Didn't the DSA recently kick out AOC for "ideological impurity"? If this sound Orwellian and Stalinist, it should! These aren't Bernie Sanders types. These are people who are not Democrats. They are not big tent. They are the people who sat out 2024 and put Trump back in the WH because of "Genocide Joe" and would gladly do so again rather than admit that Trump has been far worse for Palestinians and the Arab world than Kamala would have been.
Communism has failed everywhere. Oligarchs remain: the leaders live lavishly while everyone else starves. Dissent rises because conditions are horrific: they are imprisoned or killed. And yet we are talking about people who want it overthrown.
We already have examples of the DSA in action. Look at Portland, Oregon's city council. They aren't serious people governing for the common good. They are catty junior high bomb throwers blaming every social ill on the police and "capitalism"; cutting the police budget and funding reparations while the city remains unsafe. As a result, Portland continues to see an exodus of residents, jobs, and tax base.
This is exactly the caricature of the Dems that costs them elections. Overly focused on social wedge issues, militant toward any policing, and hostile towards hard work and success. Mirror image of MAGA: everything bad is everyone else's fault but their own. Capitalism needs more regulation; most of America agrees on that. But capitalism and liberalism/democracy can only exist together. The right to work where you want to work, start the business you want to start, and live how you want to live requires rule of law and the ability to elect your representatives, freely.
Also, Mona missed the most prominent "Socialist" party: the National Socialist German Workers' Party (AKA Nazi).
That last line of this discredits every word of it. it's trump level discourse and I'm embarrassed to be part of a community calling Nazis socialists and vice versa
The nazis also came for the socialists, maybe even before the Jewish people. I would need to check into that a bit more, but the Bulwark might do it for me...let's see. JVL comments and replies but not everyone does.
That last is more than a bit of a low blow. JVL has pointed out at least since Zohran first popped how Trump and MAGA have been adopting true national socialism while pretending anyone aspiring to ‘true’ socialism is a Nazi. And Putin has done the same whenever socialist-leaning parties gain power in former Soviet states.
(Read my own comment before presuming I’m in total disagreement with you; I just don’t think such a smear is called for or helps the cause. If anything we need to be cooling the rhetoric of all intramural fights in the anti-Trump coalition.)
I actually wasn't implying anything by the last statement beyond that plenty of facists have called themselves "people's socialist parties". So have plenty of left of center parties in strong democracies. As we all know, projection is very strong with people who don't have the people's best interests at heart.
The Zohran thing is interesting. He has been very good for New York, at least in my understanding. But Chevalier ran on a very different platform that looks an awful lot like "defund the police" that almost cost Biden the election. People forget he was 7 points up on Trump until "Dems are soft on crime" caught steam the last 2 weeks, based on what had transpired post George Floyd.
I'm as progressive of a Christian as you'll find, favoring 2nd chances and every opportunity for felons to become productive citizens, but I've seen even around here what lack of police traffic enforcement post-COVID has done to this area. Cyclist deaths, people doing 110 weaving through traffic, street races costing an innocent family their lives. We do not want criminals to act with impunity, blaming their crime on whatever the social ill du jour is of the day. The answer is to invest in education and opportunity, not to trivialize a mugging by saying "well, if you hadn't been so successful and had nice things to steal, you wouldn't have been a target".
It's along the lines of "billionaires shouldn't exist". Why billionaires? Is $999 Million OK? A much better proposal: "money should not be able to influence elections or government; being rich should give you no more say in how the world works than the average person". And if someone invented a cure for all cancer tomorrow; why shouldn't they become a billionaire? Their value to society is certainly worth much more than that.
I’ll take you at your word that you didn’t intend it. But *imply* and *infer* are two different jobs, and only one of them is yours. You don’t get to adjudicate what landed — and what landed, for me and for several others who said so independently, was the inference that the DSA are Nazis.
And that reach is not a neutral aside about party names. In an argument about a group some people already accuse (fairly, in some cases, unfairly in others) of antisemitic strains, “Nazi” isn’t a historical footnote, it’s *the* accusation — the one that ends the conversation rather than advancing it. The “National Socialists had *socialist* in the name” move has been doing exactly that work for eighty years, and everyone deploying it knows what it’s for. Which is why I’d hoped better from a comment I otherwise found a lot to agree with.
Something Mona didn’t mention (or perhaps only through context of a link, I didn’t carefully check them): in the past couple of years, the DSA has systematically removed the safeguards its founders put in place in 1982 and the years following to ensure that the DSA remained always “Democratic” (both capital- and lowercase-D) first. Virtually every founder still alive and active has exited the organization in protest.¹
For a political entity clearly on the rise, regardless of where on the traditional left-right spectrum you land, if you’re anti-authoritarian this seems… not good?
The rhetorical move the more… let’s go with ‘strident’, why don’t we? — members of DSA’s leadership make is that there’s a higher “democracy” above democracy as we in the anti-Trump coalition think about it. (It’s a version of the argument Communist countries have made, and in a couple cases still do make, about their very names having ‘Democratic’ in them.)
