This newsletter will become much more streamlined on what others have done.

The “WHY” on all the stories posted on the draft newsletter is always the same, “to inspire you into organizing in your county.” And if you have a question, email me, DM me, or anything.

Thanks to LLM technology (LLM stands for Large Language Model that is used in AI technology, and I will explain below why I prefer using the term LLM rather than AI), I managed to organize the Political Center Website as an add-on to the Rep My Block project.

The goal of the website is to direct people to use ONE WORD to define themselves, which makes politics simple. By using labels, I don’t argue about politics, but the conversation becomes about “LABELS” and the fact that they don’t like to be put in a box.

Presidential Election

Depending on the candidate, Politics Central will explain how each label will be able to participate and get involved with their favorite candidate in a non-partisan way.

We are Socialists, so ours is getting AOC to run for office, and it will be done through the AOC2028 website.

If you meet someone who doesn’t know who they want to support, you have the Political Center at https://politicalcenter.org, Rep My Block at https://repmyblock.org, and AOC 2028 at https://aoc2028.us.

A group of DSAers are finally circulating a petition amongst themselves to push AOC to run for President.

Our participation is to ensure that people understand that AOC 2028 is a coalition of the broad left and not a DSA campaign.

Our Leadership Structure

A lot of people are inquiring about how SDA is structured. The first is that the salons are organized based on the Ben Franklin Circles, and the facilitator is called a Secretary.

The structure of SDA is dependent on the membership joining their local Democratic Club, as explained in this documentary we sponsored on PBS: https://pbs.org/show/county.

The counties in blue are where we have potential comrades who signed up on the Mobilize website but require more people to create their Ben Franklin Socialist Circles.

Around the world

France:

The concept of Campus26 was copied in the 1970s from the American one and today is resumed in this 26-second video.

It’s the same concept as the DSA summit. Rahm Emanuel argues on FOX why we are not Democrats: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1LQvm5ynFW.

If his argument is that we meeting as a faction is forbidden, there is nothing more to say; he lost the argument. These Liberals get their events organized by PACs.

Uruguay:

In Montevideo, the New York Times wrote about Bernie’s Progressive International participating in an international meeting like the one we Socialists organized in Barcelona.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/world/americas/latin-america-democratic-socialists.html?unlocked_article_code=1.9lA.6JnR.9mq8uhJJPipc&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Socialism Monthly On-Boarding

I have split the on-boarding sessions between the first and third Wednesdays of the month:

• First Wednesday – 7:30 PM Pacific: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488

• Third Wednesday – 7:30 PM Eastern: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/897754

Welcome dear Comrade!

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

There were no reports about the Democratic Party in the Report folder of the website, so I don’t have any stories to report from the various Democratic clubs across the country.

Toward the middle of the newsletter, you will find the strongly worded email that I am sending to every Democratic and Republican Party chair across the United States, as well as Rosa’s report from last month’s SDA salon.

Social Democrats of America is a membership organization with the sole purpose of defining and educating Americans on Socialism and working within the U.S. Democratic Party, hence making us Socialists, and Democrats.

SDA is officially five years old, as it was incorporated on July 23, 2021, as an offshoot of DSA after they left the Socialist International.

The last five years were about documenting what it would take to create the conditions in the United States to ensure that all the lessons learned from Michael Harrington, Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader, and Bernie Sanders have been incorporated.

This monthly newsletter is an attempt to leave crumbs of the arguments I am making to demonstrate that Socialism is a very simple concept.

Turning FIFA into a Public Company: An IPO Proposal

Gianni Infantino’s and Donald Trump’s idea of turning FIFA into a public company through an IPO may seem far-fetched, and it seems dead on its merits. The Europeans, as they usually do, shut down the idea flat out.

FIFA is one of the last non-profits, just as the New York Stock Exchange once was, and the exchange did not disappear because of it.

The question of a FIFA IPO is really, who gets to have the return on the benefits? From a Socialist point of view, is going public a bad thing?

First, we must ask the right questions, such as: “Who benefits from the IPO?” The people of the world, or the oligarchs of the world?

This is a very interesting subject that has repercussions touching every domain of this newsletter, starting from what Socialism is, how to get involved to propose soccer fields in the community, and partnerships with for-profit and non-profit organizations.

And ultimately, who captures the value created?

What is Socialism?

In every newsletter, the same question repeat itself, but after month (years) of organizing, I have been In every newsletter, the same question repeats itself, but after months (years) of organizing, I have been slowly getting to a very simple one-liner.

I think I have it down to three words: “FREEDOM,” “LIBERTY,” and “EMANCIPATION” for all mankind.

If you don’t believe it, SDA is not an organization for you.slowly getting to a very simple one liner.

The reason I keep bringing up the question is that each time I try to reduce it to the shortest possible answer so I can silence any detractor in the mass media. The problem over the years has been the implementation.

In 1920, Lenin called on Socialists to build a better Socialism by creating the Communist Party, and in 1981, the Premier of the French Communist Party announced on TV that the Communists would not ask the Socialist Party to be Socialist.

In other words, Socialism is to be defined by the Socialist Party, putting an end to 60 years of debate over who decides what Socialism is.

DSA is getting more attention by using old Communist phraseology like “Democracy” or “Working Class,” and because they manage to win more major elections than us using the term “Socialist,” they are everywhere, confusing the American public.

What makes me laugh is watching the American right-wing media trying to lump Communism, Socialism, Ecology, and the Left into a homogeneous group, while watching American liberals trying to define themselves as the left when they should be defining themselves as center-right.

This is driving the world crazy. But when I mean the world, I mean the media across the whole world.

Everyone is having fun watching the Americans struggle with the right’s attempts to recreate the conditions for a new Red Scare.

While watching the world go crazy, I learned something about China and its flag. I have not verified the historical details of the symbolism, but according to Wikipedia, each small star on the flag is said to represent one class:

• The Working Class (workers/proletariat)

• The Peasantry (farmers)

• The Urban Petty Bourgeoisie (small business owners and artisans)

• The National Bourgeoisie (patriotic capitalists and middle-class business owners)

I will let you have the discussion about how China ended up being capitalist while Communist. I had this discussion with the Queens Conservative Chairman last year.

Meanwhile, this is not about China, but about how SDA can change our counties while also fighting back against the ignorant narrative that conflates Communism, Socialism, and Anarchism.

SDA is about members learning from the mistakes and successes of the Socialists before them, and then using that experience to better their communities by proposing Socialist solutions.

The Governor of New York

Being part of her community and also the Secretary of Community Board 11, Rosa was contacted about a subject that she cared about: her car insurance.

When the bill was announced, she joined several leaders and ultimately stood next to the Governor in a scrappy Manhattan garage as he approved a bill that affected not only her personally, but also thousands of drivers across New York State.

SDA is about discussing what positive impact we can have in our communities locally. The full press release is here: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-secures-reforms-lower-auto-insurance-premiums-new-yorkers.

You can reach Rosa at rosa.diaz@activist.socialists.us.

The idea is simply to show that SDA members always manage to lobby for ideas and that we are always next to the highest elected officials, not for a self-serving selfie, but to use our influence to lobby for our community and get those in power to champion our ideas.

Pageantry

Politics has a large element of pageantry and codes, and we Socialists are not anti-pageantry. The Governor with Rosa in a scrappy garage, or Xi Jinping delivering his policies from the lectern of his party, will have repercussions in our communities.

By focusing on “FREEDOM,” “LIBERTY,” and “EMANCIPATION” when analyzing these speeches, we can organize by leveraging our collective thoughts.

Americans, because of ignorance, like to mix Anarchism, Socialism, and Communism into the same bag, warning that it’s all the same thing. They are not, and their differences are quite simple.

These are the 21 Conditions that separate Socialists and Communists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-one_Conditions.

We Socialists voted against them in 1920, and those who voted for them ended up Communists, while those who voted against them remained Socialists.

Like everyone else, Socialists, Communists, and Conservatives organize conventions or congresses, and as is tradition, everything is announced through pageantry. With this pageantry comes the music and the art, which send strong messages to the world.

At the China National People’s Congress, that single meeting serves as both a political and governmental message.

In France, the same takes place, but since it is a democracy that separates the party and the government, the party’s congress pageantry is separate from the solemn governmental pageantry.

(The songs start at 2:07:40 with the French national anthem, the anti-fascist Italian song Bella Ciao, and an a cappella rendition of The Internationale.)

France is a multi-party system, so the party and the government are separated. This is the first entrance of the President of the National Assembly into the Palais Bourbon.

But for us Americans, it’s a mess, yet the same events take place just as they do in China. Because we have decentralized everything, we are all over the place.

As an American Democratic Socialist, I have to confess that I do prefer the energy of the American convention and the power of its songs.

As you can see, the ceremony takes place with the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of this small meeting.

Whereas in China, the decision on mosquito control would be buried in the Central Communist Party meeting, here in the United States it takes place at the local level.

I personally love the mess that is America because it creates opportunities for people to educate themselves about civics, as long as people don’t try to take advantage of the public’s ignorance.

That is why SDA spearheaded the non-partisan Rep My Block project, because for our system to work, we must have a duality of opinion that flows freely to the top.

Without it, we have what we are experiencing now: a violent, vitriolic duopoly.

Socialism is not voyeurism

What do I mean by that? Yes, it's true that you don't have to have an opinion on everything, but you need to show some sign of intelligent life. At SDA, the bar is quite low: "My name is..., I am in this part of the county, and I would love to meet once a month in a salon. I have never participated in a Democratic Party meeting."

As you have realized, signing up for the listserv is quite easy, but if you don't show that you are a human being living in that county, then I will remove you after a certain amount of time.

SDA's goal is not to claim thousands of members so we can be reported on by the media. The reason we don’t care about the attention the media gives us is that, to influence policies, we need to be where those policies are decided: in local Democratic club meetings.

But to take a quick look at the town of Litchfield, these meetings that people laugh about with John Oliver have become the staple of what we, SDA members, organize around.

Every year, these two members sign millions of dollars in contracts for pesticides and services.

These two are not SDA members, but that is what an SDA member does. They sit through those boring meetings. (You don’t have to watch the whole meeting, but somewhere around the 13th minute, you can hear them talking about the lack of interest from the population they serve.)

The reason they are boring is that there is no diversity of thought, but imagine if one member from each of these groups were to show up at that meeting.

Join your local advisory board

For example, this is the ANC town hall in Washington, D.C., where ANC members discuss the 2026 D.C. budget:

The reason I picked the Washington, D.C. ANC is that petitioning has started for anyone who wants to become a candidate and will end on August 5, 2026 : https://oanc.dc.gov/landing-page/ancs-ward.

You have until August 5th By mail or in person:

D.C. Board of Elections
1015 Half Street, SE, Suite 750
Washington, DC 20003-4733

https://oanc.dc.gov/release/anc-nomination-petitions-available-july-6-aug-5-2026

That is it. SDA membership is simply about organizing the Socialist point of view on all those topics that affect our daily lives.

It is true that at the beginning of the 20th century, Socialist leaders organized events because the government did not organize them. But as we got more and more rights in a liberal and democratic society, the need for our leadership to organize for the membership to replace the services offered by the government became less and less pressing.

The French Dual Language Schools

Just like Rosa today, 20 years ago I was a member of my Community Board, and I was a co-founder of a small non-profit that aimed to bring a real dual-language educational curriculum to replace the racist English as a Second Language one.

About five years ago, the New York Times Serial podcast production researched the non-profit and the work it did on race relations: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-parents-serial.html.

Many of the points that were brought up in the podcast were discussed when we started the non-profit.

We met once a month in a bar for two hours, but we were also part of our local Community Boards.

Over the years, local politicians embraced the project, not only in New York City but around the country.

The French Socialist branch in the United States, working with other Socialist members from other countries, expanded the project.

In this video, the champion opening a dual-language school knew me not as the co-founder of the organization that opened the dual-language school, but as the housing anti-corruption champion.

You can hear the resignation in his voice. SDA did not exist then, but had it existed, he would not have been so dismissive of another citizen’s problem because he would have known that SDA is a very serious organization.

I know this politician was lying through his teeth about talking to me about it.

That is the power of our Socialist organization.

Being a member simply says, “I share those beliefs,” and deal with it.

Everything SDA touches has the potential to become national and international because Socialists will always copy good ideas.

As the leader of the movement, I have to aggressively stake our place in this society.

Email Sent to Every Democratic and Republican Chair

Now that I have built the materials and the tools to ensure SDA’s exponential growth can be organized, I have sent every Democratic and Republican Party chair a warning letter to introduce myself and SDA.

My job is to open the door and hold it open for as long as I can, but it is up to each SDA member to walk through it.

112 Years Ago Today

One hundred and twelve years ago today, on July 31, 1914, the founder of the Socialist Party was the last and only voice to rally the Second International (or the Socialist International) against what would become known as World War I, just as Germany decreed the general mobilization.

After the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28 by a fluke of history, when his car took a wrong turn and stalled in front of the nationalist assassin, the killing of Socialist Jean Jaurès in Paris on July 31 by a French nationalist silenced the last organizer capable of organizing a general strike against the war.

Germany invaded Belgium, a neutral country, on August 4, 1914, and the rest is history.

Could Jaurès and the Socialists have prevented World War I through a general strike?

We'll never know, but we'll continue fighting for peace. However, Socialism is not about simply being anti-war, despite the false message promoted by Communist Maoist Medea Benjamin, who harasses every member of Congress with Code Pink and is always in the news with her LaRouche allies.

Just as soccer keeps the world together, "The Internationale" keeps the left together.

Back to FIFA

FIFA’s proposal to go public requires us to understand how each of the topics above fits together: why Mao organized the Chinese Revolution but gave a star to those like Gianni Infantino by keeping an eye on the National Bourgeoisie; the concept of luck and World War I, where some people gave up their seats at a café terrace and the opportunity presented itself to start the bloodiest war in history; and a sport meant to bring us together despite conflicts (Iran being bombarded by the United States while its team was trying to play on the East Coast), people coming together at the local level to build a soccer field, cities like Chicago refusing to host games in protest of FIFA’s rules, and the State of New Jersey over-planning for promises that never materialize.

If you want to start the FIFA discussion, join the listserv at https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/1001241.

Socialism Monthly On-Boarding

I have split the on-boarding sessions between the first and third Wednesdays of the month:

• First Wednesday – 7:30 PM Pacific: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488

• Third Wednesday – 7:30 PM Eastern: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/897754

Welcome dear Comrade!

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

SDA is for professionals who want to pursue politics as a hobby. That is how Socialism has been built over the last century.

This photo was taken yesterday with Uruguayan leftist leader Sebastián Hagobian and former Dominican President of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), Juan Temístocles Montás Domínguez, who also served as a cabinet minister under a PLD administration.

They know our place at the table because we share the same values.

Housekeeping

For us, Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, and Socialism are the same thing. As Americans, we like to simplify things. We simply say “Socialism.”

We are Americans, and we shorten everything. “Socialism” is the name of our movement, and it is a global movement, as explained on the Socialist International website. You can read about it here: https://www.socialistinternational.org/about-us/declaration-of-principles.

If you are a visual learner, you can also listen to Pavlos Yeroulanos explain it:

People in different parts of the world use the term differently because of their regional historical context, and intellectuals have learned what the term means based on that context. However, the democratization of the movement, combined with globalization, has made the term increasingly confusing.

When I attend international conferences, this debate never ends, and the same explanation I give there applies here as well.

Everyone has a hard time explaining how the Socialist International’s Declaration of Principles is somehow not Socialism.

It is in the name of the organization: Socialist International.

DSA stole our party in 2017, and people around the world ask me about it. Is Zohran Mamdani a Socialist? My answer, based on my experience, is “no.”

As a matter of housekeeping, SDA exists to organize Socialists who believe in the Socialist International’s understanding of Socialism.

If that is not your philosophy, we have developed an extensive onboarding process designed to identify people who do not share that international socialist tradition and encourage them to join other organizations.

DSA vs SDA

This issue will not go away until DSA and the Progressive International agree on some basic principles. That will only happen after a broader global discussion among left-wing movements establishes some common definitions. Until then, confusion over what “Socialism” means will continue.

I have been a card-carrying member of the French Socialist Party since 2004 and have participated in drafting several party manifestos. As a result, I have a solid foundation in Socialist theory.

Many elected officials who now describe themselves as Socialists had not even been born when I joined the Socialist Party, yet today they are lecturing the world about Socialism.

I was young once. In 1986, I joined the French Communist Youth, but I realized it was not for me. Many elected DSA officials defend Communist positions, and it is normal for younger activists to be more radical than their elders.

We all go through that stage, and there is nothing to be ashamed of. However, when an organization adopts the symbols of Socialism, it is expected to uphold those ideals.

DSA is not a Socialist organization, and any Socialist of the Socialist International who spends ten minutes interacting with them quickly realizes that.

This creates confusion for American academics, journalists, and voters alike.

DSA and SDA share a similar logo, and we have asked DSA to stop using it because its values do not align with those of the Socialist International. Until Socialist International parties fully understand how the American political system works, this confusion will continue.

The international leaders of the Progressive International want to weaken the Socialist movement in their own countries, and they are using these young American idealists to help accomplish that.

That will be SDA’s challenge: living in DSA’s shadow in the United States. Although we both use the word “Socialist,” DSA refuses to take control of the Democratic Party. We do not.

Our disagreement with DSA is ultimately one that voters will decide. They will determine who the real Socialists are and how we should govern.

The race in NY-13

To govern and demonstrate what Socialist governance looks like, we must earn the trust of voters.

I ran to document what is required to place our name on the ballot and to create the necessary momentum for change while using the fewest possible resources.

This hobby is pursued through elections. In NY-13 there were several elections, but the ones that mattered most to SDA were the party elections. This cycle we won two of them, with Rosa Diaz and Paperboy Love Prince.

