the low-level positions needed to influence elections, and they repeat the lies and misconceptions peddled by third parties.

The same people who refuse to run for positions in the Democratic Party expect the liberals in the Democratic Party to elect someone from the left because the majority of Americans demand it.

That is not how it works, and I am frustrated with the childish attitude.

That is why the left in this country is incapable of organizing. Because they waste time organizing

This is how a correct protest is done. These are the Three Parks Democratic Club members going to the No Kings. But before protesting, they organize their district by running many leftists candidates to the Democratic Party County Committee.

The three park democratic club is not loud, their website sucks, but they are effective: https://www.threeparksdems.org that they manage to let their.

As you can see, I am hated by both ends of the spectrum, but that doesn’t mean I am wrong. It simply means that both sides need to open their eyes to the facts. But people do politics not for the greater good, but to fill a void in their own lives and, in doing so, manage to silence the causes they are supposed to champion.

The right knows how to capitalize on those personal human inadequacies for its own purposes, and there is nothing we can do.

As the maintainer of the AOC2028 website, I don’t give a shit who the candidate for president is, as long as, when they get elected, they push for the policies I believe in: Free Education, Universal Health Care, Anti-Death Penalty, Pro-Abortion, Universal Basic Income, the Right to Unionize, the sanctity of the Separation of Church and State, and the belief that the government should make life bearable for all and ensure citizens’ liberties.

I don’t want them to tell me that they believe in it, only for them, the moment they are elected, to come up with excuses for why they cannot do it.

I also understand that other groups don’t believe in those values, and I believe that it is their right to fight for what they believe in, but in a democratic space that is not rigged.

During the last eight years, I discovered where the real bottlenecks in the American political system are, and each time I worked on one, a vicious group of activists who despise me actually jumped into the race and, in trying to silence me, actually did the work.

The only piece I have not been able to organize is the County Committee.

https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2016/12/two-bronx-democrats-are-on-a-mission-to-make-the-county-party-more-inclusive/179785

So until each activist truly thinks about the greater good and not themselves as if they were the savior, nothing will change in this country. Simple as that.

What is needed?

For us on the left, we need local Democratic and Republican clubs that respect all the tendencies. Attention, there are the clubs and the County.

The reason we need two clubs, one of each, is that when a Democratic or Republican club is dysfunctional, people from one group will start going to the other, further making the problem worse.

Most state constitutions give the Democratic and Republican Parties responsibility for the organization and management of the voter rolls and the maintenance of the electoral process. Once this is understood, it is absolutely mind-boggling that people don’t realize that the parties are not ideological but are quasi-government entities meant to win elections, and the one in control of the party will skew the system to gain an advantage.

This is in New York, but those closed states together decide the majority of the delegates, and the rules they set up will dictate who the nominee is.

What can we do?

Create Democratic and Republican clubs that are as inclusive as possible to every faction out there.

This is what I am doing in my neighborhood.

And this is what a Libertarian is doing in his.

Organizing inside the Democratic Party doesn't take a lot of effort.

The eight tribes

This is a guest essay by Kristen Soltis Anderson, a contributing Opinion writer, Republican pollster, and moderator of Opinion's series of focus groups.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/opinion/voters-political-parties-coalitions.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zFA.gb85.8PI1_NjMBtnm&smid=nytcore-ios-share

In her essay, she refers to a company she founded called Echelon Insights, where she describes eight groups ranging from the Loyal Right to the Loyal Left.

Around the world, these groups have names associated with political movements, from Communists to Patriots, and it's time we use the same metric as the rest of the world.

As the leader of one of the tribes, AOC 2028 is a tool meant to bring together all the left-wing tribes as defined by the European model.

The liberal right will try to co-opt AOC to fundraise for her while promising her delegates who will vote for her.

The AOC movement aims to provide vetted delegates from all the left-wing parties under the European model.

I will close with this influencer, who has 1.4 million followers on Facebook. As the maintainer of the AOC 2028 website, I have done what she says, and my goal is to keep ranting until every county in the United States has Democrats vetted as leftists who have pledged to AOC: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1681155489789200.

Organize!

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

You can find the 2024 Delegate Selection Plan link under the “Drafting Docs” column on the Rep My Block website: https://www.repmyblock.org/aoc2028/draft/aoc.

If you watch it and want to discuss your analysis with others, please send me an email at draftaoc2028@join.socialists.us to be added to the Draft AOC listserve.

On a personal note, the reason I have been silent is that I have been focusing on my own congressional campaign in the district next to AOC’s, and I have not had the time to stay on top of AOC2028.

Volunteers to run the entire activist effort around AOC2028.us have been non-existent, and Team AOC has been busy making sure AOC does not speak to me.

This long personal story is to explain why the AOC team does not want to speak to me. According to them, I am toxic.

You be the judge.

The internal political game from within

The AOC and Bernie activists missed all the deadlines, so my enthusiasm for her in 2028 has gone down.

I am running for Congress as a Socialist, and the people who originally put AOC forward decided to back a newcomer in the district in hopes of unseating the current corrupt incumbent.

I bent backward trying to relinquish the AOC2028 group to a committee composed of leftists to organize it, but nobody answered.

In my neighborhood, the two local New York groups that endorsed AOC as one organization, Our Revolution and New York Progressive Action Network, have now endorsed opposing candidates.

In 2023, both organizations parted ways.

Our Revolution relied on NYPAN for its progressive activist network across New York State because NYPAN had connections with unions and elected officials.

Adriano Espaillat has worked closely with the leadership of NYPAN for a long time, so its endorsement naturally went to Adriano Espaillat. This is also very telling about the ideology of the organization and its values.

The same goes for Our Revolution, which followed in the footsteps of Justice Democrats by endorsing Darializa Chevalier.

I am the only candidate who has lived in the neighborhood for 40 years. I was born in France but came to the neighborhood where I still live today when I was 3 months old. I then returned to France at age 7 to take advantage of the free education system and came back when I was 16. At 17, I went to study International Relations in Mexico, then Computer Management in Alaska, and later worked in the San Francisco Bay Area until 2001, when I was 29 years old. I spent every summer vacation in New York and the Dominican Republic.

That makes me a New Yorker, though not a native in the traditional sense since I did not attend school here. Justice Democrats decided to endorse a Dominican transplant, which the local voting population does not particularly care about.

As a longtime activist, I know everyone, and as a longtime local Socialist activist, I have had my share of conflicts with liberal activists over policy disagreements.

I have nothing but respect for the work of my left-wing opponents, Darializa Chevalier and Oscar Romero, but in my 20 years of local activism, I have never seen them working behind the scenes on local issues.

It took two years for the Ethics Committee to produce its findings. DSA members will tell you that they filed the complaint that led to the Ethics Committee investigation.

What they will not tell you is that I was the one pestering members every month, such as my fellow Democratic Club member Gabriel Panek, asking him, “Has the Ethics Committee met yet?” His response was always: “I can’t tell you. It’s private.”

Manhattan Dems Espaillat Ethics Report

255KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

My work in the community

My work in the community is well known, whether it is confronting elected officials on behalf of constituents, exposing corruption, or fighting for local issues.

Removing a “Blue Lives Matter” flag from the A train station in Sugar Hill.

Speaking out about homeless services corruption involving the Armory on 168th Street.

Trying to rename Fifth Avenue between 56th and 57th Streets as Obama Avenue.

Fighting the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office over attempts to access encrypted cell phones by forcing manufacturers to provide encryption keys.

Opposing efforts to turn our community into a war zone during the Palestinian protests at Columbia University and City College of New York.

