America’s Next Generation of Socialist Organizers
At their 2026 organizing conference, Young Democratic Socialists of America focused on organizing student workers, building campus movements against ICE, and preparing mass action for May Day 2028 to confront Trump’s authoritarianism.
Protesters take part in anti-ICE rally outside Columbia University in New York City on February 26, 2026. (Mostafa Bassim / Anadolu via Getty Images)
This year’s Organizing Conference of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), which Jacobin cosponsored, quickly sold out, drawing more than four hundred young socialists to the “Rooted in Struggle” gathering — a sign of how far the organization has grown since its humble beginnings as the youth section of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. With its adult counterpart, Democratic Socialists of America, now claiming over one hundred thousand members nationally, the question hanging over the weekend was not whether socialism has a foothold in the United States, but what kind of organization can sustain and deepen the energy and action of a new generation of socialist activists.
The Political Moment
Capitalism’s political legitimacy is in crisis. The post-2008 recovery restored corporate profits more quickly than living standards as governments protected financial markets while administering austerity, pushing the costs of the crash onto the working class. Rather than flowing into productive investment, capital poured into speculative assets and tech monopolies. With states cushioning markets while putting the screws to public spending, center-left parties lost credibility while the socialist left failed to mount a successful alternative. The far right has seized this opening, gaining strength around the world by translating economic insecurity into populist rage.
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