The 2026 National Educational Conference of Social Democrats USA continued through Labor Day weekend in Buffalo, New York, bringing together members, candidates, organizers, and activists for several days of discussion, political education, grassroots organizing, and participation in Buffalo’s Labor Day traditions. Days Three, Four, and Five brought the conference’s work into particularly sharp focus.

Day Three concentrated on electoral campaigns and the lessons candidates were learning from voters on the ground. Day Four took those discussions into the streets through participation in Buffalo’s Labor Day parade. The final day then turned toward organizational development, grassroots activism, and a broader discussion of what distinguishes social democracy from other traditions on the left. Together, the three days emphasized a common theme: political organizations have to connect ideas with practical work, campaigning, organizing, participating in labor and community movements, and delivering tangible results.

Day Three: Candidates, Campaigns, and Lessons from the 2026 Elections

Day Three began with interviews with candidates who had recently participated in contested
elections, giving conference participants an opportunity to hear directly about the experience of campaigning, communicating with voters, and building political coalitions.

Anne Parelkar on campaigning in Kansas

Anne Parelkar, who discussed her campaign for the U.S. Senate in Kansas, described the race as her first experience running for elected office. She said that the campaign had been demanding but had provided an enormous amount of experience and had brought together supporters from Kansas, across the country, and internationally.

One of Parelkar’s principal lessons concerned political labels. She argued that words such as “socialist,” “Democrat,” and “Republican” can cause voters to make assumptions before hearing a candidate’s actual position. Her campaign therefore sought to emphasize common concerns and concrete needs rather than allowing the conversation to be defined solely by ideological labels. Parelkar also discussed the importance of distinguishing between ordinary political disagreements and genuinely extremist or oppressive positions. She said candidates should be willing to have conversations with people across political differences while recognizing that some people may not feel safe engaging with individuals advocating explicitly discriminatory or authoritarian positions.

She identified misinformation, social media, and the need for greater accountability from elected officials as major challenges facing political organizing. She also emphasized the importance of engaging younger voters and finding ways to convince more young people that participation in elections matters. When asked about Kansas issues, Parelkar identified data centers and healthcare as particularly important concerns. She connected those issues to a larger argument for antitrust enforcement, stronger unions, and reducing the concentration of economic power in large corporations.

The Democratic Party and candidate support

A significant portion of the discussion concerned Parelkar’s experience with the Johnson County Democratic organization. According to Parelkar, the organization had established conditions for receiving certain forms of campaign support, including a requirement that candidates demonstrate that they were running a “serious” race. She said fundraising became a determining factor and that she challenged the decision because of the substantial volunteer effort invested in her campaign.

Parelkar said she believed the episode illustrated a broader tension between party
organizations and grassroots candidates. In her account, volunteer labor and the participation of people who could not afford to make large financial contributions deserved to be valued alongside fundraising. She emphasized that her criticism was directed at the process rather than every individual within the Democratic Party, noting that she had also received support and guidance from Democratic officials elsewhere in Kansas.
She ultimately argued for a political culture in which people do not have to personally like one another to work together. “We don’t have to be best friends,” she said, but people can still be on the same team when they share a commitment to accomplishing something positive.

Taylor Moreland and rural Kansas

The conference then heard from Taylor Moreland, a candidate for the Kansas House in House District 7 in southeast Kansas. Moreland explained that her decision to run came in large part from her experience working in the foster care system. She described seeing firsthand the difficulties facing children and families and concluded that more lawmakers with direct experience of working class life and public institutions were needed. She said she wanted government to pay greater attention to people’s lived experiences rather than focusing primarily on statistics and institutional interests.

Moreland described voter contact as one of the most challenging and rewarding parts of the campaign. Because she had relatively few volunteers, she personally conducted a substantial amount of voter outreach. She also deliberately reached out to Republican voters, arguing that an elected representative would ultimately represent everyone in a district, regardless of how they voted.

Her campaign also illustrated the importance of learning from constituents rather than assuming that candidates already understand every local issue. Moreland said she had spoken directly with farmers and ranchers to learn about agriculture, an especially important subject in a rural Kansas district. The issues she heard most frequently included property taxes, marijuana legalization, healthcare, and the future of rural hospitals. She also discussed growing local concerns about energy, water resources, and the environmental implications of nuclear projects and proposed data centers in and around Parsons. Moreland told the conference that volunteers could help through phone banking, campaign outreach, and other forms of grassroots activity. Conference participants also discussed helping with phone banking later in the campaign.

