Derek Beyer

Template:TOCnestleft Derek Beyer, was in 2016, contact for Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America Organizing Committee.^[1]

Academic Coordinator/Teacher at Milwaukee Job Corps.

Background

Beyer enlisted in the U.S. Air Force after graduating from Nathan Hale High School in West Allis. His first day of service was one week before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. He completed two tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan.

“The mission in Iraq kept changing,” Beyer said. “I lost a lot of faith in our decision-makers.”

Beyer left the military in 2005, returned to Wisconsin and earned a teaching degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

By 2008, he was all in for Obama. Four years later, Beyer had soured on him. “I saw a lot of do-nothing,” he said.

The presidential run of Sanders brought socialism into the American political conversation. In Wisconsin, Sanders defeated Clinton in the state's Democratic Party presidential primary.

The primary campaign inspired Beyer.

“I was in it eyes wide open,” he said.

That summer, he headed to Chicago for The People’s Summit, a conference for progressive political organizations, where there was a heavy socialist presence.

“I was going there to connect with other activist-minded people and see if we could help build something,” he said. “I sat at a break table with DSA-Chicago people. As they talked, (socialism) made a lot of sense to me.”

He wanted to live in a community where people earned a living minimum wage, everyone had access to Medicare and no one needed to worry about the safety of their water.

“Then the election. The 2016 election happened.”

Distraught over now-President Trump's win, he decided to fuel that energy into starting a Milwaukee chapter of the DSA. Seven people joined him for the first meeting in December 2016. The group is now approaching 250 dues-paying members. ^[2]