Such ‘economic democracy’ might just require that things like voting and due process be suspended until the monied interests are driven out. It wouldn’t be strongman rule, it would be a team of very smart people working collectively who could be trusted not to abuse the safeguards supposedly afforded by capitalist faux-‘democracy’ because… they’re smart people who will be working collectively and can be trusted.
I haven’t heard a single good argument for these safeguards being removed; the leadership just castigates the founders who have protested and left as having ceased being real socialists (with antisemitic and ageist claptrap thrown in the hopper just to stir people up).
As someone *much* more sympathetic to DSA’s aims than Mona, this worries me.
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¹ *Correction, 18:20 EDT: Two overstatements above. “Virtually every founder still alive and active” should be twenty-four longtime members, several of them present at the 1982 founding — a documented rebuke, but not a near-unanimous one. And “removed the safeguards its founders put in place in 1982” implies formal protections that were repealed; what I can actually show is a decade of convention floor votes with that cumulative effect. Sources and specifics in my reply to Henry Lee Harper below. I have not edited the post inline because of Mona’s like — I won’t put words under someone’s endorsement that they never read. I regret the imprecision.*
I don't know if this is true, but what I see going on now, as they gain more prominence, is that democracy is absolutely core to their mission and I think as they catch more and more flack for using the word, socialist, they are explaining. in real time, what the whole turn of phrase means to them, as individuals. We'll see how it plays out, but as far as I can tell, the hearts are in the right place. They want to help, I think, and lift people up, not tear them down. As far as the safeguards suspension thing, I have never heard of any "master plan" like this, but I doubt it would work or is part of the core mission of the org. If they keep winning elections, my guess is they will work as a coalition or caucus of some sort within the ordinary system and advocate for getting money out in all the ways we need, in my opinion. If we can keep it.
But… I’m not making up the founders’ exodus. I’m using them as a proxy, since they a) know a lot more about DSA than I ever could and b) were the people who originally, I could see from direct experience, “had their hearts in the right place”. So I’d like a decent explanation on this before I continue giving them the benefit of the doubt I had been giving them until this year.
Yeah. IDK. I get that you "want an explanation," but the org has gone through several transformations and there has always been a semantic debate within about the differences between democratic socialism and capitalist social democracy, but I, personally, have never seen anything written anywhere about anyone within "abandoning democracy." I don't know what you mean by "exodus," either. I know one guy left a few years ago over a conflict about the October 7 response, but I have never heard of an exodus. Got a link?
Sure, I’m willing to do research and even call myself out on an error (I’ll correct above via footnote momentarily) — The New Republic, November 9, 2023: “Out of Loyalty to Democratic Socialism: Why We Are Leaving DSA,” signed by two dozen longtime members, several of them there at the 1982 founding. Isserman’s The Nation piece (“Why I Just Quit DSA”) ran a couple weeks earlier. So: not one guy over October 7, and not a private grumble. A published collective exit by the founding generation, including Harrington’s own biographer, who says Harrington’s name is now a dirty word in the org he built.
You’re right that I shouldn’t have said “master plan” — I didn’t mean a plot, and I’ll drop it. What I meant is the accumulated effect of a decade of convention floor votes, which is a different and less lurid thing but not a *smaller* one:
1. 2023: resolutions to act as an independent party, plus machinery to discipline DSA electeds.
2. 2024: national de-endorsement of AOC for failing a foreign-policy litmus test.
3. 2025: “Principles for Party Building” — commit to becoming an independent mass socialist party — passes 641–551. A sympathetic writeup in The Call observed that delegates spent more floor time on disciplining candidates than on growing the org.
None of that is anti-democracy in the jackboot sense. It’s a shift from “make the big tent better” to “purify the small tent,” and the founders who left said so in those words.
Where it gets sharper for me is abroad. In 2021 the International Committee’s line on Nicaragua’s election was to denounce US sanctions and wave at the “polemics surrounding” the vote — a vote Ortega took with 75 percent after jailing the opposition candidates. That’s the whole ballgame for a *democratic* socialist: what do you say when a left government stops holding real elections? On Sunday Ortega announced there will be no more elections at all. I’d sincerely like to see the DSA statement on that. If it’s a good one, I’ll say so loudly and go back to the benefit of the doubt.
Let’s just leave the labels behind. If you tell people what you have to offer and it include help
With major expenses than don’t scare them with words like democratic socialism ( though I am one). Trump voters in Kentucky met with Bernie Sanders and came out with a much more positive impression of his platform. Said they had been told to fear and hate him. Let’s get past this crap and work together to form a more perfect union.
