I grew up in a progressive Democrat family, with parents who were always on the furthest left of the Democratic party. I knew of their support for Obama, and as I became more politically aware leading up to the 2016 election, they were strongly supportive of Bernie Sanders. While my family was still supporting the Democratic Party, their progressive interests had always made me more curious about independent politics.
Before I even began investigating socialist politics, I was drawn to Andrew Yang’s campaign for the 2020 presidential election. Seeing the failure of the corporate Democrats to put up an adequate fight against the right, as well as beginning to understand how devastating the capitalist system we live under is, led me to look for someone who promised something better. Yang’s proposal of a “Human Capitalism” with a universal basic income seemed like a perfect solution to alleviate the pain I knew capitalism was responsible for.
It wasn’t until I went to college that my interest in alternative politics started to lead me toward socialist conclusions. Before I started school, I didn’t really have any idea what socialism was. After starting to see socialists’ ideas online, it started to make more sense to me. From there, I started to also read socialist books, and over the course of my first year of college, I developed my understanding that capitalism is an inherently flawed system that needs to be replaced. The idea that workers collectively control the economy and thus should be the ones in charge of it seemed like the logical conclusion.
Going into my second year of college, I knew that these new socialist ideas I had embraced meant that I needed to get organized and start advocating for them. I found ISG tabling outside of my school, and their ideas made a lot of sense to me. Advocating for a worker’s party that is free from corporate control is how we are going to break out of the current two-party capitalist hold on the country. It’s been great working with the Independent Socialist Group alongside unions and other working-class struggles to help finally win true freedom for everyone.
Independent Socialist Group 