By: Micheal Mochaidean

On July 6th, progressive organizers staged sit-in protests at Senate constituency offices around the country. These protests were targeted at Republican senators who support the American Healthcare Act (AHCA). The actions on Thursday, July 6th followed weeks of organized resistance to the Republican healthcare plan and were organized by a wide range of progressive groups and disability rights advocates. Across the country, DSA played a central role in these protests

The AHCA, if enacted, would strip healthcare from 22 million people. Its multi-billion dollar cuts to Medicaid would particularly endanger people with disabilities. ADAPT, a disability rights organization, has led several office occupations since the Senate’s healthcare bill was announced. On June 22nd, dozens of ADAPT activists were arrested at Mitch McConnell’s office in the US Capitol. From Kentucky to Ohio, disability rights advocates have been jailed and mistreated for protesting. The recent protests were organized in association with ADAPT and other progressive groups. In states from Ohio to Colorado, DSA members risked arrest to fight against the AHCA and for a medicare-for-all single-payer system.

In a straw-poll in May, DSA members listed healthcare as a top political priority, and DSA locals, like East Bay DSA in California, have been active in struggles for a single-payer healthcare system at the state level.

In Denver, DSA organizers occupied Senator Cory Gardner’s office for more than 6 hours before police were called to remove them. DSA organizers in Cincinnati occupied Senator Rob Portman’s office – 15 individuals were arrested by local police after refusing to leave. In Charleston West Virginia, an Episcopalian priest was shown in local papers being arrested for working in solidarity with the Kanawha Valley DSA chapter, as they protested Senator Capito’s tepid support for repealing the ACA and replacing it with the AHCA. By the end of the day, a total of 43 people had been arrested across the country.

Despite protesting peacefully, demonstrators faced arrest and police intimidation. In many states, police attempted to preempt the protests by camping outside offices in marked and unmarked vehicles. Many senators closed their offices for the day for the July 4th recess in order to avoid confrontations with protesters. Nevertheless, DSA protesters nationwide put themselves on the line and stood up against the AHCA in a visible form of solidarity with likeminded groups – among them Our Revolution and Democracy Spring – through direct action politics.

In a conference call following the protests, Local DSA leaders discussed and reflected on the office occupations and DSA’s organizing around healthcare rights and shared their experiences during the protests.

In many cities, senators moved their local offices to private buildings that do not easily allow visible demonstrations. Senator Toomey’s office in Pittsburgh is one such building, and local leaders had to determine how they could manage the optics of their demonstration without engaging in criminal behavior. Pittsburgh DSA decided to hold a die-in outside of Toomey’s office in order to circumvent this policy. “It was a really positive event,” a local Pittsburgh DSA leader stated. “There was a lot of red and socialism on local news and clear messaging about this fight, so I feel good and really exhausted but happy we did this.”

Establishing a presence on social media was also an important success that local organizers emphasized. A leader from Charleston stated that through livestreaming their sit-in, they were able to not only publicize the event, but also increase traffic to Senator Capito’s phone line. The livestream feed that was posted on the Kanawha DSA’s Facebook page received 100,000 views during the sit-in, and totaled more than 500,000 a day later. Capito’s phone was “ringing off the hook,” the local leader stated, describing the high-profile event as pointing out the senator’s reactionary healthcare policies in a state where 30% of the population relies on Medicaid.

The protests also showed the potential of DSA’s coalition building. DSA partnered with Our Revolution and Democracy Spring, two progressive national organizations, to spearhead the agenda for nationwide sit-ins. In Dallas, for example, DSA members approached Democratic Party members at a Ted Cruz event in anticipation of building a coalition with the local party. Members reported that Democrats in attendance initially made faces at DSA members who asked them to join in sit-ins and risk being arrested, but “a lot of us acknowledge that extreme times call for extreme measures, and a lot of that will require us putting our bodies on the line,” one local Dallas DSA leader said. In the end, Dallas DSA chose to team up with a contingency of the Dallas Green Party to develop direct action training seminars in anticipation of future events, “That way, we can build up [direct action] as a valid strategy of stopping things we want to stop instead of outright not working with that organization going forward, but really trying to pull them to where they need to be in order for us to work better together.”

Similarly,Austin DSA members found that having already laid the groundwork for coalition building made their sit-ins much more impactful. One DSA leader – a veteran organizer who stated that she had “not done anything like we did yesterday since the 1970s, the anti-war movement” – has worked as president of a local retirees’ organization since 2015, and in that short time has managed to steer a rather moderate group towards more progressive organizing. In this capacity, she convinced liberal Medicaid activists who might otherwise never have considered direct action as a strategy to work with Austin DSA at the July 6th sit-in. “Those liberal folks who are really committed to trying to save Medicaid… can be moved, I’m convinced, to a broader vision of Medicare for all” she said. “It takes some time. If you continue to show your commitment, I think we can move the agenda in a more progressive direction.”

Maria Svart, National Director of the DSA, assessed the strength of direct action as a tool for building the socialist left in light of local success stories.. “As socialists,” Svart stated, “we have an analysis of power that says asking nicely won’t get us what we want, necessarily, and so we have to back it up by demonstrating our power, and part of our power comes from building a really broad base of people that are willing to stand up, and part of power comes from being really disruptive when we need to be.” Svart noted that standard electoral politics – simply voting for a particular candidate each election – does little to push for broader leftist agendas. “You want to have a strategy to change the decision-maker, or make them do what we want, and nonviolent direct action is one tactic that is really important. You don’t use it all the time, but sometimes it’s the right tactic to use.”

DSA’s participation in the office occupation protests is one part of a larger political push on healthcare rights. On June 28th, DSA’s National Political Committee issued a statement on the AHCA which stated that “DSA will also redouble our efforts to create state single-payer systems (that is, state-level versions of ‘Medicare for All’) wherever possible, particularly in blue states such as California, New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota. We will also continue to join with other coalition partners to build a mass national movement for “Medicare for All,” a movement capable of electing to state legislatures and Congress those truly committed to ‘healthcare for all.’” As the Republican congress and President continue to attempt to take healthcare away from millions of Americans, DSA, through protest and direct action, continues to struggle both against cuts that will kill people and propose a concrete alternative in the form of single-payer healthcare.