Rosa is now part of the New York State Democratic Party and will be able to introduce Socialist resolutions.

That is what truly mattered. Everything else was simply an added bonus.

The Bonus of NY-13

When I began this campaign, I never imagined that Adriano Espaillat would no longer represent NY-13 in Congress. The extraordinary—and frankly obscene—amount of money poured into the race by people outside the district highlighted how money can distort political debate.

The first bonus is the end of the Adriano Espaillat era, something SDA has been working toward since 2020. Along the way, we documented and chronicled the internal workings of the Democratic Party.

The second bonus was the opportunity to demonstrate the difference in quality when broadcasters choose to feature only candidates who meet arbitrary fundraising thresholds versus those who do not.

Usually, it is right-wing-controlled media that decides who gets heard. This time, however, NBC/Telemundo allowed its Spanish-speaking audience to hear from all four candidates on the ballot. Their reasons may have been somewhat cynical, but it happened.

The four debates are below.

On NY1 Cable:

On WPIX Superstation:

On Cable Access BronxTalk, where all ballot-qualified candidates participated.

On NBC/Telemundo for the Spanish-speaking community.

COPPPAL

Last month I wrote about our participation in COPPPAL. Today we participated in the plenary session in Mexico as observers.

I had the opportunity to meet longtime comrades and represent the United States as part of an observer organization, surrounded by experienced party leaders from across the Americas.

However, just as I spend time explaining Socialism to Americans, I also spent time explaining the American Democratic Party to them and why county party leadership is often more important than elected officials in Washington, D.C.

Tomorrow there will be a formal vote on whether we become an observer party of COPPPAL. I do not like to jinx these things, so I will wait until the vote is official before sharing the news.

Socialism Monthly On-Boarding

I have split the on-boarding sessions between the first and third Wednesdays of the month:

• First Wednesday – 7:30 PM Pacific: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488

• Third Wednesday – 7:30 PM Eastern: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/897754

Welcome dear Comrade!

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

The silence on these listserves is deafening, as if there are no issues affecting any of you across the United States. My job is to rock the boat, even inside SDA.

This tells me one of two things: either you are someone who doesn't believe in Socialism but signed up to watch what we are cooking, or you are extremely shy. My goal is not to accumulate people on a list and brag about it. My goal is to get people talking to each other and solving problems in their communities.

It doesn't matter what the problem is. The goal is to work together to solve it. But for that to happen, you must start using the listserves to organize, and you must write your ideas down on a piece of paper. Don't worry about whether they are perfect or not; we'll help you turn those ideas into a final draft document.

The goal of SDA is to build a “floor of support” for Socialists, but many people believe that doing so requires a tremendous amount of work. It doesn’t, but it does require teamwork and independence. This judge explains the principle of democracy to the Board of Elections after we pushed the limits of what was traditionally done.

The number of examples throughout these newsletters is tremendous because they represent the aggregation of our collective work over time. We learn, and we document what we learn. What you leave in the reports section may be revisited two or three years later to help build a narrative of change.

Silence is NOT good news, and I know that there is plenty happening in your counties that could be improved and that you have ideas for making better.

I have a lot of apprehension about writing this newsletter, but if I don't write it, nothing will change. What I write may be construed as hurtful by certain people, but that is not the intent. I can't apologize for writing it either; otherwise, why would I have written it? What I am writing is based on years of observation, but until now I was incapable of describing it in terms of political activism.

Before we delve into the heaviest section of this month's draft newsletter, I encourage you to listen to and reflect on the lyrics of Pink Floyd's song "Money" as we enter a very dark place in American politics.

This was the sort of moral quandary that Pink Floyd’s songwriter Roger Waters debated as he was writing the tune. Speaking to The Observer in 1993 on the 20th anniversary of The Dark Side of the Moon, Waters said, “Money interested me enormously. I remember thinking, ‘Well, this is it and I have to decide whether I’m really a socialist or not.’ I’m still keen on a general welfare society, but I became a capitalist. You have to accept it. I remember coveting a Bentley like crazy. The only way to get something like that was through rock or the football pools. I very much wanted all that material stuff.” - https://americansongwriter.com/behind-the-meaning-of-the-subversive-pink-floyd-song-money

Civic Education

This is the most difficult part to write, and I will say it directly, without filters, because we have a serious civic education problem in this country. However, teaching civics is only one part of the problem, and it is not the answer to everything.

When I write these newsletters, I try to read the few questions and comments shared on the local county listserves, but the civic education portion is the hardest to deal with because it touches on two concepts that are at the core of the ego: knowledge and its opposite, ignorance; and confidence.

I met Paperboy Love Prince in 2020 as I was sliding from the Peak of Ignorance of the Dunning-Kruger Effect into the Valley of Despair, while Paperboy Love Prince was climbing into the Peak of Ignorance.

$5,000 a month for a political consultant was the quote Paperboy Love Prince were given to mount a congressional race, and the alternative I proposed was investing in political education through experimentation a few hours a week.

This is the knowledge I am trying to share with America through Rep My Block, and I hope you will help me share it regardless of political persuasion—Republicans, Democrats, MAGA supporters, or Communists.

My knowledge was acquired from Liberal Democrat Benjamin Yee (for those who took the SDA onboarding Zoom training, he is the Benjamin Yee featured in the Democratic Party animation).

He was shut out of the 2019 Democratic Party debate for not raising enough money, but his platform was centered on civic education and highlighting the problem.

Unlike me, he is not as bombastic as I am.

Ben Yee tries to fit in and avoid upsetting anyone. When he discovered the County Committee, he rose to quickly become Secretary of the Democratic Party, but he continued to apply a litmus test to those who were allowed in.

When I built the Rep My Block system that Paperboy Love Prince used, I removed myself from the process and allowed anyone to use it because it is not my job to decide who should be on the ballot to remove people from the voter’s choice.

The choice of who represents the voters should belong to the voters themselves, not to the Democratic and Republican parties colluding with one another.

In 2021, Paperboy and I decided to push the envelope and encourage more people to participate in the ballot access process, and that is when we encountered our first batch of ignorant voters.

PhDs do get offended when I tell them they are ignorant when it comes to civic education. The reason I target PhDs is because they operate at the boundary between established knowledge and the unknown, constantly pushing that boundary forward.

In most people’s minds, civic education is so basic that it seems impossible for a trailblazer in their field to be ignorant of something so fundamental.

The pursuit of knowledge embodied by a PhD is the natural nemesis of corruption.

Many politicians surround themselves with very intense people who may be struggling with mental health issues in order to drive away anyone who questions their judgment, including PhDs.

PhDs tend to be part of the middle class, so politicians organize galas where the poor are shut out and PhDs can feel that they have influenced the politician.

The people who get elected are often surrounded by young interns who shield them from citizen activists who may be struggling with mental health challenges, to the point of creating a rift between educated middle-class America and the volunteers on the ground.

One way to avoid this difficult discussion is to create a wall defined by money—and not just a little money, but the kind of money that becomes a cancer in society.

A $500 gala dinner is one way to separate the “crazy” from the “sane.” But in doing so, you also separate the upper middle class from the lower middle class and end up with a Congress in Washington, D.C., composed largely of millionaires.

And the underlying logic is that someone with money cannot be ignorant.

Civics is a basic subject taught to 12-year-olds, and that is the knowledge that people carry with them all the way through their PhD. Yet nowhere in the study of bio-engineering, literature, medicine, or most other disciplines is civics part of the curriculum.

Try telling an M.D., a Ph.D., or anyone with a bachelor’s degree that they are ignorant. It is not an easy conversation. I have said it publicly, and people quite understandably dislike hearing it, but there is no other word that adequately conveys the failure of civic education in high school.

To understand civics, you need to combine election law with tax law. To understand civics, you must understand 26 U.S. Code § 501. The “501” is the same 501 found in 501(c)(3).

All of this can sound scary. We cannot teach a 12-year-old the tax code, free speech law, and every other aspect of civic life.

The only place where many of the tools needed to understand civics are taught is in the legal profession, and much of the civics that should be learned in 12th grade is instead taught to practicing lawyers through continuing education credits.

How can anyone expect someone with a GED working three jobs and a Ph.D. to come together and write a manifesto?

That is what the SDA listserve is about. You will need to take a chance and simply send an email while keeping your expectations focused on your county.

I know it is scary, and that is why I share my own stories, so that you can feel confident that we can change the United States together, one step at a time.

But that first step is sending a welcome email to your county listserv. I know that it is a difficult moment, but you can do it. All of the SDA tools are designed to slowly guide you toward a politics where money is not the driving force, but rather the ability to work together across social classes.

The goal is to make politics boring like on these pictures. We are all middle class, we all come from ordinary families, and we are all talking to one another.

The goal of the SDA membership is not for everyone to run for office, but rather for people to prepare and groom Socialist candidates over time as a team.

Being boring does not mean that we cannot be outrageous, and we welcome outrageous comrades, as long as they are not hurtful to others. SDA's goal is to ensure that one person's ambition never outweighs the collective interests of everyone else.

In 2021, we decided to bring this knowledge to the people by using the system to place well-known New Yorkers on the ballot.

I spent the whole day outside John Oliver’s building on a frigid day in February collecting signatures to nominate him to the Democratic Party.

The petition is clear: “I do hereby designate the following named persons as candidates for the nomination,” which, in plain English, translates to: “I nominate.”

At the Board of Elections hearing on the Jay-Z, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and John Oliver petitions, the election lawyer representing the candidates who stood to be displaced from the ballot accused me of misrepresenting people, which of course sounds serious.

As you can see from these two stories, these candidates got caught trying to play the electoral system, and that is what they accused us of doing.

Situations like these can create fear among legitimate candidates and activists who genuinely want to change things for the better but are reluctant to go right up to the line because they fear crossing it.

To win, one often has to go all the way to the line without crossing it. That reality can discourage many sincere candidates from participating.

Our goal at SDA is to get to the line and never cross it. But once you are standing at the line, it is always easy to take one step too far.

These people crossed the line because of greed.

There should be nothing scary about remaining on the line, and that is why Paperboy and I try outrageous ideas.

As you may have realized, I save my thoughts for the last day of the month, which allows me to calm down after all the month's excitement.

Otherwise, I would be bombarding you with small, seemingly meaningless details that, when put together one after another, are helping to change the face of America.

Regarding John Oliver, he never showed up, and I tell that story here: https://theochino.medium.com/is-john-oliver-an-hypocrite-by-commodifying-our-anger-1ab5cf17368f.

SDA trains people to manage the right amount of outrage so that being an activist at home does not turn into a neighborhood quarrel.

SDA was created in the pursuit of bringing peace around the world, but as you can see, it always starts at home, and it can be scary to step on your neighbors' toes:

Theo Chino

Every revolution starts at home

I am calling out the leader of the slate that created the problem we are living through today, and we have 40 days to get the attention of the politicians and the press…

Read more

4 months ago · Theo Chino

The Caucuses

Before I delve into the details, those of you who live in red districts or red states are among the most important people for the SDA project to succeed.

The goal of SDA is to create caucuses within the Democratic Party, and in red states, that is often the easiest place to get it done. You do not need to ask permission—you simply do it.

In red states, the Center for New Liberalism, the New Democrat Coalition, and the Blue Dogs are often found within the Republican Party.

A Democrat is a Democrat, so whether you live in a rural or urban part of the United States, you are still a Democrat.

The best part of being an SDA member in a red state is that you can combine an SDA salon with your local Democratic Party county meeting.

In a red state, all you need to do is visit the local Democratic club and join it. You do not need to tell people that you are a Socialist; I will deal with that from New York.

But for me to know who is where, I need everyone to become a card-carrying SDA member. That is the only way I can connect two people living in the same county: https://socialists.us/direct/calculate/join.

Running for Office

SDA is a caucus that trains people to run for office and provides the tools and materials needed to create the conditions for winning the trust of our fellow citizens so that they elect us to various positions.

Running for office is not a solitary endeavor, but in the United States I have come to realize that there is an industry that generates billions of dollars and is not essential to winning elections.

It exists largely to sustain an ecosystem of consultants, printers, and television and radio advertising.

To remove money from politics, we need to provide voters with what they crave most: trusted information.

At the end of the day, voters do not care about most of the noise surrounding a campaign. They care about having reliable information when deciding who to vote for.

The consultants know that, and that is why they have spent years demonizing me in New York City. I tell the story here:

Draft AOC for President in 2028

We need to meet Linda where she is at

Who is Linda…

Read more

a year ago · 29 likes · 8 comments · Theo Chino

They have called me every name in the book, both to my face and behind my back. Yet, at the end of the day, the information on Rep My Block is simply information provided and uploaded by the campaigns themselves.

Rep My Block

What needs to be done is to document races across the United States. I work with both Republicans and Democrats, and that allows me to tell Republicans to take it down a notch when it comes to trashing the left.

Rep My Block was built as a tool to organize ballot access for candidates, but since we already have all of the candidates’ information, why not make it available to every voter and member of the media, just as The Green Papers has done for decades?

I have been working with local Republicans in my district, as shown by the hat.

It’s the same hat. Not an identical hat, but my Republican counterpart and I shared the very same hat.

My Republican counterpart and I are both victims of a housing scheme perpetrated in New York City, and instead of letting our political differences get the better of us, we chose to work together on the issues that affect us both.

Putting it in practice in my district

Since 2020, I have said that the only way we win elections is by working within our neighborhoods and building teams.

John Oliver did an entire episode on how misinformation spreads through diaspora communities, but this is not only true of diasporas—it is true of human beings in general. It worked for Sarah Palin when she first ran in Alaska.

The flyer below associates me with José Francisco Peña Gómez, the Socialist International Vice President and former Mayor of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, one of the most influential figures in Dominican political history: https://www.socialistinternational.org/news-events/in-memoriam/article/jose-francisco-pena-gomez-1937-1998-1639.

DSA left the Socialist International to join Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn’s Progressive International, so they lost the use of the word “comrade.”

SDA comrades Paperboy Love Prince and Michael Hano experimented with running for Congress in 2020 and 2022, and all their knowledge is being channeled into my campaign. The knowledge I will acquire will then be passed on to yours.

The same rules apply in your counties, which is why it is important that we document every step we take.

I can tell you to take it easy, but I know that’s impossible.

That moment will come when someone is elected the same way Yusuf Dikeç won his silver medal in Paris.

By documenting what works and what doesn’t, each campaign leaves behind knowledge that makes the next one stronger. What we learn today will help the people who come after us tomorrow.

He won his medal through patience, discipline, and years of preparation that most people never see. The same applies to us.

The press has spoken.

A few days ago, Zohran Mamdani endorsed the Justice Democrat in my district. I find the whole situation interesting because the discussion is taking place entirely outside the framework of what an election should be about.

It should not matter that the candidate he endorsed is a carpetbagger who moved into the district only recently, or that the incumbent is a congressman whom many critics accuse of protecting his own interests above all else.

My mother’s family has been in this neighborhood since 1950, and I moved to where I live today when I was three months old. In 1981, when the murder rate in the neighborhood was around 300 a year, my mother made the decision to send me back to France, where schools were free and of excellent quality. I returned to New York in 2001.

Never mind that for 25 years I have participated in and organized within the neighborhood as a Socialist. During all that time, I never encountered either of the other two candidates in any effort related to building or strengthening the community.

What we need today are candidates willing to do what Benjamin Yee, Paperboy Love Prince, and I are doing: educating people about how deeply flawed, manipulated, and weaponized our representative system has become.

And we in the United States are not so different from voters elsewhere in the world. The difference is that in France, I can see how the reduced influence of money allows ordinary citizens like me or Corinne to participate in the political system in the way civics classes in the United States teach it is supposed to work.

I should not be!

Take a chance, and give me your feedback on all these newsletter on this County Listserve. Just reply with your feedback however you think, but on the listserve and not the comment section.

What is important to remember is that the drama in our Socialist family doesn’t stop us from doing good things. People leave our family because of disagreements in ideology, not interpersonal relations.

In Barcelona, the Global Progressive Mobilization took place, and I would like to invite you to watch this discussion about the Local Progressive Response, the first line of defense against fascism. These local elected officials MUST come from our local salons.

If we can’t recruit for the salon, we can’t recruit local elected leaders, and for us, the first place where it happens is at the local Democratic Party meeting.

I hope this presentation by Socialist local leaders from Budapest, Rome, Muğla, New York, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Toronto will help you understand what we must do to stop fascist ideals in our communities.

Share your local experiences on your listserve

Don’t forget to record your experiences at https://www.socialists.us/report, because the only way Social Democrats of America grows is by exchanging our local experiences on our listserves. I am concerned that nobody is sharing on the county listserv about how to make our counties better.

If we don’t meet at the local level, like the Tea Party or QAnon groups do, we will never be able to organize a counter project to present to the American people.

Socialist Drama

Socialist drama is a very curated dance that brings together many different people sharing a single ideology rooted in democracy, but it also includes interpersonal relationships driven by personal ambition.

For 20 years, I have witnessed how my own involvement in the US Green Party and the French Socialist Party, while also working for the conglomerate AOL-Time-Warner, allowed me to understand how socialism interacts with corporations.

For example, the spouse of one of the richest French billionaires will vote for a DSA type candidates in France if the choice is fascism versus the left.

For some reason, French billionaires remember the guillotine from 200 years ago, and as King Charles III reminded us, it is only yesterday. I have had the opportunity more than once to sit at the table with a French billionaire, arguing and winning counterpoints.

What I discovered is that the American left is trying to bring together ALL leftist ideologies under a single roof, which is impossible. This is why organizations that are multi-tendency tend to falter over and over after 5 to 7 years. This will be the fate of all organizations that try to bring together multiple ideologies and groups that share personal ambitions.

