How to Avoid Another AOC Situationship

We reprint below an August 6 statement released by the Just Break Already caucus and distributed at the 2025 DSA National Convention in Chicago. The DSA Left claimed a major victory when the convention adopted the resolution “For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA,” which makes support to Israel an expellable offense. But this is meaningless absent a fight to actually expel the genocide apologists. Scheduled votes to censure AOC and Zionist L.A. City Council member Nithya Raman were not even held and were instead referred to the incoming National Political Committee (NPC). It remains to be seen whether or not the new Left-majority NPC will issue even the mildest rebuke of these Democrats, much less enforce anti-Zionist standards.

Zohran’s victory in the Democratic Party’s NYC mayoral primary has launched him into the stratosphere and made him the DSA’s new socialist superstar. Socialism is (again) said to be “in the air,” and the candidate has been crowned the savior of the left in these dark times. But despite all the celebration in every corner of the DSA, we can’t help but feel a sense of dread and déjà vu.

A spectre haunts the DSA. Back in 2018, the NPC declared “the rebirth of the American socialist movement” after AOC’s defeat of a deep-pocketed Establishment incumbent in the Democratic Congressional primaries. The Democrat AOC getting into office was supposed to be the start of something big. But fast forward to 2025, and she stands completely discredited because of one betrayal after another. From helping spike a national rail strike to voting to send weapons to Israel, AOC has gone from socialist sweetheart to Establishment bootlicker. She never waged any real fight to abolish ICE or win Medicare for All or any of the other good-sounding things she talked up. All AOC has accomplished is to keep radical youth in the straitjacket of the Democratic Party of the billionaires, bankers and landlords and to push workers repulsed by the liberal Democrats into the waiting arms of MAGA. The American socialist movement has not been reborn, it has been set back.

The DSA has a type; and if DSAers don’t wake up and spot the red flags, they are destined to fall into the same toxic relationship with Zohran, who is walking down AOC’s path. Even while he taps into widespread anger over NYC’s sky-high cost of living, Zohran has declared his commitment to reviving the Democrats and his willingness to work with the billionaires—the very things that made AOC a sellout. This cannot be accepted if we are actually going to advance the cause of socialism.

Many on the DSA Left acknowledge that Zohran has (often unspecified) “limitations” and propose to build the largest possible movement to counter the pressure of the oligarchy and hold him accountable to the DSA. We all know that the Wall Street vultures and real estate moguls have a million ways to prevent any inroads against their significant vested interests in the status quo. Making NYC affordable will require a confrontation with those interests and a force capable of holding off the city elite and Trump alike. But any movement backing a candidate bound to a major ruling-class machine (the Democratic Party) and who explicitly swears off any such confrontation is not going to be a winner for the left or the working class. The center of gravity in the Democratic Party is the oligarchy, not the DSA—and all Democrats are ultimately accountable to the party’s masters.

We have experienced a long line of movements organized around “progressive” Democrats, and none have ended well. Something needs to give. In order to finally break the toxic cycle with the Democratic electeds and stop the DSA from getting screwed again, we offer some bare minimum standards to determine whether Zohran or any other candidate is worthy of our support.

1. No financing from or affiliation with the Democrats!

Dirty-breakers claim that the DSA somehow has a free hand to use the Democratic ballot line for its own purposes and without those who call the party’s shots placing any conditions on the electeds. Let’s get real, even Biden got kicked off the Democratic ticket without a vote when it became clear he would drag them down.

The Democratic electeds are considered the crowning achievement of the DSA, but they’re really a noose around our necks. They are useful for the Establishment because they restrain social movements and redirect them back into the Democratic camp, where they are safely buried. Rashida Tlaib went the furthest in criticizing the Democrats for the genocide of her own people in Gaza; yet she still wouldn’t break with them. Instead, she opted for the “uncommitted” campaign, which held out false hope to pro-Palestinian protesters that the party of genocide could change, only to predictably commit to Kamala despite her ironclad support for Israel.

