On the Impending Coup

This discussion was originally written as a comment on an article by Sam Lewis in Convergence [February 5, 2026} entitled “A Coup is Coming. Only the Socialist Left Can Stop It. “

At this point Sam’s contribution and our response to this critically important strategic discussion have been superceded by events that have made the issue of a coup, that is to say, massive election interference, a matter of public discussion in the liberal media and in the Democratic Party-adjacent world. Our response at the time pointed out the tardiness involved in proposing a focus on using the primaries for the 2028 presidential campaign. No doubt, the Socialist Left ought to be able to use such arenas to present, mobilize, and organize for a radical progressive agenda, but we are unable to foresee just how much suppression of our movement will occur in conjunction with the Trump administration’s plans to prevent a Democratic (democratic) Congress from being elected and then seated. .

We are not the only ones recognizing the current ongoing preparation for and and acceleration of the efforts by Trump and his entourage now-- not only the gerrymandering of Congressional districts but also actions aimed at repression of the turnout of likely Democratic voters and plans to intimidate these voters at the polls and using ICE to physically harm those who protest against this interference. So we think the question should be: What does the Socialist Left, our organization DSA, have to offer that is specific to our place in a wider movement fighting for democracy against fascism? What strategy do we propose in regard to that movement? How is DSA positioned to take action in protecting the electoral process, especially if we anticipate the use of force in the context of likely mass protests against specific incidents of election interference as well as the administration’s efforts to prevent seating the new Congress (in specific states, or in the capital itself)?

During the almost completed primaries DSA has succeeded in achieving national prominence due to its success in organizing ground campaigns at the grassroots level and its putting forward a powerful agenda for economic and social change. Our programmatic statement, Workers Deserve More, has been broadcast and dissected (often focusing on the more abstract proposals of eliminating the Senate rather than the concrete). In this way DSA has helped set the agenda for all progressive political candidates and their supporters, not only for those who are members or identified socialists. On the other hand, it would appear that we are getting low marks for “works and plays well with others” in many instances: failing to make efforts at the national level to “knit together” the resistance or participate in radicalizing the movement to challenge the authoritarian powers. We (including our surrogates like Bernie and electeds like AOC, Tlaib) have left it to others  (liberal substackers like Snyder; leftists like Robert Reich and Tom Hartmann) to help people face the magnitude of the authoritarians’ determination to stay in power or publicly call out (David Hogg) the inadequacy of the establishment candidates and party apparatus in contesting that power. Left progressive candidates like Nixon or Sayed do not speak at all about the possibility of election interference or coup.

One important reason for this gaping lacuna is a way of thinking evident in Sam Lewis’s assessment that the socialist left is isolated from or differs widely from the broader democratic left or progressive currents in the USA. We strongly disagree with this assessment; we see a continuum among progressives, social democrats, and socialists with many gradations and fluctuations of commitment to a more radical politics of social transformation. Those of us old enough to have been active in the anti-war movement know well the difference between those who fully identify with and help lead a movement for social transformation versus the numbers who show up for demonstrations based on moral outrage or principles of justices. But which movement activists had the ability to relate to those who were in the show-up category, and which only spoke to their own kind could have served to define who was or was not a member of a sectarian group. Many, perhaps the large majority, of our more than one hundred thousand members have varying relations to socialist ideology or radical commitment. Is our national organization offering leadership to these members and non-members who march in the same demonstrations? Probably not.

The struggle against ICE all over the country, exemplified first in Los Angeles and even more dramatically as a citywide movement in Minneapolis, likewise depended on those people who showed up as foot soldiers with a broad set of shared beliefs about morality and justice that are roughly congruent with our more historically-politically articulated principles. This congruence and its political implications have to be recognized by us, so that we can participate usefully in helping to determine the shape of the “Us” broadly conceived as resistance to the authoritarian police state. This “Us” was the basis for increasingly massive No Kings mobilizations. These mobilizations, organized by and including so many civil society groups, but also coordinated nationally by significant organizations like Indivisible, Move On, and now 5051 (1), foregrounded not only ideas of constitutional democracy and rejection of lawlessness, but also the role of the capitalist oligarchy (“billionaires” and “corporations”) as well as the dehumanization and immoral harming of immigrants and in the Gaza genocide. The millions of individually crafted placards testified to the language of mutual care, solidarity with the vulnerable, and the demand for a dignified life for all, that are the emotional core of our critique of capitalism. We in DSA can either see ourselves as special, a vanguard, different; or we can try to situate ourselves within the line of historical struggles for civil rights and social solidarity in a way that allows us to adopt a national position commensurate with our current public status.

We do not have agreement about electoral politics or the use of the Democratic Party in our groups or national leadership, but we ought to have a more serious debate about how DSA speaks to the public about the current crisis that will erupt fully by November. At a minimum we need to be at the forefront of those who talk about the coming coup and the inadequacy of the Democrat’s official opposition to the administration. This is critical, for we understand their involvement with corporate power and ought to be speaking about the intransigence of the ruling class and their determination to dominate. We ought to be speaking directly about the role being played by the technocratic elite/economic oligarchy, their use of AI, and the issues of social control, surveillance, and mass oppression. Opposing data centers is important, as is being part of that movement that involves grass roots mobilization, but this cannot simply be addressed locally or state-wide as a grass roots issue. This is a takeover of our entire country by those who will be directly involved in repressing the left, the people in the streets, the resistance to ICE or data centers, on the way to imprisonment as in Texas, or even potentially the use of concentration camps.

Our goal is both addressing the immediate crisis as well as building a base for left political power and transformation (2) that will truly address the social & economic conditions that have brought us to the brink of authoritarian dictatorship. Let us consider in addition to what working people deserve (preferably the term working people which sounds broader than worker) another program: the “If I had a hammer” program: The hammer of justice is the demand for radical economic and social equality that we as socialists articulate. The bell of warning rings out the truth about the danger of fascist-oligarchic takeover that requires a radical, ruthless recognition, and the song about social solidarity invites all sisters and brothers who share our core beliefs to join together and, as Bernie so brilliantly put it, “fight for someone you don’t know."

(1)The numerous and widely spread Indivisible groups may not be made up of “socialist cadres”, but do include many people with political or movement experience who identify with social democratic ideas. In our experience these proliferating groups have taken on major political tasks like resisting ICE, putting pressure on their representatives, and participating in electoral work as well as organizing No Kings Protests. Numbers count, so let us note that over 100,000 people showed up for Indivisible’s national phone call teaching “Know Your Rights”. In New York City, members of all manner of groups and organizations (as well as none) made up the 100,000 canvassers. There are numerous other organizations and movements at the national and local levels with viable claims to be part of the Resistance, which can succeed only if we are able to create an alliance that forges them into a coherent force.

(2) Mass movements are never fully subject to plan, always include the spontaneous and unexpected—and this means that movement leaders are needed who can mediate between the known and the unknown, the prepared-for and the unexpected on the part of the opposition and of our people. Identifyng such movement leaders and working with them on a mutual basis is a key task for political organizers. Sometimes these elements successfully converge on electoral political campaigns like Mamdani’s in New York City, which was led by DSA,but became a potential movement many of whose members were eager to carry on supporting him. And we note that the success of this carry-on has been difficult, but NYCDSA has expanded and is trying to absorb as much of these people/energy as possible.

Jessica Benjamin, Beyond Doer and Done To: Recognition Theory, Intersubjectivity and the Third. Routledge 2018.