We Socialists share a common document, which is the Manifesto, and around that manifesto we build personal ambitions. This is emphasized by the enforced three-year rule around the use of our intellectual assets such as the Rose in the Fist.

At the end, all this interpersonal drama gets drowned out at the end of a meeting when we all sing together the Internationale (if you want the background on the song, check out this explanation at youtu.be/xRDZwr2cTX8.)

Most drama stems from when personal and ideological differences brew together, but in the end, we always figure out how to work together for the betterment of the greater good.

At this time, SDA hasn’t reached the snowball level for the beehive effect to occur. DSA and the WFP have reached that snowball effect, but they have done so by copying the Liberal playbook, which can be seen in the last paragraph on ballot access.

Democratic Party Club Caucuses

The goal of SDA is to transform, through reform over time, all the left forces into the Democratic Party by gathering members into the five major leftist groups so they can organize around their belief systems.

I am building, in the 71st Assembly District of New York, the model club that needs to be replicated around the country. The club is called the Sugar Hill Democratic Club because it is located in the Sugar Hill area of New York City and was made famous in the jazz song “Take the A Train to Sugar Hill” by Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.

I made sure to add in the bylaws a special place for every ideological caucus to exist, and my goal is to bring those caucuses to the state level using the names each participant recognizes.

I am personally a Socialist, so I don’t have a problem sitting down with members of all these factions, but we will disagree on about 15% of the issues with my Liberal and Green comrades. I can sit with them once a month to organize inside the Democratic Party, but neither they nor I can prioritize the same issues.

The Democratic Party is a big tent where we tolerate each other.

Our job is to force all the other factions to accept working within their caucuses, which means that we must push out those who don’t agree with the manifesto and our beliefs in free education, universal health care, anti-death penalty, pro-abortion rights, 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.

If they can say “YES” to all these, we need to route these individuals toward their caucuses. The Communists, the Greens, and the Anarchists do have problems with our manifesto.

The challenge for each group to join the Democratic Party is different, and it will take our own version of an elected AOC to see the same meteoric growth in SDA.

My congressional race for congress in NY13

The process of getting on the ballot is totally unfair, and the reason I am on the ballot is for the incumbent to benefit from the DSA vs. SDA fight going on.

Every candidate running in the 13th District of New York on the Democratic line is a leftist, but the incumbent, Adriano Espaillat, went all out for Zohran Mamdani last year after the primary.

This race is 100% between Latinos; therefore, race will not be a factor, and the only thing that separates us is leftist ideology—DSA, SDA, and a general corrupt opportunist, as described in the Democratic Party report of the Committee on Ethics: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000195-c9db-d95d-abb5-e9db915e0000.

The big question is who AOC and Zohran Mamdani will endorse in the district, and whether they will.

During the past two years, I have made multiple overtures toward DSA in my district, and each time the answer was the same polite dismissal. But now that I am officially the SDA candidate for Congress, there is nobody to deny our participation.

I had offered to trade my congressional race in NY-13 for that of the Paperboy Love Prince Assembly race in AD-54. DSA preferred to take SDA candidates to court and have them removed from the ballot, and Paperboy is currently in court.

All this while arguing in public that they are the victims of being taken to court, as in this example where the DSA lawyer Renée Paradis makes the case to remove a homeless Republican candidate from the Libertarian caucus.

The people of Harlem, New York, will have to choose between Melenchonism, Socialism, or general hypocritical populism by the incumbent.

The latest round of Democratic Club endorsements clearly shows the internal process inside the Democratic Party that always favors the incumbent when they show up.

What we are doing in New York City is building the model of what the Democratic and Republican party caucus system should be about, which is leveling the playing field by ideological identity.

As long as the drama is kept during election time inside the Democratic and Republican parties, our republic should remain strong for the foreseeable future, as long as participation is kept small, in small doses of 20 to 40 hours per year for each participant.

In the article “DSA is targeting Rep. Adriano Espaillat in NY-13” (https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2026/04/dsa-targeting-rep-adriano-espaillat-ny-13/413110), a local Democratic consultant is only looking at the surface when he says: “Four years ago we would never have had this conversation about a DSA candidate taking out Adriano Espaillat in this district,” Democratic political consultant Eli Valentin said. “It just speaks to DSA’s force and the fact that they’re expanding beyond North Brooklyn and Western Queens.”

The reality is that SDA has been going after Adriano Espaillat since 2022, and Uptown Bronx DSA is delusional about its expectations.

I was born and raised in this district, I have been a Socialist for 20 years, and I have participated in improving my community, as you can hear at the Community Board.

My commitment as a Socialist is well known, as this City Councilperson inquired.

My activism is well documented in the district.

The incumbent’s calculation is that I will take votes away from DSA, but not enough to defeat him in the district, as he has been using his office to pay for ads on Facebook to promote his newsletter: https://www.facebook.com/RepEspaillat.

Drama at the International Level

In London, the two previous General Secretaries of the Socialist International brought labor lawsuits against the Socialist International.

The first was by Luis Ayala for £1.5 million for back payment for services rendered, and the second by Benedicta Lasi for being removed as Secretary General in a fashion that was against the bylaws.

In the video of that event, you can see how they prohibited the Ghana delegation from entering the room. At the time, the National Democratic Congress was not in power, and in January 2025, its leader John Mahama became the President of Ghana.

In Socialism, the biggest revenge is always local—by winning elections—which is how we, Socialists, create change.

The drama and the legitimacy of delegates are always related to accession to power through the democratic will of the people.

https://www.articulo14.es/politica/hana-jalloul-la-eurodiputada-a-la-que-la-exsecretaria-general-de-la-internacional-socialista-acusa-de-maltrato-20260423.html

The discussion between parties is taking place in the Socialist International Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialistinternational, where partisans of the various factions are posting their arguments.

Barcelona 2026

In 2024, I approached all the organizers of the Global Progressive Mobilization about organizing a similar event in New York City in 2025 around the first SDA Congress. It did not happen in New York City, but the important part is that it did happen.

You can read about it on the SDA website: https://www.socialists.us/direct/globalprogmob/events, with links to all the speeches in English.

The Americans were represented by John Podesta’s organization, the Center for American Progress, which, over the past decade, along with the National Democratic Institute, has operated both a 501(c)(3) that funnels tax rebates for billionaires and a 501(c)(4) to elect Liberals.

These two organizations have, over time, hired many European Socialists to work as fellows. These relationships between those fellows and leadership are strong, and I must prove that my activist relationships with the grassroots are actually stronger than theirs at the top.

My favorite part is when the room went dark and Hillary Clinton appeared on the screen and our grassroots Spaniard comrades started booing her.

Other SDA members running for office

This section is about the real experience that AOC’s consultant refers to in the documentary Knock Down The House on ballot access.

This last paragraph is meant to be studied in detail, but more as a reminder of the importance of encouraging every Democrat and Republican grassroots member to run for Precinct Committee, as it is the leaders they choose who get to appoint those commissioners who will ultimately decide who is a candidate and who is not.

I promise, it doesn’t have to get this overwhelming for you. The reason for documenting this is that the mere threat of it being published means they know that, at any moment, someone could document it and have it indexed by Google.

The only SDA member outside New York is Shelby Campbell, but because she doesn’t meet the three-year membership requirement, SDA cannot endorse her campaign.

That doesn’t mean that members cannot help her. Her website isIn New York, another candidate is Nayma Silver, who is the Vice President of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) group in New York City but is NOT an SDA member by choice. The PRD is a member of the Socialist International, and if she were to become an SDA member, she could use our assets, as she has been a local member of the PRD for more than three years. https://www.soup4change.com

In New York, another candidate is Nayma Silver, who is the Vice President of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) branch in New York City but is NOT an SDA member by choice.

The PRD is a member of the Socialist International, and if she were to become an SDA member, she could use our assets, as she has been a local member of the PRD for more than three years.

She is running for the Senate seat against another left minded Liberal, currently Senator Robert Jackson. Her website is https://naymasilver.com.

The last candidate running for Assembly and currently in court is Paperboy Love Prince.

As I mentioned above, DSA and New Kings Democrats are doing everything to remove them. Their website is https://paperboyprince.com.

And I will leave the last word to my own opponent in District 13, a DSA member who was not given the opportunity to present in front of the DSA’s New York City Electoral Group, which is why I believe he continued with his candidacy.

Here he is in front of the Board of Elections asking the question that Nayma Silver Matos was not allowed to ask.

The only way these shenanigans stop is by making sure every Democrat and Republican actually runs for Precinct Committee, as it is the leaders they choose who get to appoint those commissioners who ultimately decide who is a candidate and who is not.

I know why I am on the ballot, and this benefits the incumbent and our organization, SDA.

Socialism Monthly On-Boarding

I have split the on-boarding sessions between the first and third Wednesdays of the month:

• First Wednesday – 7:30 PM Pacific: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488

• Third Wednesday – 7:30 PM Eastern: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/897754

Welcome dear Comrade!

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

The traditional “please introduce yourself” quickly turned into a confusing exchange of emails going in every direction. This newsletter is intended for everyone who is curious about socialism and the Social Democrats of America organization.

Sitting and raising your arm

It actually takes longer to explain what SDA does than to do it.

Moving the Democratic Party to the left is as simple as attending your local monthly Democratic Party meeting, sitting there, and letting people know you are a socialist.

It just so happened that I had a camera the first time I did it. The bar is pretty low, and as you can see, next to me were two men with prosthetic legs. If they can do it, you can do it.

The goal of the onboarding is to set expectations for what is required of every SDA member within the Democratic Party. Simply bring a chair and, from time to time, raise your hand and ask a pointed question.

The members in control of the Democratic Party are notorious for answering questions very candidly—as long as those questions do not jeopardize their leadership.

I raised my hand before the vote, but my question was asked after the vote had already taken place. Most of the time, they use this to claim they are being democratic.

Socialism Is the Critique of Inequality

The second issue that consumes our time in SDA is answering the question: “What is Socialism?” and how do we put it into practice in Democratic Party meetings?

Critiquing inequality does not make you a socialist.

What makes someone a socialist is membership in a socialist organization and agreement with socialist ideals.

That is what the onboarding Zoom is about: giving you the basic tools needed to sit in that chair and explain it to others without turning it into a fistfight.

Voting for a socialist candidate does not make you a socialist—it makes you a socialist voter. That argument is as old as the socialist movement, which is why Bernie Sanders is not a socialist, but rather socialist-adjacent.

Identifying as a socialist does not make you a socialist, as explained by Pedro Sánchez at the 2019 Socialist International Council meeting in the Dominican Republic.

Bernie has consistently refused to join any socialist organization.

Instead, he helped create a separate movement with individuals who left their socialist parties to form the Progressive International. A similar split occurred in 1920, when Vladimir Lenin sought to build what he considered a better form of “socialism” through the USSR.

The Democratic Socialists of America was the Socialist International–affiliated party in the United States until its membership voted to leave that movement in 2017.

That was the moment it ceased to be part of the Socialist International tradition.

Socialism Is Universal—and So Is the Struggle

Around the world, the struggles of the 1920s created a split between communism and socialism. Communists sought to create what they believed was a better form of socialism, leading to a lasting division within the broader movement.

When you explore SDA, you are stepping into a very rich history. However, fully understanding that history is not required to call yourself a socialist.

That said, you will feel the weight of that history when you begin working on ideas, as older socialists will often tell you how similar efforts were tried in the past—and failed.

The goal is to move forward today and take small, practical steps.

Do not worry—if you feel that SDA is not for you, you can continue your political exploration in other directions. You can move further to the left with Angela Davis and the Communist Party USA, or further to the right with Pete Buttigieg and the Center for New Liberalism. If neither socialist group fits, you can join the Global Greens, USA.

All of these groups benefit from your participation in your local Democratic Party meetings.

SDA’s range of views spans from the center-left, represented by Elizabeth Warren, to the center-right, represented by Bernie Sanders during the 2020 Democratic Party primary.

SDA Is a Support Organization

The first time you attend a Democratic Party meeting, it can go one of two ways: you are either welcomed with open arms, or you are pushed out and need to regroup before trying again.

One of the biggest arguments I have with socialists around the world is my insistence on using the plain word “socialism.”

Our comrades around the world need access to our politicians, so they can become uneasy when we push the envelope. We cannot let that affect us—we need to change our politicians.

As you can see, your involvement and your questions at your local city council or Democratic Party meetings can be disruptive, and they may sometimes use intimidation to block your efforts.

Do not worry—don’t force it. Let it go and try again in the next cycle the following year.

Presenting a Socialist Platform for the First Time

By meeting once a month at an SDA salon in your county, you can organize how to present the Socialist Manifesto to the broader audience.

The second role of an SDA comrade is to help define the next version of socialism.

I share my definition—after comparing it with those of members of the Socialist International and the Progressive International—because, as a leader, other groups will try to discredit it and may use your youthfulness in the movement to create doubt about this information.

In the same way that Democrats and other socialists sometimes use allegations of sexual impropriety to undermine a candidate, SDA is here to provide a support network to help withstand anything that liberals or communists may throw at us.

The power of the Socialist manifesto

This is my definition, which I am sharing with you as a starting point. Over time, you will develop your own.

The definition is mine because one of the first things the Democratic Socialists of America may use to discredit me is their community agreement, arguing that I am narcissistic and cannot speak for or represent all socialists: https://www.dsausa.org/organize/respectful_discussion.

1) Assume good faith in your fellow comrades

Assume good faith in each other. Please try to speak from experience, speak for yourself, and actively listen to each other. When someone makes a point, repeat what you heard, summarize, and ask clarifying questions like “did you mean X” or “what makes you say that” to get more information. Encourage yourself and others to maintain a positive attitude, honor the work of others, avoid defensiveness, be open to legitimate critique and challenge oppressive behaviors in ways that help people grow. We want to “call each other in” rather than calling each other out — in other words, if you are challenging someone’s ideas or behavior, do it respectfully, and if you are being challenged, receive it respectfully. Remember, mistakes will be made, nobody is perfect.

To avoid that, as you can read below, many people are still trying to defame me to this day—but I ignore them. I share this in the newsletter because I find it somewhat amusing, but I do not let it affect me.

This is my definition, and I am inviting you to adopt it, with the hope that it will become ours.

That is why those who have joined after February 15 must agree to these ground rules:

• We are Socialists, which means that, in our view, Socialism IS NOT the road to Communism.

• We are Socialists; therefore, WE collectively define what Socialism means for the world.

• We refer to each other as Comrades, but you are not required to do so if you prefer not to.

• Our platform is called a Manifesto, but you may refer to it as a platform if you prefer.

• Socialism is not an economic system designed to replace Capitalism. The idea that it is comes from a Communist framework often promoted by the right wing.

• We are not Communists. You may refer to our group as Socialists, Social Democrats, or Democratic Socialists. Some people who are not part of our group may also use those labels; the only litmus test is whether they apply the Socialist Manifesto listed on our website.

• Because we are American, we are Democrats — members of the Democratic Party — while also committed to the small-“r” republican values of civic participation and representative government.

I did not come up with these rules in a vacuum. I shared them with socialists from around the world to get their perspective; many of them have lived through the Cold War and periods of dictatorship.

Those who joined us earlier and have not yet agreed to them—now is the time to do so. These rules have been reviewed by members of the Socialist International.

Furthermore, those who disagree with this definition are free to join other “socialist” political groups across the country. I created a website to help people better understand where they stand politically. It is called Political Center, and the URL is https://politicscenter.us.

If comrades are not willing to promote the Socialist Manifesto within the Democratic Party and instead want to argue endlessly about the word “socialism,” I invite them to create their own organization—not to come to SDA and rehash debates that were settled 100 years ago.

I am personally not interested in those debates, and neither are many socialists around the world.

The French Tradition

It also means that we carry, in our history, the legacy of French political struggles—from the Paris Commune, to the origins of left Zionism that emerged from the debates surrounding the Dreyfus Affair, and the 1920 split that led to the creation of communist parties.

These three major events are reflected in socialist parties around the world, including in the United States. The 1920 split can still be seen in the Communist Party USA, which has maintained organizational continuity—for example, through assets like its building in New York City. However, unlike many communist parties elsewhere, it continues to describe its policies as socialism, whereas most others use the term communism.

Organizations such as the Social Democrats USA, the Socialist Party USA, and the Working Families Party represent American expressions of the historical split that, in other parts of the world, is typically described as the divide within socialism. Their growth, however, was hindered by the various Red Scares in the United States.

During that time, the term “socialism” was carried forward in part by Black American intellectual and political traditions, including those associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Meanwhile, parts of academia and the labor movement were influenced by external pressures and internal conflicts, which weakened rank-and-file labor organizing and, in some cases, encouraged patronage systems.

This video from 2017 comes from my first County Committee meeting, where we had to select the candidate who would represent the Democratic Party in a State Assembly special election. At the time, I was taken aback by a labor leader’s comparison to a “Brooklyn dog,” but I later came to better understand the underlying issues being expressed.

The American left is fragmented largely because, as left movements around the world split, people in the United States were deeply shaped by the trauma of the First and Second Red Scares—effects that are still felt today.

There are also ongoing questions about whether affiliation with a communist party abroad, particularly outside the former Iron Curtain, could affect entry into the United States.

Fast forward to 2026

The Democratic Socialists of America is a member of the Progressive International, while the French Socialist Party is affiliated with both the Socialist International and the Progressive Alliance.

Bernie Sanders helped launch the Progressive International alongside Yanis Varoufakis of MeRA25 and Jeremy Corbyn in 2021. The Socialist International traces its origins to July 14, 1889, when it was founded by an international collective. The Progressive Alliance was created in 2013 following internal governance disputes within the Socialist International.

