The Wall Street Journal’s reporting details the following:

  • The Democratic Socialists of America has grown its young-voter membership through social events such as “Coffee With Comrades,” socialist softball, beach days and speed dating rather than through policy pitches, The Wall Street Journal reported.
  • A flier for a socialist speed-dating event said social lives are “more and more controlled by for-profit companies” in “the era of late-stage capitalism.”
  • The New York City DSA chapter built its own onboarding app for new members, and Brooklyn organizers distribute “Red Cards” with 90-day checklists of activities including attending gatherings or canvassing.
  • WSJ reporter Joshua Chaffin said the approach developed “very much in an organic way,” citing DSA’s decentralized structure and members who are “very online and very social.”
  • WSJ reporter Maya Davis said centrist Democratic groups and candidates have begun replicating DSA’s tactics, including door-knocking, canvassing and the chapter model.

The Democratic Socialists of America has drawn young recruits through barbecues, beach days, run clubs, karaoke nights and speed dating — a social-events-heavy approach that bypasses traditional policy pitches and candidate charisma, The Wall Street Journal reported.

WSJ reporters Joshua Chaffin and Maya Davis described the organizing model based on conversations with DSA members at national and local chapters. Local chapters host gatherings such as “Coffee With Comrades” in the garden of a Brooklyn coffee shop and “socialist softball” in Queens, according to the Journal. Chapters nationwide also offer prom nights, happy hours and other formats the WSJ described as “experiential marketing” applied to grassroots organizing.

A flier for one socialist speed-dating event read: “In the era of late-stage capitalism, our dating and social lives are more and more controlled by for-profit companies.”

In New York City, the chapter built its own onboarding app for new members. Brooklyn organizers distribute “Red Cards” with 90-day checklists of activities such as attending a coffee event or canvassing. National DSA has separately been trying to build a membership portal that would accomplish similar onboarding goals, according to the Journal.

Chaffin said the approach developed without reference to other organizations’ playbooks. “My impression from conversations with people at national and local chapters is that this stuff has developed very much in an organic way,” he told the newsletter. “Their members tend to be young, and so it’s natural for them to link up first on a variety of chats and then through activities.” He added that organizers told him they had not studied organizations such as mega-churches to mimic their best practices.

DSA operates as a decentralized network with a weak national center, Chaffin said, with the NYC onboarding app developed locally rather than nationally. “But members are very online and very social,” Chaffin said. “So I think popular ideas — like Socialist Beach Day — pop up on Instagram and the like and get copied by other branches.”

Davis, who covers Congress for the Journal, said centrist and moderate Democratic groups and candidates have begun studying DSA’s tactics. “Organizations and candidates in the center of the Democratic Party have tried to see how the left’s organizing tactics could work for their cause,” Davis said. “I’ve spoken to moderate lawmakers beginning to experiment with social media hits, door knocking for signatures and grassroots canvassing. I’ve also followed centrist groups looking to replicate core DSA tactics such as creating chapters.”

Davis attributed part of DSA’s recent energy to the volume of party extremes. “The extremes of a party are typically the loudest, and the noise has helped groups like DSA grow their energy, especially within Gen Z,” she said. “It makes other groups think… why not us?”

The Journal’s piece appeared in the CMO Today newsletter, written by Nat Ives and summarizing Chaffin and Davis’s original reporting. CMO Today is the Journal’s daily briefing for marketing and media professionals.