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democratic socialists of america
Without the Working Class, There's Only So Much Progressives Can Win
Placing all of our chips on reforming the Democrats is a bad bet, even if we deem it a necessary one in the near future.
Aug 08, 2026
Yes, it should be possible this November to elect enough Democrats to stop MAGA and undo some of the damage Trump et al have done. But without the support of the working class the progressive wish list will remain just that—a series of unfulfilled wishes.
Despite big hopes and a likely small majority, we won’t see Medicare for All, an increase in the federal minimum wage, a green New Deal, job security for working people, labor law reform to facilitate unionization, a billionaire’s tax, elimination of big money from politics, the break-up of mega-corporations, and affordable housing for all, to name just a few.
None of these ambitious and popular reforms will pass as long as the blue-red margins remain narrow, ensuring that there are never enough votes to enact major reforms even if the Democrats control all three branches after the 2028 elections.
Ask any labor leader and they will tell you the sad and maddening 50-year story of failed attempts to level the labor-management playing field, despite Democratic tri-fectas during Obama and Biden. And because of these slim margins one of the biggest recent Democratic victories, Obamacare, is a Rube Goldberg-like contraption relying on corporate subsidies, massive costs, and spotty coverage that has failed to deliver universal and affordable health care.
Bad stuff can be stopped and maybe some of the worst MAGA policies reversed, but there won’t be a progressive majority to win the big stuff even if the Democrats win the House, the Senate and the presidency in 2028.
So, instead of pushing toward a more just economy, we sail in the opposite direction and are increasingly dominated by what Bernie derides as the billionaire class.
We just assume these days that razor-thin blue-red margins are a fact of life, the result of increasing political polarization, money in politics, gerrymandering, and misinformation, etc. But not so long ago there were times, under FDR and LBJ, when progressive political majorities were massive. That’s when the Democratic Party included and could count on most working-class voters (roughly defined as those without college degrees). That is no longer the case.
The numbers are stark, especially among white working people.
- In 1976, Jimmy Carter received 53 percent of the white working-class vote. In 2024, only 33 percent voted for Kamala Harris.
- In a working-class county in the heart of coal country in West Virginia, like Mingo County with its fierce union tradition, Bill Clinton received 70 percent of the vote in 1996. After 3,000 of the county’s 3,300 coal jobs disappeared, Harris got a miniscule 12 percent in 2024.
If a sizable majority of those voters returned to the Democrats’ fold, one could imagine enough votes to enact major economic reforms. Could that happen?
How do Democrats win the working class back?
My comrades at the Center for Working Class Politics have spent years showing that working-class candidates, especially with union backgrounds running on a strong progressive economic program, can win in contested districts. Their arguments are persuasive. But the current handful of successes leave most of the working-class swimming on their own in red America, where the Democratic Party is dead and gone.
For example, of the roughly 1,211 state legislative seats in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho, the Democrats don’t even run candidates in 40 percent of them.
The Democratic Party needs to be reformed dramatically if it is to adopt CWCP’s strategy. But we have just learned from the missing chapter in the Democratic Party’s autopsy report, released this week by its author, that the party’s functionaries have become “generationally wealthy off politics.” Sponging off the status quo, whether they win or lose, the party’s ecosystem of pollsters, consultants, ad agencies, and such has grown fat, rich, and happy. This is not a political culture open to radical reform.
DSA to the rescue?
The Democratic Socialists of America, arguably the most vibrant political organization in America today (though the bar isn’t high), have attempted to reform the Democrats by knocking off establishment Democrats in primaries and replacing them with DSA-backed candidates. They have succeeded this year in heavily Democratic urban areas, such as New York City, but will now be tested in Michigan, where Dr. Abdul El-Sayed gained a narrow victory in the Democratic Senate primary this past Tuesday. Similarly, Francesca Hong, another DSA candidate, is the favorite to win the upcoming Wisconsin gubernatorial Democratic primary in another state won in 2024 by Donald Trump. Can El-Sayed, not a DSA member but a very progressive candidate, and Hong win in purple states?
Ironically, DSA members and the establishment Democrats generally come from the same class – the class of the college educated. El-Sayed reportedly ran “strongest in communities with young voters, college students and educated and wealthy white voters.”
DSA claims to be speaking on behalf of the working class, but according to its own 2021 survey, only four percent of its members are blue-collar workers, and another six percent work in retail, food service, or similar occupations. Roughly 40 percent are teachers, academics, white-collar professionals, tech workers, or students. Of those 25 years old and older, more than 80 percent have bachelor’s degrees, compared to only 39 percent nationally.
Working people did not disappear from the much redder parts of the Midwest and the Great Plains when their jobs moved to Mexico and China, but the Democrats did.
More importantly, what they put forth as their program did not grow out of a dialogue with non-college working-class folks or even union leaders. If they had had those discussions they would have learned that many of their positions, like abolishing “the police and prison system which protects the rich and jails the poor,” would be opposed by the working people they say they champion.