Leaders across these organizations often claim to represent socialism on a global scale, but in reality, they represent the positions of their respective parties within these international networks.

If you ask members of parties associated with the Progressive International, many will reject the label of “socialist” outright. Their answer is often a clear “no”—not because of any association with the United States, but because they do not identify with those policies.

Elections in Paris

Our faction in Paris won the election. If we are to compare apples to apples, I will present the Paris elections using American faction names.

New York City is run by the Zohranist faction of the Democratic Socialists of America, while Paris is run by us—the SDA Social Democratic Socialists.

This will allow us to study, over the next six years, how two “socialist” factions manage a major city.

The French group aligned with the American DSA has decided to set itself apart and not work with the left coalition of communists and greens led by the French Socialist Party.

Why aren’t we members of the Socialist International?

The simple answer is that, as the leader of the Social Democrats of America, I fall short. Like Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani, I am a New Yorker—and the same animosity that can exist across the United States toward New Yorkers is reflected internationally. In the eyes of parties within the Socialist International, I represent a United States that has often bullied the rest of the world.

That makes our relationship with international partners difficult. As Americans, we are not inclined to accept a watered-down version of socialism, but at the same time, we are not willing to participate in corrupt practices.

Many admire the large-scale support that figures like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are able to generate, while also wanting to distance themselves from the policies we advocate.

There is also some resentment around how the organization was built. I established the Social Democrats of America by registering it as a corporate entity with the state, opening a credit union bank account, filing for 501(c)(4) status with the IRS, launching a website, and beginning to recruit socialists.

The leadership of the Democratic Socialists of America was not pleased. Members of the Bronx/Uptown DSA leadership even went on a podcast to outline their criticisms of me.

I gave up the fight with the other leftist factions

At this point, I stepped back, and with the help of socialist scholars from around the world, we developed the definitions we use today.

Based on those definitions, can socialists be elected in the United States?

The answer is clearly yes: Bernie Sanders has been elected since 1981, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez since 2018, Julia Salazar since 2019, and Zohran Mamdani in 2026.

I do not know what happened between Bernie Sanders and Michael Harrington, and I wish Bernie would speak more openly about it.

Bernie has since been influenced by Yanis Varoufakis, Jeremy Corbyn, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, moving his positions further left than traditional social democracy.

At the same time, the rank-and-file members of the Democratic Socialists of America are not unified on this direction, and elements within the Socialist International—some of which DSA itself has criticized—are now seeking closer ties with them.

I am not willing to compromise what I see as the grassroots ideals of socialism.

That, in a nutshell, is why I believe the leadership of the Socialist International is reluctant to include us.

Ultimately, it will be up to us—as a collective—to define socialism in the United States through ongoing debate in our listserve.

The SDA mailing list is just shy of 1,000 members, with about 40 non-voting members.

See you at the next On-Boarding meeting

Socialism Monthly On-Boarding

I have split the on-boarding sessions between the first and third Wednesdays of the month:

• First Wednesday – 7:30 PM Pacific: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488

• Third Wednesday – 7:30 PM Eastern: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/897754

Welcome dear Comrade!

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

Today, in 2026, the difference is simple: DSA works outside the Democratic Party, while SDA works inside the Democratic Party.

DSA is a member of the Progressive International. SDA is working to reclaim the membership left by DSA in the Socialist International, and we are the Social Democrat faction within the Progressive Alliance.

Personally, I will not lose sleep over it anymore. The split between DSA and SDA is now complete.

Socialism Monthly On-Boarding

I have split the on-boarding sessions between the first and third Wednesdays of the month:

• First Wednesday – 7:30 PM Pacific: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488

• Third Wednesday – 7:30 PM Eastern: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/897754

Michigan 13 & Trademark & Activism

Earlier this month, Shelby Campbell became a Non-Voting member of the SDA. However, because the SDA bylaws are clear—one must be a member for three years before being allowed to run as a Social Democrat—you will not see any SDA assets on her website.

She has taken on the Campbell Corporation in the lawsuit Campbell.

https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/2025/11/campbells-stipulated-order-reinforces-trademark-protection-in-political-speech

We have also created a policy thread to discuss Trademark & Activism.

The creation of the Listserve was prompted by a French-American lawyer based in Paris who sent us a cease-and-desist letter over our recruitment campaign encouraging SDA members to join Democrats Abroad.

You can join the discussion here: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/899081.

Petitioning in the streets of New York

On my personal Facebook page, I am sharing pictures of New Yorkers petitioning to get on the ballot: https://www.facebook.com/theochino.

You can see that people from 18 to 99 years old are participating. They are all liberals, and many are members of the Center for New Liberalism: https://cnliberalism.org.

What I do not see in these photos are members of CPUSA. They may be featured in AOC’s section at the end of the newsletter. If they can do it, we MUST do it.

I have been petitioning since 2006. I have always said that I am a Socialist, and at the time I would often prefix it with “a French Socialist.” I have been punched, spit on, and had doors slammed in my face. Some leftists have even had guns pointed at them.

At the same time, when I petitioned as a Green—after the Green Party lost its recognition—I saw that New York was not exactly a haven for the far right.

This week, I met three liberals who refused to sign because I am a Bernie/AOC socialist—but many more signed precisely because I am a Socialist. I have even had people turn around and come back to sign the petition.

The “Medicare for All” and “Bernie” buttons definitely help.

Lastly, I want to share the video posted by DJELF—an activist with libertarian tendencies who has become notorious across political circles in New York City.

He has gravitated toward the extreme left, DSA, the Green Party, MAGA, and now wants to create a platform that “unites us all”: https://www.repmyblock.org/djelf7/brand/djelf7/index.

Here he is at a GOP holocaust survivor house.

Using Rep My Block, he trained himself and is now running for Zohran’s Assembly seat on the GOP line. The process is the same as codified in New York State law and the New York Constitution.

His platform is a mix of various populist ideas circulating today. Many so-called “serious” New York City activists call him a clown.

As Socialist Michael Harrington said in 1984, this country needs institutions where members work out a program, present it to the public, and then have elected officials carry that program into law.

In 2026, those institutions include: the Communist Party, the Conservative Party, the Christian Democrats, the Liberals, and the Greens. Today, only the Conservative Party and the Liberals are effectively pushing their platforms. It is up to us to present a Socialist one.

We are the newcomers, and we need to assert ourselves. We are running behind, but the instructions for building a Socialist platform are posted here: https://socialists.us/policies.

I love a photo from seven years ago because it includes every misfit in New York City. Through the petitioning process, I helped many of them get on the ballot—from the youngest citywide candidate to someone who later became a January 6 protester, and even an anti-war artist who drifted toward the ultra right.

This month was short

When I get frustrated, I let it out—like a ’90s song from Tears for Fears—and I tell my detractors to take a hike. I am not speaking to you, my comrades, but to those who have attacked us through me over the past twenty years.

As I run for Congress, I see my job as teaching Socialism—and teaching how liberals within the Democratic Party use every tool available to cast doubt and force us into “presentable” molds.

I have deliberately kept this post raw. If you read between the lines, you will find all the rules needed to build your own movement—if you are dissatisfied with the global movement of the Socialist International.

I am not insulting SDA readers. I am speaking about those who categorically refuse to participate in the process while simultaneously preventing others from doing so—by casting doubt and spreading falsehoods.

Unfortunately, the English language does not fully capture the depth of my disdain and condemnation, while still ensuring they understand exactly how I feel.

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

AOC 2028

If Team AOC does not get on board, her 2028 presidential run is over. She will be forced to convince center-right liberals that she is the right choice—and we have seen how that strategy played out in 2000 with Ralph Nader, and again in 2016 and 2020.

My first experience running for office in New York State was in 2005, when I mounted a small campaign as a Green Party candidate.

In twenty years, I have learned the secret of getting on the ballot. Without even seeing the petition AOC shared in her newsletter, I can already tell that she is focused on herself and her circle—not on building a movement.

I have raised these concerns in the AOC 2028 Substack.

Draft AOC for President in 2028

Today is Friday, and the United States is divided into 3,244 counties, parishes, and boroughs.

Dear AOC Fan…

Read more

6 months ago · 1 like · Theo Chino

The email she sent to her supporters about getting on the ballot did not mention building the Socialist or broader left movement within the Democratic Party.

Welcome dear Comrade!

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

If you would like to become a paid voting or non-voting member of the Social Democrats of America, please follow this link: https://socialists.us/join.

This year, we have once again doubled the membership of Social Democrats of America, the Socialist faction inside the Democratic Party. This month’s draft newsletter is therefore intended to welcome all the new Socialists into the movement.

Welcome!

I will open with the words of Socialist International President Pedro Sánchez regarding the regulation of 500,000 migrants.

I publish this draft newsletter on the last day of the month and post it on Substack so you can always refer to it if you forget to check your spam folder or feel that SDA did not send you anything.

We are not a customer service organization, so it is up to every member to stay informed about what SDA does.

That said, we also know that we are human, and that the American system has accustomed people to being treated like kings—where one becomes annoyed if they are not the center of the world.

SDA is not going to waste your membership money paying a private company to ensure that the newsletter lands in your inbox.

Just like changing the battery in your smoke detector when the time changes, SDA publishes a newsletter on the last day of the month, organizes an onboarding meeting on the first Wednesday of the month, and holds an open discussion on Zoom at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT.

What SDA’s Success Depends on Is You!

We are all volunteers, and the goal is to create a Socialist caucus within the Democratic Party to build the Socialist philosophy inside the Democratic Party and to run Socialist candidates.

If you do not participate in your local county Democratic Party, then SDA will not be successful.

To understand Socialism, you need to understand three concepts illustrated in The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, and The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

American philosopher Stephen Petro provides the cliff notes so you do not have to read these works right now in order to be effective as a Socialist, a Social Democrat, or a Democratic Socialist.

This newsletter is intended to explain to all new voting and non-voting members what they signed up for.

A Small Library Project

A French comrade asked me that, if you happen to be in front of a library (not a bookstore), you take a photo like the example below—one where the word library is clearly visible, with people coming in or out—and, of course, include the precise location.

His idea is to publish a book of libraries from all over the world to highlight the importance of books in culture and democracy.

I am sharing this request because, as Socialists, we have a network of comrades around the world working on small projects, and whenever we can help, we do. If you would like to participate, you can email the photo to theo@socialists.us, and I will forward it to Ambroise. Please also let me know how you would like to be credited.

Change What We Can Control

The goal of SDA is to change what we can control and learn to let go of what we cannot.

I say this because I remember members of my own community organizing postcard campaigns to replace George Santos, and now the same group is calling to replace Tom Suozzi for voting in favor of ICE. But when it came to building Socialism in the neighborhood, they were nowhere to be found.

What I can control is, by sheer luck, running into George Santos, telling him that I am a Socialist, and working on the narrative. That day, I was with photojournalist Sophie Bellard, who took that picture.

What I can control is not infringing on his First Amendment rights—agreeing where agreement is possible and disagreeing where it is not. But at the end of the day, I live in NY-13, not NY-03, so we must concentrate on what we can actually change, even if it is an uphill battle.

We all have politicians in our own backyard who need to be replaced.

If we each focus on doing that locally, those who live far away—whom television or the internet brings into our homes—can be ignored.

Socialist, Social Democracy, or Democratic Socialism Is the Same Thing

Socialism, Social Democracy, and Democratic Socialism are the same thing, and you can refer to the movement using the term you feel most comfortable with.

You will hear Socialist leaders use all three terms interchangeably, so if another leftist tries to pull you into a semantic debate over their definitions, do not waste your time.

A Socialist member of the Greek Parliament explains the differences, in his country, between the Progressive International (DSA in the USA, SYRIZA in Greece) and the Socialist International (SDA in the USA, PASOK in Greece).

We Decide What Socialism Is

We, the members of the Socialist International community, decide what Socialism is.

When someone who is not a member of a Socialist organization declares what is and is not Socialism, it usually means they do not know. Some of these individuals may have been members of a Socialist organization at some point, but left following a disagreement.

That is the case with many leaders and organizations—such as Lenin, Marx, Bernie Sanders, the entire Democratic Socialists of America organization, and the American Socialist Party, to name a few—which have all left the Socialist International movement. From that moment on, these organizations ceased to be Socialist in the organizational sense.

Socialism is full of philosophical drama, and there are bylaws to deal with that drama.

One thing we are clear about is that we are in the United States, and that Michael Harrington authored the Socialist International’s 1989 Declaration of Principles, which is what we follow: https://www.socialistinternational.org/about-us/declaration-of-principles.

As far as SDA is concerned, we do not recognize any of the current management of the Socialist International, which is why we reverted to the original name under which George Herron represented SDA at the first meeting in 1901: the Committee of the Second Socialist International.

All we need to prove ourselves is to elect SDA members to public office in counties across the United States, and that is something we can control.

And now you are part of that global adventure, but your participation is in your county.

Social Democrats of America is your organization

When I say it’s your organization, it does not mean that you get to change the organization’s bylaws unilaterally because you do not like how it is run today.

By joining SDA, you agree to the common rules laid out in the bylaws: https://socialists.us/direct/declaration/bylaws. If you do not like these bylaws, then you are welcome to join other “socialist” organizations.

In the United States, there are two Social Democratic organizations, Social Democrats, USA and us: one that follows the American bylaws system that mirrors DSA, and one that follows the intricate European bylaws established after the 1970s.

You can find all the information about who they are here: https://politicalcenter.org.

When it comes to which one will be the Socialist organization, the voters in your county will get to decide at the ballot box.

Social Democrats, USA, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and us share the same common Socialist root, but we have different management styles, and that management style is what drives how ideas go from brainstorming to realization. Change is gradual and occurs over a long period of time.

What is the next step for you?

If you are alone in your county, you need to recruit five members to create a Social Democratic Branch of the SDA Salon, and you will need to participate in your monthly local Democratic Party meeting.

Once you have recruited five members, you then organize a monthly meeting following the Ben Franklin Circles rules.

How is Socialism created?

By organizing Ben Franklin Circles in your communities and grooming leaders to run for elected office and apply the Socialism manifesto to their policies.

Socialism is a living movement that evolves over time through trial and error in applying policies when elected.

We are Reformists

Being a Socialist is being a reformist. Over the last century, all the way to 2017, the debate between reformists and revolutionaries has raged and continues to this day.

The revolution is the last resort when democratic processes have failed. It is our job to educate the electorate (however painful it is to lose) that our movement is the best equipped to bring positive change.

We are Democrats

We are Democrats; therefore, we build and recruit Socialist comrades inside the Democratic Party. We recruit into the Democratic party and we play by the rules of the Democratic party.

We play by the rules, and when other factions inside the Democratic Party do not play by the same rules as the Democratic Party, we also can draw outside the lines and play meaner.

We believe in democracy, but believing in democracy does not mean we believe in right-wing liberal policies.

We are looking for 3,600 leaders

We are looking for 3,600 leaders to run a Socialist Ben Franklin Circle in your county. Don’t worry if it’s not you; it’s someone you know, and if you start looking locally around the things you can change, you will realize that the answer was in front of you all this time.

Having said all that, the first rule is communication, so please use the email lists for your county to organize the monthly salon, share ideas, and debate local issues, and use the national debate to voice your frustration about things you can’t change but wish were different. Most likely, some comrade who is locally frustrating you will hear you.

Two minutes to change the world locally

At a New York City Council committee, chaired by my own councilman, I asked that a bill be amended to include “UN Week” to express my frustration with the United Nations for behaving as if they did not belong in this world.

So, applying the concept of changing what I can control, I can control my ballot for my councilman, I can control my speech in front of the NYC Council, I can control what is posted on the Socialist.US website, and I can recruit people to enhance the proposal: https://www.socialists.us/direct/UNClosures/policies.

These local steps may seem useless, but when you put them side by side, they tell a very different story—a story that we build together, over time.

Socialism, or whatever makes you comfortable—Social Democracy or Democratic Socialism—is as American as apple pie.

Welcome to SDA. Go down your driveway to your mailbox, look right, look left, look up, and, like Pedro Sánchez, change the world by changing what you can control.

Organize your first SDA salon if you don’t have one: https://socialists.us/localwork

And if you did not go to an on-boarding meeting, just join me one hour before the announced time (8 pm ET / 5 pm PT) to have an open discussion: https://socialists.us/events, and bring someone.

In the first paragraph, I relayed a request that I received from a comrade in France for a book project he is working on, and when I stop in front of a library, I will take that picture.

That is how, by doing something we can control locally, we can change the world the way Ben Franklin imagined it.

Welcome dear Comrade!

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

I have been watching — and participating in — the political game in New York City since 2005. Looking back, my involvement clearly falls into two phases:

2005–2015: “Go with the flow.”
2015–2025: “This shit has to stop.”

This will be my last toxic newsletter for at least the next ten years.

Too many people have spent too much time attacking me personally, from every direction. Some even paid membership dues in the hope that they could break the organization from the inside. That experiment has failed — not because of me, but because the structure works.

The toxicity we are seeing exists at every level. Internationally, we have watched factions connected to the Mexican PRI and the Spanish PSOE attack one another.

Locally, we see Democratic Party operatives attempting to discredit anyone who does not “go with the flow.”

The Social Democrats of America bylaws are ironclad because they are modeled on the European socialist tradition. They require participation, accountability, and real work from members.

These requirements are not arbitrary — they are organic, and they naturally suppress toxic behavior. That is what 146 years of institutional experience brings to the table.

At the local level

The image many of you have seen represents two realities at once. At the center is the same corrupt political circle that existed in 2005 — surrounded by those who went along with it.

In 2008, I was publicly outed as a Socialist. The response was immediate and blunt: “We are not Socialists.” From that point on, I was slowly pushed aside.