Helping create French dual-language schools that were later featured in the podcast Nice White Parents: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-parents-serial.html.

I know what it means to be a community leader and to produce results across a wide range of issues, even if many of those results remain unspoken.

AOC 2028 is supposed to bring the entire left together.

I am telling the story so you can refer people to this post if you hear rumors, such as on leftist podcasts: soundcloud.com/theochino/bro-this-bro-is-not-one-of-our-bros-bro.

More than that, I cannot do much more. If I get elected as the less sexy version of AOC, maybe she will finally start listening to me.

Yesterday -(AOC) met with New York City Democratic Socialists of America. A group and chapter of the larger DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) political group in America.

She was meeting them to talk about them endorsing her for reelection. Many factions of DSA have felt she “betrayed” them. Why? Because she voted against Marjorie Taylor Greene amendment last year that would cut Iron dome funding. But not offensive funding to continue the Genocide in Gaza.

AOC spoke out today to defend her record and made it more clear what her position is:

Some bad actors like Ana Kasparian, Briahna Joy Gray, and others are taking a victory lap for bullying her online thinking they got her to concede on the issue. Even though AOC’s record is clear.

Even some are saying what she said isn’t enough for them:

I have to beg the question, how do we build a movement with people you can’t even be “pure” enough for?

Why does AOC's belief that both the Genocide in Gaza is bad and the killings of innocent Israelis is also bad? Shouldn’t we all be defending all human life from war and murder? Yes, the Government of Israel is very bad but that doesn’t account for the millions of innocent Israelis. It is just like saying not all Palestinians are the Government of Hamas.

The Iron Dome should be funded by Israel, not by our tax dollars which AOC agrees with. Alexandria has never voted for one defense bill, not one supplemental military bill with an exception for Ukraine. Her record shows she’s on the side of the Palestinians.

Don’t get me wrong AOC can win without DSA, I also think without the endorsement it could help AOC out more. If they want someone with all ears, partnership with a member of Congress this isn’t how you treat them. Strategic disagreements are valid, make those known. But don’t dismiss her for not pleasing you 100% of the time.

All I ask from AOC is that she defends herself more and doesn't shrink herself to please others.

Anyways… #AOC2028

In five counties that I follow very closely, there is a process that I must explain to voters when I ask them to consider me—or members of my team—for a chance at governing.

In my county, the process is called petitioning.

As you can hear AOC’s lawyer, Sarah, explain it, I disagree with her wholeheartedly. Petitioning reveals everything about the character of a candidate and, ultimately, the kind of elected official that person will become.

I wrote my opinion—using some strong language—about why I disagree with her, and why this should be the ONLY way to get on the ballot.

As Anatole France once said: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

Petitioning, as it stands in New York, is that same majestic equality—it allows rich and poor alike to make the ballot. The problem is that poor people cannot afford to hire an election lawyer, so they must learn the process themselves.

I built an open-source system called Rep My Block so that anyone who wants to participate can—but they must follow the process.

Theo Chino

Petitioning has started, and this is what separate the con-artists to the real candidates.

Petitioning has started, and from February 24 to April 2, 2026, this is what shows the true nature of each individual, each candidate leader, each non-profit leader, and their followers…

Read more

6 months ago · Theo Chino

It is a cyclical event that comes only once in a while. It is short, painful, and physical.

The problem is that leaders like Bernie Sanders, Ralph Nader, or Cornel West have been absorbed by the system to the point that they do not teach people how it really works.

When I watch young people brag on TikTok, I do not get mad at them—I get mad at the person whose petition they are carrying. It is the responsibility of that leader to explain the process correctly.

This post is short because I am petitioning in my district and must gather 1,250 valid signatures by the deadline.

As of now, I am 22 signatures short of my daily target.

That is why I wrote: “Petitioning has started, and this is what separates the con artists from the real candidates.”

As AOC says herself, she is part of a movement—but she did not build that movement. I am the international leader of a Socialist movement, and I earned that leadership by knocking on doors in the 71st Assembly District.

The only time the votes were counted, I received three votes. Two of them were pity votes. So I know I am, in many ways, the lone leader of a Socialist movement inside the Democratic Party.

There are lots of grifters. If you are interested in seeing a more gentle and Socialist United States, the first step is here: https://aoc2028.us/localwork.

Yes! It will require working your way inside the Democratic Party—despite what Bernie, AOC, Zohran, and other naysayers may suggest.

For 2028, all the instructions for each state are written in the Delegate Selection Plan in the “Drafting Docs” column: https://www.repmyblock.org/aoc2028/draft/aoc.

In New York, the first step starts with petitioning, as I explained in my post about separating real leaders from con artists.

If you know anyone in New York City, have them email me at socialists@register.repmyblock.org and follow the prompt of the computer.

What you think, I do not care about. What you do, I care about deeply. There are no excuses for the state of the country. If we have Trump, it’s simply because you sat on your ass complaining.

Organize!

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

I am going to be very blunt.

It is up to you — the reader of this newsletter — to learn more about civics than you ever cared to, or thought you needed to, know. If you don’t, this is a waste of time.

We are racing against the clock. Learning this takes time, and we on the left do not have much of it anymore.

If you are serious about seeing AOC in 2028, you need to get three people together and register in the Democratic Party. Not a thousand. Not ten thousand. Just three — in person, per community. Not on Facebook. Not across the country. In your local town or county!

For that purpose, SDA has set up an automated starting point here: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/876751. Along with this paper written by Skye Barkschat: https://www.socialists.us/docs/congress/us2025/contributions/indiv/Indiv-1-20250702-AOC2028.pdf.

Since none of the other left groups seem interested, SDA will serve as the entry point for the left. The goal is NOT to turn Liberals, Communists, Greens, Trotskyists, or DSA members into Social Democrats. The goal is to organize for AOC 2028.

The two requirements are simple:

1. Be registered in the Democratic Party.

2. Want to see AOC make a very strong run in 2028.

As the leader of SDA, I will ensure that we do not push the SDA agenda into your inbox. The only emails you will receive at AOC2028@group.socialists.us will concern organizing around AOC and building as many local calendars as possible for every county in the United States: https://aoc2028.us/localwork.

Find three people in your county and have them sign up at: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/876751.

We are 280 readers of this newsletter, but only 10 people have joined the AOC group created by SDA.

No time for ego!

Those who forced me out of DSA are now waking up to what is at stake, but they still lack the strategic clarity required for this moment.

The chat below is from the DSA group representing the Bronx district in New York’s 14th.

I know them personally. They are more concerned with their egos — and what would happen to their standing as leaders if more people joined — than with what AOC actually represents.

This is what Jazz had to say about me — an entire podcast episode on “Pod Damn America.”

And this is what Maria Ordonez sent to all the DSA members of that chapter in 2020:
https://theochino.medium.com/email-from-maria-ordonez-or-what-is-up-with-dsa-in-uptown-manhattan-c8796f3a22f3.

It is up to you to understand what is happening at ground zero here in the district — to ignore the noise when it inevitably surfaces — and to organize three people inside the Democratic Party.

I am putting this on the table now because there is a well-tested method used to preserve internal power: isolate individuals through rumors, insinuations, or half-truths. I know this pattern because I have seen it repeated — even as far as the West Coast — to discourage people from associating with me.

If you hear anything, do not hesitate to email me directly. I have nothing to hide. I will answer every question with honesty and clarity. I am old enough to own my past mistakes — and I have.

But none of that changes the task in front of us.

You have to do the work, recruit in your neighborhood, and report here: https://aoc2028.us/report.

