Nobody wants to read about socialists.
My boss tells me so the day before I’m scheduled to fly to Chicago to cover the national convention of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which recently became the largest socialist organization in the United States since the 1940s.
DSA’s membership has swelled to 25,000 since the election of President Donald Trump, more than tripling its ranks in a single year. New members tend to be young, fed up with centrist Democrats, and very good at Twitter. With all this fresh interest and attention, the big challenge facing the group is proving they’re more than a well-branded online phenomenon and turning their growth into real political change. The question for DSA as its members headed into the group’s annual convention: How exactly do they plan to build a new American left where basically everyone else has failed before?