I disagree with Mona Caron’s apparent alarm at the presence of Democratic Socialists in the of Deemocrati primary nominees. Each party, if it is smart, nominates candidates that represent the views of the people they hope to represent. Ms. Charon seems to elide the difference between Democratic Socialists and Communists. This encourages many in the current Republican Party to do the same. I believe the Democratic Party has room the consider the views of a small minority of their congressional representatives who advocate for a stronger safety net and adjustment of tax rates to require more of wealthier Americans. Nothing as high as the 91% during the Eisenhower administrations. I would actually prefer that she rail against the inclusion of Utah’s Mike Lee, Texas’ Ken Paxton, and Arizona’s Paul Gosar on the Republican slate and characterize them as threats to Reuplical electoral success.
Mona— sorry to hijack the thread, but can I just mention I just told my husband that 12-year-old me would have gone “squee!” at your liking my comment? I got into political news in 1987 and I remember your column being thrilling to me, my must-read every week, George Will and Bill Safire were oldsters, you were the one I was telling my grandparents’ friends (who tended to be the only ones who would entertain my 12-year-old ravings) about every time you published in our local paper.
(My high school’s outing me at 16 and my family disowning me leading to homelessness quickly disaffected me of my Teenage Republicanism, so I can’t say that we aligned a lot until you never-Trumped, but I’m happy we’re at least broadly on the same side again.)
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that "basically free everything: housing, health care, retirement, and schooling" isn't arguing for a stronger safety net. It's appropriation for massive parts of the economy and massive handouts that will backfire.
A serious proposal would be along the lines of a UBI fill up to a certain income level, paid for by higher taxes on everyone. But what you're suggesting is creating new winners and losers. If I'm healthy and exercise every day, and Joe Bob over there drinks a case of beer and smokes 2 packs a day, I should be rewarded with lower health care costs.
If I go to school, and put my degree to good use, I'm much more valuable than someone who goes to school, joins a frat, and flunks out after 3 years. If school is free, a lot of folks are going to take the "free" and go to school for reasons other than furthering their knowledge and career. As it turns out, dropouts in 4-year schools are much more likely to be parent funded; those that take on debt or earn scholarships tend to graduate on time. I wonder why that is?
Free rent: that's just stupid. Rent control is bad enough, which creates winners and losers and results in worse outcomes for everyone. So let's make it free? That's right up there with "tenant protections" which encourage non-payment and squatting.
Again, a UBI solves all of these problems without the takeover of large parts of the economy. But the takeover is the point!
Agreed, but a better name might be "refundable tax credits" instead of "UBI." That is what refundable tax credits do and they have been around for a long time. They sound less problematic to the average voter.
I am leaning into Sarah's understanding of why DSA is having electoral success. It isn't that dems support all the DSA policies it's that they seem to be the only faction of the dem party that is out there "fighting" back. It also doesn't hurt to have talented leaders like Mamdani or our old favorite Bernie to walk the talk. But many moderate dems are winning in moderate districts. The Dems need a very big coalition to overcome the structural barriers that currently exist thanks to the GOP. And it doesn't matter really, MAGA will find a boogey man every election. And given the megaphone of FOX, now CBS and next CNN it will be near impossible to counter any fear mongering. Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez is certainly NOT DSA. She wins because she reflects her district. Mary Peltola is not DSA. Look at IA, the dem candidates there? Not DSA. We have not had any party, left or right, listen to the voters for a very very long time. That should be the takeaway from the DSA electoral successes not that the dems are turning into a socialist party.
Agreed, but the DSA goal is not to bea subset of the Democratic party. They've stated several times that they want a takeover. DSA in Portland isn't governing whatsoever, just like MAGA does not govern competently.
I'd put money on that once in office, they won't even vote for bills that they generally support; if they dont 't everything, they take their ball and go home. Remember those that wouldn't back Kamala under any circumstance in 2024. What makes you think they will be any different now?
I remember back in 2015 when another radical group of folks took over a party and made it unrecognizable; overnight the party went from "hardworking immigrants are the lifeblood of America" to "brown-skinned people are scum; we don't want them or the cultures they bring from their sh**hole countries. And, they eat our pets!".
Agree, there are “social dems” and then there are “democratic socialists, DSA”. The “social dems” are winning in a variety of locations. Dems are terrible with communication & branding - the social dems need to distinguish themselves, otherwise they will all be lumped into the fox megaphone of fear…
These kinds of articles are worse than the "Democratic handwringing" people love to decry around here. Instead of succumbing to the Neo-Redscare Blowhards' rhetoric, try considering approaching these subjects from a genuine investigative policy/campaign perspective with an open mind. You should be pleasantly surprised by what you find. We need to all stop freaking out about labels. Am I happy that anybody I want to support is using the word socialist? No. But, it's not because I'm not curious or willing to learn more about what they mean by their use of it. It's because I know that too many people in the "swing voter" crowd might not be sufficiently curious or open-minded about it. That's why people like you are here, Mona. You have a voice and a curious mind to explore the world with. It's up to you to show others how to open their minds and see things in a new light. That's all the DSA folks are asking of us.
