Welcome to the Dig, a podcast from Jacobin magazine. My name is Daniel Denver and I'm broadcasting from Providence, Rhode Island.

We're taking a break halfway into our four-part series of interviews on Latin America because as I was heading back from Tijuana and Point South it

occurred to me that next week is a big week for the American left. Democratic

Socialist of America or DSA is holding its first national convention

August 3rd through 6th in Chicago since the organization has undergone a massive

explosion in size. Hundreds of delegates from all over the country will make a lot of important decisions

about the direction that the organization and by extension the American left as a whole will take in the coming years.

In the wake of Bernie's inspiration and Trump's depredations, DSA quickly became the nation's

largest socialist organization.

At face value, that might not seem like much. After all, the

U.S. hadn't had anything but very small socialist organizations for quite a while.

But DSA is actually pretty big by the standards of membership of political

organizations in general, at least those that involve more than responding to email action alerts.

There are now 24,500 members or so. That's up from 6500 in early 2016.

It's an exciting time for the left and also with the far right in power a really terrifying one.

Whether you're in DSA or not this convention will be consequential and I hope

this episode can help shed some light on why in advance.

My guests both come from within the Jacobenfold, but are also both running for DSA's National

Political Committee on two rival slates.

Ella Mahoney is an assistant editor at Jacobin with a background in labor organizing.

She's the co-founder of the Brooklyn DSA Branch's Electoral Politics Committee and a member of the National

Political Education and Internationalism Committees. Ella is running for a seat on the

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