Expand<\/a><\/p>\nThe leadership of the Democratic Socialists of America \u2014 beneath a large red banner that reads #TrySocialism \u2014 said they see victory as a horizon, an ideal to steer towards.<\/p>\n
Plus, nobody talks these days about only seizing the means.<\/p>\n
The Socialism Conference is a big-tent gathering, created in 2002 by the International Socialist Organization (and taken over in 2019 by Uptown-based publisher Haymarket Books) to promote social justice, community and activism. So for four days, there were discussions of Midway Blitz and its blow-back; organizing in rural townships; protesting data centers; protesting AI; journalism and ICE; fascism and health; the tech oligarchy; the story of Eugene Debs, cofounder of the Socialist Party of America; the surprise of seeing socialist Zohran Mamdani in the mayor\u2019s office in New York City; and, of course, the remarkable resurgence of interest in the past decade in the core beliefs of socialism.<\/p>\n
Indeed, attendance, according to Haymarket, has never been bigger.<\/p>\n
That makes sense, since socialism itself, which is having a moment (and perhaps more), has never seemed more popular in this country. DSA membership has hit record highs in recent years; meanwhile, socialist candidates across the country have outperformed several long-time incumbents. In the fall, socialists are expected to be contenders for major offices in Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Providence, Rhode Island.<\/p>\n
Inside a ballroom full of vendors and tables promoting progressive organizations, Ant Smith, of Philadelphia\u2019s W.E.B. Du Bois Movement School for Abolition and Reconstruction, sat between the Chicago Union of Tenants and a group selling the traditional Palestinian scarves called keffiyeh. He considered what this moment meant.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople see the popularity of socialism, they see Mamdani, and maybe they see what is happening as a fad \u2014 for some people, it may be a fad,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if you\u2019re here at this conference, you probably want to build something lasting and create a smarter way for everyone to move through the world. We got an ongoing billionaire class pushing AI, for starters. And how could we meet that? And how fair could the world truly be if we try?\u201d<\/p>\n
Just outside the room, sitting on the hallway floor, sorting through a vast schedule of panels and workshops, meet-ups and lectures, screenings and histories \u2014 in fact, more than 180 of them \u2014 Asha Barnes and Rakaya Abda of Chicago, themselves organizers on the South Side, said this was their first time at the conference. Initially, they were wary of coming. They liked that activist Angela Davis \u2014 a self-described \u201ccommunist, abolitionist, internationalist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, feminist, Black, queer, pro-working class revolutionary intellectual community builder\u201d \u2014 was speaking Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s inspiring to be in the room with people who made major changes,\u201d Barnes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I need to be inspired right now,\u201d Abda added. \u201cBut I also just wanted to see what socialism actually looks like, I guess. Being a Black woman in Chicago, I feel very disconnected from (socialism). I\u2019ve always seen it as a lot of white guys yelling at each other. To be honest, at first I thought Democratic Socialists of America put this (conference) on themselves, and I\u2019ve been in those circles. \u2026 It\u2019s a lot of white people who want to connect to the West and South Sides but never want to go there.\u201d So far, they said, sounding hopeful, they\u2019d seen a fair number of people of color attending.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re far from the only ones with reservations.<\/p>\n
A sizable majority of the country, according to polls, generally regard socialism as a bad idea, though opinion splits widely among generations, especially on the point of what socialism actually represents. (Broadly, older voters tend to think of it as income redistribution and overreach, while younger voters see it as economic equality and forcing the wealthy to pay taxes.) On Friday, before the conference began, Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey capitalized on that history of ambivalence and held a press conference outside the Hyatt, pointing out that inside there was a socialism conference, in a hotel owned by the relatives of his challenger, Gov. JB Pritzker.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m clutching my pearls,\u201d deadpanned an attendee, watching from a window.<\/p>\n
![\"Flanked](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CTC-L-bailey-presser-7_266296079.jpg\")