Looking across the 2026 election landscape

The candidate discussions were followed by a broader analysis of the 2026 elections presented by Sheldon Ranz. Ranz focused heavily on the campaign and political development surrounding New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani, using it as a case study in grassroots campaigning, electoral strategy, and the relationship between candidates and established political institutions.

A major theme of the presentation was direct voter contact. Ranz described Mamdani’s campaign as having developed an extensive ground operation and highlighted efforts to reach voters personally, particularly in communities where the campaign was facing political opposition. Ranz also emphasized the importance of governing after an election. He discussed the Mamdani administration’s approach to rent stabilization, expanded healthcare for young children, and municipal infrastructure. He presented these activities as examples of a “sewer socialism” tradition in which local government demonstrates its political program through concrete improvements in daily life.

The presentation then examined Mamdani’s endorsements of other candidates and argued that electoral organizations should assess not only whether candidates share their political outlook, but also the actual circumstances of the races in which they are competing. Ranz described this as a lesson in strategic realism, particularly when deciding where organizational resources and political influence can make a difference.

The broader discussion included examples from Seattle, Michigan, Wisconsin, and elsewhere, with the presentation arguing that the electoral developments of 2026 were part of a wider national political landscape rather than being confined to New York City.

Day Three therefore concluded with a practical lesson for organizers: successful campaigns
require more than attractive platforms. They require sustained voter contact, volunteers,
knowledge of local conditions, coalition building, careful strategic choices, and the ability to
connect political ideas to concrete concerns.

Day Four: SDUSA in the Buffalo Labor Day Parade

Day Four moved the conference from discussion to public participation.
Conference participants joined Buffalo’s annual Labor Day parade, an event organized through the AFL CIO and its affiliated unions. The parade provided a direct connection between SDUSA’s educational conference and the city’s labor movement. The parade itself was described as a major Buffalo tradition. Participants marched through
broad city avenues while residents gathered outside their homes to watch and cheer the
marchers. The atmosphere created an unusually direct interaction between the labor movement and the surrounding community, with families and children treating the parade as an annual civic event.

The march lasted approximately an hour and a half to two hours. Members of SDUSA
participated alongside the broader labor community, making the Labor Day event a practical
expression of the conference’s emphasis on connections between social democracy, organized labor, and community activity. The day also produced an unexpected opportunity for public outreach. Conference participants were interviewed by a local newspaper and photographed during the event. After the march, participants returned to Debs Hall, where they continued interacting with grassroots activists involved in the Labor Day festivities and a bicycle ride.

The significance of Day Four was therefore not simply ceremonial. The parade placed
conference participants directly alongside the labor movement in a public setting and provided an opportunity to interact with workers, residents, activists, and other community participants outside the conference room.

Day Five: Organizational Growth and the Meaning of Social Democracy

The final day turned inward, focusing on what participants had learned and what they intended to do with it. Sheldon Ranz began the closing discussion by highlighting SDUSA’s organizational growth. He said the organization had fewer than 50 members when he joined in 2016 and was approaching 200 members in 2026. He also said that the organization’s financial resources were stronger than they had been during his decade of membership, allowing SDUSA to organize a conference of greater scope and duration than it had been able to hold in earlier years.

Ranz used the New York City chapter as an example of how a relatively small organization
could generate political relationships and public activity. He discussed SDUSA’s contacts with Mayor Mamdani, efforts to develop additional relationships with political and peace
organizations, and plans for further activity in New York. The larger organizational lesson was that SDUSA’s resolutions are intended to lead to action. Ranz encouraged members to organize local chapters and use the organization’s resolutions as starting points for community activity. He noted that five dues paying members are sufficient to
establish a chapter and argued that organizational resolutions should serve as guides for
practical work rather than remaining statements on paper.

Defining social democracy

The final major intellectual discussion of the conference centered on the question of why
SDUSA calls itself social democratic. Patty Friend presented a series of statements written in the style of historical social democratic figures and used them to explore the distinctions between socialism, democratic socialism, and social democracy. The exercise explicitly asked what social democracy means and why SDUSA identifies with that tradition.

The first statement, presented in the style of Max Shachtman, contrasted social democracy with both unregulated capitalism and authoritarian forms of state collectivism. It described social democracy as combining economic justice with political liberty through institutions such as progressive taxation, universal healthcare, strong unions, and public investment.
The second, written in the style of Bayard Rustin, connected economic democracy to the
traditions of the civil rights and labor movements. It argued that formal political rights are
incomplete when people lack meaningful access to economic security and linked social
democracy to full employment, healthcare, housing, education, and strong unions. It also
emphasized coalition building among labor, the Black freedom movement, liberals, and the
democratic left.

