Make 2026 About Medicare for All and an Arms Embargo

1. Medicare for All and an arms embargo against Israel are poised to be the defining issues in Democratic primaries and the 2026 Congressional elections.

There are two socialist demands that enjoy majority support in the United States that can define 2026 if we organize for them: Medicare for All and an arms embargo against Israel.

Here and abroad, the U.S. government’s constitutional crisis of democracy has deepened in recent months and days. Kidnappings and extrajudicial killings are the Trump administration’s priority: in Minneapolis where ICE agents took the life of Renee Good and are terrorizing residents and Venezuela where a foreign head of state was abducted and the people’s sovereignty was attacked.

By embracing the federal fight for universal healthcare and materially cutting off the apartheid state that has been exterminating Palestinians, we can advance our causes, build the membership and capacity of the socialist movement, and create a unified working-class message against the far right. Defeating the far right in power requires a mass political movement across the country, which can be built around the candidates who campaign on these issues.

In the absence of political action by socialists, the current support for Palestine and universal healthcare is unlikely to shift corporate Democrats to enact these policies. Socialists must prioritize political action for universal healthcare and an arms embargo. We should campaign for every credible candidate who supports these issues to build our power.

2. Already, candidates across the country are running on these issues, which only federal power can enact.

Already, candidates across the country are for Congress running on Medicare for All and an arms embargo, which require federal power to win.

There are several dozen of these races across the country, with candidates campaigning for seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, meaning that DSA chapters and members in many places have the opportunity to make 2026 about Medicare for All and an arms embargo (see tables below the article).

Cori Bush, who we were not able to defend against AIPAC when she lost her 2024 reelection, is running again. Especially exciting are DSA members running, like Claire Valdez, a UAW member currently serving in the New York State Assembly, and Oliver Larkin in South Florida, a 2016 Bernie Sanders volunteer who went on to organize his workplace. Many are endorsed by Justice Democrats, which seems to have shifted its internal position on outspoken support for Palestinian liberation in a positive direction.

All of these candidates have different personal histories and chances of winning. But by campaigning on these widely-felt issues, we can cohere a mass movement of people talking to each other in their neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces about how we can win Medicare for All and an arms embargo. If there are no new freshman Block the Bombs signatories in Congress by the end of the year, Israel wins our elections. Medicare for All will not become a reality without more fighters in Congress and large numbers of people organized in their districts.

These are majoritarian issues that are widely-felt among the working class – in part because of the Trump administration’s attacks on healthcare and democratic rights – that the Democratic Party establishment will not adopt.

3. We need political action to win these specific issues and socialism.

Changing the policy of the federal government – on healthcare or foreign policy – requires engaging in federal politics, the most effective form of which is proactively running champions for Congress. Even losing narrowly while campaigning to win can still be useful for the sake of building a movement and forcing politicians to confront the decisive interests of a large base.

Stopping the genocide in Palestine is urgent. We need to and can win an arms embargo before a majority of Congress is pro-Palestine. This requires us to build a powerful movement for our demands among our base, but also to be able to install representatives who can advance this movement in Congress and organize their peers.

Foreign policy decisionmaking, much of it controlled by the President, is incredibly insulated from democratic input by the average American. When the U.S. government supplies Israel with military equipment, it is breaking multiple federal laws. Electing pro-Palestine candidates who will support an arms embargo to Congress is a way to clearly channel majority sentiment, force other politicians to take a side, and establish to the Executive Branch and its civil servants and employees that Americans do not support genocide.

In past solidarity movements, federal political action has been decisive. The culminating accomplishment of the anti-Contra movement in the 1980s was a 219-211 vote in 1988 to reject the President’s request for more funding to the terrorists who were committing massacres to fight the socialist government in Nicaragua. Organizers intervened in primaries to get candidates on the record, replaced several members of Congress, and pushed others to change their positions. Similarly, recent arms embargoes against Israel in Spain and Belgium have been won because of progressive politicians in federal office who were pressured to take action.