Flanked by his running mate Aaron Del Mar, candidate for governor Darren Bailey hosts a press conference in front of the hotel venue for the Socialism Conference near McCormick Place, Sept. 4, 2026. (Arthur Maiorella\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n
That said, the more socialists you talk to at a socialism conference, the more you\u2019re reminded of the endless philosophical divides within the Democrat and Republican parties over what most makes a Democrat or a Republican. Mel Bienenfeld, 79, a retired community college math teacher from New York, his hair a wispy white halo, has been coming to this conference for a decade, since Bernie Sanders ran for president, he noted, a watershed moment for socialists. Still, Bienenfeld has been calling himself a socialist since the 1960s, since he was drafted for the Vietnam War. He\u2019s a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, he explained, \u201cjust not a representative one.\u201d<\/p>\n
He watched attendees file past wearing T-shirts reading \u201cThe Only Minority I Hate is the 1%\u201d and \u201cFire Your Boss\u201d and \u201cVirginia is for Unions\u201d and \u201cMunicipal Socialism Rising.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe DSA, they want to build an electoral group of candidates,\u201d he said, \u201cpeople who will build up the working class through public office. I\u2019m not against public office, but I think once that happens you see a need to cooperate with Democrats and reject basic principles of socialism.\u201d Mamdani and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez \u2014 who rejoined the DSA last month after a seven-year lapse in her membership \u2014 have heard plenty of those criticisms. \u201cI\u2019m also not opposed to compromise, but I guess I don\u2019t see the point if, in the process, you wind up becoming another liberal Democrat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like any ideology, caucuses clash at a conference like this. Albeit, at this one, it can be difficult to grasp if socialism should be a political party or mainly a set of ideals to apply.<\/p>\n
The DSA itself, said Megan Romer, the national co-chair, has come to see this conference as more of a development tool or educational space than a recruiting opportunity. At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 2024, \u201cwe were the radical fringe.\u201d At the Socialism Conference, ironically, they\u2019re just the establishment.<\/p>\n
As attendees filtered into the room to hear her speak \u2014 so many that eventually there was a forest of socialists standing in the back \u2014 she twisted in her chair and sighed and said:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so hard to explain socialism at times to people who are outside of all this. We really are just a bunch of different movements and theories, all trying to move in the same direction. That\u2019s hard to discuss. And Americans, I think, are conflict-averse. They just want peace. What a funny thing to say about such a violent country, but the old saying about the two things you can\u2019t talk about, religion and politics \u2014 you see that here too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout much of the 20th century, socialism had fallen so far in the public imagination that a decade ago there were only about 7,000 paying members of the DSA. Yet since Donald Trump\u2019s election in 2016, membership has exploded to 120,000, making it now the largest group of its kind in the history of the country; this past summer, in particular, socialist candidates alarmed Republicans and Democrats, winning (and narrowly losing) major races, often without the endorsement of the DSA.<\/p>\n
You could argue that the only thing consistent about American socialism is Chicago.<\/p>\n
Eugene Debs, who formed the Social Party of America in Indianapolis, spent a lot of time organizing around the city, most famously pulling together the Pullman Strike of 1894. A decade later, the Industrial Workers of the World \u2014 a socialist labor union better known as \u201cWobblies\u201d \u2014 formed in Chicago, topping out eventually with 100,000 members. In 1976, Chicago socialist James Weinstein created the progressive magazine In These Times (which is still being published). And in 1982, Michael Harrington, a University of Chicago graduate, founded the DSA itself. (Bernie Sanders, another UC grad, first joined the Young People\u2019s Socialist League while in Hyde Park.)<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, there\u2019s a saying about socialists, repeated a handful of times during the weekend conference: Get 10 socialists in a room, and you\u2019ll have 15 opinions. Socialists like to argue and debate and talk, and talk. At least that\u2019s the dusty image of smoky rooms and long-winded meetings buried beneath the fussy wording of manifestos. As Oscar Wilde supposedly said, \u201cThe trouble with socialism is it takes up too many evenings.