Young people everywhere are grappling with the horrors of war and imperialism, attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, climate catastrophes, and the cost of living crisis. We are hitting our campuses and the streets to fight for the system we need. In high school, I participated in walkouts for queer rights. I saw that we needed a much bigger nationwide struggle to fight back effectively, but I didn’t know where to start. 

By getting involved with Socialist Alternative, I have a deeper understanding of the capitalist system we are fighting against and the socialist world we need to build. The capitalist class hinges all decisions on their ability to make more profits, which produces crisis after crisis that ultimately fall on working people. What would solve these crises – an economy democratically planned for the needs of ordinary people by ordinary people – would require a revolutionary struggle for an entirely new society, a socialist society. 

I joined Socialist Alternative when I was 19 because I knew that capitalism was a failed system and I was looking for an opportunity to get involved in the struggle for revolutionary change. In joining Socialist Alternative, I gained opportunities to build movements and argue for class struggle tactics – including during this summer.

This past May, when the school year ended, many of the anti-war student encampments made deals with their respective university administrations. Here at UW-Milwaukee, the encampment was taken down in exchange for a vague promise to meet with a small group of students to “discuss concerns” and a formal statement from the university denouncing the genocide. The university had no intentions of cutting ties with certain companies affiliated with the Israeli state.

The majority of Americans oppose the bloody massacre in Gaza, and there is a broad mood to fight for a ceasefire. Despite this, there wasn’t a readily apparent way for most people to get involved in the movement after the encampments ended. Here in Milwaukee, and around the country, Socialist Alternative was able to tap into the mood to organize against the brutal occupation of Gaza at Pride events.

Over three days of tabling at Pridefest, we got in contact with hundreds of working-class people looking to build the anti-war movement, fight back against right-wing attacks on trans youth, and get organized to fight for socialism. We talked about the need to connect the anti-war movement to the fight for queer rights because our movements are stronger when we unite against our common enemy: the capitalist class. Not only do we need to fight for a ceasefire, but we need to fight for an end to US military funding for the Israeli military, and instead fund trans-inclusive Medicare for All and affordable housing. 

We also pointed to the need to move beyond supporting the Democratic Party and toward building a new party that will fight for working people and the policies that would transform our lives. While Democrats often run on protecting queer rights, they betray the movement once elected. By failing to counter right-wing attacks, the Democratic Party has allowed the right wing to put forward bolder and more dangerous proposals. Gender-affirming care is now restricted in 25 states. The only opposition in state and local governments has been from isolated Democrats, who haven’t gotten any support from the Democratic Party establishment. This lack of a fighting approach has laid the groundwork for Project 2025, which proposes brutal attacks on not just queer people, but also immigrants, women, students and teachers, and the working class as a whole. The most effective way to fight back is by building a broad movement in the streets and in our workplaces to stop the far right.

In June, we went to Juneteenth events across the country and continued to make the case for a break with the Democrats and talk about the need for a revolutionary socialist approach in the struggle for Black liberation. Neither corporate political party has an answer for the problems facing minorities in the US. Only a party built for the working class, independent from corporate donors and accountable to our movements, can win what Black working people need, like a livable minimum wage and a massive expansion of quality affordable housing.

In July, I was invited to be on a CBS panel with other voters in the Milwaukee area to talk about the upcoming election and the Republican National Convention. CBS didn’t know that I was a socialist, and they didn’t know what I would say. I tried to use this spot to argue for the strongest possible independent left vote in November, and the need to build a movement for a new party. I went on national TV to tell working people that I will not be voting for Kamala Harris this fall, and advocating a vote for the strongest independent left candidate, Jill Stein. This posed such a threat to the corporate media that they cut it out entirely. 

This experience shows the importance of independent, working-class journalism, like our socialist newspaper. The capitalist class and their press won’t just hand us the lessons working people have learned in struggle, which is exactly why we need fighting working-class organizations that can carry those lessons to the next struggle. We will need to continue arguing for all these things in the fall when millions of people feel pressured to vote for Kamala Harris out of understandable fear of another Trump presidency.

Joining SA is one of the best decisions I ever made. It showed me how struggles against all forms of oppression are linked and rooted in capitalism, and gave me concrete steps forward in the fight for socialism. If you agree with these ideas and if you want to join the struggle for revolutionary socialism, get in touch with Socialist Alternative in your area!