Theo

All this work will take you 68 hours per year, and I promise that you will discover that some other activities—like writing postcards to remote voters ten states away—will give you back several hundred hours for a better and more rewarding outcome, because the changes will be local.

The goal of this newsletter is to help you believe that this strategy works. The Democratic Socialists of America learned the hard way that Zohran’s Assembly seat will eventually be reclaimed by the liberal county leaders of his district.

AOC herself does not believe in a strategy of taking over the Democratic Party. However, the people who helped get her elected—her 2018 campaign manager and many of the early volunteers who knocked on doors—do believe in the County Committee strategy. We believe she was elected because of it.

You can argue day and night online, but if you are not in the room, you are wasting your time doing activism.

If the activists from Rise and Resist who protested on the Brooklyn Bridge all decided to run for County Committee—and each brought just two friends into the Democratic Party—Donald Trump would not be in power today.

How do I know this? I presented this project to them directly. What I also discovered was that there were toxic forces actively telling them not to listen to me.

This presentation was attended by many Rise and Resist members, who later gave me lengthy explanations about why the strategy conflicted with their belief system.

This photo is of Senator Robert Jackson and me in 2017. He has consistently refused to identify publicly as a Socialist, even though I have introduced him to countless Socialists since 2004—starting with a trip we took together to Paris to meet the then–Socialist Mayor, Bertrand Delanoë.

I am personally frustrated with him because he never invited me to run for County Committee in 2008.

However, years of maintaining a respectful relationship paid off. After a 30-minute debate, he was the one who introduced the resolution for the Manhattan Democratic Party to endorse Zohran as the Democratic nominee.

Did he do this because Zohran is Muslim? Because he supports Socialists? Only he knows. What matters is the result.

Bringing Socialism inside the Democratic Party

This was a preview of the 2024 ballot-access presentation by AOC’s campaign. That day, I was surprised to discover that her lawyer was a liberal who openly dislikes Socialists. This also explained why AOC has remained silent about a left-wing takeover of the Democratic Party.

On our left is Thomas Muccioli, the lead activist director, who reflects DSA’s anti-Democratic-Party rhetoric. On the right is AOC election’s lawyer Sarah Steiner. Both are sending subtle messages that discourage engagement with the Democratic Party, each for different reasons.

Until AOC herself fully understands this dynamic, we are on our own.

We must prepare the terrain and ensure that liberals do not swoop in at the last minute to steal our momentum. That is why this newsletter is dense.

Listening to Sarah present it, one might think that the current ballot-access system is a problem. It is not.

It is how I got elected by my neighbors. The only response available to stop people like us will be to change ballot-access rules to prevent future successes.

Being a Socialist in a Democratic club is not impossible.

I use the negative form—not impossible—because it is not easy. Liberals will do everything they can to block participation.

Success does not mean winning 100% of the Democrats in 40% of the counties. It means winning 40% of the delegates in 100% of the counties.

We must be everywhere. We must attend every monthly Democratic Party meeting and archive reports of those meetings on the AOC2028 website at https://aoc2028.us/report.

Whether AOC surpasses Bernie Sanders depends on how many people we collectively recruit into our local county and township Democratic clubs.

Saying “Socialist” and “Democrat” at a Democratic Party meeting is possible.

This series of videos are the various attemps from 2017 to 2025 at the Manhattan Democratic Party to give a proper name to our proposals. Hearing Zohran follow in my footsteps was deeply satisfying.

I know what it takes to succeed. If we work together across the country—examining donation records on the FEC website—we can build teams capable of repeating what was accomplished in Manhattan. In 2025 I was able to state it loudly and proudly: “I am a Democrat, I am a Socialist.”

Zohran said it loud in his introduction “I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist”, Katie was lukewarm when she used “mass social movement fighting for dignity and equality”.

My inspiration was my predecessor Michael Harrington, the then chairman of SPUSA, SD,USA, the founder of DSOC, and then DSA.

Michael Harrington was right then, and everything I have done behind the scenes paid off. But like Michael Harrington, we were stabbed left and right.

The difference is that there are time-stamped recordings of each event, so others can follow in his footsteps across the United States. I hope Mike is proud of the work we accomplished in carrying on his legacy.

The Republican Party, together with the Heritage Foundation, proved Michael wrong, and it is time for all of us to figure out how to bring all our manifestos into the Democratic Party—how to bring the Communist Party USA, Green Party, Democratic Socialist of America, Social Democrats of America, and others lefists manifestos—and leave it to Democratic primary voters to make that decision.

Presentations in the Democratic Party

Here is my five-minute presentation from 2025.

Here is my two-minute presentation from 2023.

And here is my absence from the podium in 2017.

In 2019, my presentation became an improvised Spanish introduction after the meeting collapsed due to sexual-misconduct accusations between candidates.

It was the first time I properly introduced myself to the Democratic body.

In 2022, I withdrew because it was clear there would be no honest vote count.

Still, in 2022, I introduced myself to New York City Democratic leaders as the leader of the Socialist faction, including Queens Democratic Chair and Congressman Gregory Meeks.

All it took was showing up and shaking hands. There was hostility. I stood my ground—and you can do the same. It’s more bark than bite.

By 2025, suddenly everyone was a Socialist.

Liberals cannot be trusted. They repeatedly take credit for work they never did. The photo speaks for itself.

With two exceptions, none of them ever attended an SDA or AOC meeting. I remember them crying when AOC defeated Crowley in 2018.

https://qns.com/2021/06/council-candidate-releases-explosive-medium-post-days-before-election-day

That is why we must identify every Anarchist, Communist, Socialist, Revolutionary Communist, and Green—and bring them into the Democratic Party.

Convincing voters starts at the bottom, including AOC herself. She must clearly signal that she wants change.

Taking over the Democratic Party does not mean she is running tomorrow. It means starting local, collecting signatures, and organizing—explained at https://aoc2028.us/localwork.

The process is explained in this PBS documentary and must be taught to others: https://www.pbs.org/video/county-kigzrj.

At the end of the day, we need to convince Democratic voters, not the liberal leaders who hate us.

One isolated victory changes nothing

Winning 40% of county delegates nationwide changes everything.

We cannot wait until 2027. Consultants will already have locked in control. In short, we are giving them our money for them to screw us.

This costs roughly $50,000 and 9,000 volunteers—not donations to consultants, but filing fees paid to county clerks, just like Zohran did in New York.

It is cheaper to knock on doors ourselves, but you have to knock on doors now, in 2026. If you are a person who believes AOC should be the next president, you need to figure out the date to organize a recruiting event in your town.

Time Square on February 22nd, 2026

On February 22, 2026, I am organizing a recruitment and petition-training event in Times Square: https://www.mobilize.us/aoc2028. If you know anyone in New York, send them over.

The date was chosen strategically: the Sunday before petitioning opens in New York State.

Every state is different, and you must find the date on your local Board of Elections website.

Depending on where you live, the date is different. For Illinois, it would be November 16, 2027, because we missed the October 27, 2025 window.

Getting to the point of convincing Democratic Party voters means that we need to start from the bottom.

We need to be willing to say to the leaders of the party that we are coming for them.

The problem in the United States is that nobody on the left wants to start at the bottom, and we will have to do so.

It took me ten years to get a foot in the door, and in February 2027, I will work to get a seat at the table by having 100 leftists elected with me to my local County Committee.

The experiment was conclusive: the media did not report on my attempts to run for chair, and the Democratic Party did not allow me to present my Socialist platform.

The right to make a public speech in the room became the goal, and what I needed to do was convince Socialists to join me.