4. Political action can and has been used to build our base and the labor movement.

In New York City, City Workers for Palestine led to City Workers for Zohran which led to AFSCME DC37 endorsing Zohran. In the process, organizers met coworkers across their union, paving the way for building their power in the workplace together to win more benefits, rights, and protections and an affordable NYC.

In Pasadena, California, a group of socialist tenants collected 20,000 signatures to put a rent control measure on the ballot in 2020. Those organizers then went on to form a union together for grad workers and postdoctoral fellows at Caltech with United Auto Workers. Throughout the union campaign, they held keffiyeh days, normalizing support for Palestinian liberation. The contract they won includes guaranteed free speech protections for protesting.

In Austin, Texas, a 2018 city-level paid sick leave campaign engaged hundreds of volunteers and turned out hundreds to testify. The next year, member Heidi Sloan ran for Congress, and the chapter organized events with over 100 canvassers multiple times. Many of those members got union jobs and are now organizing with their coworkers to fight the boss.

We have seen how a focus on issues like these can unite the socialist movement and lead to mass engagement.

The potential for mass engagement comes from the unity of the socialist movement organizing around winnable widely- and deeply-felt demands. The enthusiasm created by this focus on issues that resonate has a snowball effect, reaching and developing many more new volunteers into members and comrades.

Over the last year in NYC, discussions with several hundred cadre about running for mayor → became a DSA chapter of 10,000 endorsing Zohran → became a volunteer army of 100,000 talking to their friends, family, and neighbors about the cost of living, our political system, and our enemies → became 1,000,000 voters for a socialist.

5. Narrowing our focus is not abandoning or watering down socialism. It is how we build the power to attack the constitutional order that is in crisis in this moment.

Focusing on Medicare for All and an arms embargo is not abandoning our vision for the socialist transformation of our government and society. Instead, it is the way to win on the most urgent issues of our time and in the process make, train, and keep more socialists. We want people who are horrified at our government’s role in the suffering of Palestinians and who are outraged that people die from lack of healthcare to join DSA. We need them to join our movement to win.

Our thoroughgoing vision for a democratic society ruled in the interests of the working class means that we have answers about all of the kinds of exploitation, oppression, and domination that occur and how we would like to right these wrongs – which we should always vocally condemn. But a positive vision is necessary to inspire new activists and to include them in strategic thinking alongside us.

Implementing both Medicare for All and an arms embargo would require sweeping changes to our political system. We have to defeat the insurance industry and the Zionist lobby. Medicare for All may involve taking on the Supreme Court. Over time, standing loudly for these issues will help us refine our strategy to change our political system.

6. We should campaign for every credible candidate who supports these issues to build our power.

When we wrote the Carnation Program last year, we proposed as a collective goal running a slate of five DSA members for Congress in 2028. It is possible that DSA chapters will endorse five or more members running for Congress this year. The dozens of other progressives running for office on similar platforms – highlighting universal healthcare and ending U.S. military supplies to Israel – demonstrate the popularity of Medicare for All, Bringing Down the Cost of Living, and Ending U.S. Militarism. We should still aim to take advantage of and deepen this trend by running five additional well-respected members on the basis of that minimal federal program in two years – cadre like Richie Floyd (Pinellas) and Aparna Raj (D.C.).* We need tribunes in office who will lead movements and actively organize in the legislature.

The cost-of-living crisis, the continuing genocide in Palestine, and the Trump administration’s attacks on democratic rights mean that our message is more appealing than the Democratic establishment’s. We must organize for Block the Bombs – especially where incumbents are being challenged – and try to win more Congressional seats to test our strength, develop our campaigning and fundraising skills, and broaden our support. By campaigning for these candidates, we can develop relationships with them while building a larger and larger movement that will force politicians to fight for these issues until they are won.

Everywhere there is a credible Congressional candidate who supports Medicare for All and an arms embargo who regularly speaks about these issues, DSA members should organize to support them.

Note: Neither of the above leaders are running for Congress right now, but both are examples of the kinds of leaders DSA could run in the future. The below tables are not comprehensive, do not consider candidates’ credibility, and are based on candidates’ websites, social media, and endorsements, e.g., by Track AIPAC.

House of Representatives

Senate