Democratic Socialists of America membership has spiked in Louisville. Here's why

USA Today

06-02-2025

Democratic Socialists of America membership has spiked in Louisville. Here's why
Bree Latimer has followed the Democratic Socialists of America for years, but her impetus to joining the organization's Louisville chapter was Donald Trump's win in the 2024 presidential election.
It was an inflection point for many others in Louisville and around the country. Interest in the local organization surged after the election, with membership rising 15% from 369 to 426 since the start of November and most of that growth occurring in the month after election day, said Tyler Lamon, a co-chair of the Louisville Democratic Socialists of America. Nationally, more than 5,000 people have joined since the election, the organization said in a newsletter.
During that span, the Louisville chapter's events have attracted a spate of new faces. While not all have become formal members, long-time members say the meetings — many of which are open to the public — have become noticeably larger.
Lamon attributes the interest to people feeling unnerved with the reality of a second Trump administration and uninspired by the Democratic Party's presidential campaign. Rather than lamenting the outcome, Lamon thinks new members are hungry for change.
"People are joining because they aren't ready to give up on the world," Lamon said.
Why has Louisville Democratic Socialists of America membership spiked?
Democratic socialism is an economic and political system focused on achieving wealth and class equality through democratic mechanisms. Proponents of the ideology view capitalism as a "system designed by the owning class to exploit" the working class, which can be remedied, they argue, by giving ordinary people a say in how their workplaces and communities are run.
In practice, collective ownership of economic and household lifelines like energy production and transportation figure largely into the ideology's vision.
Both the organization's national body and the Louisville chapter tend to see membership spikes "every time the world gets noticeably worse," Lamon said. When the war between Hamas and Israel broke out in October 2023, for example, membership increased, he said.
Lamon thinks the recent spike signifies a growing "class consciousness," referring to the Marxist concept of being aware of one's social and economic class relative to others.
University of Kentucky political science professor Stephen Voss agrees that economics is likely a driving factor.
The Kamala Harris campaign's lacking focus on the economy, which exit poll data indicates was one of the most important issues in the election, is one reason people may be reconsidering their political loyalties, Voss said. Meanwhile, much of Trump's messaging during his campaign centered on economic populism and reining in inflation, he noted.
Kentucky voting data shows Trump won about 1% more votes across the commonwealth in 2024 than he did in 2020. Meanwhile, Harris lost roughly 9% compared to former-President Joe Biden's 2020 totals. In Jefferson County alone, Harris drew 11% fewer votes than Biden in the previous presidential election.
Harris also lost ground nationwide. According to CNN, Harris received fewer votes than Biden did in 2020 in 45 states. Crucially, she lost 1.9 million votes in places that delivered big victories for Biden in 2020, according to a New York Times analysis of voter data, indicating many Biden voters either stayed home or flipped to Trump.
For voters simultaneously opposed to Trump and disenchanted with the Democratic Party, those political sentiments may be manifesting through new forms of political expression and engagement, Lamon said.
The pattern of left-leaning voters shifting further toward the margin isn't unheard of, Voss said, particularly in a reliably red state like Kentucky, though multiple theories might explain this pattern.
Some moderate voters who are comfortable with the ideological mainstreams of both parties may flip toward the dominant party in an effort to optimize their influence, leaving the minority party's fringes isolated and "radicalized," Voss said. Others, sensing futility in voting for a moderate Democrat in a Republican state, may naturally embrace more liberal stances and candidates, he said.
Young people in particular may be inclined to embrace democratic socialism, as the stigma it carried among older generations is lost on younger generations who tend to be more liberal, Voss said.
In the recent election, many younger voters aged 18-29 flipped to Trump or stayed home. According to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts, young voter turnout was down 10% nationwide compared to 2020, with Harris being less popular among young men and women than Biden was in 2020 and Trump's share of the young vote jumping 10%.
Will membership continue rising?
Latimer, 24, anxiously watched as results trickled in late into election night. As the outcome became clear, she felt she could no longer stay "idle."
Days later, she attended the Louisville Democratic Socialists of America's post-election town hall, where dozens of people packed into the organization's headquarters in the Smoketown neighborhood to share a meal and discuss how to move forward.
"It was really surprising to see how many people were there. How many people were in the same boat as I was," Latimer said. "It was also to kind of hold space for people's emotions after the election, and to kind of tell people the fight is far from over, and we are here to fight with you."
Since that first meeting, she's continued to attend various events and has become a formal member. She plans to stay engaged by joining the communications committee and helping the group further its advocacy and impact in areas concerning workers' rights and wealth disparities in Louisville.
Whether others will stay involved remains to be seen. Voss said when a mainstream party sees an exodus of support, it tends to rethink its strategy to win back voters. A likely course of action for the Democratic Party could be to reframe its messaging to focus more on economic issues, Voss said.
"More often what happens is the mainstream party closer to those voters figures out what it needs to do to bring them back," Voss said. "What the Bernie Sanders-style Democrats are saying is, 'let's win them back, not by being moderate, but by stressing economic populism, by saying we will work aggressively, you know, not to regulate your bathroom usage, but instead to improve your family finances and tackle rising healthcare costs.'"
Lamon said the organization's membership engagement committee is hard at work to keep the newcomers around, though he admits that the group is largely at the "mercy of macro trends." But regardless of who comes and goes, the organization will continue on its path.
"The scale of the problem is huge," Lamon said. "It's the job of DSA to be the vehicle for that change."
Contact reporter Killian Baarlaer at [e-mail] or @bkillian72 on X.