Winning the Democratic primary from outside requires about $750,000,000 and about 5,000,000 volunteers. The reason is that we are paying consultants for the delegates they manage to get elected across the country.

These delegates are not bound to ideology but to the money they receive for the job they perform.

Consultants know that if they want to get paid, they need AOC to run from the outside so they can get a chunk of that half-billion-dollar pie. Those consultants are, in fact, the leaders of the 9,000 volunteers the liberals have put in place.

It is essentially the biggest scam since snake oil was invented, and as the leader of the Socialist Faction inside the Democratic Party, I am revealing their secret.

The European Model

The AOC 2028 website is set up to model United States politics after the European model, without any hacks such as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, early voting, open primaries, fusion, ranked-choice voting, etc., etc., etc.

That means determining what the values are on the left and on the right in each county, and whether these people are willing to secretly put a ballot that reflects their values in the box.

Based on those results, we know where we stand. In 2023, I got three votes. One was a pity vote, and the rest were SDA members. That year, I did not vote because I was eliminated from the ballot by the Board of Elections.

The same happened in 2025, but this time I had two SDA members and five sympathizers, which allowed me—unlike in 2017—to have the floor for four minutes.

Those four minutes were enough to say my piece.

I did not become the leader of the Socialist Faction inside the Democratic Party overnight; I became that because nobody inside the Democratic Party used the floor, and nobody called themselves Socialists.

The reasons for not starting at the bottom are many: I am too young, I am too old, I don’t have time, I have too much time, the Democrats are assholes, I will vote for Trump, etc., etc.

Manhattan Democratic leaders debated Zohran’s endorsement.

Leaders questioning Zohran.

I hope that in this newsletter I have given you enough incentive to mobilize for AOC, and that if you are a local Communist, Green, Revolutionary Communist, Democratic Socialist of America, or Anarchist leader,you will join me in bringing your partisans into the Left Caucus of the Democratic Party and help me push the Liberals faction into the Republican Party.

At the county level, it is pure individualism, and there is nothing stopping us—except AOC refusing to sign the paperwork in September 2027.

JOIN US IN CHANGING THE UNITED STATES.

That is why I have asked many of my leftist European elected friends to agree to stay up late at night in Europe to share their experience with us, so we can build a stronger AOC2028 coalition.

On Sunday, December 14, 2025, a Green Deputy Mayor in charge of Early Childhood, Family, and Health for his town will be available for 60 minutes to answer any questions you may have. His experience can help inspire you to organize in your own community: https://www.mobilize.us/greens/event/839981.

For those who only want to watch, the event will also be streamed on YouTube:

Ralph Nader wrote in an open letter to Zohran: “The social democratic countries in Europe and other countries, including Canada, have long had much broader social safety nets that go far beyond what you have proposed.”

From a European perspective, Ralph Nader is simply stating the obvious. As he notes, there is nothing radical about the platform Zohran was elected on.

https://nader.org/2025/12/05/open-letter-to-zohran-mamdani-political-moderate

“Nothing radical” does not mean that it is a liberal platform. And we can already see that liberals—speaking through City Councilwoman Julie Menin—will do everything in their power to derail a leftist agenda.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/nyregion/julie-menin-nyc-city-council.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8U8.3ARs.0wcJiOx_oyJM

I sent the media an email comparing the United States Congress using the European political classification model, and the European Parliament using the American political classification model.graph shows Europe broken up into independent parties, and the United States broken up into independent caucuses within the Democratic and Republican parties.

This graph shows Democrats and Republicans—or the “left” and the “right”—as defined by the American model.

This graph show both the Europe broken up in independents parties and the United States in their independent Caucuses inside the Republican and Democratic parties.

A third graph shows the LEFT and the RIGHT using the European definition of left and right.

Everything about these graphs is explained in this Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/user/TheoFromSDA/comments/1plfwos/to_the_press.

In Europe, leftist parties are accustomed to collaborating. The AOC2028 movement is an attempt to do the same in the United States, using the European model as inspiration.

Please make sure to tell your leftists friends to email aoc2028@register.repmyblock.org.

The AOC2028 movement is about more than just AOC for President. It is about transforming the United States by convincing voters—one by one—that the American LEFT, without liberals, is right.

This will require a small amount of local work—about 40 hours a year at most: https://aoc2028.us/localwork.

In Solidarity,
Theo Chino

aoc2028@register.repmyblock.org

The New York Post published an article some time ago claiming that AOC is raising money for a Senate run. But that’s a setup — because if she runs for Senate, she can lose.

New York State’s electoral rules are strange. AOC can run for POTUS and Congress simultaneously in 2028, but she cannot run for the House and Senate at the same time.

With Paperboy Love Prince, we’ve tested almost every combination just to see what the system allows, and every time we do, lawmakers in the State Assembly change the rules again.

As Anatole France wrote: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal bread.”

Electoral law works the same way: whenever they try to block us, they end up blocking themselves, because they must apply the same rules to everyone.

And we have activists like Mike Hano making sure they stay honest.

Regarding AOC: if she runs for Senate and loses, we lose one of the most important Socialist voices in the United States. The same is true if she runs for Governor.
The only safe position for her is President.

We already have Bernie in the Senate; AOC wouldn’t add anything new there. To make a real impact, we need at least 30% Socialists in each chamber, but before we get there, we need a Socialist candidate running in every congressional district in the country.

We need to explain this logic to everyone. Tell people to email aoc2028@register.repmyblock.org (and to check their spam), and to request their sticker at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfvuOatZeM699zM6zXqZO-6c9nuOQrPPByeERueOS7F_nplWg/viewform

If you think I’m wrong — as every New York State election lawyer will insist — then consider the biggest “I told you so” moment coming at DSA: when Zohran leaves his Assembly seat, it will be the chair of the Queens Democratic Party who replaces him.

The first step is to make yourself known by sending an email to aoc2028@register.repmbylock.org every morning at 9 a.m. Eastern, and clicking the button as explained on the AOC 2028 page: https://aoc2028.us/instructions.

Make sure to tell all your friends to send an email to aoc2028@register.repmyblock.org.

In Solidarity,
Theo Chino

I will not discuss Zohran’s victory here, as it has already been widely covered. Instead, I want to highlight a smaller victory that no one will mention elsewhere.

A Communist Victory

Ithaca has just elected its first Communist Councilwoman, Hannah Shvets. She won with 243 votes (64%) against 134 (34%), showing the importance of running seriously in every race.

https://peoplesworld.org/article/communist-councilwoman-from-ithaca-hannah-shvets-defeats-landlord-candidate

She will most likely be in opposition and will have to fight to have her ideas heard — but it can be done. I remember in 2005, when I served on my Community Board, as a Socialist, I had to fight twice as hard to get ideas accepted. It’s possible to achieve progress without selling out.

The Daily Email

RThe Draft AOC 2028 campaign is about recruiting 9,000 leaders across the United States. The Rep My Block tool helps these leaders organize a winning United Left Front for 2028.

Draft AOC 2028’s goal is to identify local leaders who will lead small teams to victory by responding to daily emails about where to meet once a month in each county — from now until November 2027.

Being part of Draft AOC 2028 doesn’t require much, just the willingness to work together toward a shared goal.

How It Works

I’ve started sending a personalized daily email where each recipient clicks one of four buttons to indicate where the message landed: “Spam,” “Inbox,” “Security Warning,” or “Other.”

We also ask each participant to write a short, original message that will be randomly shared with others on the list. It’s a personal way to mobilize many volunteers and create a hierarchical network of organizers capable of going head-to-head against corporate money.