At the time, I was working the graveyard shift as a computer engineer at Time Warner Cable. Side by side with my IBEW Local 3 coworkers, I realized something very clearly: we were all peons in a corporate game — a game regulated by the same people in that picture.

I am certain the same dynamic exists in your communities.

On the International Level

The same exclusionary behavior played out with the Socialist International, which organized meetings without including us.

I equate that behavior to colonialism: coming into someone else’s house, claiming to want to fix the world, but refusing to invite the people who live there.

One clear example of this behavior is the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, based in Berlin.

In the United States — particularly in Washington, D.C. and New York City — the Foundation has chosen to align itself closely with liberal political institutions and figures, while excluding actual American Social Democrats from meaningful participation.

In December, the Foundation organized a North–South Forum. I personally reached out to the organizers to request that American Social Democrats be included in the discussion.

I wish them good luck without our American participation.

The same exclusionary pattern occurred with the Socialist International, which organized meetings in the United States without inviting us.

I can only describe this behavior as colonial in nature: coming into our house, claiming to want to fix the world, while refusing to invite the people who actually live here. That approach will not work.

No one fixes the world by pushing Americans aside — just as no one fixes it by excluding Europeans, Africans, Asians, or Latin Americans. International solidarity cannot be built on selective inclusion.

Today, Donald Trump and ICE are deliberately cultivating fear. Many international socialists are falling prey to that fear and choosing safety over solidarity. I understand the instinct — but we cannot accept it.

That is why I will be lobbying City Councils and Community Boards to push for the 2026 UN General Assembly to be held in Geneva, and for the NYPD overtime funds otherwise used for security to be spent instead on the people of New York.

The Reality of Organizing: 68 Hours Per Year

Across the country, people tell me the same thing: “I don’t have the time to organize.”

The truth is that SDA is about training leaders — and leadership is about efficiency, not endless meetings or reinventing the wheel at bake sales.

Using the New York model, organizing SDA takes approximately 68 hours per year.

This is the entire SDA calendar for 2026 in New York City:

• About 3 hours of petitioning on your own block between February 24, 2026 and April 2, 2026

• Tabling on February 22, 2026 and March 30, 2026

• One SDA salon toward the end of January

• One SDA salon in April to review our accomplishments in recruiting candidates

• One SDA salon in May for open discussion

• Before June 23, 2026, participate in the campaign by going door-to-door, asking neighbors whether they have voted, and encouraging them to vote for SDA candidates

• July: regular SDA salon to identify SDA candidates to run for County Committee chair positions in the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn

• August: regular SDA salon to review our plans for the September County Committee elections

• September: approximately 6 hours of tabling at Democratic Party events in the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn

• October: regular SDA salon to coordinate participation in the general election, including BOE workers, poll watchers, and international observers

• November: regular SDA salon to prepare for the Staten Island and Manhattan County Committees

• December: regular SDA salon to review the year

That is the entire year!

Organized correctly, we do not need chaos, burnout, or last-minute panic. Depending on your county, it may require even less time.

Ballot access in New York City

In 100 days, we will submit petitions to get on the ballot in New York City. At this moment, Paperboy Love Prince and I are the only Social Democratic Socialist candidates in the United States in 2026.

That is not enough! We need more candidates, more organizers, and more comrades willing to step forward and commit 68 hours a year.

Becoming a Socialist takes time. Our bylaws are clear: three years of active membership are required before running under the SDA banner.

You can see how easy it is to identify the Socialist slate here: https://repmyblock.org/TSOL/voter/guide.

Rep My Block and the Political Center

Rep My Block is open-source software.

The code is free, public, and open to improvement: https://github.com/repmyblock.

It follows the same principles pioneered by the Green Papers: free, no ads, no manipulation — just information: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/07/upshot/the-secretive-duo-guiding-the-delegate-count.html.

Rep My Block is explicitly modeled on that approach: plain data, presented clearly, without monetization or political interference.

I have been in discussions with the Green Papers team about active collaboration, so that we do not duplicate work while collecting the same underlying data for different analytical purposes.

A beta version of the upcoming voter guide is already available here: https://beta.repmyblock.org.

As shown in the usage graphs, voters primarily seek voter information in the days immediately before an election, while candidates engage earlier, during the petitioning window. Rep My Block is designed to serve both needs at the correct moment.

This data feeds directly into the European Model and American Model, generating live political-spectrum graphs. As candidates declare, file petitions, and campaign, we will be able to watch the Overton Window move in real time.

I published a detailed Reddit post explaining both models and why political representation in the United States is structurally distorted when compared to Europe: https://www.reddit.com/r/DemocraticSocialism/comments/1plg0fx/comment/nts7814.

Using the European model of representation, the political left in Europe occupies a clear, visible space. In the United States, that same space is fragmented, mislabeled, or pushed out of view. Rep My Block exists to make those distortions visible — and correctable.

My goal with Rep My Block is to have these graphs update automatically over time, based on data provided directly by candidates as they declare, file petitions, campaign, and govern.

I refer to this evolving system as the Political Center: https://politicalcenter.org.

The objective is simple: to create a living political map that reflects reality as it changes — not static labels, not pundit narratives, but data-driven political positioning updated in real time.

Why Membership Matters

To end the toxicity — locally and internationally — we need members.

The constant attempt to undermine SDA always comes back to one thing: questioning our numbers. Our bylaws are clear. Voting membership runs January 1 to December 31.

Politics is not a science. It is about human behavior, trust, and leverage. SDA has created the leverage necessary to remove toxic actors who place personal agendas above collective progress.

Voters no longer trust us because politics has become toxic.

We are watching that toxicity destroy others. Even our comrade Keir Starmer is paying the price, with polling predicting catastrophic losses for UK Labour.

Suddenly, SDA does not look so bad.

SDA does not rely on outside organizations. Everything we build from here forward will be built by American members. SDA has it’s consituted does not require the help any outside organization so, anything we build from now on can only be because of the American membership.

Looking Ahead to 2026

My hope for 2026 is that this newsletter becomes positive — reflecting real international organizing with comrades who have quietly supported our growth. Some names must remain private for now, because association still carries risk.

Finally, I ask everyone to become an official member:

• Non-Voting Membership: https://socialists.us/non-voting/index/join or

• Voting Membership: https://socialists.us/voting/calculate/join member.

If we do this right — 65–68 hours per comrade per year — we can end the toxic cycle, regain voter trust, and build something durable.

Happy New Year !

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

I understand that not everyone is a Socialist, and that working inside the Democratic Party can be very difficult.

The goal of SDA is to organize Socialists—based on our definition of Socialism, which is Social Democracy. We don’t concern ourselves with how others choose to define it.

To support people who use different definitions of “Socialism,” we created a series of webpages under the Left Caucus umbrella so they can organize without having to argue with us over terminology.

Most of you first heard about the Social Democrats of America through Mobilize. Mobilize is a tool we use to track activity and measure national engagement.

Our approach is simple: we wait until five people from a similar geographic area sign up on Mobilize. Since they already share our values, we connect them so they can meet monthly and begin organizing their community.

Right now, New York City is the only fully functional group. We meet monthly in what we call the “Salon.” (Yes—the November Salon took place inside Trump Tower.)

We had hoped to form groups in Houston and Miami-Dade, but the conversation around using the Ben Franklin Circle methodology—and its deliberate, slower pace—proved challenging.

It is difficult for many activists to accept that we may decline membership based on their different definition of Socialism.

Over the past five years, in New York City, about 200 leftists have identified as Socialists, but we cannot change our principles just to meet an arbitrary membership target. People will join our Ben Franklin Circles when they are genuinely ready.

The New York City chapter also has three members with the required three years of active, dues-paying membership, which automatically grants them access to SDA assets for their campaigns—namely, the Fist and the Rose.

Automated Recruitment & Data Hygiene

At SDA, we do not inflate our numbers. Over 146 years, we have learned how to remain small yet highly influential.

Many of you who subscribed through Mobilize received an email saying you were removed from the mailing list. That’s because after 40 days of inactivity, our system automatically deletes inactive emails. We follow strict European GDPR-style rules, which keeps our lists clean and accurate.

Many left-wing activists like to click a button and declare themselves “members.”
SDA does not work that way. We reject the idea of paper members.

Politics is not a spectator sport. It’s about being active—but “active” does not mean marching at every protest. It can be as simple as suggesting the movement of a comma in a resolution.

Politics should not be a full-time job; it is simply participating in issues that matter to you personally.

Most activists try to force you to care about what they care about. SDA is about empowering you to advance the issues you care about.

That’s why everything is divided into topical groups—because we know activism happens in the margins of everyday life.

For leftists working inside the Democratic Party who feel politically homeless, we are building a home in the Left Caucus. This includes: the Anarchist Caucus, the Green Caucus, the Communist Caucus and our own Socialist Caucus.

The Socialist International Newszine

Local political news has nearly disappeared. The old model—where you could quickly see what debates and meetings were happening in your area—is gone.

The same problem exists worldwide.

In response, I’ve begun creating a local news outlet called The Socialist International, a combination of Patch.com, USA Today, and The New York Times, all through a leftist lens.

You can see a prototype here: https://socialist.international.

Part of the website will eventually be printed and mailed to subscribers.

We plan to use AI concepts to organize stories by county, and when a county has enough interest to justify a print edition, we will try to distribute it at local gas stations.

This project is intentionally ambitious. We want to cover: local sports, politics, daily life, and the deliberations of local SDA Salons.

This Newszine will become the backbone of our movement.

COPPPAL in New York City

Last month I spoke about the launch of the COPPPAL observer mission in NYC: https://socialists.substack.com/i/177403671/observer-mission-by-copppal-to-the-nyc-mayoral-election.

COPPPAL—the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean—visited 13 random poll sites across New York City. SDA laid out a small red carpet to welcome the observers.

Diaspora press from the observers’ home countries widely covered the mission.

The observers experienced firsthand the pressures faced by non-endorsed candidates. Our team was asked to observe the opening of the polls by Lulu Friesdat, co-founder of Smart Elections.

We were unable to meet with her in person, but she reported that the issues she experienced during early voting did not appear on Election Day.

During early voting, there were problems accessing numbers and confusion about what is permitted under election law.

During this period, our team visited various events, but only the Curtis Sliwa press team responded to our request for access.

During early voting, we team visited various events, but only Curtis Sliwa’s pres team answered our request to be added so we could observe.

Zohran Mamdani’s team and Cuomo’s team treated us like pariahs, so we were never informed of their events.

At one Working Families event, we ran into one of the Team AOC leader and I introduced him to the COPPPAL leader and since the communication did not really take hold, reminded them about the ghosting.

Our day began at 5 AM on Billionaires’ Row and ended at my own polling site at 9 PM, when I voted.

Overall, the observers saw that the American voting process is transparent in theory—but poll workers often lack training in transparency rules, which creates problems for the press, observers, and candidates.

The Socialist International Meeting

The Socialist International meeting is currently taking place in Malta. Highlights will be posted on Facebook upon the return of SI Vice President Khagendra Chhetry, a member of the Nepali Congress Party and a resident of the New York Tri-State area.

You can follow updates from SI members in our SDA Facebook group dedicated to the Socialist International: https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialistinternational.

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

Observer Mission by COPPPAL to the NYC Mayoral Election

The first members of the COPPPAL Electoral Observatory, part of the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean, have begun arriving in New York City to observe the municipal elections. The delegation has already started visiting several early voting sites.

Davika Bissessar and James Finies of the Bonaire Human Right Organization spoke with a canvasser from the NYC Africans for Zohran for Mayor Coalition outside an early voting location.

During these visits, observers experienced firsthand how poll site workers react to unannounced international observation visits.

This is not an isolated incident. Last year, while accompanied by French journalist Sophie Ballard, I witnessed a similar confrontation when she was forcefully removed from a polling site—despite having full authorization. A year later, even with officially accredited international observers, a comparable situation nearly occurred again.

This raises an important question: Why does such aggressive behavior persist toward authorized outsiders?

The official press release in Spanish can be found here: https://www.copppal.org/prensa/c-27-06-2024-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-3-3-4-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2.

The New York Times story disappeared from the Internet Archive

This incident underscores the urgent need for a genuine left-leaning daily newspaper — one that presents current events from a Social Democratic perspective. For some time, I’ve been experimenting with mockups for such a publication.

On October 26, 2025, Lisa Lerer wrote an article about Zohran’s upcoming rally with Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — an article I felt was riddled with errors.

As I always do, I immediately saved the piece to the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive, sent my usual scathing response by email, and posted a rebuttal on what I hope will one day become The International Socialist — a publication that combines the accessibility of USA Today with the depth of a Social Democratic version of Jacobin.

I emailed the author and posted my reply on the mockup site: https://socialist.international/2025/10/26/nyregion/mamdani-sanders-aoc-rally.html.

The core idea behind The International Socialist is to counter misleading articles by publishing well-documented responses — linking directly to the originals for transparency and accountability.

To my surprise, the original Times article — the one describing the anticipation of the rally — vanished and was replaced by a completely different version about the aftermath of the event, with substantial language changes.

Even more troubling, the original version seems to have been completely erased from the Wayback Machine — as if it never existed.

I know it was there when I posted my response — I verified it myself. I have enormous respect for both the Internet Archive and The New York Times.

How can one not start to become a conspiracy theorist when things like that happen?

I know there is likely a reasonable explanation — they will claim that the page was simply a placeholder or that The New York Times has a robots.txt file preventing the Wayback Machine from archiving certain stories, and so on.

Yet this experience only reinforces my conviction that it’s time to build a Social Democratic media platform that will challenge mainstream outlets — not to mirror their biases, but to present the truth from our own principled, progressive point of view.

If you want to contribute and start writing stories, visit https://socialist.international/editors and submit your work.

The Work with Our Partners

Let’s make this crystal clear: our relationship with American elected officials is nonexistent, and there’s nothing to sugarcoat about it.

As Socialists, we are uncompromising on two fundamental principles — universal healthcare and universal basic income. We call out as hypocrites every politician who claims to support these goals but refuses to tell their donors to go to hell. To them, we say it plainly: “Fuck you.”

It feels good to say it — but the truth is, it also leaves us isolated in the activist world. We’ve been put in the doghouse because we refuse to play their game, to dilute our message, or to trade integrity for access.

This is ultimately a reflection on them, not on us. We don’t need their approval or their money — because we have the same tools they have. The difference is that they pay for them, while we build them and give them to the world for free: https://github.com/repmyblock.

We understand that we’ll probably stay in the doghouse for a few more years — at least until we have authentic SDA-branded elected officials. We already have a few allies in office, but since they weren’t elected under the SDA name, we protect them quietly instead of putting them at risk.

What We Would Ask of a Mamdani Administration

In a Mamdani administration, the Social Democrats of America would put forward a series of appointments reflecting our vision of a more just and equitable New York City — one that serves people, not donors.

For Paperboy Love Prince — Deputy Mayor of Nightlife

Since 2020, Paperboy Love Prince has campaigned with a message rooted in love and community joy. As Deputy Mayor of Nightlife, Paperboy would bring a creative, inclusive, and human-centered approach to the city’s cultural spaces, ensuring nightlife policy uplifts rather than criminalizes New Yorkers.

For Rosa Diaz — NYC Department of Youth and Community Development

Rosa would be the best choice because she has lived experience within the New York City Public Schools as a student, staff member, and parent leader for almost two decades. She has dedicated her adult life to advocating for children and families, bringing knowledge, experience, and opportunities for success within NYCPS.

Rosa has executive experience as the Secretary of Manhattan Community Board 11.

Rosa serves as a bridge between parents and students, amplifying their voices while being an authentic and professional leader. She consistently keeps the community and its lived experiences in mind, making thoughtful decisions that benefit the most vulnerable populations. Her advocacy includes strong support for students with special needs and a deep understanding of cultural competency.

For myself — Sheriff of the City of New York

I would ask Zohran Mamdani to appoint me as Sheriff of New York City.

I make this request

not out of ambition, but out of experience — I have been a victim of real estate abuse, and I have witnessed firsthand how past administrations have failed to act.

The Sheriff’s Office, a division of the New York City Department of Finance, serves as the city’s enforcement arm, responsible for investigations involving real estate and deed fraud, cigarette tax enforcement, and other critical matters.

Given the epidemic of real estate theft sweeping New York, we need a Sheriff who will confront corruption head-on and bring justice to working families whose homes have been stolen through fraud and manipulation.

In 2024, Attorney General Letitia James announced limited protections for victims of deed theft, but her actions came too late — and too softly — allowing perpetrators to escape accountability while her office focused on high-profile political cases instead of the crimes devastating ordinary New Yorkers. https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2024/attorney-general-james-announces-new-protections-against-deed-theft.

That is why Zohran Mamdani must appoint real Social Democrats — people who have lived the struggles of this city — to positions of power.

We are not seeking titles. We are seeking justice, accountability, and a city government that finally stands with its people.

Time to Join the Social Democrats of America

If you’ve been reading this newsletter, now is the time to join SDA (Social Democrats of America), a 501(c)(4), by becoming a non-voting member for $40.

https://www.socialists.us/direct/index/join

At any time, you can switch to voting member status once there are five non-voting members in the same geographical area. This process will be explained during the On-Boarding Meeting, held on the first Wednesday of every month.

Please share the Mobilize link: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488.

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

The National Online On-Boarding Socialists Meeting takes place on the first Wednesday of every month at 9 PM Eastern / 6 PM Pacific.

Please share the Mobilize link: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488.

The purpose of this meeting is not to cover 146 years of Socialist theory or review the rich history of our movement. Instead, the goal is simple: to introduce the basics of Socialism and explain how we use the consensus-building Ben Franklin Circle Salon model instead of Robert’s Rules of Order.