I enjoyed this from Mona. It wasn't the I-hate-Bernie-Sanders claptrap from the likes of Froma Harrop, who completely ignores the fascist tendencies of Donald Trump and MAGA. I think MS. Harrop is a closet MAGA sycophant, which is both stupid and careless. On the other hand, Mona's essay was some tough love for Democrats and sane Americans who want an end to the Trumpian nightmare. You go, Mona!
I don’t comment much, but longtime supporter of the Bulwark.
The community guidelines for commenting on a post state that content must be at least two of the following: kind, truthful, or necessary. I’d posit we should hold authors to at least that standard.
This post isn’t kind. It read like a Fox News article at times, utilizing a lot of the same rhetoric and gross generalizations. I get some of the DSA can be combative; however, this is no excuse to behave the same way. “Some naive souls say…”, “the vibes may be exciting … smiling face disguises the authoritarianism” - this is not kind (and also not necessary).
It also isn’t really truthful. For example, “never been a communist country that delivered prosperity” - China pulled millions out of poverty. Sorry. FWIW, The Economist does a better job of detailing nuance in the capitalism v socialism discussion. And they make a much better case.
There’s a lot that’s unnecessary. For example “the easiest way to tell if a country was undemocratic was whether it had ‘democratic’ in its name” right after “there are socialists who believe in and abide by democratic norms”. At best this is unnecessary, it’s also a contradiction.
I understand that the author has good intentions. She seems scared we will loose the midterms because of the most extreme DSA policies. She also is scared about the DSA taking over the party because they’re winning primaries. I understand this comes from a desire to push back Trumpism and also keep the Democratic Party centrist. And maybe trauma from seeing what happened in her party. I can appreciate this.
But this is far below the bar for The Bulwark. Please do better.
Horrible take. The DSA candidates want the terrible things like healthcare for all Americans and working people to earn a living wage and end the illegal war in Iran and Gaza.
What does the MAGA Republicans offer? Protection of the Epstein Class, tax cuts for billionaires, and billions of dollars to bomb children in Iran and Gaza.
Instead of caving to the fake MAGA Republican scare mongering, how about fight back in service to the American people and reject the Epstein Class?
Mona, I think there is some confusion in terminology and people should be asking different and better questions of the candidates and their positions overall. There are “social democrats” and “democrat socialists, DSA”. They are two different things. “Social Democrats” want a system like Scandinavian countries - health care, university, living wages, big money out of politics, and not starting unnecessary wars. These people are not fringe, they represent a wide population of Americans and saying that they are all DSA is just feeding the republican propaganda. Even if there are 5-10 true DSA candidates in Congress, their votes are not enough to change anything of importance.
We need to stop fear mongering, support the candidates the local populations elect, and gain enough seats to be able to reform/rebuild our democracy. The infighting will only lead to the loss of our democracy.
To everyone who has children, grand children and any other child/young person in their lives that they love - please stop the infighting now. We must come together. Policy debates will happen during the Presidential primaries, and there will be many discussions to come in the future. Or we will just end up living in a corrupt autocracy.
Mona, I'm not sure if you read these replies but I have given this a little thought after reading it a few times.
For me at least the issue is not your objection to democratic socialism. No one is expecting you to push for an ideology you don't agree with. Nor is it your specific objections to things that the Democratic socialists of America have as part of their policy platform.
But you are writing this in the aftermath of primaries that were held. Votes were cast and people in specific regions made their voice heard about who they wanted to represent them. Moreover tons of candidates are more towards the establishment this upcoming cycle. So it is very hard to read this as anything other than the same kind of scaremongering being done by those calling us Communists every other day on Fox News.. it reads in many ways like the same level of delirious and ungrounded attack just moved a few degrees to the left.
If you're specifically just against the Democratic socialists of America that's one thing but as this reads it feels like a railing against a huge segment of the bulwark's readers who have seen centrist policies fail over and over again and want something different.
Mona, the only way that Democrats are going to lower prices is to lower the cost of healthcare. You will have a problem with that! If the DSA pushes the Demos into Medicare for all and what we get is FREE for -9 months to 18 and a public option …so be it. If they keep the 15% tariffs and spend it on lowering the Debt and bolstering Healthcare we would all be better off! If Netanyahu loses the next election, the pressure will come off the anti-Zionist mood in the Democratic Party. Maybe we will spend less than the 7 billion we spend to "promote peace in the MiddleEast". Egypt, Jordan and Israel will have to get less and a Plumber in Nebraska will make more.
I read the Bulwark bc I like Republicans who hate Trump.
But I'm not a Republican or an ex-Republican, and I've been disagreeing with Mona Charen for decades.
Sorry, Mona, you're not scaring me back to "conservative lite"
Maybe you should just cut a check to the Republicans and eliminate the middle man.
Mona is what I don’t like about Bulwark. Her Zionism and her constant fear lingering about anyone left of center.