The process may seem convoluted, but it’s the only way to communicate for $5 a month.

I’ve built a system proving that winning elections doesn’t require money — only real social networking, face-to-face conversations, and knocking on neighbors’ doors. It’s not about Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok; it’s about building genuine human connections.

Every leftist group — DSA, CPUSA, Greens, Socialists, and Anarchists — organizes locally in its own way. Each day at 9 a.m. Eastern Time (and eventually at 9 a.m. in each local time zone), you’ll receive an email asking where it landed.

From time to time, there will also be specific instructions for actions to take in your county or municipality.

In solidarity,
Theo

In about 15 days, I will begin sharing regular statistics on how our Draft AOC email tracking is progressing.

Earlier this week—on Tuesday—I sent 299 unique emails with the subject line:
[AOC 2028] Help Us Build Our Email Reputation and Share Your Voice.

Before diving into the details of that campaign, I encourage you to watch this short video by Lady Izdihar on the United Front.

The United Front

In just three minutes, Lady Izdihar captures the essence of what the Draft AOC Project is all about — a modern form of the United Front. The only thing missing is a mention of the Socialists, the Greens, and how this movement relates to the Democratic Party.

Strengthening Our Communication

As I explained in my recent post — https://aoc2028.substack.com/i/177033901/bring-the-email-reputation-of-aoc-from-low-to-high— we need to interact daily with our messages to strengthen our reputation and keep our communications affordable.

From Tuesday’s campaign:

• 299 emails were sent

• 5 people clicked through correctly

• 2 emails landed in spam

• 3 reached the main inbox

• 1 person started the process but didn’t complete it

Email delivery can be unreliable when we don’t pay for commercial distribution — that’s why engagement is everything. To build trust and authenticity, I also created a verification page: https://draftaoc.us/authentic.

Each email includes a unique code. If you enter that code and the message appears on the authenticity page, you can be sure it’s real.

Daily Action for Two Years

For the next two years, we’ll need to click the appropriate button in each email, then the big red button, which leads to a story page.

You’re invited to write a short post there if you wish — that human touch helps us outsmart the AI-driven spam filters.

The first three emails in the sequence explain how this process works in detail. Every single click helps strengthen the communication backbone of a true grassroots United Front movement — one that can help shape the next presidential election.

My Personal Draft Newsletter

You can read more about the other projects I’m working on in my Socialist Substack newsletter: https://socialists.substack.com/p/my-draft-sda-october-newsletter.

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

The Communist Party USA represents the longest-standing leftist organization in the country since the split that occurred when Lenin divided the Socialist Party in 1919. CPUSA has been around for 105 years. The story of these divergences began at the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart in 1907 between the Communists and the Socialists, and it is well documented.

There is no right or wrong in terms of ideology—we must accept that each belief system evolves according to its principles and membership.

As the leader of a Socialist organization, the Social Democrats of America, I must defend our value system—against, but alongside—the Communists, the Greens, the Anarchists, and the Liberals.

Even though we agree on about 80% of things, the remaining 20% differences must be acknowledged for the entire left to grow stronger.

That is how the left functions all over the world.

In the United States, we are fortunate to have two major coalitions: the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. If we want to achieve change that reflects the shared beliefs of the Communists, Greens, Anarchists, and Socialists, we must work together.

That is what AOC represents.

Snubbed by the Democratic Socialists of America

As usual, many leaders of the American left act for themselves. They behave warmly with the Liberals—when they should behave that way with the left—and coldly toward other leftists.

As the leader of the Socialist faction within the Democratic Party, I signed up to canvas in my neighborhood. Instead, they assigned me to three random buildings far from my home.

At the end of the canvassing session, the leaders of Upper Manhattan DSA told me they didn’t care about the Communists, the Greens, or the SDA because they had ten times more members than all of us combined.

Then, they proceeded to remove me from the WhatsApp group.

What that leader failed to understand is the distinction between a Social Democratic, Communist, Green voter and their respective memberships. We know that Social Democrats make up the majority of leftist voters—from the left wing of Warren supporters to the right wing of Bernie supporters.

Social Democratic voters tend to mind their own business, enjoy life, and elect Social Democrats to make life bearable for all—while safeguarding individual liberties.

You can find Social Democrats everywhere except in Social Democratic organizations.

I was snubbed, so I will sit this one out and organize something else. The reason I share this story is not to seek sympathy, but to share my experience—because I’m hearing similar reports from all over the United States.

Our goal at Social Democrats of America, and now Global Greens, USA, is to train activists to become viable candidates for office. It doesn’t happen overnight—it requires taking baby steps.

The International Observer Mission Led by COPPPAL

Since being excluded by DSA canvassers in August simply for being who I am, I took the opportunity to reach out to my international comrades to observe two things: how a New York City election is organized, and how the left behaves among itself.

This week, a small international group led by COPPPAL will be observing the New York City elections, and both SDA and Rep My Block are part of the organizing committee.

The COPPPAL—the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean—brings together the region’s major political forces, from the Communist Party of Cuba to Acción Democrática of Venezuela, a leading party within the Unitary Platform, whose leader, María Corina Machado, recently received the Nobel Prize. COPPPAL represents the spectrum of leftist and progressive parties currently governing throughout Latin America.

In 2023, during the COPPPAL plenary in Mexico, I explained the state of the left in the United States.

If COPPPAL behaved like the U.S. left, COPPPAL would not exist. How is it that our leftist neighbors south of the Texas border are able to work together despite their differences, while north of the border we cannot?

Tensions still occur, like in Mexico when COPPPAL president Alito Morena was denied the floor by the ruling party Morena to discuss Donald Trump’s threats to invade Mexico to eliminate the cartels.

The same happens here when AOC and Jasmine Crockett clash with Marjorie Taylor Greene in the House.

What is next?

Draft AOC aims to organize the Democratic Party for all factions of the left—including DSA—to come together, just like COPPPAL does, and develop a unified strategy for electing a leftist president.

At this time, DSA is not interested in leading such discussions, despite my many attempts. They believe they alone can represent the left. I saw the same behavior in the Green Party in 2005 after Ralph Nader’s presidential run, when many Green activists later migrated to DSA in 2015.

When the same toxic people move from the Green Party to DSA, it’s no surprise that DSA has become equally toxic.

This time, AOC, Bernie, and Zohran have managed to distance themselves from those toxic elements—but are instead guided by Liberals who dislike Socialists.

The Liberals are upset and know how to organize, but in the end, the “No King” protest will fade away, leaving only a sign in a muddle where homeless people relieve themselves.

What we need is to find those 9,000 leftist volunteers, and to do that, we must rebuild every leftist movement and ensure each Draft AOC activist joins the organization that best represents their beliefs:

• Anarchists: Pirate Party at https://uspirates.org,

• Communists: Communist Party USA at https://cpusa.org or American Communist Party at https://acp.us,

• Greens: Green Party USA at https://gp.org — for those who wish to work within the Democratic Party framework, visit Global Greens USA at https://globalgreens.us,

• Mélenchonists: Democratic Socialists of America at https://dsausa.org,

• Fourth International Revolutionary Socialists, the Tempest Collective at htps://tempestmag.org, and

• Socialists: Social Democrats of America at https://socialists.us or Social Democrats USA at https://socialistcurrents.org.

It doesn’t matter which organization you join, as long as it reflects the values you truly believe in.

Many of these groups differ in their views about the Democratic Party. However, Draft AOC exists specifically to prepare the Democratic Party for a future leftist president. If you find it impossible to work within the Democratic Party, then this initiative may not be the right fit for you.

