Bill Williams

Hi, my name is Bill Williams, and I’m running for delegate for our National DSA convention 2025.

Four years ago, at the end of the Pandemic, I joined DSA and rediscovered a socialism transformed from what I had known as a teenager. In place of the isolation and paranoia I’d known from the tiny sectarian groups of my youth, there was the free (if sometimes heated) exchange of ideas. We now have a national political movement where tendencies were once confined to cities or regions. In DSA, I ran and got elected to the Steering Committee, serving as an At-Large member two years ago. I used my experience as a worker cooperative organizer and started to work with Co op Cincy, Cincinnati’s cooperative business incubator, on a coffee house cooperative. This last year, DSA members & Co op Cincy members opened Topia Coffee Co op at 123 McMicken St. 

I became a member of the local Groundwork Caucus, 82. Groundwork has a responsible, focused, achievable road to DSA power. I believe in Medicare For All and the Green New Deal, and I feel that DSA should enthusiastically back the campaign work of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. While no candidate is perfect, there has always been a tendency for socialists to run from electoral contests and hide under thick blankets of radicalism. We cannot cede ground to the right in any arena, especially the electoral one. They will further entrench their power to dictate & pollute the direction of American policy, ideology, and even spirituality with their kleptocratic Ferris-Bueller 's-Day-Off-style fascism. 

I find Groundwork’s focus on power at the municipal level very exciting. While I support our national elected officials, socialist politics can really transform our society at the city and state levels.

And I’m impressed by Groundwork’s commitment to pushing DSA in a more democratic, representative, and diverse direction. And I feel this is reflected in the following proposals, which I will support:

• National Leadership 1M1V

• Make DSA More Diverse

• A 50 State Strategy

• Fight Fascism, Build Socialism

• Proportional Representation for Chapters

I've been a socialist on and off again since I was 19 in 1991. DSA is far from perfect, but it's one big tent ideology that has created the most dynamic force for real left politics in my lifetime. In a way, it shouldn’t exist: Capitalism prefers its socialists suspended in small cults, cut off from mainstream society, left spinning in a radical direction away from influence and power. That was all we had of socialism 30 years ago. DSA is a gift. 

The tendencies, groups, and caucuses may create conflict, but these conversations create opportunities the US Left has not had since the 1970s. And while we endure not a set back, but a solid defeat of the left in this last election, (one so bad even after 6 months the mighty Liberals are dazed and confused), we remain better positioned than any leftists in a half a century years because of our organization, because of the many voices and ideas it represents. I am proud to be a member and would be honored to receive your vote of confidence to represent Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky as a delegate to our National Convention.

I’m  part of the Groundwork DSA for All slate along with: Olivia Merrill, Sarah Callahan, Henry Manning, Katy Eales and Jack Cunningham. Learn more about Groundwork at https://www.groundworkdsa.com/