We will learn more this fall about how DSA candidates adapt and fare with working people in red areas. But as DSA is now structured, it is unlikely to recruit many people without college degrees.
The path to a progressive majority?
Clearly, it is essential that the Democrats win back enough working-class voters to disrupt the MAGA onslaught. Let’s hope and pray they do. But unless huge numbers of Trump voters stay home for the midterms, and the working class breaks heavily for the Democrats, the margin of victory is not likely to be nearly enough to produce the political majorities necessary to rework the economic order.
Bad stuff can be stopped and maybe some of the worst MAGA policies reversed, but there won’t be a progressive majority to win the big stuff even if the Democrats win the House, the Senate and the presidency in 2028.
The Democratic Party brand is just too tarnished among working people for them to readily join in significant numbers. Sure, go ahead and run more union candidates, and let’s see if the DSA can overturn the Democratic Party’s establishment and even spread into the working class. But it would be wise to have Plan B—a parallel, not substitute, strategy.
An Independent Workers Party of Their Own in Red America
Working people did not disappear from the much redder parts of the Midwest and the Great Plains when their jobs moved to Mexico and China, but the Democrats did. In red America there is no spoiler problem because in hundreds of state races and congressional districts the Democrats have abandoned ship. That has left an enormous vacuum and few political choices for working people. We can now see a very few working-class candidates trying to fill the void, but there is no organization that ties them together.
A new political organization of working people should be constructed where working people can gather and speak in their own voices about what they want to see changed in America—an organization that recaptures the voice and power they once had in the region.
Building that formation will be difficult, but maybe not as difficult as taking over the Democratic Party. For starters, it will require an anchor tenant, a large union or state labor federation, that realizes that most of its members have given up on the Democrats and want something new. So far there have been no takers, though clearly some labor leaders, like the UAW’s Shawn Fain, share at least some of our analysis of what’s necessary.
But that will change, I believe, as union leaders come to the recognition that they can no longer sell the Dems to their own members. And if one or two unions or state labor federations set up a new independent operation in red America, I think they will be pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm it generates. Our polling suggests that working people just might come running.
If this organization takes off, it becomes much easier to imagine working-class political alliances with enough power to secure substantive economic change. Something working people are sure to need soon as AI and the billionaires take a wrecking ball to what’s left of their livelihoods.
Someone, somewhere, sometime must build something new so that working people can develop their own political voice, just as the Populists did 150 years ago.
Is this the only solution to our problems? Maybe not. I’m wide open to other strategies. I just haven’t heard any that don’t start and stop with reforming the Democrats, whose elites are not about to give up their power and access to riches.
And I don’t see how DSA gets deep enough into red America as long as it’s an organization of college grads talking to themselves about what’s best for the working-class. Even if El-Sayed and Hong win in the general election this year, the wealthy party fuctionairies will still be in power.
By all means, go for it. But someone, somewhere, sometime must build something new so that working people can develop their own political voice, just as the Populists did 150 years ago.
Am I howling in the wind? Maybe. I guess that’s what I do. My contribution is to get you to square up to the problem: We need a serious strategy that leads to serious progressive change.
Placing all of our chips on reforming the Dems is a bad bet, even if we deem it a necessary one in the near future. At the very least, I think, that bet needs to be hedged by building a new independent political organization of working people in red America, an organization that’s responsive to and expressive of their political needs. That’s far better than abandoning working-class families to the next round of Republican charlatans.
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Actually Michael Harrington Would Probably Love Today’s DSA – and Hate It Too
The "big tent" of the Democratic Socialists of America has its drawbacks too.
Aug 07, 2026
Kirkpatrick Sale has it half right in his lament over today’s Democratic Socialists of America, “Michael Harrington is Spinning in His Grave.” The imagined spinning stems from post-mortem distress at what its founding leader would make of the organization today. Sale—best remembered for SDS, his history of Students for a Democratic Society, the seminal 1960s “New Left” organization—calls himself Harrington’s “close friend and traveling companion,” and feels that today’s DSA “has stood on its head the principles that Mike and his colleagues stood for.”
While I cannot claim to have been Harrington’s friend, I did know him and arguably qualify as one of his colleagues, in that I was a member of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, his prior organization whose 1982 merger with the New American Movement created DSA. I remain a member of the organization to this day, and when serving in the Massachusetts House of Representatives was once one of DSOC/DSA’s handful of public elected officials. From my vantage point, while I understand Sale’s real–and Harrington’s imagined–distress at some of what he sees in today’s DSA, not only does he ignore developments that would have made Harrington proud, but I also think his take on Harrington’s politics is not quite right.