It’s your job to convince those groups that the best course of action for 2026 is to participate fully in the Democratic Party, as documented in the Local Work directory on the AOC 2028 website: https://aoc2028.us/localwork.

DRAFT AOC is about training Leaders, not minions!

Leadership isn’t easy. Working inside the Democratic Party can mean dealing with groups that despise you—but that’s part of the work. Don’t let interpersonal drama distract you. I’m here for moral support.

Draft AOC is about helping you become a leader in your county. Leadership isn’t easy. Working inside the Democratic Party can mean dealing with groups that despise you—but that’s part of the work. Don’t let interpersonal drama distract you. I’m here for moral support.
What matters most for Draft AOC is the calendar listed at https://aoc2028.us/localwork.

Bring the Email Reputation of AOC from Low to High

We don’t have the funds for a mass email service, so I’ve built an email system using several $45 Raspberry Pi computers that continuously send messages to various domains.

The only issue is that spam filters are blocking many AOC2028 messages. We need to raise our domain reputation before next year.

As of September 3rd, the reputation of AOC2028.US and DRAFTAOC.US is low.

Every day, with your permission, I will send a message (you don’t need to read it). Each one will include content—and if you want to contribute content, I’ll send you a link to upload it. All I ask is that you click a button indicating whether the email landed in your main inbox or spam folder.

Each subject line will include [DRAFT AOC 2028], and messages will come from either theo@aoc2028.us or theo@draftaoc.us.

The button in the message will take you to the Draft AOC website, where you can update the system about where the email landed.

Over time, this will raise our reputation, allowing us to reach everyone cheaply—which is the ultimate goal.

In solidarity,
Theo

I don’t write often, because when there’s nothing meaningful to say, why try to invent something to say?

The goal of Draft AOC is to teach people how to get involved in the Democratic Party — to make sure that what happened to Bernie doesn’t happen to AOC.

Everyone is so focused on Trump that they spend all their energy organizing protests. By the time it’s time to organize inside the Democratic Party, everyone is exhausted, and the liberals just need to push a little to make us forget the important dates.

For example, in my county, the key date is February 14. Our job in New York is to make sure all our friends are registered Democrats so they can vote in the Primary.

You need to find the important date for your own county.

Outside of that, I mainly send emails, read news articles, and make sure there’s no ICE activity on my street. When Trump shows up in my neighborhood, I make sure we boycott the store he visited and contact my network in the Socialist International and Global Greens to encourage their families in New York to start putting up signs for Zohran Mamdani.

That’s the extent of my active effort.

We live in a democracy, and protesting is the last step — one that comes only after democracy has failed. The U.S. democratic system hasn’t completely failed yet, except that we, the left, are largely ignorant about how it works and how to leverage it to our advantage.

Every Democratic and Republican county party has its own bylaws. As strange as they may seem, they explain how leadership is chosen and how candidates get endorsed by the party.

All we need to do is walk into the room, ask how many people there support AOC for 2028, and then come back with more supporters than those who oppose her.

The fight needs to happen in these rooms all across the United States — but don’t expect those who don’t support AOC to make your life easy. They won’t!

But if they don’t let you, then bring the bullhorn.

You’ll know you’ve won when their change the rules because of your actions.

I keep my bullhorn stashed away just in case I ever need to protest — but so far, that hasn’t been necessary.

Every year, I set up my table, distribute information about SDA, and shout loud and clear that I want AOC as my nominee for President in 2028.

The real fight takes place in Democratic Party meetings like these — not in the streets.

We can take the Party back, but that requires actually learning how it works — and that’s what AOC 2028 is all about.

If you’re not sure what to do with your free time, I strongly suggest reading the book by Giuliano da Empoli, and afterward, search online for: “How to be active in my County Democratic Party.”

The work that needs to be done is to read and document the bylaws of every Democratic County across the United States, starting with your own.

I’m here to show you how easy it can be — but if you don’t let me know you exist, I can’t help you.

These tech billionaires won’t allow me to email you directly without triggering anti-spam or anti-phishing warnings.

That’s why it’s up to you to reach out by sending an email to theo@draftaoc.us.

However, if you email me, I’ll first ask you to send an empty email to draftaoc@register.repmyblock.org, check your spam folder, and follow the prompts.

After that, search online for “How to join my Democratic County Party,” download your county’s bylaws, and contact your local Democratic County Leader to ask whether they support AOC for 2028.

If you’ve done all that, then we can begin building AOC 2028 in your county.

In solidarity,
Theo

Each week, we plan to hold a one-hour conversation with an elected Green representative from abroad, who will share both their experiences in office and their frustrations with their American counterparts in the Democratic Party.

The purpose is to inspire American Greens to develop a clear policy path, so that they can win elections within the Democratic Party and take on governance roles across the political spectrum.

The website for Global Greens USA is https://globalgreens.us. If you would like to organize around the Green New Deal in your community, please send an email to info@globalgreens.us.

Draft AOC is a coalition of Leftist groups across the United States, and everyone is welcome to join.

In Solidarity,
Theo Chino

There is a psychological groupthink effect at play, and understanding the local Democratic Party structure is essential.

For example, in New York State, we must take control of the County Committee, District Leadership, and State Committee positions.

Since DSA believes it represents the entire Left and knows what’s happening, I am inviting the Draft AOC crew to join our monthly SDA Zoom, held on the first Wednesday of each month at 9 PM: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488.

In solidarity,

Theo Chino
Social Democrats of America

For the past six years, I have tried to discuss this eventuality: the most important step for the 2028 convention—vetting 9,000 Leftists to be delegates at the DNC.

The call to action is simple: email two members of Team AOC and ask them to organize a sit-down with every leader of a Leftist organization in the United States so we can plan how to vet those 9,000 activists. Scroll down for their contact information.

Frankly, I am done begging for a meeting and being disrespected. I have tried every way possible to get the word out.

When AOC—or another Leftist—announces, the Liberals will infiltrate our organizations. This is the literal definition of “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” and it is exactly what happened with Bernie—not once, but twice.

If AOC’s staff are unaware of how our political system actually works, they need to be called out and educated. They can start by reading: https://www.usa.gov/election. https://www.usa.gov/election.

We cannot wake up at the last minute and expect states to run fair processes without being manipulated by union money. The unions do not represent the whole of society, only the narrow interests of their members.

We—the Leftist activists from civil society—must reclaim our government from corporate America so it can truly become a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

You need to email these two:

You need to email these two:

• Thomas Muccioli — thomas@ocasiocortez.com

• Fiorella Bini — fiorella@ocasiocortez.com

Urge them to meet with all the leaders of the Leftist movement in the United States:

• Andrea Serrano and Jacob Feinspan — Working Families Party

• Megan Romer and Ashik Siddique — Democratic Socialists of America

• Conor Boylan and Alan Minsky — Progressive Democrats of America

• Claudia Miller and Nicholas Partyka — Socialist Party USA

• Craig Cayetano and Darryl! Moch — Green Party USA

• Representative Greg Casar — Congressional Progressive Caucus

• Haz Al-Din — American Communist Party

• Jolly Mitch — United States Pirate Party

• Larry Cohen and Joseph Geevarghese — Our Revolution

• Patty Friend — Social Democrats USA

• Rossana Cambraon and Joe Sims — Communist Party USA

• Sam Dryzmala — Progressive Victory

• Sara Blazevic and Varshini Prakash — Sunrise Movement

• Chair of the Central Committee — Party for Socialism and Liberation

• And myself, Theo Chino — Social Democrats of America

If I missed anyone, please contact me at theo@draftaoc.us.

