DSA’s Socialist Takeover Plot for Los Angeles: Seizing Homes, Defunding Cops, and Turning the City into a Marxist Experiment

In what can only be described as a chilling blueprint for economic destruction and social chaos (see below), the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Los Angeles chapter has released a 40-page, 9,000-word manifesto that lays out an aggressive, six-to-eight-year plan to seize control of the nation’s second-largest city and impose full-blown socialism. This radical document, published in 2025, doesn’t mince words: Los Angeles is “on the burning edge of the economic, climate, and moral crises,” and the only options are “socialism or barbarism.”

The tone is ironic, apocalyptic and uncompromising, branding the current Democratic establishment, real estate developers, billionaires, nonprofits, and even some union leaders as a “status quo coalition” of capitalist sellouts who have betrayed the working class. DSA-LA, boasting 3,500 members, sees itself as the vanguard building “working class power” through a “socialist mass organization” that will dominate local elections and grassroots organizing. They’ve already scored victories by electing DSA members like City Councilmember Nithya Raman (now running against Karen Bass for LA mayor), Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez, and Ysabel Jurado–turning parts of City Hall into a leftist stronghold.

In June 2023, we reported:

Last fall, the DSA increased its presence at City Hall, helped push through rent control in Pasadena, realized a majority of the Culver City school board, and just saw one its long-time members, Los Angeles Unified School District Board member Jackie Goldberg tapped as president of the board (Goldberg, over the past 40 years, has served on the city council, as a member of the State Assembly, and even on the school board itself.)

Nationally, five members of the house of Representatives are DSA members, including, of course, lightweight firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 50 members serve in state senates and/or assemblies, and about 100 occupy local offices. California has one DSA member in the Assembly – Silicon Valley’s Alex Lee, who is most known for his youth and his efforts to tax what rich people might make in the stock market, as the Globe reported.

DSA members include the mayor of Richmond (and members of its contentious City Council , school board members scattered throughout the state, and city council members from Burbank to Sacramento. (Here is a list of DSA officeholders)

It should be stressed that the DSA is not a political party in the common sense and its members do not run as “Socialists” on the ballot. For the most part they run as Democrats, leading to the criticism that the DSA is “Trojan Horsing” the party and not being completely upfront with the public.

“They’re using them as a home,” said Venice Beach Neighborhood Board member Soledad Ursua. “But the Democrats let them in.”

In December, Hernandez was invited by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee to speak against the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts:

The manifesto’s proposals are nothing short of disastrous for anyone who values private property, public safety, or basic economic freedom:

• Housing Confiscation: DSA demands “creative use of eminent domain” to seize privately owned housing and convert it into public or “social” housing. They’d ban unhosted short-term rentals like Airbnb, slap vacancy taxes on empty units, impose universal rent control statewide, and enact automatic rent freezes and eviction moratoriums during any declared emergency. Private and public golf courses would be expropriated for housing or parks. This isn’t reform—it’s outright theft of private assets, guaranteed to scare off investment and deepen the housing crisis they’ve helped create.
• Defund and Dismantle Policing: Armed police would be replaced by unarmed social workers for traffic stops and mental health calls. Men’s Central Jail would be shuttered without any replacement facilities. Officers involved in any killings would face prosecution and permanent decertification. All drug use would be decriminalized, with taxpayer-funded safe injection sites rolled out. This recipe for lawlessness ignores LA’s skyrocketing crime and homelessness, policies that progressive prosecutors (often DSA-backed) have already worsened.
• Economic Nationalization: The plan calls for city-owned municipal enterprises, expropriation of corporations in “essential” sectors like groceries, restaurants, and internet services, and full public takeover of energy utilities to hit 100% renewables by 2035 while banning fossil fuels. Public pensions would divest from defense contractors, war profiteers, and fossil fuels, and all related contracts would end. Free public transit across buses, trains, and bike shares would be mandated. In a city already struggling with deficits and service cuts, this socialist fantasy would bankrupt LA and drive businesses fleeing.
• Radical Governance Overhaul: Non-citizen immigrants would gain full voting rights in local elections. Means-testing for child programs would vanish. School curricula would enforce “social justice” indoctrination. Former felons would automatically regain voting rights. These changes would fundamentally alter democracy in favor of non-citizens and criminals, eroding the voice of taxpaying residents.

This is progressive, Democratic policy—a Marxist fever dream that would accelerate LA’s decline into crime-ridden, unaffordable chaos. DSA trashes the Democratic Party as complicit in capitalism while positioning itself as the true revolutionary force. With Raman’s mayoral bid looming, voters face the real risk of these ideas moving from manifesto to implementation.