“Let’s Build a Fighting Force on the City Council”
Carlos Ramirez-Rosa was once the lone socialist on Chicago’s city council — now he’s joined by five members of the Democratic Socialists of America. In an interview with Jacobin, Rosa talks about the attacks from the city’s political and capitalist class that didn’t land and the agenda for the city’s newly elected socialists.
Carlos Rosa speaking at Chicago’s city hall for a No Cop Academy press conference. NoCopAcademy / Twitter
The half-dozen socialists who were recently elected to Chicago’s city council drew national and international headlines. Never in recent American history have so many socialists been elected to a major American city’s council.
But one of those six was up for re-election: Carlos Ramirez-Rosa. Rosa, the council’s first openly gay Latino candidate, has been on the council for a single term. During those four years, quite a bit happened: he joined the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA); he was a candidate for lieutenant governor for a few days before he was kicked off the ticket by his running mate, State Rep. Daniel Biss, for refusing to back off his endorsement of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel (which you can read about in my 2017 interview with Rosa); he flirted with running for Congress; and he drew the ire of much of the city’s political and capitalist classes for his stances opposing gentrification and the expansion of Chicago’s policing infrastructure — even getting briefly kicked out of the council’s Latino Caucus.
Fresh off his reelection victory, I interviewed Ramirez-Rosa for my podcast, The Vast Majority. You can listen to the podcast at Jacobin Radio or by subscribing to The Vast Majority’s standalone feed. Do remember to subscribe and rate us, if you feel so moved.
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