Democratic politicians, whatever their background and starting point, will have a career only if they work to sustain their party and the ruling-class interests it represents. The more political sway they seek to have, the more they must align with the Establishment to get political backing from higher-ups, fundraising support, etc. And if they don’t, the Establishment will drive them out, one way or another. Any such purge would not be an exposure of the Establishment or a step forward for socialism either, as some dirty-breakers argue. The working class already widely hates the Democrats and views the left groups that are hitched to the Democrats as irrelevant. To gain credibility among workers, the goal must be to lay out a real working-class alternative to both Trump and the Democrats.

For Zohran’s campaign to warrant even critical support from DSAers, he must first declare total financial, organizational and political independence from the Democrats. This includes both leaving the party and refusing to caucus with them.

2. Oppose Zionism!

Many support Zohran because of his pro-Palestinian credentials, and he has been met with the full weight of the Democratic Establishment for even the smallest nods to Palestine. This is to be expected—the strategic interests of U.S. imperialism are tightly tied to Zionism. In response, though, Zohran has steadily ceded ground to the Zionists, like his disavowing the use of the slogan “globalize the intifada.” He often couples his (recently less frequent) comments against the genocide with declarations of support to Israel’s right to exist.

But the current Israeli state is based on the eradication of the Palestinian people. Socialists must oppose Zionism and be clear that the Zionist state’s existence is incompatible with Palestinian liberation. We cannot continue to support candidates who fail to take a stand on an issue as urgent and clear-cut as a genocide. Unless Zohran comes out openly against Zionism, he is failing to draw the most basic line needed to advance the fight to free Palestine or any other struggle against U.S. imperialism.

3. For black liberation!
Open the police archives!

Many in the DSA praise Zohran for supposedly finding the blueprint to winning back rightward-moving workers turned off by liberal identity politics: stick to the single message of affordability. But dropping any fight on behalf of the oppressed as “divisive” is not an asset, but rather a further obstacle to uniting working people in defense of their interests because it leaves in place all the pre-existing divisions tearing the class apart.

Even something as basic as quality, affordable housing runs straight up against the scarcity of decent options and the segregated setup in NYC. Zohran’s refusal to even attempt to break down racial and other divisions is a gift to the bankers and landlords who will seize on these divisions as they always do to weaken struggle and tighten their grip.

And you will never win over NYC’s black and brown masses if you won’t take a side against the police, who murder and terrorize them. Zohran has made clear that he doesn’t want to make an enemy of the NYPD—or even to defund them, a demand he once supported like many liberal Democrats. Instead, Zohran wants to relieve the cops of their social-work duties, which are “preventing them from doing their actual jobs”—like bashing in the heads of black and brown people. At a recent community event, Zohran professed his respect for the NYPD before an audience of police officers.

On the campaign trail, Zohran has brought attention to Bangladeshi teen Win Rozario, gunned down in his apartment by the NYPD while having a mental health crisis. Over a year later, Win’s killers are still free, while the city makes his family deal with endless red tape. Any socialist elected should jump at the chance to expose the capitalist state’s crimes kept behind lock and key.

DSAers who think Zohran is a step in the right direction for the working class and oppressed should demand he open the police archives and fight to put away the cops who murdered Win Rozario, Eric Garner, Saniyah Cheatham, Eric Duprey and countless others. As mayor, Zohran would have the ability to fulfill these basic measures of self-defense for all working-class New Yorkers. But where does he stand—with the workers and oppressed or with the ruling class?

We cannot keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results—that’s the very definition of insanity. The DSA has got to get some standards and stop throwing itself at the feet of every aspiring politician who comes knocking at our door. How many times are we going to go down this road, just to get crushed yet again? In chasing after Zohran, dirty-breakers have shown themselves to be virtually indistinguishable from the DSA Right—all talk of a break has been thrown out. The tried-and-untrue strategy of the dirty break only condemns the DSA to a repeat of AOC and damages the broader socialist movement. We need and deserve better—for a clean break now!