The goal is to get everyone working together to vet 9,000 Leftist Democrats by telling people to fill out the Draft AOC survey at:

• https://draftaoc.us

• https://repmyblock.org/leftpotus/draft/aoc/survey.

Vetting Socialists, Communists, Mélenchonists, Greens, and Anarchists will take about two years of organizing, ensuring they participate in Leftist organization activities.

For Socialists, we have created a simple test based on seven points—without any “yes, but”—to ensure shared values:

• Free education

• Universal healthcare

• Opposition to the death penalty

• Support for abortion rights

• Universal basic income

• Right to unionize

• Separation of church and state

• And we affirm that the government’s fundamental role is to make life bearable for all while safeguarding individual liberties.

We recognize that some other Leftist ideologies include positions incompatible with ours, such as “Abolish the Police.” We believe a police force is necessary to safeguard individual liberties. But this is not the main focus.

The goal of Draft AOC is to bring together the entire Left for one purpose: train and prepare them to become Democratic Convention Delegates in their states—whether through caucuses (like Iowa)

or by petition and primary (like New York).

The problem is that Team AOC’s staff have been dismissive ever since NY1 manipulated my words on stage to make me sound homophobic.

It’s time for Leftist activists to act professionally, not copy the worst behaviors of liberalism—otherwise, this is the result.

I am frustrated with Zohran because I have told him three times:

• December 19, 2023 — fundraiser for Derek Marshall with Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush

• March 2, 2025 — St. Pat’s For All Parade in Queens

• An event in Harlem with my State Senator, Democratic District Leader Cordell Cleare

I’ve tried everything

I’ve tried everything—from the serious to the ridiculous—such as nominating John Oliver for Judicial Delegate or County Committee.

You can read my note on John Oliver here:

https://theochino.medium.com/is-john-oliver-an-hypocrite-by-commodifying-our-anger-1ab5cf17368f

The last time I saw Zohran was at the Manhattan Leadership Party. As he instructed, I emailed his campaign staff—and I am still waiting for a reply.

This “video in the street” approach cannot be the way activists engage their candidate. But frankly, there doesn’t seem to be another way.

For my part, I will continue—just as I have for the past 20 years—to recruit and train candidates who share Socialist International values, and to vet as many activists as my time allows.

You can join us on the first Wenesday of each month at https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488.

Please email Team AOC and let them know I have posted their emails on this website.

Don’t ask me about Gaza—it’s exactly the same dynamic.If you haven’t already, go watch Fahim Hamid’s PBS documentary: https://pbs.org/show/county.

God saves us all.

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

We are professionals, and we are fully committed to ensuring that our candidate is not railroaded like Bernie was in 2016 and 2020. Our team of modern Socialists is focused on identifying and managing activist toxicity levels—we will not waste time on toxic shenanigans.

Our goal is clear: we aim to compile a list of approximately 9,390 Democrats of Socialist persuasion who are willing to dedicate a few hours each month to learn the procedures necessary to become a delegate to the 2028 Democratic National Convention.

You can review the official delegate selection rules here: https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2024-Delegate-Selection-Rules.pdf

We need to recruit 9,000 delegates across the United States who can stand confidently in a room full of liberals and declare:“I AM A SOCIALIST.”

And this is what it looks like when it’s not just AOC saying it.

The reason we need 9,000 delegates who can confidently proclaim “I AM A SOCIALIST” is simple: these individuals must be able to withstand the inevitable finger-pointing by liberals exhibiting toxic behavior. They must have the resilience to endure the criticism without fear—whether it comes at work, at church, or at home.

As someone who holds multiple passports—including an American one—and who has never feared being picked up by ICE, I can speak from five years of personal experience: nothing happens. The liberals and moderates are all bark and no bite.

It’s understandable, however, that this fear is more common among Americans who were born here than those who were naturalized.

Explaining the American left-right divide may seem daunting—especially given that the Republican Party has spent the last 100 years distorting political reality.

Consider Republican Thaddeus C. Sweet, who orchestrated the expulsion of five Socialists from the New York State Assembly in 1920—before the historic split between the Socialists and the Communists.

From the 1950s through the 1980s, J. Edgar Hoover weaponized the FBI to jail Socialists across the country. It took nearly a century before Julia Salazar finally broke the spell—and she was, ironically, a converted Republican.

Meanwhile, articles like this one—“Texas Under Attack: Socialists Scheme to Infiltrate Democratic Party”—go largely unnoticed. For 20 days, nobody contacted us. No angry emails. No threats. In fact, some of the comments on the Yahoo syndication are surprisingly insightful.

Why? Because explaining Socialist ideals isn’t actually difficult. These ideals were never lost—just scattered and distorted by attempts to wrap toxic liberalism in Socialist rhetoric.

And then there’s us—the American Left. A patchwork of factions that, for some reason, seem more toxic than functional when it comes to engaging in political debate.

Over the past two decades, I’ve met most of the so-called leaders of the American Left and studied their politics. Many are still clinging to outdated tactics, including “trashing”—a strategy used to discredit voices like mine.

Now, it’s up to you—the reader of this newsletter—to decide: Is becoming a delegate for AOC in 2028 more important than the lies and infighting pushed by the toxic Left?

That’s why, with a few trusted comrades, we launched Social Democrats of America, an organization that works exclusively inside the Democratic Party. We don’t waste time with theatrics—we do the work.

A recent example of that toxicity came from the Twitter account Brooklyn for Bernie, which on July 23, 2025, posted this smear: https://x.com/BKforBernie/status/1948113410270634108, insinuating that I mistreat women. If calling out corrupt politicians and activists who happen to be women makes me “guilty,” then so be it.

But getting AOC into a position of real power in 2028 requires all of us to organize strategically—and that means understanding key dates and deadlines.

Every county across the United States has its own political calendar. If you believe in AOC, it’s your responsibility to learn your local rules and help build the movement where you live.

It all starts by reading your state’s Delegate Selection Plan, which you can find on the Rep My Block website: https://repmyblock.org/state/draft/aoc (under Drafting Docs.)

And it starts now.

Whatever your level of commitment, we promise not to involve you in endless toxic distractions. We’re focused. We’re disciplined.

We’re about the business—and that business is making sure our candidate is not railroaded like Bernie was in 2016 and 2020.

We are the Socialists. We keep the toxicity low. We build power.

Share the AOC 2028 website with anyone ready to take that stand: https://aoc2028.us.

In solidarity,
Theo Chino

We need every leftist activist to register at https://aoc2028.us!

Everything labeled "Labor" in this thread is a reflection of the SDA and what should have been the DSA: https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1935463475267948943.

The only way AOC succeeds is by proving that those organizing inside the Democratic Party are more powerful than those organizing outside. The ultra-left has adopted toxic behavior — as documented in Ryan Grim’s book The Squad, particularly in Chapter 14 titled “Marcusean Meltdown”:

It is not disagreement; it is not conflict; it is not opposition. These are perfectly ordinary phenomena that, when engaged in mutually, honestly, and not excessively, are necessary to keep an organism or organization healthy and active. Trashing is a particularly vicious form of character assassination, one that amounts to psychological rape. It is manipulative, dishonest, and excessive. It is occasionally disguised by the rhetoric of honest conflict, or covered up by denying that any disapproval exists. But it is not used to expose disagreements or resolve differences. It is used to disparage and destroy.

The same dynamic is found in Europe with the Melenchonists, as documented in La Meute ("The Pack"): destroy anything that touches the Democratic Party.

Not much has happened this week in the Draft AOC space — aside from AOC announcing her list of preferred mayoral candidates. I could analyze her choices in detail, but the pattern is clear: these are the picks of a socialist novice.

