The “Red Rabbits” and the 100,000: Inside the DSA’s Emerging Militant Network. What the receipts actually show.

In a June 2026 investigation for City Journal and RealClearInvestigations, reporter Stu Smith laid out something the Democratic Socialists of America has not hidden so much as soft-launched: a national “security” apparatus called the Red Rabbits Security Commission, created at the group’s 2025 national convention and, per its own authorizing resolution, instructed to “prepare the organization for a national uprising against federal agents and police brutality.”

The Red Rabbits say their work is five mundane skills — de-escalation, basic trauma first aid, firearm safety, unarmed self-defense, and protest marshalling. But the investigation, drawing on DSA’s own published panels and convention documents, found local chapters describing a broader menu: martial-arts sparring, evacuation drills, radio communications, and using umbrellas and signs to shield demonstrators. All of this sits inside an organization that, by its own count, crossed 100,000 dues-paying members in 2026 and now claims more than 250 people in elected public office.

This page reports what the investigation documents as documented, what it labels alleged or unconfirmed, and where lawful First- and Second-Amendment activity ends and a genuine legal or public-safety problem would begin. The DSA is not charged with a crime; no Red Rabbits training has been adjudicated as unlawful. The story here is organizational — a militant structure being built in the open, attached to officials who win Democratic primaries.

• 100,000+ — DSA dues-paying members reported in 2026, up from about 50,000 in October 2024 — nearly doubling over the Mamdani campaign window · Source: City & State New York, Wikipedia
• 250+ — DSA members in elected public office across 40 states as of 2025 — including 96 city councilors/county commissioners and 8 mayors or county executives · Source: Wikipedia officeholder list
• 40% of chapters — the Red Rabbits' stated goal: at least five trained members in 40% of DSA chapters · Source: City Journal / RealClearInvestigations
• Resolution 26 — 'Fight Fascist State Repression & ICE' — the 2025 convention measure that directs the security commission to prep for a 'national uprising' · Source: 2025 DSA National Convention proposals

Smith’s reporting starts from primary material the DSA itself posted. The Red Rabbits Security Commission was launched at the organization’s 2025 national convention; its creation traces to Resolution 26, “Fight Fascist State Repression & ICE,” which according to the investigation instructs the Red Rabbits and DSA’s National Abolition Working Group to “prepare the organization for a national uprising against federal agents and police brutality.” That language is drawn from a convention resolution — a document, not an allegation.

The name itself was a choice. The investigation reports that organizers passed over an earlier proposed name, the “National Vigilance Committee,” because members worried it “could be interpreted as an endorsement of vigilantism,” and settled instead on “Red Rabbits” — a nod to Watership Down, the novel in which outnumbered rabbits band together against their enemies. As Smith dryly notes, the DSA is not hiding this: a multi-hour Red Rabbits panel sits on YouTube for anyone to watch.

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On paper, the Red Rabbits describe a curriculum any community group might run: de-escalation, “Stop the Bleed” trauma first aid, firearm safety, unarmed self-defense, and protest marshalling. The commission set a goal of getting at least five trained members into 40 percent of DSA chapters. None of those five skills is unlawful, and several — first aid, de-escalation, marshalling — are common at large demonstrations of every political stripe.

What the investigation flags is the gap between the national framing and what local chapters described at a public panel. According to Smith’s account, panelists from chapters including Minnesota, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Tucson, Austin, and Portland described preparations broader than the national five — martial-arts sparring, evacuation planning, wound-packing, radio communications, and using umbrellas and signs to shield participants from “perceived threats.” The panel was organized by Hazel Williams, a National Political Committee member and former co-chair of California DSA. None of that is, on its face, illegal — but it is the part that pushes the project from “community first aid” toward something the investigation calls a militant network.

“Whatever else can be said about the DSA, they are not hiding this — they posted the discussion online for the public to watch.”

City Journal / RealClearInvestigations, June 2026

The reason any of this matters beyond an internal-left curiosity is the DSA’s reach into elected office. The organization is not a fringe club: City & State New York reported its dues-paying membership nearly doubled over the Zohran Mamdani (D)mayoral campaign window, climbing from roughly 50,000 nationally in October 2024 to well past 90,000 by late 2025 and reportedly past 100,000 in 2026. Wikipedia’s officeholder roster counts more than 250 DSA members in elected public office across 40 states, including 96 city councilors and county commissioners and eight mayors or county executives.

The most prominent names are documented affiliations, with the caveats reporting has established. U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) have been associated with the DSA since their 2018 elections; New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) is a DSA member, per the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Reporting also notes that former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY)allowed his DSA membership to lapse in 2022 — an example of why this page names affiliations precisely rather than sweeping every “Squad” member into one bucket. The Red Rabbits commission is a DSA body, not a congressional one; no sitting member of Congress is alleged to run it.

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The DSA is not monolithic; it runs on internal caucuses that fight over strategy, as City & State New York’s guide to the factions documents. The investigation attributes Resolution 26 to a caucus-like grouping it calls the “Springs of Revolution,” which it says hopes to remake the DSA into “a mass revolutionary force” rather than a left flank of the Democratic Party. That tension — reformist electoral strategy versus a clean break toward revolutionary politics — is the organization’s oldest internal argument.

The militant direction has drawn pushback from inside the DSA itself. Smith reported separately that National Political Committee members tried — and failed — to remove an organizer whose public statements praised revolutionary violence; he was retained. That is reported as an internal dispute, not a criminal matter, and the organizer’s specific statements are characterized rather than quoted at length. The fact that the removal effort failed is the load-bearing detail: the militant wing has the votes.

This is where rigor matters most. Organizing, training, marshalling protests, teaching first aid, and lawful firearm ownership are protected activity. The DSA is a registered 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization (with a separate 501(c)(3) DSA Fund), and the investigation’s sharpest documented concern is not criminality but tax status: whether a security-and-defense apparatus fits an organization legally required to “operate primarily to further the common good.” That is a compliance question for the IRS, not a charge.

The line would be crossed only by specific, adjudicated conduct — an actual plan or act of violence, an unlawful weapons offense, a true threat. The reporting does not establish that any Red Rabbits training has crossed it, and we do not assert otherwise. What the investigation establishes is a stated readiness for “national uprising” against police and federal agents, broader-than-advertised local training, and an organization with real electoral muscle. Readers can weigh that without being told it is a crime that has not been charged.

The accountability story is not “socialists are scary.” It is that a 100,000-member organization openly building a security-and-defense cadre is, at the same time, the most effective primary machine on the American left — one that has placed 250-plus members in office and helped elect the mayor of the country’s largest city. When an activist network and an officeholder network share members, donors, and strategy documents, voters deserve to see the connection drawn plainly, with the receipts attached.

So we report it the way the investigation does: documents where there are documents, “alleged” where conduct is unproven, and a bright line between lawful organizing and any future conduct a court might find unlawful. The DSA put much of this on YouTube. The least a civic-accountability site can do is read it carefully and tell readers what is actually there. We will update this page as the record develops.

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Last updated June 11, 2026