For Immediate Release: December 2, 2024
Contact: press@socialists.nyc

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Join Dsa to Defeat Trumpism and Prove a Better World is Possible

On Mass Call With 1,000 People, Ocasio-Cortez Urged New Yorkers to Join Dsa and Embark on a New Chapter for a Mass Movement That Improves People’s Lives, Saying “I Can’t Think of a Better Thing to Be Doing.”

NEW YORK — Tonight, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) joined one thousand working class New Yorkers to discuss the broken political system that has failed working people and empowered Trump’s fascist movement. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez called on New Yorkers interested in fighting back to join NYC-DSA. 

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez also discussed NYC-DSA’s ongoing campaigns to push New York State to build 15 gigawatts of affordable, union-built green energy, strengthen labor power through union campaigns at Starbucks and Amazon, end the genocide in Palestine, and win a massive investment in social housing to guarantee safe and affordable homes for all. 

“We are up against an incredibly powerful political establishment. But times are changing. These are sites of real political struggles, in which an ascendant and organized working class can and will gain power. This is an opportunity to embark on a new mass movement of the working class,” said Representative Ocasio-Cortez. “DSA is a political home to take our own power back and organize. Whether it is for the defense of our immigrant neighbors, whether it is organizing workplaces in union drives and campaigns, whether it is the Build Public Renewables Act, or whether it’s organizing tenants unions and fighting for housing laws that protect tenants’ rights. I encourage people to check out a meeting – just come. Isolation is where fascism blooms. Community is where it can be dismantled. We are going to need each other in the next four years. I can’t think of a better thing to be doing.”

“People are sick of politics as usual. That’s why, even as regular people tapped out of voting for President or took their chances with a right-wing fraud who at least talks about making a change, every DSA-endorsed socialist in office outperformed the top of the Democratic ticket,” said New York State Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes (AD-51). “DSA shows that another way is possible. Voters have seen us endure hunger strikes and arrests to win them what they deserve, whether that is a social safety net for the most vulnerable or a green future. From South Brooklyn to the Bronx, New Yorkers know they have working class champions who represent them at every level of government. That is the DSA difference.”

“We’re not professional politicians — we’re regular New Yorkers from all sorts of backgrounds, from students to baristas to accountants. But together, we’ve beaten some of the most wealthy and powerful forces in Albany to stabilize rent for nearly one million tenants, fight climate change, and protect our undocumented neighbors,” said Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of NYC-DSA. “Our success here makes everyday life more dignified for regular people and proves that there’s a better option than corporate Democrats and fascist Republicans.”

In New York, DSA has elected twelve democratic socialists to office at every level, from City Council to U.S. Congress. With an “inside-outside” strategy that unites the movement on the ground with elected political power, NYC-DSA has successfully fought the conservative and corrupt New York establishment to:

• Win stronger eviction protections and shore up and expand rent stabilization laws for over one million households 
• Tax the Rich to keep schools and hospitals open during the peak of COVID
• Fund billions in COVID unemployment relief for undocumented workers
• Pass the first statewide Green New Deal legislation, the Build Public Renewables Act, which requires NYS to build renewable energy sources using union labor to meet its own climate goals 
• Introduce the Not On Our Dime Act, landmark legislation to end New York’s complicity in Israeli apartheid

NYC-DSA is at the forefront of the city’s biggest battles to transform working class people’s lives. Against Governor Kathy Hochul’s obstruction, DSA is fighting to build 15 gigawatts of public renewable energy by 2030, combatting the climate crisis while creating thousands of green union jobs, closing polluting “peaker plants,” and even lowering electricity bills for everyday New Yorkers. DSA is fighting in solidarity with new labor unions at Starbucks and Amazon, helping to build the power for workers to stand up to the richest people on earth, and beat them. And DSA is fighting to establish a NYS Social Housing Development Authority that will create permanently affordable, union-built and sustainably designed homes for all New Yorkers.

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ABOUT NYC-DSA:  New York City Democratic Socialists is the NYC local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the United States with over 85,000 members. NYC-DSA is run by its 6,500+ members who are working together to build a New York that works for the working class in the five boroughs.