Observer Mission by COPPPAL to the NYC Mayoral Election

We are working with the Electoral Observatory of the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean to organize a Latin American delegation to observe the New York City Board of Elections during the November 4th mayoral election.Pedro Sánchez and the Democratic Party

Pedro Sánchez and the Democratic Party

This month’s newsletter focuses on Pedro Sánchez, the Prime Minister of Spain and President of the Socialist International. During his recent visit to New York, he was widely acclaimed for his socialist vision.

In my campaign speech for Chair of the Manhattan Democratic Party, I referenced the President of the Socialist International and highlighted the positive impact that socialist policies bring to the world.

Although I was not elected to lead the Manhattan Democratic Party because we do not yet have the numbers, we are building for the future. If you know people in Manhattan who would like to become delegates in 2027, please have them email nysol@register.repmyblock.org.

All documents related to the SDA organization of the County Committee can be found here: https://www.socialists.us/direct/2025-NYNYCDNC/running.

Pedro Sánchez and Columbia University

I live in the neighborhood of Columbia University, and I always find it remarkable that many socialist leaders accept invitations to this “prestigious” institution, despite the fact that it is a poor neighbor to local residents.

Currently, there is an ongoing issue regarding access to a private street—116th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam. We, the local Socialists, support reopening that street to the public. https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/columbia-university-college-walk-footpath-lawsuit.

As Socialists, we understand the importance of local policies and how they shape global policies. It is vital for Socialist leaders to apply in New York the same principles they promote around the world.

Many Socialist leaders don’t realize that New York City, aside from being unaffordable, is home to many proud poor people who will never openly admit they need help. Only through organizations like SDA are we able to convey the true scale of local challenges.

Pedro Sanchez and the Gates foundation

As President of the Socialist International, the honor bestowed on Pedro Sánchez is an honor for all Socialists around the world.

In recognition of his continued commitment to advance the Global Goals, the foundation announced President of the Government of Spain Pedro Sánchez as the winner of its 2025 Global Goalkeeper Award. Under Prime Minister Sánchez’s leadership, Spain increased contributions to the Global Fund this year by nearly 12% and to Gavi by 30%, expanded official development assistance (ODA), and hosted the landmark International Conference on Financing for Development in June 2025. - https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-releases/2025/09/global-fund-pledge-goalkeepers

As Americans, we are proud that our Socialist President is being recognized as a trailblazer who has never wavered in the face of third-way politics.

Time to Join the Social Democrats of America

If you’ve been reading this newsletter, now is the time to join SDA (Social Democrats of America), a 501(c)(4), by becoming a non-voting member for $40.

https://www.socialists.us/direct/index/join

At any time, you can switch to voting member status once there are five non-voting members in the same geographical area. This process will be explained during the On-Boarding Meeting, held on the first Wednesday of every month.

Please share the Mobilize link: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488.

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

The National Online On-Boarding Socialists Meeting takes place on the first Wednesday of every month at 9 PM Eastern / 6 PM Pacific.

Please share the Mobilize link: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488.

The purpose of this meeting is not to cover 146 years of Socialist theory or review the rich history of our movement. Instead, the goal is simple: to introduce the basics of Socialism and explain how we use the consensus-building Ben Franklin Circle Salon model instead of Robert’s Rules of Order.

Lobbying for a Socialist Caucus in the Democratic Party

To establish a Socialist Caucus inside the Democratic Party, we must demonstrate that our values are fully compatible with the Democratic Party’s “Big Tent.”

Since 2016, I have been working to present Socialism to Democratic Party members who often misunderstand its history. What I quickly realized is that, in the streets of the United States, Socialism is widely mischaracterized.

I never imagined this effort would be such a roller coaster. Yet today, after years of work, I can say that we have set the stage for a more thoughtful discussion.

This month has been especially busy, as we prepare for next month’s New York Democratic Party County Committee meeting.

When I first participated in the County Committee in 2017, there was no notice of meeting times, the bylaws were not posted online, and the election process was vague at best.

Through collective work with other Democrats, we were able to change that.

By 2023, I was able to make a two-minute presentation on Socialism and even received three votes.

Today, the bylaws are posted online, the meeting location is announced a month in advance, and candidates for chair now have the opportunity to present themselves and their platforms.

In New York City, we now need 1,700 Socialists to represent their electoral districts. As shown in the short presentation, participation only requires about 20 hours per year.

The County Committee is one of the three pillars of the New York State Democratic Party.

Across the United States, there are over 3,200 counties—each with slightly different rules, but the overall process remains the same.

Unfortunately, liberals often use every rule to block Socialists from participating:

Shaming: “We are not Socialists, we are Democrats.”

Barriers: Preventing us from entering meetings (as in New Jersey).

Disruption: Creating chaos, such as what happened in Minneapolis.

At a minimum, we Socialists must organize around these conventions, which takes only about 20 hours a year.

The process is simple: just send an email to socialists@register.repmyblock.org to get started.

Socialism is Universalism

Socialism is universalist by nature.

That is why I often draw from international material—because since the 1930s, very little Socialist theory has been produced in the United States. Too many American authors remain stuck in outdated references from the 1920s.

Aside from Michael Harrington’s contributions in the 1980s, U.S. Socialist philosophy for the 21st century remains sparse.

Until academia, politicians, intellectuals, and working people come together to draft a new Socialist Manifesto for our time, we must continue learning from the rest of the world.

COPPPAL to observes Elections in New York City

Rosa Diaz and I met with Sofía Carvajal Isunza, Executive Secretary of the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean (COPPPAL), to discuss observing the November 4th municipal elections in New York City.

This effort will give COPPPAL representatives the opportunity to see first-hand how elections are organized in the United States.

Time to Join the Social Democrats of America

If you’ve been reading this newsletter, now is the time to join SDA (Social Democrats of America), a 501(c)(4), by becoming a non-voting member for $40.

https://www.socialists.us/direct/index/join

At any time, you can switch to voting member status once there are five non-voting members in the same geographical area. This process will be explained during the On-Boarding Meeting, held on the first Wednesday of every month.

Please share the Mobilize link: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488.

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

It’s hot—and it feels hotter than last year.

It’s palpable, visible to the naked eye, and just as palpable is the Liberals’ inability to remedy the situation. The solution is political, but it requires winning political office.

In this month’s newsletter, we’ll cover:

• Why SDA Doesn’t Organize or Participate in Radical Events

• An Article Accusing Us of “Infiltrating” the Democratic Party

• The Left/Right Divide in the United States

• Houston SDA Branch – August 20th Meeting

• Paperboy Love Prince for New York State Assembly and Theo Chino for US Congress

• Jeremy Corbyn Launches a New Mélenchonist Party in England

Why SDA Doesn’t Organize or Participate in Radical Events

When we say political, we mean getting serious about electing Socialist officials in the United States. But what does that even mean? That’s what SDA is about: teaching 21st-century Socialism in the United States and explaining what it means within the Right/Left divide.

That’s why SDA doesn’t organize radical events such as protests—we refuse to risk losing our First Amendment rights that protect our fundamental freedoms: speech, assembly, and petitioning the government.

We’ve developed a 30-second elevator pitch to define Socialism:

A Socialist society is one in which the government provides free education and universal healthcare, opposes the death penalty, supports abortion rights, ensures a universal basic income, upholds the right to unionize, protects the separation of church and state, and affirms that its fundamental role is to make life bearable for all while safeguarding individual liberties.

It’s slowly working. And if someone asks about Marx or the collectivization of the means of production, I simply invite them to join our Monthly Onboarding Meeting, held on the first Wednesday of each month at 9 PM.

As highlighted in the Dallas Express article below, SDA is an open organization, but we remain vigilant about preventing bad-faith actors from infiltrating our events or pushing members toward illegal or violent activities.

We’re just a group of committed Socialist activists, sitting around a table, brainstorming ideas for building a better society once we’ve earned the right to govern. History has shown that agencies like the CIA and FBI have infiltrated radical groups to provoke illegal acts, using them as a pretext to shut those groups down—we refuse to fall into that trap.

That’s why we stick to our strategy: hosting Socialist Salons, where we discuss what a Socialist platform should look like in our neighborhoods. We leave organizing protests to other groups like 50501 and are proud when our members sit on their steering committees. But as an organization, SDA does not organize protests.

This is the best way to safeguard our First Amendment rights, ensuring that we can freely bring even the most taboo or far-fetched ideas to the table—without fear of reprisals.

An Article Accusing Us of “Infiltrating” the Democratic Party

Likewise, we do not endorse political campaigns directly; our work happens entirely within the Democratic Party.

The Dallas Express article highlighted a reality we must always keep in mind: yes, we are infiltrating the Democratic Party.

The party is so large that when one of its members does something wrong, it gets shielded by sheer size. In a small organization, a single bad action taints the entire group.

To avoid that, SDA doesn’t organize anything outside of training candidates for office.

The Left/Right Divide in the United States

U.S. politics is divided into two major parties—neither has a defined ideology, just a Left/Right divide.

The GOP is the party of the Right, and the DNC is the party of the Left—but how does that stack up against the rest of the world?

SDA’s goal is to infiltrate the Democratic Party, establish a clear Left boundary, and push Liberals toward the Republican Party, where they can define the Right boundary.

Globally, over the last 50 years, the political spectrum has been framed with the Liberal International defining the Right and the Progressive Alliance, Social Democrats, and Socialists defining the Left.

That’s why we run for Democratic Party Precinct Captain positions across the country.

Over time, we will build the strength to push Liberals out of the Democratic Party and into the Republican Party—just as Greens, Communists, and Anarchists were once forced out of the Party’s left flank, leaving them with nowhere to organize and ultimately self-destructing.

This is why SDA exists: to unite everyone on the Left and organize collectively within the Democratic Party—without losing their own organizing methods. They simply need to adjust their organizational status to 501(c)(4) to operate effectively within the Democratic Party structure.

Michael Harrington was a genius for recognizing this pathway decades ago. And the formula is working. Since we switched to Mobilize, over 1,000 people have signed up, with 154 verified users and counting.

Paperboy Love Prince, who once ran for Mayor of New York, got elected as a Judicial Delegate in Brooklyn: https://www.newkingsdemocrats.com/judicial-delegates-explainer.

Except for me, every SDA member who ran was elected to positions in the Democratic Party: County Committees, Judicial Conventions, and, in some cases, District Leaders. New comrades who ran for office have also secured Democratic Party positions.

Houston SDA Branch – August 20th Meeting

In 2026, five SDA comrades are already preparing their campaigns and branch are starting to pop up across the United States with the first in person branch meeting in Houston, Texas on August 20th.

Paperboy Love Prince for New York State Assembly

We must thank Paperboy Love Prince and others who have run multiple times as we learned the ropes of political campaigns, developed tools like Rep My Block, and pushed the boundaries of what’s possible.

With the work of our five New York members and countless allies, we’ve built a system that trains members nationwide. We now call on every dual-citizen American Socialist around the world to join us and help strengthen our movement.

Paperboy’s recent win as Judicial Delegate sent ripples through the community because it proved that, without a traditional campaign, Paperboy had earned the recognition and credibility needed to win one of New York City’s most obscure elections.

As is customary in Kings County, when Paperboy Love Prince runs for Assembly, they will also run for District Leader alongside a large slate of County Committee members. Over the past five years, Paperboy Love Prince has been steadily building that team in the neighborhood through grassroots actions, including extensive mutual aid efforts.

If you know people in Brooklyn, they can join Paperboy’s Salon here: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/819716

Theo Chino for U.S. Congress

Meanwhile in Upper Manhattan, where the musical genra Salsa in Spanish Harlem and Bachata in Spanish Harlem, and Jazz in Sugar Hill, I am running against corrupt congressman Adriano Espaillat.

My neighborhood in New York is home to nearly 1/4 of the Dominican diaspora. For many Dominican immigrants, their time in the United States is viewed mainly as an economic opportunity, while they remain deeply connected to the Dominican Republic—often sending remittances home with the dream of retiring on the island one day.

That is also my story. Politics in my district and politics in the Dominican Republic are deeply intertwined.

The Dominican Republic even has overseas representatives in its Parliament, many of whom are members of the Progressive Alliance. This means that numerous dual-national Dominicans are part of the Progressive Alliance and the Socialist International—groups that Adriano Espaillat has long associated with as the most powerful Dominican in the U.S. House of Representatives.

At my first Progressive Alliance meeting in 2023, I laid out what would be expected from Socialists around the world for this U.S. congressional campaign in NY-13 to succeed.

With all the work of our five New York SDA members and countless allies, we’ve proven that our system works. We can train Socialist candidates all over the United States—and now we are calling on every dual-citizen American Socialist, wherever they are in the world, to join us.

If you know people in Upper Manhattan, they can join my candidate Salon here: https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/819490

Jeremy Corbyn Launches a New Mélenchonist Party in England

Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn has launched a new party aligned with Bernie Sanders’ Progressive International and the Democratic Socialists of America. Corbyn remained in the Labour Party, which belongs to the European Socialist Party and the Progressive Alliance.

By stepping away to form his own Mélenchonist-style party in England, he’s clarifying ideological lines, allowing SDA, DSA, and Liberals to organize more clearly.

Join SDA!

At our last call, a reporter of the Dallas Express join our intro call and wrote a pretty good article about our plan, but made two erroneous references.

If you feel like terrorizing the Liberals Democrats, feel free to join us by becoming a $40 Non Voting SDA member, https://www.socialists.us/newsletter/signup/join.

If you like what you see, you’ll have the opportunity to exchange it for a Voting SDA card.

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

Not Socialism itself—as I’ve already defined it on the website:

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.

Instead, this month’s newsletter focuses on the language of Socialism.

This shared language—spoken by Socialists across borders—signals familiarity with the tradition. It opens doors and fosters solidarity.

When you use it, you are recognized as part of the movement.

The Name “Socialist” Isn’t Always What It Seems

Today, several U.S. organizations use the word “Socialist” in their name:

• Socialist Party USA: https://www.socialistpartyusa.net

• Socialist Alternative: https://www.socialistalternative.org

• World Socialist Web Site: https://www.wsws.org

• Party for Socialism and Liberation: https://pslweb.org

• Democratic Socialist of America: https://dsausa.org

While each is part of the broader Left, none are Socialist parties in the international sense.

What makes a Socialist Party?

At its core, a Socialist Party is defined by its openness—especially to debate, dissent, and the exchange of new ideas. True Socialist traditions welcome internal discussion as a sign of strength, not weakness.

Some groups that call themselves “Socialist,” however, are so concerned about infiltration that they discourage disagreement—even during the recruitment process—undermining the democratic principles they claim to uphold.

The Social Democrats of America (SDA) take a different approach. We use the bylaws of the French Socialist Party as a framework to train members in the established traditions of Socialism.

To be clear: SDA is not competing with other groups on the Left. We are the Socialist organization rooted in the legacy and practices of the Socialist International.

As Jean-Luc Mélenchon once observed, our rules are open and democratic—though perhaps more lenient than some would prefer. Still, openness remains a core strength of our political culture.

Who Is a Socialist?

To be a Socialist means belonging to an organization that embraces the evolving principles of the Socialist International.

While formal membership in the Socialist International isn’t required, alignment with its values is essential. These principles—outlined in the Declaration of Principles—are the product of ongoing dialogue and collective decision-making by member parties at regular congresses: https://www.socialistinternational.org/about-us/declaration-of-principles.

Socialism is not a fixed doctrine. It changes over time, shaped by historical context and democratic debate. That’s why we often speak of Socialisms in the plural—to acknowledge the different paths taken. But for the mainstream, the definition of Socialism is the one affirmed by Socialist parties at their congresses.

Our organization reflects that tradition. It is shaped by veteran members of parties affiliated with the Socialist International and by a new generation of American members committed to learning, organizing, and leading.

Social Democrats, USA

After Michael Harrington’s departure, Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) drifted significantly to the right, ultimately leading to its collapse and expulsion from the Socialist International.

In recent years, SDUSA has made efforts to rejoin the Socialist International and was invited to attend its Madrid Congress.

• Social Democrats, USA : https://socialistcurrents.org

https://socialistcurrents.org/?p=4066

https://socialistcurrents.org/?p=4076

https://socialistcurrents.org/?p=4041

As these posts make clear, Congresses are pivotal moments for shaping Socialist policy—and we look forward to participating more fully in future ones.

The Social Democrats of America (SDA)

SDA combines international Socialist experience with a new generation of American leadership.

SDA keeps things simple:

• One monthly meeting on the first Wednesday of the month at 8 p.m. Eastern to discuss being Socialist in the Democratic Party.

• One monthly meeting on the first Wednesday of the month at 9 p.m. Eastern to discuss Socialism 101.

• One monthly local Democratic Party meeting.

We follow the rules we set. Now that SDA is established, we are focused on recruitment.

We are the Socialists!

Our roots trace back to the Paris Commune, which inspired Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

The French Socialist Party, heir to the Commune’s legacy, recently held its 81st Congress on June 15, where Socialism was once again defined for France.

Photos from the Congress:

• Day 1: https://www.flickr.com/photos/partisocialiste/albums/72177720326887856

• Day 2: https://www.flickr.com/photos/partisocialiste/albums/72177720326887851

• Day 3: https://www.flickr.com/photos/partisocialiste/albums/72177720326887836

June 2025: What a Month to Be a Socialist

The French Congress appeared cheerful on the surface, but each delegation arrived with proposals and strategies, competing for influence in the final manifesto and on the political bureau.

While enthusiasm for “Socialism” is welcome, terminology matters.

Amid that, a major development occurred in New York: Zohran Mamdani, a Mélenchonist candidate associated with DSA, secured the Democratic nomination for Mayor.

While enthusiasm for “Socialism” is welcome, terminology matters.

The Truth About Zohran Mamdani, is that he is not a Socialist. He is a Mélenchonist.