The final statement drew the clearest distinction between democratic socialism and social democracy. It described democratic socialism as ultimately seeking social or public ownership of major parts of the economy through democratic means, while presenting SDUSA’s social democracy as a distinct approach centered on achieving economic reforms and greater democratic control through existing political institutions. The discussion therefore framed social democracy not as political passivity, but as a specific
strategy for pursuing economic and social reforms through democratic institutions, organized
labor, elections, and sustained grassroots activism.

From Education to Organization

The closing sessions returned to a theme that had appeared throughout the preceding days:
education is valuable only when it produces action. The candidates on Day Three spoke about knocking doors, talking with voters, learning local issues, building volunteer organizations, and adapting campaigns to the communities they hoped to represent. Day Four put conference participants directly into Buffalo’s labor movement through participation in the Labor Day parade. Day Five challenged SDUSA members to carry the same spirit of practical organizing back into their own communities.

The conference’s closing message was therefore both organizational and political: members
were encouraged to build chapters, participate in local movements, support campaigns and
community efforts and turn SDUSA’s adopted principles into practical work. The final discussion also placed that organizing work in a larger historical framework. Social democracy was presented as a tradition concerned with linking political democracy to economic security, supporting organized labor, expanding access to healthcare, housing, and education, and pursuing change through democratic means.

Looking Ahead

The 2026 Educational Conference ended in Buffalo with SDUSA reflecting on both its past
growth and its future responsibilities. Day Three demonstrated the challenges and possibilities of electoral politics through the experiences of candidates in Kansas and the wider lessons participants drew from the 2026 elections. Day Four connected the organization to the labor movement through Buffalo’s Labor Day parade. Day Five focused on the organization’s expanding membership and resources, the development of local chapters, and the continuing discussion over how social democracy should
be understood and practiced.

The conference ultimately presented political education, electoral organizing, labor participation, and grassroots activism as parts of the same larger project. For SDUSA, the conclusion of the conference was not an endpoint. It was a call for members to take the ideas discussed in Buffalo and carry them back into their own communities, building
organizations, participating in movements, supporting democratic candidates and causes, and working toward the social democratic goals that brought the organization together in the first place.

On September 4, 2026, it began and Michael Mottern and David Hacker gave an opening welcome and brief history of SDUSA.

But things got into full swing on the 2nd day, September 5th, when Social Democrats USA held its Educational Conference, bringing members and affiliates together for a full day of political education, organizational discussion, debate, and local organizing.

The conference opened with consideration of a resolution supporting universal food benefits. Members discussed hunger as a fundamental social and economic issue and the limitations of relying on food banks and existing programs with eligibility and administrative barriers. The resolution passed by unanimous consent, affirming SDUSA’s commitment to making the elimination of hunger a legislative priority.

A major discussion focused on SDUSA’s political identity and the organization’s relationship to other traditions on the democratic left. Members debated the differences between SDUSA and organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America while also considering how broad SDUSA should be in its ideological outlook. The discussion ultimately produced language affirming that SDUSA can include social democrats, democratic socialists, and others who differ over the long-term future of capitalism while sharing a commitment to democratic politics and social justice. The amended resolution passed unanimously.

Members also discussed constitutional reforms and the continued development of SDUSA’s organizational structure. Chapter and affiliate reports highlighted organizing efforts in New York, Kansas City, Missouri, and elsewhere, including membership growth, local fellowship, political campaigns, writing, and efforts to establish stronger local organizations.

Another recurring theme was the kind of political culture SDUSA seeks to build. Speakers emphasized the importance of welcoming new members, practicing empathy, maintaining space for disagreement, and resisting the factionalism and personal attacks that can weaken democratic organizations.

The conference also addressed difficult questions surrounding Israel, Palestine, Zionism, anti-Semitism, and SDUSA’s historical positions. The discussion reflected the organization’s continuing effort to engage seriously with internal differences while maintaining democratic standards and opposing authoritarianism.

Educational presentations broadened the conversation beyond internal organizational questions. Dr. Brian Matlock’s presentation, “Socialism in the Heartland,” examined how organizers can build support in rural and working-class communities by listening to people’s experiences, speaking in accessible language, and identifying traditions of solidarity already present in local communities. Other presentations explored Indigenous rights, community resilience, poverty and deindustrialization in Buffalo, and the possibilities of municipal socialism.

Taken together, the conference demonstrated SDUSA’s commitment to democratic political education, economic justice, working-class organizing, and building an organization capable of turning those principles into action.

Read the full conference report PDF for a detailed account of the day’s discussions, resolutions, presentations, and organizing work.

Passed by unanimous consent of the SDUSA NEC

If someone is confusing the Social Democrats USA (SDUSA) with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), keep in mind that there are pretty significant ideological differences between the two.