AOC’s choices for NYC mayor are telling.

According to this NYT article, she placed Brad Lander third — someone with policies often further left than Adrienne Adams, who, whether as councilwoman or speaker, has been a liberal at best.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/nyregion/aoc-endorse-mamdani-mayor.html

Let’s be honest: most NYC politicians are political weather vanes. Nothing illustrates that more than Jessica Ramos going from “Never Cuomo” to endorsing Cuomo — clearly angling for a role in a future Cuomo administration.

Everyone speaks of left unity — yet everyone demands unity around themselves. That includes us at SDA. The difference is: the SDA model has existed for 146 years.

We have governed — and are currently governing — in Spain, Australia, England, Romania, and we are part of the coalition in Germany.

We are ready to govern the United States. As Paperboy Love Prince explains, the only thing we lack is money. But we are part of an international movement.

Here’s a revealing moment:
The leader of the Kings County Democratic Party refused to take a photo with Paperboy on January 20, 2020 — but had no issue posing with Palestine-denier Councilman Kalman Yeger.

• https://x.com/AMBichotte/status/1935726061024927942

• https://x.com/KalmanYeger/status/1110939415621312512

This same Haitian-American elected official refuses to use her power to meet with Haitian political leaders — including the leader of Haiti's Social Democrats, Senator Edmonde Supplice Beauzile.

The SDA propaganda and organizing updates will be saved for our end-of-month newsletter, which you can find here:

Social Democrats of America draft newsletters

The monthly Socialist draft newsletter

By Theo Chino

In France, the 81st Socialist Party Congress ended with some ambiguity, but it closed with comrades singing The Internationale.

My dream is that one day we sing it at the Democratic National Convention — when AOC accepts the nomination. But to get there, we need to recruit activists across the USA.

I recently met with comrades from Germany’s SPD, Greece’s PASOK, Switzerland’s Socialist Party, and others. We are all French, yes — but also members of our respective countries' parties.

Democrats Abroad also organized the global No Kings protest.The world is waiting for us.

The world is waiting for us. But it can’t act on our behalf — we must act.

Meanwhile, the U.S. initially denied a visa to Pouria Amirshahi — an elected Member of Parliament for the Paris district and member of the French Green Party. Only after pressure from many did the Trump administration reverse course.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/world/europe/france-lawmaker-denied-visa-us-trump-amirshahi.html

Amirshahi was elected in 2012 for the French Socialist Party and later joined the Greens. We plan to organize one or more meetings with him in the context of La Digue — and we’ll invite Americans from across the spectrum, from MAGA to anarchists, so they can understand our philosophy and see that not all MAGA supporters are fascists. Some simply want what AOC embodied when she first won.

As of now, Team AOC has not responded to any of our invitations. These meetings will not be about platforming one sectarian group, but about revealing each group’s authenticity. Participation will be selective. If you wish to be considered, please email me:theo@draftaoc.us.

If you’re not interested, don’t come. I’ve met just about everyone in NYC — no need for explanations.

This week, DNC Vice Chair Ken Martin publicly lamented the party’s cash shortage and drying mega-donor support — and that’s a good thing. The party must return to relying on activist effort, not consultant bloat.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/us/politics/dnc-ken-martin.html

Team AOC’s inner circle has created a violent and toxic bubble around her. They dismiss us as clowns — but remember, clowning is serious business.

So again:
Get your friends and comrades to register at https://aoc2028.us.

— Theo Chino
Social Democrats of America

This week, we’re sharing a double blog post. On the Social Democrats of America blog, which you can read here: https://socialists.substack.com/p/my-draft-sda-may-newsletter

We explain how we’re working within the Democratic Party—combining the "chassis" of a corrupt American Democratic Party with a European-style Socialist movement—to clean out the RepublicRATs.

But we need everyone to contribute three hours per month to the project. Yes, that starts with drying up the funding pipeline.

At the bottom of the post, you'll also find the early framework of a French-led project called The Dam, a European initiative to counter CPAC.

I’ve shared the contact information of Team AOC and a few DSA leaders with the European delegation to see if they can break through the AOC/Bernie bubble.

Can you chip in $5?

I could—but I won’t, because I know it’s feeding the snakes in Washington, D.C.

Instead, I contribute:

• $100/month to Progressive Victory, an online group of real-life organizers working inside the Democratic Party.

• $500/year in dues to my local Social Democrats of America branch, because they organize inside the Democratic Party.

• $25/year in dues to my local Democratic Club, because they are the Democratic Party.

I don’t give to individual candidates. But they can count on:

• My professional expertise for campaign organizing

• My time walking my electoral district on their behalf

• My vote on Election Day

Let’s Look at What Money Buys

As a candidate, the first thing you need to analyze is the number of voters in your district—on a granular level.

Take the real-life example of Paperboy Love Prince.

When Paperboy decided to run for Congress, they reached out to a few friends in Washington, DC, who referred them to professional consultants.

The consultant asked for $5,000/month to start and advised Paperboy to begin calling friends for donations. Next came the election lawyer: $7,000. Then the voter database in usable format: $10,000.

Total for the first month: $22,000. But as a candidate, Paperboy could only self-contribute $3,500.

The campaign was over before it started.

That’s why we build tools and make them available to candidates for free—so they don’t need large sums of money just to launch a viable campaign.

Paperboy’s Campaign for Mayor of NYC

As of this week, Paperboy Love Prince is polling at 2.7% in first-round votes—ahead of two better-funded candidates: Democratic liberal Michael Blake and Republican-aligned Whitney Tilson (who is registered as a Democrat but promotes Republican policies, similar to Public Advocate Marty Dolan).

https://emersoncollegepolling.com/nyc-2025-poll

Paperboy only used about $200 in supplies material to print and bind the petitions to make the ballot.

Michael Black Campaign Finance Board summary

Whitney Tilson Campaign Finance Board Summary

I advised both Marty Dolan and Whitney Tilson to register with the Republican Party, but they haven’t yet understood why I made that suggestion.

Hopefully, next year, with Rep My Block tools, they’ll consider running a different kind of campaign.

Paperboy’s campaign demonstrates that money isn’t the main driver of voter behavior—it’s belief and participation in the electoral process.

Paperboy and I hosted a series of Zoom sessions to explain the process. There’s no secret: https://www.repmyblock.org/web/training/zoom/withpaperboy

The DSA Departure and the Draft AOC Vision

Many AOC/Bernie activists are reluctant to organize within the Democratic Party. That’s why Michael Harrington created DSA in the first place. In 2017, the new DSA leadership shifted strategy by adopting Green Party mechanics and leaving the Democratic Party.

That shift allowed us, in 2021, to create from scratch an organization that clearly follows Michael Harrington’s original vision.

AOC has declared many times that she is a Socialist. It’s only natural that we want to protect and build on her Socialist legacy.

We hope to bring the same energy fans have for the New York Knicks to AOC’s 2027 candidacy, as we work toward a Socialist project to challenge Trump’s Project 2025.

GO NEW YORK GO!

If nothing else, I hope I’ve convinced you to stop donating money to politicians—and instead give it to your local bartender while watching the Knicks beat your favorite team.

Join Our Monthly SDA Onboarding Zoom

If you want to learn more about how the Draft AOC and the DSA project work together, join us this Wednesday at 9 PM Eastern / 6 PM Pacific: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89566597580?pwd=RKRywn6CutEDBSTaPewucjg68QZhAV.1

And remember: don’t donate to any politician you can’t vote for on your ballot.