What is Mélenchonism?

Mélenchonism refers to a current of the Left inspired by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who left the French Socialist Party in 2008 to form a new coalition to the left of the Communists.

Mélenchon’s rhetorical skills and global reach have gained him admirers, including Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum and Brazil’s President Lula da Silva. While his movement has appeal, it diverges sharply from Socialist traditions.

Mélenchon’s explicit goal has been to weaken and ultimately replace Socialist parties.

Nonetheless, Socialist parties, valuing unity and coalition-building, continue to engage with France Unbowed (LFI) when appropriate—despite internal tensions. These tensions have been well-documented in La Meute, a French exposé, and mirrored in U.S. coverage such as Ryan Grim’s book on AOC and progressive politics.

Draft AOC for President in 2028

The World Is Waiting for Us to Step Up!

As the leader of the Social Democrats of America, I have consistently invited everyone to join us in drafting AOC within the Democratic Party…

Read more

a year ago · 1 like · Theo Chino

DSA continues to call itself “Socialist,” but its platform is rooted in Mélenchonist ideas. This distinction is important.

The French Socialist Party acknowledged these ideological differences during negotiations with Communists, Greens, and LFI to draft a shared platform:

You can read it here: https://politicnyc.com/manifestos/ProgressiveManifestos.pdf.

Even the Democratic Socialists of America themselves acknowledge the shift:

• https://www.thenation.com/article/world/jean-luc-melenchon-interview

• https://democraticleft.dsausa.org/2025/05/08/melenchon-in-nyc-milwaukee-socialist-takes-council-seat-and-more

The French 81st Congress

Le Monde described the Congress as overshadowed by Mélenchon’s presence, which he both denied and relished: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2025/06/17/the-french-socialists-a-show-of-impotence_6742427_23.html.

The Nancy congress, which was supposed to represent the party's emancipation, played out entirely in the shadow of LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who feigned surprise at the attention he received, only to relish it.

Some attendees, including myself, pushed for a clear departure from Mélenchonist politics, drawing on experiences with DSA in the U.S.

Accusations of diluting the PS

Faure, the proponent of a form of "environmental socialism" of which he has failed to define the content over seven years, had hoped to prove, in Nancy, his ability to establish the PS within a left-wing coalition that would be broad enough to sideline LFI. Yet the weak level of support he has within his party has left him even more vulnerable to accusations of diluting the PS. His rival, Mayer-Rossignol, who called for a "Socialist affirmation" along a much more reformist line, yet who remained vague about potential alliances, was no more convincing than Faure.

The Socialist International at Nancy

At the Congress, I ran into Chantal Kambiwa, General Coordinator of the Socialist International.

As a member of the French Socialist Party, I conveyed to the French leadership the need to reconsider France’s current representative to ensure effective dialogue between European Socialist parties and SDA.

I made it clear that the French representative to the International needs to be replaced and it was.

Kambiwa herself had been expelled from her own party, yet was placed in her role by the Spanish PSOE. As far as SDA is concerned, Socialism must be built as a community, with minimum principles respected by all.

The Socialist International has not taken a strong position recently. It is up to the Socialist diaspora in the U.S. to demand accountability.

The Progressive Alliance meeting in Hyderabad

The Progressive Alliance meeting in Hyderabad was marred by internal manipulation.

Members of India’s Congress Party shaped the agenda to their advantage, and some speakers were silenced.

Meanwhile, the Progressive International—aligned with Mélenchonist tendencies—was invited to the Progressive Alliance members surprise.

Each organization must stay focused on its own path.If you are a dual citizen and a member of a Socialist International–affiliated party or of the Progressive Alliance, you must choose:

It’s time to build Socialism in the U.S. or step aside.

If you are a dual citizen and part of the Socialist International or Progressive Alliance, you must choose:

• Resign from your foreign party role, or

• Work openly within the United States to build Socialism.

It’s no longer acceptable to support Socialism abroad while hesitating to do so in the U.S.

I know firsthand what it means to be an elected Socialist.

In my municipal council, I was betrayed by a colleague who admired Franco. Nonetheless, I earned the respect of others as a Socialist through my work.

No More Double Game

If you are a Socialist abroad but adopt liberal positions here in the United States, that approach has run its course.

That’s why we used the 2024 European Socialist Manifesto as our foundation:

• https://pes.eu/manifesto2024

• https://www.socialists.us/manifesto

If you are a Socialist, be one—consistently. There’s no more hiding behind ambiguity.

Corruption at the PSOE

There’s now a corruption scandal involving Pedro Sánchez, President of the Socialist International.

https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-corruption-scandal-socialist-pedro-sanchez-snap-election-santos-cerdan

Until this is resolved, the Socialist International is unlikely to respond effectively.

But as Mélenchon has pointed out: “Elections, mass education, and if you lose, you wait for the next blow.”

We are prepared to wait for the next congress—and to keep building.

New SDA Branches poping up all over the US.

While transitioning our events from Meetup to Mobilize, we launched three new branches: Oakland County, Michigan, Houston, Texas, and Miami-Dade County in Florida.

n less than a month, nearly 70 new members signed up for the upcoming SDA Monthly Onboarding Call on Wednesday, June 4, 2025, at 9 PM Eastern / 6 PM Pacific.

Please share the Zoom link with anyone interested: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89566597580?pwd=RKRywn6CutEDBSTaPewucjg68QZhAV.1

New York City Maroral Races

In the face of chaos, we’ve chosen to embrace it. We recognized early on that a traditional, American-style campaign would be a losing proposition.

Since this is a New York race, we took inspiration from the NYC Sanitation Department, which retrofitted American trucks with European side-loading mechanisms to combat the city’s rat problem.

SDA is doing the same: combining the "chassis" of a corrupt American Democratic Party with a European-style Socialist movement to clean out the RepublicRATs.

I’ve shared lessons from this campaign on the Draft AOC for President in 2028 substack:

Draft AOC for President in 2028

Stop donating money, we need to dry the well

Two Blogs for the Price of One…

Read more

a year ago · Theo Chino

These lessons are informing our work on the Draft AOC 2028 initiative.

In the NYC mayoral race, Paperboy Love Prince is polling at 2.7%, despite being blackballed by the media. We spent only $200 to get him on the ballot. In contrast, Michael Blake and Whitney Tilson spent a combined $1.7 million and are still polling behind him.

This week, approximately 4 million voter guides are being sent across New York City. If we had mailed them ourselves, it would have cost several million dollars. The timing coincides perfectly with the release of the 2025 Socialist Manifesto.

The US Socialist Manifesto

As outlined in our bylaws, the 57th Socialist Congress convened and adopted a single manifesto. If anyone asks—this is socialism. Anything else is a fake.

Download the 2025 NYC Congress Socialist Manifesto: https://www.socialists.us/direct/manifesto/congress.

This document will serve as the political platform for all SDA candidates and stands as a direct response to “Project 2025.”

We are now starting the update process for the next Congress. You can submit your draft proposals here: https://www.socialists.us/direct/drafts/policies.

Other Congresses around the world

The 16th Brazilian PSB40 Congress

This week, the Brazilian PSB40 is holding its 16th National Congress in Brasília.

As with all Congresses, it includes a manifesto, available in Portuguese: https://www.autorreformapsb.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Manifesto_e_Programa_do_PSB.pdf

I sent a video wishing their leader, Carlos Siqueira de Barros, success in organizing the Congress.

As American Socialists, we have a responsibility to support global efforts to preserve the Amazon Rainforest while respecting Brazil’s right to pursue sustainable development.

We must stand in solidarity with the Amazonian people by recognizing their sovereignty over natural resources and offering cooperative alternatives that encourage conservation.

These solutions should help avoid repeating the environmental mistakes of the past without denying communities the opportunities for growth and prosperity.

More information is available on the PSB website: https://psb40.org.br (google translate)

The 81st French Socialist Congress

This Congress holds personal significance, as I am a French citizen and active in both the U.S. and French Socialist movements.

French Socialists were presented with three manifestos—A, B, and C:

• Manifesto A was proposed by the current party leader.

• Manifesto B by the chair of the Socialist Caucus in the Assembly.

• Manifesto C by the Mayor of Rouen, where Joan of Arc was burned exactly 594 years ago.

More details available at: https://www.parti-socialiste.fr/81e_congres (Google Translate)

or the first round, I privately supported Manifesto C (Mayor of Rouen), as part of our broader strategy to integrate SDA into the Socialist International.

A French comrade wrote:

Politics is not just an ideological clash (in the best case scenario) or a struggle for power (which it always is), it is also a kind of spectacle in which the strategies and tactics of the various protagonists are revealed. Unity of time, place, and action, as in the theater. But the spectacle must be worth watching.

Results of the first round (24,701 votes cast):

• Manifesto A: 42.21%

• Manifesto C: 30.48%

• Manifesto B: 17.41%

The party uses proportional representation, so the National Political Committee (200 members) will reflect these results.

The final vote for party leader will be held on June 5, 2025, between:

• Olivier Faure, the current leader and VP of the Socialist International

• Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, Mayor of Rouen

Due to ongoing obstruction from the current leadership regarding our membership in the Socialist International—especially since the 2023 Congress in Marseille—I am publicly supporting Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol to advocate for new international representation.

I shared a video in French discussing the link between Trump, Putin, and Marine Le Pen, emphasizing that only a strong Socialist International, working alongside the Global Greens and Progressive International, can effectively counter the global fascist movement.

What began as the Tea Party has evolved into a global fascist movement, and we must respond collectively.

I will be in Nancy to meet new leaders committed to building international solidarity—grounded in mutual respect, not outdated colonialist frameworks.

The Socialist International meeting in Istanbul

The leadership of the Socialist International recently met in Istanbul. Our involvement was limited to reading reports and following updates in the unofficial Socialist International Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialistinternational.

The group was originally created by DSA members and was recovered in 2021.

Pedro Sánchez remains an excellent leader, but—much like AOC—he operates within a protective bubble. We hope the French delegation can help mediate between the Spanish PSOE and SDA, particularly regarding the controversy over the relocation of the Socialist International headquarters from London (where Karl Marx founded it) to Madrid.

Only time will tell. Meanwhile, the current U.S. administration continues to upend the lives of 300 million Americans in ways that global leaders can’t fully comprehend.

The Dam

When Le Monde reported that a Global Green Member of Parliament was assembling an international coalition to counter the Fascist International, I immediately reached out. Unfortunately, the delegation will be in the United States while I am in Nancy.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2025/05/21/french-left-plans-to-create-a-progressive-international-to-fight-against-the-far-right_6741499_7.html

However, I provided them with a list of key left-wing actors in the United States—both allies and critics of SDA—so they can better understand the dynamics we navigate daily in New York.

To be continued ….

The Progressive Alliance recently held its conference in Hyderabad, India, hosted by our comrades from the Indian National Congress. They extended an invitation to members of the Progressive International—an alliance whose political approach is well known to many of us in the United States, just as our French comrades have come to know it through their experiences with Jean-Luc Mélenchon and France Unbowed since 2006, and as our comrades in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party experienced in their dealings with Pablo Iglesias and Podemos beginning in 2014.

For us, the relationship has been similarly complex since our break from DSA in 2017. I urge Socialists around the world to read George Fish’s statement on the Social Democrats of America:

This principle applies equally to the Progressive International and to the Socialist International/Progressive Alliance.

Turning to the situation in the United States: Donald Trump remains a bully, and unfortunately, many Social Democrats lack the courage, inclination, or resources to confront a bully like him—or the systemic power of the United States itself. But that is exactly what must be done.

As Socialists, we must unite to expose and challenge the lies he continues to spread. Let’s be clear: the United States is already a Socialist country—if your skin color is white.

It is the duty of every Socialist in a position of leadership—whether in a small village on the African continent or among the diaspora in the United States—to mobilize and organize against the rise of fascism.

To the many Socialists in the U.S. who hold dual citizenship and, through their American nationality, have access to the highest levels of power in their second country, my message is simple: step up or step down.

We all have a responsibility across the United States to push back against Donald Trump’s false narrative that equates Socialism with Communism.

If you are a Socialist leader and a member of the Socialist International or the Progressive Alliance visiting the United States, I expect you to have the courage to declare proudly to Donald Trump—and to all Americans—that you are a Socialist.

It is the responsibility of every Socialist leader around the world to educate him and his operatives—whether at the White House, at the United Nations, or even when he visits your home. Silence in the face of misinformation is complicity.

When Juan Guaidó met with Donald Trump, he lacked the courage to say that he was Vice President of the Socialist International. We are all paying the price for that silence today.

Any party leader operating in the United States who works against American Socialists will be publicly called out. Confronting right-wing policies in this country requires many people—and even more courage—to stand up and take risks.

If you are a dual citizen and a leader in a party affiliated with the Socialist International or the Progressive Alliance—and you are either a U.S. citizen or reside in the United States—I ask that at your next party congress, you step back from leadership roles unless you are truly ready to confront fascism here in the United States.

I am done being the only one consistently explaining that the “Democrats” of Europe, Israel, or Africa are not the same as the Democratic Party of the United States.

The Democratic Party in the United States is a coalition that stretches from Anarchists to Conservatives. This reality is reflected in the bylaws of the Sugar Hill Democratic Club in New York City, which explicitly welcomes this diversity of thought.

For years, I have listened to people around the world advising me not to use the term Socialism in the U.S. context, claiming it is counterproductive. But let me be clear: anyone who tells me to rename our movement must understand that this is not the time to retreat. This is the time to educate.

As an organization that trains candidates in the principles of Socialism—and in the complex realities of gaining ballot access in New York City municipal elections—we are deeply engaged in the practical work of building Socialist power on the ground.

While Jean-Luc Mélenchon visited New York and the Progressive Alliance convened in Hyderabad, I remained here, focused on supporting SDA candidates running for office across New York City. Mélenchon’s defiance is admirable—but his methods are flawed.Let me be clear: if you are not prepared to risk prison like our comrade Termilan Sultanbekov, Vice President of the Socialist International and leader of the Social Democrats of Kyrgyzstan, then you are not the kind of Socialist leader we need today.

Socialist leadership is not symbolic. It requires sacrifice, courage, and an unwavering commitment to fighting fascism, no matter the personal cost.

Let me be clear: if you are not prepared to risk prison like our comrade Termilan Sultanbekov, Vice President of the Socialist International and leader of the Social Democrats of Kyrgyzstan, then you are not the kind of Socialist leader we need today.

Socialist leadership is not symbolic. It requires sacrifice, courage, and an unwavering commitment to fighting fascism, no matter the personal cost.

To the leaders of the international Socialist movement: if you truly want to help, urge Secretary-General António Guterres to organize a United Nations Gala that brings together the more than 1,000 Democratic and Republican County Committee members of New York City.

Since 2023, I have been working to organize support for a Socialist candidate for President of the United States. I’ve been engaging activists one by one, explaining the importance of working within the Democratic Party to achieve lasting change.

Unfortunately, Team AOC has refused to meet with us. I know exactly who they are—they are the same DSA-aligned individuals tied to the Progressive International. It’s a political dynamic I’ve been confronting since our break with DSA in 2017.

These two articles may be helpful when engaging with comrades who are misinformed or hesitant—trying not to alienate them:

• Back Online: Offers guidance on how to gently but firmly confront ignorance within our ranks without creating unnecessary conflict. aoc2028.substack.com/p/back-online.

• We Need to Meet Linda Where She Is: Explains why Socialists must organize within the Democratic Party to win real power and make lasting change. aoc2028.substack.com/p/we-need-to-meet-linda-where-she-is.

I want every reader to understand that in New York, simply getting on the ballot is a major achievement in itself.

The American ballot access system resembles that of Switzerland—we must gather thousands of signatures just to qualify. Our comrade, Paperboy Love Prince, succeeded. I did not. That alone speaks to the challenge we face.

Many liberals within the Democratic Party are outraged that we manage to secure spots on the ballot—but we do. Despite having a small team, we’ve studied, learned, and refined the system to put as many Socialists as possible on the ballot.

We have the technology. We have the training. We have the documentation. What we lack are Socialists willing to step up.

Because we did not yet have enough Socialists to organize a full Socialist Festival, the six of us have decided to adopt the European Socialist Manifesto, approved in Rome last year, as the official Socialist Manifesto for the United States.

No matter where you are in the world—if you're feeling the consequences of U.S. policy—you must begin organizing the resistance for the 21st century. And right now, that resistance begins at the ballot box, where we must convince every voter that we are not clowns, and that our platform is the only one capable of saving the planet.

Join Us

Take your first step and become a member today.

🧭 Zoom Call (First Wednesday of each month):
https://www.mobilize.us/socialists/event/773488/

🏙️ In-Person Meetings in NYC:
https://socialists.us/events

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

In short:

• There’s a Bernie Sanders article in The New York Times suggesting not to run as a Democrat.

• The New York State Democratic Party Ethics Committee is pushing for the removal of my own corrupt Congressman.

• DSA's Zohran Mamdani reached the maximum fundraising cap allowed for a candidate.

• Bernie & AOC launched their “Against the Oligarchy” tour.

• And we wrapped up petitioning for ballot access in New York State by organizing a support table where candidates could come, ask questions, and stay motivated—especially Joe, who resisted the urge to quit, no matter what the system threw at him.

That’s a lot to cover. And of course, I fully expect the liberals in the Democratic Party to keep moving the goalposts. If you're interested in hearing more about all this, I’ll be hosting the monthly SDA National Intro Call on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025, at 9 PM Eastern.

Join the National SDA Introductory Zoom

Let’s start with petitioning

I’ll start with yesterday because it was the culmination of two years of drama to establish oIt was the culmination of two years of drama to establish ourselves as a bonafide Socialist organization in the United States.

