So why did you join DSA? What brought you to this meeting today? Why do you want to be here? I was often asked these questions in my early weeks, heard in waves of breakout groups in various library meeting rooms across the city, across table tops full of cups of coffee and tea, and over zoom meetings geared towards new members. It feels like I haven’t been involved long enough to be echoing these words to newer members and yet I have been. I suppose things move fast in the revolution. 

I think these words are probably the most uniting words that can be uttered by a DSA member – generally they’re answered with a shrug and a vague gesture that seems to say “do I even have to say, just look around.” My own answer varied from week to week, day to day, depending on how many people were around, whatever terrible news I had just heard, or how much time I was given to rant. My answers started out as “wanting political agency,” evolved into “I want to help [insert literally any oppressed group here], and ultimately became the vague shrug of “what isn’t a good reason to join DSA?” 

Regardless of my answers, and the many other answers I would hear throughout my first four months of being a member, I was never alone. I want to emphasize that. There are not a lot of places in the world where empathic connection is prioritized for organizing a movement. The work is driven by the desire to make sure members do not feel alone in their reasons for joining DSA, as confirmed by head nods, snaps, and a chorus of “I hear that.” I can sit comfortably in a room of strangers and feel known.  

There is no shortage of volunteering opportunities around DSA and folks mobilize quickly. I had been planning on attending the The Kings Protest 3.0 and so I used it as my first opportunity to table – why someone who knows very little about “capital-S Socialism” and is more knowledgeable in the “lower case-s, vibes based socialism” was tabling an event, whose to say. Tabling felt like a very good first thing to do to get my feet wet and to meet other members close to my area. I tabled at the Independence location and I knew there would be fewer people attending. I grew up in the area, with the impression that Independence wasn’t a leftist haven, however. Let me just take this joyful opportunity to say that my preconceived notions of Independence were shattered that day. I have since started checking my perceptions of Independence – a place where I had rapid response training, a place where good friends live, where I buy honey from a street vendor, where there’s a new bookstore I highly recommend, and where there is so much damn good community. This was so evident from the folks coming from the east, the rural part of Jackson Country, driving down Truman Road towards Mills Creek, holding their protest signs up to us as they drove by. The event overall in Independence was successful, I’m happy to report. We talked to numerous folks, we shared resources and information, and our sidewalks were covered with a few hundred folks as we protested with over 8 million others nationwide. Crazy to think, we’re not alone. 

So why did you join DSA? I think the answer came to me while preparing for May Day and the celebrations that lasted into the night (well past my bedtime at least). We heard music that was passed down to us by those who fought the same fight. We’re not alone. We shared a communal meal, prepared with our own hands. We’re not alone. We talked and ranted and sang, joyful in the work being done, and aware of all that has yet to be accomplished. We’re NOT alone. It really came down to one thing, and it’s ultimately about community. Joining DSA has given me tools to rebuild a sense of community that has been left to rot by capitalism and white supremacy. The consequence of capitalism has fed one’s starved narrative of individual failures and successes, destroying communal love, joy, and healing. My successes are no longer celebrated by the cousins of my cousins; my failures are no longer mourned by my neighbors, strangers within 30ft of my home. Our communal living is reduced, monetized, and ridiculed as we are forced to rely on tools sold to us to overcome loneliness. Our efforts to seek joy and celebration are limited, whittled away from our culture because it is not profitable. 

Given that this is too long of a response to give when asked, I get the pleasure of asking it instead. It turns out, the cure for the great disease of loneliness is free and we’re building it. It’s simply asking, “so why do you want to build community?”