Mona, Cathy Young, Will Saletan (the diet RC version of a liberal) are all people I do not read.
Didn't the DSA recently kick out AOC for "ideological impurity"? If this sound Orwellian and Stalinist, it should! These aren't Bernie Sanders types. These are people who are not Democrats. They are not big tent. They are the people who sat out 2024 and put Trump back in the WH because of "Genocide Joe" and would gladly do so again rather than admit that Trump has been far worse for Palestinians and the Arab world than Kamala would have been.
Communism has failed everywhere. Oligarchs remain: the leaders live lavishly while everyone else starves. Dissent rises because conditions are horrific: they are imprisoned or killed. And yet we are talking about people who want it overthrown.
We already have examples of the DSA in action. Look at Portland, Oregon's city council. They aren't serious people governing for the common good. They are catty junior high bomb throwers blaming every social ill on the police and "capitalism"; cutting the police budget and funding reparations while the city remains unsafe. As a result, Portland continues to see an exodus of residents, jobs, and tax base.
This is exactly the caricature of the Dems that costs them elections. Overly focused on social wedge issues, militant toward any policing, and hostile towards hard work and success. Mirror image of MAGA: everything bad is everyone else's fault but their own. Capitalism needs more regulation; most of America agrees on that. But capitalism and liberalism/democracy can only exist together. The right to work where you want to work, start the business you want to start, and live how you want to live requires rule of law and the ability to elect your representatives, freely.
Also, Mona missed the most prominent "Socialist" party: the National Socialist German Workers' Party (AKA Nazi).
That last line of this discredits every word of it. it's trump level discourse and I'm embarrassed to be part of a community calling Nazis socialists and vice versa
The nazis also came for the socialists, maybe even before the Jewish people. I would need to check into that a bit more, but the Bulwark might do it for me...let's see. JVL comments and replies but not everyone does.
That last is more than a bit of a low blow. JVL has pointed out at least since Zohran first popped how Trump and MAGA have been adopting true national socialism while pretending anyone aspiring to ‘true’ socialism is a Nazi. And Putin has done the same whenever socialist-leaning parties gain power in former Soviet states.
(Read my own comment before presuming I’m in total disagreement with you; I just don’t think such a smear is called for or helps the cause. If anything we need to be cooling the rhetoric of all intramural fights in the anti-Trump coalition.)
I actually wasn't implying anything by the last statement beyond that plenty of facists have called themselves "people's socialist parties". So have plenty of left of center parties in strong democracies. As we all know, projection is very strong with people who don't have the people's best interests at heart.
The Zohran thing is interesting. He has been very good for New York, at least in my understanding. But Chevalier ran on a very different platform that looks an awful lot like "defund the police" that almost cost Biden the election. People forget he was 7 points up on Trump until "Dems are soft on crime" caught steam the last 2 weeks, based on what had transpired post George Floyd.
I'm as progressive of a Christian as you'll find, favoring 2nd chances and every opportunity for felons to become productive citizens, but I've seen even around here what lack of police traffic enforcement post-COVID has done to this area. Cyclist deaths, people doing 110 weaving through traffic, street races costing an innocent family their lives. We do not want criminals to act with impunity, blaming their crime on whatever the social ill du jour is of the day. The answer is to invest in education and opportunity, not to trivialize a mugging by saying "well, if you hadn't been so successful and had nice things to steal, you wouldn't have been a target".
It's along the lines of "billionaires shouldn't exist". Why billionaires? Is $999 Million OK? A much better proposal: "money should not be able to influence elections or government; being rich should give you no more say in how the world works than the average person". And if someone invented a cure for all cancer tomorrow; why shouldn't they become a billionaire? Their value to society is certainly worth much more than that.
I’ll take you at your word that you didn’t intend it. But *imply* and *infer* are two different jobs, and only one of them is yours. You don’t get to adjudicate what landed — and what landed, for me and for several others who said so independently, was the inference that the DSA are Nazis.
And that reach is not a neutral aside about party names. In an argument about a group some people already accuse (fairly, in some cases, unfairly in others) of antisemitic strains, “Nazi” isn’t a historical footnote, it’s *the* accusation — the one that ends the conversation rather than advancing it. The “National Socialists had *socialist* in the name” move has been doing exactly that work for eighty years, and everyone deploying it knows what it’s for. Which is why I’d hoped better from a comment I otherwise found a lot to agree with.
*Correction below.*
Something Mona didn’t mention (or perhaps only through context of a link, I didn’t carefully check them): in the past couple of years, the DSA has systematically removed the safeguards its founders put in place in 1982 and the years following to ensure that the DSA remained always “Democratic” (both capital- and lowercase-D) first. Virtually every founder still alive and active has exited the organization in protest.¹
For a political entity clearly on the rise, regardless of where on the traditional left-right spectrum you land, if you’re anti-authoritarian this seems… not good?
