by Richard P
Why do we protest? In a recent blog post, comrade Kevin N spoke of how his “romanticized 1960s images of crowds of protestors” transformed eventually into a commitment to “organizing, not just mobilizing,” and on both points, I agree with him. However, his argument that protests are “cathartic, empowering, and publicly visible” but ultimately “will accomplish … little” misses a few key points.
Kevin suggests that protests are simply tools to mobilize people to show up, and that organizing, which has “a deep commitment to developing one another into leaders both inside and outside the organization,” is fundamentally different and unrelated to this mobilization effort. I would instead argue that if we want to “organize people into DSA and build it into a formidable political force that can leverage its power from below,” we must engage with them where they are, and that includes through endorsing and attending protests. Thousands of people showed up for the No Kings rally last October, and the numbers increased in March. These protests are thus an excellent opportunity to meet potential comrades, and show left-leaning Clevelanders that Cleveland DSA cares about the issues that they care about enough to march in the streets about it.
As a chapter that says we are informed by labor organizing strategies (shout-out to No Shortcuts), we recognize that the foundation of that organizing is solidarity. The working class acting together in solidarity has ended authoritarian governments, improved the lives of millions of union workers, and spurred some of America’s most necessary changes such as civil rights legislation, expanded healthcare coverage, and child labor laws. Protesting, too, just like those romanticized 1960s marches in the civil rights and anti-war movements, is an act of solidarity.
But what does solidarity look like in 2026? The socialist theologian and former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, in his upcoming book Solidarity: The Work of Recognition, makes the argument that we need a “solidarity of the shaken,” that is, “a radical human togetherness formed out of an acceptance of our shared vulnerability and reliance on each other in a fallen world.” To protest, then, is not just to have a shared moment of catharsis, but to stand in solidarity with those who are feeling vulnerable. Our current moment, brought on by the failed capitalist state that is the United States of America, has left too many people vulnerable and marginalized. It is an outward and visible sign of our inward emotions, worries, and hopes, being present in physical space and taking on risk to support the marginalized (especially when they may not be able or willing to take on that risk themselves), not just posturing “allyship.”
This solidarity requires urgency and discernment in where that urgency is applied. Not everything is a five-alarm fire, but these emergencies do exist. When the next Tamir Rice or Tanisha Anderson is brutally killed by the police, the next bomb is dropped on a country we do not want to be at war with, the next ICE action crosses yet another line, or some fresh hell that we cannot begin to imagine occurs, our solidarity is important. We can’t just ignore what other organizations and people think about us – they, as our fellow humans and potential comrades in collective struggle, deserve our solidarity and for us to be in solidarity together. When we remember the civil rights movement, we remember the titanic work of Black-led organizations like the NAACP, the SCLC, and the SNCC, but there were white people and groups who showed up in solidarity too, from Dwight Eisenhower’s personal physician Paul Dudley White to the lawyer Jack Greenberg, who argued over 40 civil rights cases in front of the Supreme Court. When we recognize that we are all vulnerable and hurt by the system of capital, we then realize that it is incumbent on each other to be in solidarity and support – including at protests.
In the last verse of that great union anthem, “Solidarity Forever,” we sing that “In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold, / Greater than the might of armies, multiplied a thousand-fold. / We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old / For the union makes us strong. / Solidarity forever! / Solidarity forever! / Solidarity forever! / For the union makes us strong.”
Our union comrades show us what this means every day – even when their union isn’t on strike, members show up to other protests, teach others about the power of the picket line, and support union organizers that are helping other people get the same protections they have. There is no reason we shouldn’t want to do the same for everyone suffering under the boot of capital and fascism, especially when we are discussing building towards a General Strike in 2028. That takes organizing, from conversations, to strike votes, to picket lines. But it also includes collective action, i.e. a protest on May Day this year.
If you consider the prototypical protester, the “liberal wine mom,” if you will, there are avenues available to us to welcome them into our movement. An avowed democratic socialist with the NYC-DSA endorsement won a plurality of all white women in the 2025 New York Mayoral election. Even amongst older white women, he still got over a third of their support last November. They’re not turned off by democratic socialism and might even be interested in our work – but what have we done to recruit them and get them to join our movement? We need to show up in the places where they gather, including protests. Protesters are already agitated and will know something about our organization or democratic socialism because of figures like Zohran, Bernie, or Rashida – that’s a lot of our organizing conversation already done! Cori Bush, a phenomenal fighter for the working class in Congress, came out of the movement in Ferguson. Our comrade, Cleveland City Councilman Tanmay Shah, as well as many other electeds, have come out of the labor movement.
The more than twenty DSA members who were at the Cleveland No Kings protest at the end of March saw a moment that encapsulated the issues we’re dealing with. State Senator Nickie Antonio, who gets to be considered “progressive” in part because of her sexuality, despite her fundraising with senior Republicans, stopped the speech of a Latina activist speaking in Spanish about the fight for immigration rights. A video of something similar happening to a pro-Palestinian speaker in Pennsylvania has gone decently viral. Antonio, like current Flock employee and former Cleveland City Councilman Kerry McCormack, benefits from a system where, as Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò argues in Elite Capture, identity politics has been twisted to serve the elites and their interests, not those of working class people.
If you are unconvinced by the establishment’s choices, you can either sigh and return to being apathetic, or you can work with an organization that is actually trying to challenge the Democratic status quo that self-aggrandizes itself as “brave” while simultaneously snatching the mic from a Latina discussing immigrant rights. A protest isn’t the end of our anger and frustration – it’s the beginning. Being present and using that presence to invite someone to consider joining DSA and enter our membership pipeline gets them into a structured mass party-like movement that takes them away from the unstructured progressive movement that, in the immortal words of Jo Freeman, isn’t “very good for getting things done,” a take echoed by Vincent Bevins in If We Burn.
Our transformation into a mass party does not need to be slow and incremental – as comrades in New York showed us last year and as our comrades in Wisconsin are showing us right now with Francesca Hong. The voters supporting her and putting her at first place in the polling aren’t just members of Wisconsin DSA chapters. When we present our message, as Oliver Larkin is doing in his primary against Jared Moskowitz in Florida, we see voters joining with us. Mass action, be it electoral work, protests, public comments, community response networks, or encampments, helps people get to know us better by meeting them where they are and on the issues they care about – and that’s the core of solidarity.
The word “solidarity” comes to us from the French solidarité which is rooted in the Latin solidus – Firm. Whole. Undivided. Entire. What transformations might we see in our work and our world if we lived into those four words as a goal for who we are fighting for and the type of movement we have to build? Every time we turn up and show out, a new organizer grows in their skills and learns even more what solidarity means, not just with each other as comrades, but with the marginalized who we continue to fight for. Let us be firm on our beliefs and what we are called to do, but with the understanding that we are seeking an improved life for the working class of the entire country, and indeed the world. Together, the people must be undivided – no matter where or how we meet them.