Background
- In February of 2025 members of the Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America approved a resolution stating “DSA membership encompasses a wide range of experiences, political perspectives, and projects. Adding a blog to our chapter website would be a fantastic way to showcase the amazing contributions our members bring to the table. Inviting members to submit articles would also provide an invaluable opportunity for them to develop their communication and writing skills. An elected editorial board would help solicit and review articles on topics such as local issues, political strategy, and chapter campaigns. Let’s put our best foot forward in 2025 by sharing our politics and perspectives with our members and community!” Since then members have met to continue to flesh out ideas and expand and define what else the Defiance can be.
- A five person Editorial Board was elected by the chapter membership in April of 2025. The current members of the editorial board are Asha Berkes, Caitlin Murphy, Tim Vega, Ryan Taylor, and Sean Arent.
Purpose
- The purpose of the Defiance is to provide a critical socialist perspective to local, state, national, and global events, capture personal essays, art, blog posts, DSA politics, provide coverage of local events and issues, and to create a digital archive of the work of Tacoma and Pierce County’s DSA chapter. We hope the Defiance will be the unabashed leftist news source that is missing from our local news ecosystem, creating a greater awareness as to what’s really going on in our community.
Submission Guidelines
Submissions to the Defiance are now open! We are looking to platform the leftist and progressive perspectives that are underrepresented in corporate media. We are looking for writing and audio/visual content under the categories of News, Chapter Updates, Deep Dives, Opinion, and Arts and Creative Writing. Submissions can be pitched or sent in full to the Editorial Board at defiance@tacomadsa.org.
by Sean Arent