The goal of any political movement is to govern. For us—Socialists within the Democratic Party—our mission is to learn the right procedures to get on the ballot and challenge the Liberal establishment at the ballot box.

In New York, the process is deliberately confusing.

Candidates spend hours collecting hundreds or thousands of signatures just for the chance to be on the ballot—only to be disqualified over the smallest mistake.

I spent the whole day managing the Social Democratic table, while our Green and Independent comrades ran the Rep My Block table.

Next year, I hope we’ll have even more people—and maybe even throw a party while building a party.urselves as the bonified Socialist organization in the United States.

A political movement goal’s is to rule the land; and ours, Socialist in the Democratic party, is to learn the correct procedure to get on the ballot to chalenge the Liberals in the Democratic party at the ballot box.I personally think Bernie is wrong. Politics is about people—and building real relationships with them. Every Democratic club in the United States is run by Liberals who have mastered the art of dividing us to keep us from showing up.

Bernie is giving them exactly what they want: our departure, so we stop pestering them.

Operating outside the Democratic Party is harder. The system is stacked against outsiders—we need more resources, more money, more infrastructure.

Ross Perot was a billionaire and failed.
Ralph Nader was an activist and failed.
Bernie worked inside the Party—and he almost succeeded.
Donald Trump was a billionaire working inside—and he succeeded.
Michael Bloomberg switched to Republican just to clinch the nomination, succeeded, then won again as an Independent. Now he’s back to being a Democrat.

The label—Republican or Democrat—means nothing to these Liberals.

They’ll use deceit to get what they want. After seven years of deliberately putting myself in situations to observe their tactics, I’ve finally seen how they work—and now, they’ve exposed themselves in spectacular fashion.

Bernie says not to Run as Democrats

Read the New York Times Article

I personally think Bernie is wrong. Politics is about people—and building real relationships with them. Every Democratic club in the United States is run by Liberals who have mastered the art of dividing us to keep us from showing up.

Bernie is giving them exactly what they want: our departure, so we stop pestering them.

Operating outside the Democratic Party is harder. The system is stacked against outsiders—we need more resources, more money, more infrastructure.

Ross Perot was a billionaire and failed.
Ralph Nader was a grassroots activist and failed.
Bernie worked inside the Party—and he almost succeeded.
Donald Trump was a billionaire working inside—and he succeeded.
Michael Bloomberg switched to Republican just to clinch the nomination, succeeded, then won again as an Independent. Now he’s back to being a Democrat.

The label—Republican or Democrat—means nothing to these Liberals. They’ll use deceit to get what they want.

After seven years of deliberately putting myself in situations to observe their tactics, I’ve finally seen how they work—and now, they’ve exposed themselves in spectacular fashion.

The New York County Democratic Party Ethics Committee

One of the people in question is my own Congressman, Adriano Espaillat, who consistently promotes policies that benefit his close associates. I’ve taken it upon myself to call for his removal.

Read the Politico article

After the shady behavior of several Democratic County leaders in 2021, an Ethics Committee was finally created. The process has been slow—but it’s moving forward.

As members of the County Committee, our job has been to consistently press the issue—by politely pestering the Committee members, asking for updates, and showing sustained interest.

Read the Ethics Report

Our comrade Mike Hano called for vote verification in 2023. Laura Thomas demanded a roll call in 2022. And back in 2019, Mike Hano pushed for the simple enforcement of our Bylaws.

The point is this: It is our duty, as Socialists, to unapologetically hold those in power accountable. We don’t need to feel guilty for demanding transparency and rule-following. If they find us annoying, ask them to explain why they think the rules shouldn’t apply.

Now, a sitting Congressman is under scrutiny for suppressing internal Democratic votes during a County Chair election.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon in New York

I’d like to invite everyone in New York City to sign up and hear Jean-Luc Mélenchon speak.

The question remains: Is what Jean-Luc proposes truly Socialism?

Get your free ticket

There are a lot of inaccuracies about his movement—France Unbowed—being spread in the U.S. A neutral French source has actually laid out the key differences between France Unbowed and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.

Paperboy Love Prince for Mayor

This year’s campaign theme? “Send in the Clown.”

The political discourse in New York—and the U.S. more broadly—has reached absurd levels.

Remember when Trump claimed he could shoot someone and get away with it? In 2020, Luigi Mangione actually killed a man in New York City, and society is treating him like a hero.

United Healthcare is part of a system that must be reformed—but at this point, the political theater is so outrageous, we might as well embrace the absurdity. Hence the clown suit.

We are seven Socialists

We’re seven Socialists, and we’ve already proven that we can create real change—as long as we operate inside the major parties.

Now imagine if we were 1,000… or 10,000… inside the Democratic Party, calling ourselves Socialists. Across the U.S., that would be a game-changer.

Join Us

Take your first step and become a member today.

🧭 Zoom Call (First Wednesday of each month):
https://www.mobilize.us/socialdemocratsofamerica/event/770580

🏙️ In-Person Meetings in NYC:
https://socialists.us/events

February is over, and I've been anxious about it because, for the next 60 days, we candidates needs to hit the pavement and collect signatures—the only true measure of support.

This is the time when we petition our fellow New Yorkers for the right to have our names on the ballot.

This is an all-hands-on-deck moment to rally the Social Democrats of America and our allies!For the first day of petitioning, we set up our Social Democratic table in Times Square, where many comrades from around the world stopped by to say hello.

You can find the names of the candidates as they join our Progressive Alliance here and Social Democrats of America here.

For the first day of petitioning we placed our Social Democratic table on Time Square and many comrades from around the world came to say hello.

It was a fitting tribute to our comrade from the Austrian SPÖ who designed the SDA and RepMyBlock logos. She was a student of Bronx native Milton Glaser, the designer of the iconic I ♥ NY logo.

We also displayed our Draft AOC sign, and many passersby were receptive to the idea of drafting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for president in 2028.

Several distinguished guests stopped by our table, including Michaël Delafosse, Mayor of Montpellier from the French Socialist Party, and City Councilwoman Stephania Duarte Federico of Hermosillo, Sonora, from the Morena Party, along with many other comrades.

A special surprise was meeting the brother of the creator of my first computer game, L’Aigle d’Or (The Golden Eagle).

He told me about the game they are developing, Geo-Political Simulator, and we discussed how the SDA, as the Socialist Caucus within the Democratic Party, could be included as a small faction in the next release of game.

You can check it out at https://www.geo-political-simulator-5.com.

Learn from my mistakes!

I want to say to every candidate for Mayor out there: learn from my mistakes and consider an alternative path.

I’ll be honest—I was ignorant when I first got involved in U.S. politics.

I didn’t know who Michael Harrington or Kwame Ture were. In fact, I only discovered Kwame Ture yesterday when I stumbled upon his lecture at the University of Georgia.

This highlights my ignorance of many of the people who followed my grandfather, James Farmer, and the other co-founders of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

But I’ve been politically active, knocking on doors since 1986.

I think I understand why you're out there—it’s what I did in 2005. But back then, I was collecting signatures in August, not in the frigid cold of February.

Registering with the CFB and declaring your candidacy is easy. Collecting 3,750 signatures? That’s the real challenge.

When I ran for Mayor in 2005 as a Green Party candidate, I collected 6,000 signatures.

My focus was on exposing the corruption in the Democratic or Republican Party, because that was what the Leftist told me to do.

None of those leftists told me about Michael Harrington.

Instead, they told me how my French Socialist Party wasn’t actually a Socialist party despite the name being Socialist Party.

I even debated Jimmy “The Rent is Too Damn High” McMillan. As a young 30-something Socialist, I thought he was a fool.

Now, I realize I was the fool, but he was wrong in working only outside the party system.

Kwame Ture put it perfectly:

“Once you go in there, and you know properly the truth, and you have an organization which continues to aid you in your ideological struggle—because if you are going by yourself, with all the honesty and integrity, you will come out probably corrupt. The best you can do is maybe walk out without being corrupted.”

Jimmy succumbed to the weight of the system. Power and fame corrupt. I see that in our own SDA candidates like Paperboy Love Prince, and myself.

But the organization that supports me in my ideological struggle is the Socialist International—the same one that supports Pedro Sánchez and countless others.

As candidates for office, I’m not asking you to join my organization.

I’m asking that we work together using the Rep My Block tools inside both the Democratic and Republican parties.

When I ran in 2005, I chose the Green Party because, on paper, it aligned with my values. But I didn’t realize how toxic that environment was—and still is.

Their manipulation even caused a rift with my brother that lasted ten years. The truth is, they aren’t even recognized by the Global Greens.

I also collected 6,000 signatures on the New York Independence line, believing they understood the New York Democratic system. Twenty years later, I realize they didn’t.

Michael Harrington figured it out, but unlike me, he didn’t have a Bernie or an AOC to blaze the trail.

You’re running to be a leader—so lead.

Learn from my mistakes. That’s what this message is about.

As the leader of the Socialist Faction in the Democratic Party, it’s my job to show the way. For six years, I’ve been paving the path to build a real Socialist movement in the United States, using every crumb left by American Socialists before me.

We even created this manifesto: https://www.socialists.us/docs/2022-09-21-SocialistManifesto.pdf.

I wouldn’t have seen the path clearly without the guidance of Michael Harrington—discovered late in my journey because many so-called Socialist groups, including DSA, hid his writings from me.

To every mayoral candidate: learn from my mistakes. Listen carefully to the words of Michael Harrington.

You don’t have to sacrifice your independent values to work within the Democratic or Republican parties. Rep My Block ensures that. It also connects you with others who share your values.

But beware—some will try to weaponize the system, just like Gregory Meeks uses New York’s electoral system to silence opponents.

This month’s call to action is simple:

If you know an activist in NYC, have them email progressive@register.repmyblock.org and follow the instructions. Everything they need is on there and follow the instructions they’ll receive. Everything they need to know is posted on the Rep My Block website.

The core problem—and the solution—is simple.

Activist leaders worldwide have criticized me because I didn’t “kiss asses” to get here. I saw an opening in NYC and declared myself the leader of the Socialists in the Democratic Party.

When grassroots Liberal activists face demands for transparency, they often respond dismissively.

What gives me legitimacy?

Over 20 years of membership and active participation in the French Socialist Party.

I didn’t ask for permission to run for leadership within the Democratic Party.

Liberals have tried to smear me, but I’ve been at this too long to care.

The worst kinds of Liberals—just like Communists—spread rumors and lies with false authority when they dislike someone.

Listen to the full podcast on SoundCloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/nSEFMVafWoEky4f79.

Yes, I’ve been terrorizing Liberals and Communists—and I’m proud because they did it to me first.

I took a page from Steve Bannon’s playbook. I’m doing what he did—but inside the Democratic Party.

https://www.propublica.org/article/heeding-steve-bannons-call-election-deniers-organize-to-seize-control-of-the-gop-and-reshape-americas-elections

Think Bannon failed?

Consider this: he managed to win the Presidency, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, 27 out of 50 governorship, and control over 27 state legislatures.

The Right controls everything, and now Liberals want us to protest under the 50501 movement? Protest what?

The global Left needs to wake up, stop whining, and figure out how to mobilize people in Manhattan and Staten Island.

I spent hours with Liberal Ben Yee dissecting the County Committee. Our conclusion? We need to de-weaponize the Board of Elections.

The Democratic Party is a big tent.

In blue states, it stretches from Conservatives to Anarchists. In red states, it includes Left-wing Socialists to Anarchists.

Despite what people think, the Democratic and Republican parties are the most democratic grassroots organizations—if you know where to look.

An ideological faction’s strength isn’t measured by fundraising. It’s measured by how many activists run for the Democratic Party’s Board.

What’s next?

• On April 4th, I will submit all the SDA petitions to the Board of Elections.

• I’ll use the tool I built — Rep My Block — grab my clipboard, and knock on thousands of doors, inviting others to do the same.

• As a candidate for Public Advocate, I recently spoke for 15 minutes about Socialism in front of the a group of various Brooklyn Reform Democrats.

How can you help?

• Share the Rep My Block link with the PBS documentary any friend or family member living in New York City.

• Convince them to run for the Board of the Manhattan or Staten Island Democratic Party, or the New York City Republican Party.

• Have them follow the instructions here: https://repmyblock.org/howto and email progressive@register.repmyblock.org — I’ll take care of the rest.

If Socialists keep bickering over scraps instead of uniting, we’ll never move forward.

I’ll evaluate activists based on their willingness to learn and do the work.

MAGA started on February 19, 2009.

I followed on November 18, 2015.

The question is:

Will you help me recruit for the County Committee, or will you just talk, talk, and talk?

All that is needed to start is to email to progressive@register.repmyblock.org ! (check your spam box.)

If you managed to get to the end, I leave you with this anti-fascist rendition of Bella Ciao by Palestinian performer Azza Zarour.

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo

PS: to get involved, watch this documentary on PBS https://pbs.org/show/county

--

Theo Chino

Acting First National Secretary of the Social Democrats of America

Committee of the Second Socialist International

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

This newsletter is not about Donald Trump — it is about Socialism. If you’re looking for news about him, you’re in the wrong place.

Our focus here is entirely on Socialism and how to respond to those who claim we are not Democrats.

It is frustrating to hear this, but the truth is, we have been part of the Democratic Party for a long time — going back to when Martin Luther King Jr. made a deal with John F. Kennedy for the Black vote.

The bylaws of most state Democratic parties are similar, but I reference those of my own state, the New York State Democratic Party.

Preamble

The purpose of these rules is to inspire and encourage the greatest number of Democrats to participate in the affairs of the Democratic Party of the State of New York, to insure the continuing success of the Democratic Party, and to provide the best possible responsible government for the people of the State of New York.

Section 1: Party Membership

(a) The membership of the Democratic Party of the State of New York shall consist of the duly enrolled Democrats within the State.

(b) No test for membership in, nor any oath of loyalty to, the Democratic Party of New York shall be required or used that has the effect of requiring prospective or current members of the Democratic Party to acquiesce in, condone, or support discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, gender identity, gender expression, age, color, creed, national origin, religion, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, disability, or economic status.

Section 2: Public Notice and Meetings

(a) All public meetings at all levels of the Democratic Party of New York are open to all members of the Democratic Party of New York regardless of race, sex, gender identity, gender expression, age, color, creed, national origin, religion, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, disability, economic status or philosophical persuasion.

In New York City, on Manhattan’s East Side, within a small club committee dedicated to reforming the Democratic Party, I am fighting for the inclusion of all perspectives in official caucuses.

My message to my fellow Democrats is clear: being a Socialist is fully legitimate within the Democratic Party.

Socialists are Democrats — don’t let anyone say otherwise.

For a concise explanation of Social Democracy, I recommend the Friedrich Ebert Foundation’s quick explainer.

What is Socialism?

Ironically, those who are not Socialists often seem to have the most confident answers — based on their own interpretations.

As card-carrying Socialists, we certainly love our debates. We hold such strong convictions about what we believe that it might seem as if each of us individually defines Socialism. But that’s not how it works.

The reality is that Socialism is frequently misrepresented, with outsiders using selective quotes from our members to define it incorrectly.

To be clear, Socialism is officially defined in the Declaration of Principles of the Socialist International: https://www.socialistinternational.org/about-us/declaration-of-principles.

By extension, it is also reflected in the guiding principles of the Progressive Alliance: https://progressive-alliance.info/guiding-principles.

Ultimately, Socialism is determined by us, the Socialists — through collective decision-making at our Socialist Congresses.

Are any organization in the US Socialists because the name of their organization carry the name?

No, an organization is not Socialist simply because it includes Socialist in its name. Many American groups label themselves as Socialist, yet they do not adhere to the core principles of Socialism.

True Socialism is defined by its principles and collective decisions, not just by a name.

Are AOC, Bernie and the DSA elected Socialists?

No, they are sympathizers of the Socialist movement, but they are not Socialists.

A truly elected Socialist is more than just a candidate running on progressive rhetoric — they actively contribute to the intellectual development of the movement. This means using their firsthand experience in office to shape policies, provide ideological guidance, and strengthen Socialist organizations.

AOC, Bernie, and DSA-backed elected officials do not engage in this process. Instead, their focus remains on navigating the electoral system, often prioritizing fundraising and individual campaigns over building Socialist structures.

While they genuinely believe they are practicing Socialism, every Socialist within Socialist International and the Progressive Alliance understands that they are not.

We recognize them as Left Populists — a role that remains important. Within a true Socialist organization, such as the Social Democrats of America (SDA), they could serve a significant function in mobilizing public support and advancing progressive causes.

The New York City Municipal Election

The New York City municipal election, calling 3.5 million Democratic voters, has officially begun.

As of today, only six Social Democrats of America (SDA) candidates are authorized to use the Rose in the Fist logo while running for office in New York City.

The New York City Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have taken a strategic step by adopting their own distinct logo, separate from the national DSA.

This ensures visual clarity in the municipal campaign, preventing any confusion between New York City SDA candidate Paperboy Love Prince and New York City DSA candidate Zohran Mamdani.

Our campaign is truly people-powered, rejecting the influence of big money in politics.

Paperboy Love Prince has been vocal about why we don’t need corporate funding — we’ve built all the necessary tools that money can buy, and the city itself ensures every voter receives a Voter Guide listing all candidates, as mandated by the City Charter.

Paperboy is a performance artist, and since New York City’s political operatives dismiss us as “clowns,” we fully embrace our identity — using creativity, authenticity, and direct engagement to connect with voters.

If you’d like to join Paperboy Love Prince’s campaign for Mayor of New York City, email: paperboy@register.repmyblock.org

If you’d like to join my own campaign for Public Advocate, email: nypa@register.repmyblock.org

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend watching this 26-minute documentary on PBS: https://www.pbs.org/video/county-kigzrj

In solidarity,

Hasta la victoria, ¡siempre!

Theo