SDUSA is a social-democratic organization that comes from a explicitly anti-communist tradition. Historically, SDUSA has distinguished democratic socialism and social democracy from Soviet-style communism and authoritarian Marxism. Its basic approach is to preserve democratic institutions and a mixed-market economy while pursuing strong labor rights, social programs, economic regulation, and greater economic equality.

DSA is a different organization with a much broader socialist tent. DSA describes itself as a socialist organization and includes members with a wide range of views, including democratic socialists, Marxists, and other anti-capitalist tendencies. That does not mean every DSA member is a communist, but it does mean that people who advocate much more fundamental changes to the capitalist system can operate within the organization. However, whereas SDUSA commitment to democracy is ironclad; DSA in its current incarnation is run by its National Political Committee, a body dominated by non-democratic socialists who have publicly expressed their sympathies for authoritarian regimes of the left. 

And that’s the important distinction.

That said, SDUSA today is not necessarily ideologically uniform. It can serve as a broader democratic-left tent that includes people who identify as social democrats, democratic socialists, and others who believe capitalism should eventually be transformed or replaced. The distinction is therefore not that every SDUSA member must believe capitalism is permanent. Rather, social democracy provides a framework for pursuing economic justice through democratic institutions, while individual members may differ over what the ultimate economic destination should be.

SDUSA’s basic philosophy is to reform capitalism through democratic means. We believe in a mixed economy where the capitalist market coexists with social insurance, social welfare programs, strong unions and wage boards.  DSA’s stated objective goes further: it seeks to move beyond capitalism and ultimately replace the capitalist economic system with socialism. So when someone says, “Democratic socialism is the same thing as communism,” that’s an oversimplification. But it’s equally misleading to pretend SDUSA and DSA are interchangeable organizations.

There is a real historical and ideological divide between anti-communist social democracy and modern democratic socialism that includes explicitly anti-capitalist currents.

You can support strong unions, universal healthcare, worker protections, progressive taxation, a strong social safety net, and economic regulation while still believing that a democratic, mixed-market capitalist economy should remain. Another way to understand the social-democratic position is through its democratic guardrails. Social democracy can defend liberal democracy against authoritarianism on the right while also criticizing authoritarian or anti-democratic tendencies on the left. In that sense, opposition to communism does not come from a rejection of socialism or economic equality; it comes from the belief that democratic institutions, political pluralism, civil liberties, and democratic accountability are non-negotiable.

That position is fundamentally different from believing that capitalism itself should eventually be abolished and replaced with a socialist economy.

There is also an important historical connection between the two organizations. SDUSA is the successor to the Socialist Party of America, which itself grew out of the earlier American socialist and labor movements and was associated with figures such as Eugene V. Debs. In 1972, the Socialist Party of America changed its name to Social Democrats, USA. Michael Harrington and others subsequently broke away and formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) in 1973. DSOC later merged with the New American Movement in 1982 to form DSA. In other words, SDUSA and DSA have a common historical ancestry, but they represent different branches of that tradition that developed in different ideological directions. So while both organizations use the language of democratic socialism, they developed within different branches of the same historical tradition and went on to develop in different ideological directions.

Same broad political family. Very different philosophies about capitalism and socialism.

Passed by unanimous consent of the SDUSA NEC

WHEREAS, access to adequate food is a basic human necessity and is essential to the health, well-being, and dignity of every person; and

WHEREAS, food banks, food pantries, religious organizations, nonprofit organizations, and countless volunteers provide indispensable emergency assistance to millions of Americans experiencing food insecurity; and

WHEREAS, these charitable organizations were established to respond to temporary emergencies and were not intended to serve as the primary long-term solution to persistent hunger; and

WHEREAS, millions of Americans continue to experience food insecurity due to low wages, rising food costs, unexpected medical expenses, unemployment, disability, economic instability, and other financial hardships; and

WHEREAS, the continued reliance upon emergency food assistance demonstrates the need for policies that address the root causes of hunger rather than solely its symptoms; and

WHEREAS, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known through the use of Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards, has helped millions of Americans purchase groceries and reduce food insecurity; and

WHEREAS, the current means-tested structure of SNAP requires many applicants to navigate income verification requirements, eligibility determinations, and administrative procedures that may discourage participation or prevent eligible individuals from receiving assistance; and

WHEREAS, a universal food benefit program would eliminate eligibility barriers, reduce administrative complexity, minimize stigma associated with receiving assistance, and ensure that every American has access to a basic monthly food benefit; and

WHEREAS, universal public benefit programs have long existed within the United States through institutions such as public education, transportation infrastructure, and Social Security, demonstrating that broadly available public investments can strengthen society while operating within a market-based economy; and

