One thing you notice about the DSA and socialists in general is their nonstop focus on 'organizing' -- and not actually making things better for people.
If you watch the videos from the Socialism 26 conference, or any DSA/socialist conference, you'll notice one thing above all -- nobody is ever talking about improving anything. There is zero focus on successful metrics for improving the lives of constituents in any recognizable way.
Instead the talk is constantly and exclusively about 'organizing'. That is to say, consolidating political power for themselves.
Finding new blocs of voters who are sufficiently vulnerable to be propagandized into reliable activists. That's where their objectives begin and end.
Success to the DSA is measured exclusively in people 'organized', not people helped.
Experience in 'organizing' is the only qualification they seek in candidates for office. Not work experience, not life experience, not business or military experience or anything a normal voter would find valuable or interesting -- just 'organizing'.
How many disaffected groups did you organize into a political bloc for the DSA? It's quite literally the only thing that matters.
It's why they happily elect and employ rich kids who've never had jobs or anything resembling a real life, and why such criticisms completely fall flat with them. They only care about commitment to the ideology and motivation to organize, not the ability to get anything practical done.
They completely fall apart when you ask them anything practical, like why progressive cities are disasters or how defunding the police actually helps poor people.
None of that matters within the bubble of the DSA and their cadres. It's exclusively about consolidation of political power for the party. Just as was is with every other communist faction in history.
There is no plan to make things better. The only plan is to become powerful enough that nobody can stop them when they make things worse.
🚨 “Long After This Administration Is Over” — Mamdani’s Mass Engagement Chief Explains City Hall’s Plan to Build Organizers
Today at the U20 Conference, Tascha Van Auken, a longtime organizer with a history in NYC-DSA who now runs Mayor Mamdani’s newly created Office of Mass Engagement, gave one of the clearest explanations yet of what this mysterious office is actually trying to build. City Hall itself has highlighted her past “leadership in New York City DSA.”
Van Auken says OME is not simply doing communications or traditional public outreach. Instead, the goal is to “help organize people,” build “organizational capacity,” develop leaders who she hopes will still be leaders “long after this administration is over,” and create constituencies that “will defend” policies.
She describes turning inauguration attendees into OME volunteers, sending them door-to-door, working with advocacy organizations, faith leaders and community boards, and ultimately replicating that transformation “on a mass scale.”
“Organization produces power.”
To be clear, most of Van Auken’s speech today sounds perfectly milquetoast. It is couched in the familiar language of civic participation, responsive government and giving residents a greater voice. But for anyone familiar with DSA’s organizing model, there were probably a few moments in this speech that raised an eyebrow.
The DSA connection makes that concern harder to dismiss. Van Auken previously held a leadership role in NYC-DSA and later built Mamdani’s massive campaign field operation.
How much taxpayer money is flowing into this? Which groups get priority? Are DSA-aligned organizations benefiting? And where exactly is the line between civic engagement and political organizing? Those questions matter even more while this administration is failing to fulfill public-records requests seeking greater transparency.
The evidence does not establish that OME is literally an arm of DSA. But given Van Auken’s background, the office’s mission, and City Hall’s own description of bringing the movement that elected Mamdani into governance, the public has every reason to ask where one ends and the other begins.