The rhetorical move the more… let’s go with ‘strident’, why don’t we? — members of DSA’s leadership make is that there’s a higher “democracy” above democracy as we in the anti-Trump coalition think about it. (It’s a version of the argument Communist countries have made, and in a couple cases still do make, about their very names having ‘Democratic’ in them.)
Such ‘economic democracy’ might just require that things like voting and due process be suspended until the monied interests are driven out. It wouldn’t be strongman rule, it would be a team of very smart people working collectively who could be trusted not to abuse the safeguards supposedly afforded by capitalist faux-‘democracy’ because… they’re smart people who will be working collectively and can be trusted.
I haven’t heard a single good argument for these safeguards being removed; the leadership just castigates the founders who have protested and left as having ceased being real socialists (with antisemitic and ageist claptrap thrown in the hopper just to stir people up).
As someone *much* more sympathetic to DSA’s aims than Mona, this worries me.
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¹ *Correction, 18:20 EDT: Two overstatements above. “Virtually every founder still alive and active” should be twenty-four longtime members, several of them present at the 1982 founding — a documented rebuke, but not a near-unanimous one. And “removed the safeguards its founders put in place in 1982” implies formal protections that were repealed; what I can actually show is a decade of convention floor votes with that cumulative effect. Sources and specifics in my reply to Henry Lee Harper below. I have not edited the post inline because of Mona’s like — I won’t put words under someone’s endorsement that they never read. I regret the imprecision.*
I don't know if this is true, but what I see going on now, as they gain more prominence, is that democracy is absolutely core to their mission and I think as they catch more and more flack for using the word, socialist, they are explaining. in real time, what the whole turn of phrase means to them, as individuals. We'll see how it plays out, but as far as I can tell, the hearts are in the right place. They want to help, I think, and lift people up, not tear them down. As far as the safeguards suspension thing, I have never heard of any "master plan" like this, but I doubt it would work or is part of the core mission of the org. If they keep winning elections, my guess is they will work as a coalition or caucus of some sort within the ordinary system and advocate for getting money out in all the ways we need, in my opinion. If we can keep it.
But… I’m not making up the founders’ exodus. I’m using them as a proxy, since they a) know a lot more about DSA than I ever could and b) were the people who originally, I could see from direct experience, “had their hearts in the right place”. So I’d like a decent explanation on this before I continue giving them the benefit of the doubt I had been giving them until this year.
Yeah. IDK. I get that you "want an explanation," but the org has gone through several transformations and there has always been a semantic debate within about the differences between democratic socialism and capitalist social democracy, but I, personally, have never seen anything written anywhere about anyone within "abandoning democracy." I don't know what you mean by "exodus," either. I know one guy left a few years ago over a conflict about the October 7 response, but I have never heard of an exodus. Got a link?
Sure, I’m willing to do research and even call myself out on an error (I’ll correct above via footnote momentarily) — The New Republic, November 9, 2023: “Out of Loyalty to Democratic Socialism: Why We Are Leaving DSA,” signed by two dozen longtime members, several of them there at the 1982 founding. Isserman’s The Nation piece (“Why I Just Quit DSA”) ran a couple weeks earlier. So: not one guy over October 7, and not a private grumble. A published collective exit by the founding generation, including Harrington’s own biographer, who says Harrington’s name is now a dirty word in the org he built.
You’re right that I shouldn’t have said “master plan” — I didn’t mean a plot, and I’ll drop it. What I meant is the accumulated effect of a decade of convention floor votes, which is a different and less lurid thing but not a *smaller* one:
1. 2023: resolutions to act as an independent party, plus machinery to discipline DSA electeds.
2. 2024: national de-endorsement of AOC for failing a foreign-policy litmus test.
3. 2025: “Principles for Party Building” — commit to becoming an independent mass socialist party — passes 641–551. A sympathetic writeup in The Call observed that delegates spent more floor time on disciplining candidates than on growing the org.
None of that is anti-democracy in the jackboot sense. It’s a shift from “make the big tent better” to “purify the small tent,” and the founders who left said so in those words.
Where it gets sharper for me is abroad. In 2021 the International Committee’s line on Nicaragua’s election was to denounce US sanctions and wave at the “polemics surrounding” the vote — a vote Ortega took with 75 percent after jailing the opposition candidates. That’s the whole ballgame for a *democratic* socialist: what do you say when a left government stops holding real elections? On Sunday Ortega announced there will be no more elections at all. I’d sincerely like to see the DSA statement on that. If it’s a good one, I’ll say so loudly and go back to the benefit of the doubt.
Let’s just leave the labels behind. If you tell people what you have to offer and it include help
With major expenses than don’t scare them with words like democratic socialism ( though I am one). Trump voters in Kentucky met with Bernie Sanders and came out with a much more positive impression of his platform. Said they had been told to fear and hate him. Let’s get past this crap and work together to form a more perfect union.