WHEREAS, America possesses one of the world’s most productive agricultural systems and produces sufficient food to feed its population, making food access primarily a matter of public policy rather than national food scarcity; and

WHEREAS, access to nutritious food improves educational achievement, workplace productivity, physical health, mental health, and overall quality of life while reducing many long-term social and economic costs associated with chronic hunger; and

WHEREAS, reducing hunger represents both a humanitarian responsibility and a sound economic investment that can strengthen families, communities, and the nation as a whole;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the SDUSA supports the principle that no person in the United States should experience hunger due to financial hardship or unnecessary administrative barriers to obtaining food assistance; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the SDUSA encourages Congress to study and develop legislation establishing a universal monthly food benefit available to every American through the existing Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) system or a comparable national food assistance program; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that any such proposal should preserve the role of food banks and charitable organizations as emergency resources while reducing long-term dependence upon emergency food assistance through universal access to nutritious food; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that Congress should evaluate methods of financing universal food benefits in a fiscally responsible manner while maintaining the long-term sustainability of the program; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that SDUSA shall make the elimination of hunger through universal food benefits a legislative priority.

By Jason Sibert

I’ve always admired Switzerland for so many reasons – its beauty, its wealthy economy, its vibrant democracy, and its social-democratic economy, even though the country isn’t as social-democratic as Sweden and the Nordic countries, which are so admired by Bernie Sanders and his followers among today’s Democrats.

One of the most fascinating things about Switzerland’s democracy is that it’s a semi-direct democracy, meaning a political system in which citizens elect representatives but also retain powerful direct democratic tools to shape legislation. The essence of a democracy – first emerging in ancient Greece (although in a limited form) – is that people are in possession of enough reason to choose the laws they live under by some mechanism. In the United States, and in many other countries, we do this by selecting legislators to make the laws.  Switzerland has a legislative body elected by the people, but it can bypass legislators by passing laws via referendum. The Swiss use different tools to shape the legislative process.  They can amend the Constitution via popular initiative. With 100,00 signatures, a vote will be taken on an amendment. From there, the amendment must draw a majority of the votes in most cantons (the Swiss version of US states). Citizens can also veto a law passed by parliament by collecting 50,000 signatures in 10 days. If they succeed, the law is suspended until a referendum is held, and if citizens vote to abolish it, it is abolished. In addition to the federal level, citizens also vote on cantonal and municipal referendums.

The Swiss have perfected a way to bypass politicians when needed. We do have something similar in our country, at the state level. My home state of Missouri adopted a citizen‑initiated constitutional amendment process back in 1908.  That year, voters approved Amendment Three to the state constitution, which added the initiative and referendum powers to the Missouri Constitution. That made Missouri the seventh state in the nation to adopt statewide citizen‑initiated ballot measures.

However, our experiment with Swiss-style citizen democracy has recently become controversial. Under current state law, such ballot measures require a simple statewide majority for passage, a process that has been used in recent years to grant abortion rights, create paid sick leave, expand Medicaid, and legalize marijuana. In a move backward, the Republican legislature repealed paid sick leave in 2025. In another attempt to move backward, Republican Rep. Ed Lewis first proposed Amendment Four to the Missouri Constitution, which would have required citizen-led ballot initiatives to win a majority in each of Missouri’s congressional districts, boundaries that are drawn by state lawmakers.

It would have created “the strictest passage threshold in the country for citizen-initiated ballot measures only,” said Hannah Ledford, the deputy director of the Fairness Project, a group that supports citizen initiative processes, in a recent report. She added it could have left Missouri’s direct democracy process “functionally dead.” On August 4, Missouri voters went to the polls and rejected Amendment Four.  Remember this is a red state, and what baffles me is how Missourians support semi-direct democracy, abortion rights, paid sick leave, Medicaid expansion, and legalized marijuana in amendments but don’t support politicians who believe in such things.

A big part of social democracy is supporting democratic forms, unlike revolutionary communism. Of course, those norms are under attack by various right-wing populist movements around the world, and semi-direct democracy is just one democratic norm under threat. Republicans have also sought to make it harder for citizen-led constitutional amendments to pass in other states. In November, North Dakota and South Dakota voters will decide whether to bump the threshold up from a statewide majority to 60%. In Utah, a similar measure will appear on the fall ballot, specifically related to tax increases.

In the fight to protect our democratic republic, semi-direct democracy is one of the most important battlegrounds. Will we, as citizens of the USA, fight to protect semi-direct democracy? We’ll see.

Jason Sibert is the Lead Writer of the Peace Economy Project.