As sometimes-violent anti-ICE protests sweep the nation, the Democratic Socialists of America has created the “Red Rabbits Security Commission” to train members in “unarmed community defense.” While the group is nominally nonviolent, one of its members—Maoist internet personality Christopher Winston—has a long history of incendiary rhetoric, including a threat to “execute” writer and activist Shaun King.
Saner minds on the DSA’s National Political Committee (NPC) tried but failed to remove Winston from the commission, underscoring a growing divide within the DSA between members who support Nordic-style social democracy and an ascendant, hard-left faction that embraces violent rhetoric. As Winston’s ascension shows, the radicals are increasingly winning out.
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DSA’s Liberation Caucus, of which Winston is a member, did not respond to a request for comment.
The call for a new security commission stemmed from Resolution 26, “Fight Fascist State Repression & ICE.” Authored by the Springs of Revolution, a caucus-like group that hopes to remake DSA as “a mass revolutionary force,” the resolution instructs Red Rabbits and DSA’s National Abolition Working Group to “prepare the organization for a national uprising against federal agents and police brutality.”
In summer 2025, the DSA passed the resolution at its convention. Months later, the NPC voted to dissolve all previous national-security commissions and establish the Red Rabbits Security Commission, named in reference to animals in Watership Down by Richard Adams. An account apparently belonging to NPC member Cliff Connolly invited all DSA members to apply to the commission.
Winston, like other DSA members, was eligible to apply for appointment to the commission. The application required candidates to detail their background and relevant experience, including in law enforcement (likely disqualifying, given the organization’s exclusion of active law enforcement officers), as well as training in areas such as bleeding control, de-escalation, firearm safety, self-defense, protest marshaling, and information security. Following a review of all applicants, Winston secured sufficient support through a “single transferable vote” election to earn a seat on the commission.
Winston was elected despite, or perhaps because of, his long history of Maoist comments. He runs a YouTube account under the alias “BlackRedGuard,” which features interviews with other socialist organizations, critiques of the Left, and commentary on current events.
A scan of videos in which Winston appears reveals his radical views. In one video, Winston claimed that “burning a Waymo is not political violence.” In another, he seemingly boasted of having “brainwashed” DSA members to embrace Maoism. In a third, he called Shaun King an “albino snake” and threatened, in the first-person plural, to “execute” him “after the revolution.”
Sometimes, his conversations became explicitly revolutionary. Winston has hosted various socialist gun organizations on his livestream, one of whose members said he was “not at all opposed to the separating of the current establishment that is the so-called American government.” In the same video, Winston said “the ultimate form of international solidarity is to make revolution in the United States.”
Winston is a member of DSA’s Liberation Caucus, a “Maoist” faction that sharply critiques the broader organization. The caucus embraces “a revolutionary theory of change” and seeks to orient DSA toward “the proletariat, the colonized, the masses of queer workers, working-class students, the undocumented, prisoners, and other militants who have no stake in this system and work for its end.” It says the United States is “not a nation” but a “prison-house of nations” and promotes the “national liberation” of America’s “colonized peoples”—effectively, a call for secessionist movements.
At a February meeting, DSA’s National Political Committee discussed the prospect of removing Winston from the Red Rabbits slate. The conversation quickly turned heated.
NPC member Katie Sims made a formal motion to remove “proposed member” Winston from Red Rabbits. She presented a series of Winston’s X posts, which she variously described as “[p]olitical tactics using firearms” and “[e]ncouraging destructive tactics.” One post featured an image of Mao Zedong with text, “I’m once again reminding you that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” In another, Winston wrote “give them hell LA” in response to protesters reportedly “throw[ing] things and break[ing] down structure [sic]” in downtown Los Angeles.
Sims’s motion provoked sharp disagreement. “You can’t overturn a democratic election because you don’t like what somebody said on Twitter,” said Cliff Connolly. Connolly further said that the notion of political power growing out of the barrel of a gun was a “pretty common saying in DSA and throughout the Left,” and reflected the state’s monopoly on the use of force. He argued that none of the material presented by Sims constituted an “endorsement of violent or illegal tactics” and said that Winston had been a “moderating voice” on the commission. Attempting to remove Winston, he suggested, was “bureaucratic freakery . . . motivated by political cowardice.”
Another NPC member, who used the screenname “Francesca Maria,” also argued in Winston’s defense, claiming that “a majority of Americans had a favorable view of the Minneapolis Police Department burning after the murder of George Floyd.”
Winston’s critics disagreed. NPC member Cara Tobe characterized Winston’s posts as “more than just tweets.” NPC member Jeremy Cohan added that while he has never been on X, he was familiar with Winston’s comments about Elias Rodriguez, which brought the group unfavorable attention. (Winston had called Rodriguez, who allegedly murdered two Israeli embassy employees, a “political prisoner.”)
NPC member Sid Carlson White then rallied to Winston’s defense. “Chris is a Black Maoist; he comes from the Black liberatory tradition.” As a black man, White argued, Winston lives under “settler slaveholder capitalism” and is inherently vulnerable to smears and political attacks. “His race makes him a target.”
After a long exchange, the NPC voted 15-10 to keep Winston on the Red Rabbits slate. DSA did not respond to a request for comment.
The DSA’s radical shift has not gone unnoticed. Some former DSA supporters, such as labor commentator Jake Altman, have distanced themselves from the group. (Altman has previously written for City Journal.)
“Despite some prominent members’ insistence that DSA pursues moderate Scandinavian social democracy, the reality is that Venezuela and Cuba, models marked by hunger, refugees, and corruption, have become the explicit standard,” Altman said. “DSA rarely encounters a brutal regime it is unwilling to defend. The United States of America has become their great enemy, and the foes of democracy, life, and freedom seem to have become their dearest friends.”
Some DSA members are, for the time being, opposed to political violence. But the NPC’s support of Winston demonstrates the group’s embrace of Marxist ideology. Progressives who care about liberal democracy must either distance themselves from the DSA or risk being associated with an increasingly illiberal organization.
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images