I disagree with Mona Caron’s apparent alarm at the presence of Democratic Socialists in the of Deemocrati primary nominees. Each party, if it is smart, nominates candidates that represent the views of the people they hope to represent. Ms. Charon seems to elide the difference between Democratic Socialists and Communists. This encourages many in the current Republican Party to do the same. I believe the Democratic Party has room the consider the views of a small minority of their congressional representatives who advocate for a stronger safety net and adjustment of tax rates to require more of wealthier Americans. Nothing as high as the 91% during the Eisenhower administrations. I would actually prefer that she rail against the inclusion of Utah’s Mike Lee, Texas’ Ken Paxton, and Arizona’s Paul Gosar on the Republican slate and characterize them as threats to Reuplical electoral success.
I emphatically did not elide the distinction between democratic socialists and communists. On the contrary, I stressed the distinction.
Mona— sorry to hijack the thread, but can I just mention I just told my husband that 12-year-old me would have gone “squee!” at your liking my comment? I got into political news in 1987 and I remember your column being thrilling to me, my must-read every week, George Will and Bill Safire were oldsters, you were the one I was telling my grandparents’ friends (who tended to be the only ones who would entertain my 12-year-old ravings) about every time you published in our local paper.
(My high school’s outing me at 16 and my family disowning me leading to homelessness quickly disaffected me of my Teenage Republicanism, so I can’t say that we aligned a lot until you never-Trumped, but I’m happy we’re at least broadly on the same side again.)
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that "basically free everything: housing, health care, retirement, and schooling" isn't arguing for a stronger safety net. It's appropriation for massive parts of the economy and massive handouts that will backfire.
A serious proposal would be along the lines of a UBI fill up to a certain income level, paid for by higher taxes on everyone. But what you're suggesting is creating new winners and losers. If I'm healthy and exercise every day, and Joe Bob over there drinks a case of beer and smokes 2 packs a day, I should be rewarded with lower health care costs.
If I go to school, and put my degree to good use, I'm much more valuable than someone who goes to school, joins a frat, and flunks out after 3 years. If school is free, a lot of folks are going to take the "free" and go to school for reasons other than furthering their knowledge and career. As it turns out, dropouts in 4-year schools are much more likely to be parent funded; those that take on debt or earn scholarships tend to graduate on time. I wonder why that is?
Free rent: that's just stupid. Rent control is bad enough, which creates winners and losers and results in worse outcomes for everyone. So let's make it free? That's right up there with "tenant protections" which encourage non-payment and squatting.
Again, a UBI solves all of these problems without the takeover of large parts of the economy. But the takeover is the point!
Agreed, but a better name might be "refundable tax credits" instead of "UBI." That is what refundable tax credits do and they have been around for a long time. They sound less problematic to the average voter.
I am leaning into Sarah's understanding of why DSA is having electoral success. It isn't that dems support all the DSA policies it's that they seem to be the only faction of the dem party that is out there "fighting" back. It also doesn't hurt to have talented leaders like Mamdani or our old favorite Bernie to walk the talk. But many moderate dems are winning in moderate districts. The Dems need a very big coalition to overcome the structural barriers that currently exist thanks to the GOP. And it doesn't matter really, MAGA will find a boogey man every election. And given the megaphone of FOX, now CBS and next CNN it will be near impossible to counter any fear mongering. Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez is certainly NOT DSA. She wins because she reflects her district. Mary Peltola is not DSA. Look at IA, the dem candidates there? Not DSA. We have not had any party, left or right, listen to the voters for a very very long time. That should be the takeaway from the DSA electoral successes not that the dems are turning into a socialist party.
Agreed, but the DSA goal is not to bea subset of the Democratic party. They've stated several times that they want a takeover. DSA in Portland isn't governing whatsoever, just like MAGA does not govern competently.
I'd put money on that once in office, they won't even vote for bills that they generally support; if they dont 't everything, they take their ball and go home. Remember those that wouldn't back Kamala under any circumstance in 2024. What makes you think they will be any different now?
I remember back in 2015 when another radical group of folks took over a party and made it unrecognizable; overnight the party went from "hardworking immigrants are the lifeblood of America" to "brown-skinned people are scum; we don't want them or the cultures they bring from their sh**hole countries. And, they eat our pets!".
Agree, there are “social dems” and then there are “democratic socialists, DSA”. The “social dems” are winning in a variety of locations. Dems are terrible with communication & branding - the social dems need to distinguish themselves, otherwise they will all be lumped into the fox megaphone of fear…
These kinds of articles are worse than the "Democratic handwringing" people love to decry around here. Instead of succumbing to the Neo-Redscare Blowhards' rhetoric, try considering approaching these subjects from a genuine investigative policy/campaign perspective with an open mind. You should be pleasantly surprised by what you find. We need to all stop freaking out about labels. Am I happy that anybody I want to support is using the word socialist? No. But, it's not because I'm not curious or willing to learn more about what they mean by their use of it. It's because I know that too many people in the "swing voter" crowd might not be sufficiently curious or open-minded about it. That's why people like you are here, Mona. You have a voice and a curious mind to explore the world with. It's up to you to show others how to open their minds and see things in a new light. That's all the DSA folks are asking of us.