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s harder to feel that at a Socialism Conference in 2026, whose attendees are tricky to pin down, identifying themselves as Marxist-Leninists, Old School Communists, Utopian Socialists, Libertarian Socialists, Eco-Socialists, Social Anarchists, Maoists and more. There are elderly socialists who have been protesting since the early 1960s, and there are youthful socialists whose voices actually break when you ask them about socialism. An older woman gave her pronouns as \u201cshe\/her\/co-conspirator.\u201d A younger woman, somewhat seriously, said that she\u2019s thinking of creating a communist K-pop group.<\/p>\n
In a hallway, two large circles of attendees workshopped how they would organize a union in a coffee house, using Starbucks as a case study. Next door, a group talked up the importance of having a \u201cpod mapping\u201d of friends you can turn to if you\u2019re distressed.<\/p>\n
On a different floor, de-escalation training \u2014 how to calm down a tense moment. The instructor asked everyone to pair up: one person will rant and rave, the other person will attempt to calm them down. The entire room, a couple of dozen pairs, erupted at once.<\/p>\n
A man yelled to his partner, trying not to laugh: \u201cThe Bears in Indiana! That\u2019s insane! I hate that! I hate you!\u201d And his partner slowly waved his hands and repeated, \u201cI understand that you\u2019re angry \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Which just made the Bears fan angrier, socialism being a work in progress.<\/p>\n
![\"Musician](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CTC-L-ENT-SOCIALISM-CONFERENCE-11_266315137.jpg\")
Musician and cultural organizer Steff Reed leads attendees in movement songs during the Socialism Conference at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place on Sept. 4, 2026. (Eileen T. Meslar\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n
Meanwhile down the hallway, Steff Reed, a member of a collaborative called Songs in the Key of Resistance, which is building a new songbook for contemporary protests, led a large group through a call-and-response spiritual: \u201cWe have not come here alone!\u201d he sang. And then they sang. And then he sang. And then they sang. And sang, and sang, and again and again, and always louder each time, with a rising confidence, until people brushed at tears, and for a moment, an anonymous conference room in a cavernous hall, gray walls, gray carpet, held exactly what the conference promised: only comrades.<\/p>\n
cborrelli@chicagotribune.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Its hard to imagine a more fitting activity for Labor Day weekend than attending the annual Socialism Conference…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1046083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818,1370,50,80,1072],"class_list":["post-1046082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-chicago","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-things-to-do"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117221730768714226","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1046082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1046083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1046082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1046082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1046082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Cooperative](\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CTC-L-ENT-SOCIALISM-CONFERENCE-36_266315191.jpg?w=620\")
\n![\"DSA](\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CTC-L-ENT-SOCIALISM-CONFERENCE-25_266315179.jpg?w=620\")
\n![\"Free](\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CTC-L-ENT-SOCIALISM-CONFERENCE-39_266315173.jpg?w=620\")
\n![\"Musician](\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CTC-L-ENT-SOCIALISM-CONFERENCE-12_266315149.jpg?w=620\")
\n![\"Isaac](\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CTC-L-ENT-SOCIALISM-CONFERENCE-17_266315139.jpg?w=620\")
\n![\"Free](\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CTC-L-ENT-SOCIALISM-CONFERENCE-38_266315193.jpg?w=620\")
\n![\"Cooperative](\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CTC-L-ENT-SOCIALISM-CONFERENCE-35_266315195.jpg?w=620\")
\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CTC-L-ENT-SOCIALISM-CONFERENCE-14_266315183.jpg?w=620\")
\n![\"DSA](\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CTC-L-ENT-SOCIALISM-CONFERENCE-29_266315119.jpg?w=620\")
\n![\"Buttons](\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/CTC-L-ENT-SOCIALISM-CONFERENCE-24_266315169.jpg?w=620\")
\n