I enjoyed this from Mona. It wasn't the I-hate-Bernie-Sanders claptrap from the likes of Froma Harrop, who completely ignores the fascist tendencies of Donald Trump and MAGA. I think MS. Harrop is a closet MAGA sycophant, which is both stupid and careless. On the other hand, Mona's essay was some tough love for Democrats and sane Americans who want an end to the Trumpian nightmare. You go, Mona!
Thanks Daniel. I hope by now people to my left can give me the benefit of the doubt about my motives!
I don’t comment much, but longtime supporter of the Bulwark.
The community guidelines for commenting on a post state that content must be at least two of the following: kind, truthful, or necessary. I’d posit we should hold authors to at least that standard.
This post isn’t kind. It read like a Fox News article at times, utilizing a lot of the same rhetoric and gross generalizations. I get some of the DSA can be combative; however, this is no excuse to behave the same way. “Some naive souls say…”, “the vibes may be exciting … smiling face disguises the authoritarianism” - this is not kind (and also not necessary).
It also isn’t really truthful. For example, “never been a communist country that delivered prosperity” - China pulled millions out of poverty. Sorry. FWIW, The Economist does a better job of detailing nuance in the capitalism v socialism discussion. And they make a much better case.
There’s a lot that’s unnecessary. For example “the easiest way to tell if a country was undemocratic was whether it had ‘democratic’ in its name” right after “there are socialists who believe in and abide by democratic norms”. At best this is unnecessary, it’s also a contradiction.
I understand that the author has good intentions. She seems scared we will loose the midterms because of the most extreme DSA policies. She also is scared about the DSA taking over the party because they’re winning primaries. I understand this comes from a desire to push back Trumpism and also keep the Democratic Party centrist. And maybe trauma from seeing what happened in her party. I can appreciate this.
But this is far below the bar for The Bulwark. Please do better.
Horrible take. The DSA candidates want the terrible things like healthcare for all Americans and working people to earn a living wage and end the illegal war in Iran and Gaza.
What does the MAGA Republicans offer? Protection of the Epstein Class, tax cuts for billionaires, and billions of dollars to bomb children in Iran and Gaza.
Instead of caving to the fake MAGA Republican scare mongering, how about fight back in service to the American people and reject the Epstein Class?
Mona, I think there is some confusion in terminology and people should be asking different and better questions of the candidates and their positions overall. There are “social democrats” and “democrat socialists, DSA”. They are two different things. “Social Democrats” want a system like Scandinavian countries - health care, university, living wages, big money out of politics, and not starting unnecessary wars. These people are not fringe, they represent a wide population of Americans and saying that they are all DSA is just feeding the republican propaganda. Even if there are 5-10 true DSA candidates in Congress, their votes are not enough to change anything of importance.
We need to stop fear mongering, support the candidates the local populations elect, and gain enough seats to be able to reform/rebuild our democracy. The infighting will only lead to the loss of our democracy.
To everyone who has children, grand children and any other child/young person in their lives that they love - please stop the infighting now. We must come together. Policy debates will happen during the Presidential primaries, and there will be many discussions to come in the future. Or we will just end up living in a corrupt autocracy.
Amen!
I need to reread this a few times to more fully process the arguments, but this is a real nadir for the Bulwark.
Mona, I'm not sure if you read these replies but I have given this a little thought after reading it a few times.
For me at least the issue is not your objection to democratic socialism. No one is expecting you to push for an ideology you don't agree with. Nor is it your specific objections to things that the Democratic socialists of America have as part of their policy platform.
But you are writing this in the aftermath of primaries that were held. Votes were cast and people in specific regions made their voice heard about who they wanted to represent them. Moreover tons of candidates are more towards the establishment this upcoming cycle. So it is very hard to read this as anything other than the same kind of scaremongering being done by those calling us Communists every other day on Fox News.. it reads in many ways like the same level of delirious and ungrounded attack just moved a few degrees to the left.
If you're specifically just against the Democratic socialists of America that's one thing but as this reads it feels like a railing against a huge segment of the bulwark's readers who have seen centrist policies fail over and over again and want something different.
Mona, the only way that Democrats are going to lower prices is to lower the cost of healthcare. You will have a problem with that! If the DSA pushes the Demos into Medicare for all and what we get is FREE for -9 months to 18 and a public option …so be it. If they keep the 15% tariffs and spend it on lowering the Debt and bolstering Healthcare we would all be better off! If Netanyahu loses the next election, the pressure will come off the anti-Zionist mood in the Democratic Party. Maybe we will spend less than the 7 billion we spend to "promote peace in the MiddleEast". Egypt, Jordan and Israel will have to get less and a Plumber in Nebraska will make more.
I think ineffectual centrist Democrats have been a gift to the DSA.