As a flat statement, Sale’s contention that DSA “is no longer anything that could be called democratic or socialist” is wrong, but he is not wrong in identifying parts of 2026 DSA that would seem unlikely to have appealed to Harrington. Sale clearly recognizes that the roots of the organization’s dramatic changes—its 20-fold inflation from the 6,000 member group of the 90's—lie in Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. He errs, though, in calling Sanders “a leading DSA figure and its only representative in Congress.” Sanders actually was not then, is not now, and so far as I know has never been an actual member of DSA—counterintuitive as that may seem.
After Sanders introduced “democratic socialism” to millions of American living rooms in his debates with Hillary Clinton and politically “lived to talk about it,” a whole lot of people who’d also been thinking about the idea googled the term and found DSA; some joined. They were then followed by some who indeed did not identify with the democratic socialist tradition but recognized that this was now where the action was—the hazard of success.
The result is generally understood as a “big tent” organization—a tent thus far large enough to contain both US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Democratic New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani—figures for whom I cannot imagine Harrington having anything but admiration—along with caucuses by no means committed to that approach, groups that Harrington would consider bizarre and out of place (as does this writer.) It contains serious divergences between local chapters and a tenuous national organization. How long this tent holds up is anyone’s guess. As for Sale, if he would actually consider the entirety of organization (the best description of which I’ve seen was recently published in a German Left Party newspaper—"Von Degrowth bis ML" Jungle World, July 30, 2026) he might well see similarities with the late years of SDS (an organization Harrington subsequently regretted having failed to productively engage with.)
Among those similarities is a certain not-ready-for-prime-time quality common in organizations trying to cope with the increased glare of the public attention spotlight. Foibles and foolish statements surface from the past. My personal nomination for the dumbest left slogan of recent years is “Defund the police”—its rational kernel of re-evaluating government’s approach to certain types of public safety situations smothered in a seemingly naive call for an end to law enforcement. And yet, even someone like Mamdani who is generally considered to possess masterful political skills—correctly, I think—has had to walk that one back.
On some points of his critique of current DSA, Sale seems perhaps frozen in time, such as his noting that “Mike was an outspoken champion of the new Israel.” That “new Israel” has changed quite a bit in the thirty-seven years since Harrington has been gone. Would he remain a champion of a nation now planning a prison for Palestinians that includes a moat stocked with crocodiles – a proposal temporarily stalled by consideration of the animals’ subsequently repealed protected status? Sure hope not.
But where I really think Sale is just wrong is in essentially arguing that Harrington was not actually a socialist. Yes, Harrington did talk of being “the left wing of the possible,” and that “generally meant working within the Democratic Party”—as do most current DSAers running campaigns to do something for the American working class in the here-and-now. And while Sale is accurate in saying that the DSA of Harrington’s day “put forth a vision of a democratically elected government that would be like those of the Scandinavian countries, providing state services in health, education, housing and the like,” his contention that back then there was “Nowhere stuff about ending capitalism” makes it sound like Sale missed a lot of meetings—and maybe didn’t keep up on his reading so well either. Even the small DSA had differing strands of thinking. One major one was all about imagining how to reach a genuinely democratically controlled economy beyond the “welfare state” and capitalism, something you will find reflected in Harrington’s writing.
So would the imagined Harrington be troubled by some of what he’d see in today’s DSA? Yes, I’m sure he would. And would he be positively thrilled by some of what he found in today’s DSA? Yes, I’m sure he would.
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Corporate-Funded Third Way Plans to Spend $15 Million Waging 'War' on Progressives
"Instead of going to war against the left, why not attract votes by going to war against insurance companies gouging patients, against employers busting unions, or against polluters?" said one critic.
Aug 06, 2026
Abdul El-Sayed's victory in the Democratic US Senate primary in Michigan this week was just the latest example of an insurgent progressive challenger defeating candidates backed by the Democratic establishment.
The establishment, however, is vowing to not go down without a fight.
In an interview with The New York Times published Thursday, Jonathan Cowan, the president of the corporate-funded group Third Way, revealed plans for a $15 million campaign to counter the influence of organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which he described as a "mortal danger" to the Democratic Party.
"We are preparing for the next war that is coming," said Cowan, who added that "it is deeply troubling to see radical, far-left candidates winning in places that are potentially presidential swing states."
The Times report noted, however, that big moneyed interests, most notably the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), spent tens of millions of dollars attacking El-Sayed, who nonetheless emerged triumphant in the race.
Some critics fired back at Third Way, noting that the group only appeared interested in attacking progressives rather than promoting a positive agenda to improve people's lives.
Maurice Mitchell, the director of the Working Families Party, told the Times that groups such as Third Way are "missing a point of view" and are not seeing the "populist insurgency taking place in this country."
Mitchell was far from alone in criticizing the group's plans.
Jon Favreau, co-host of Pod Save America, remarked in a social media post that Third Way's $15 million investment would be better spent "building a movement and coming up with a vision that actually excites voters."
Favreau's comments were echoed by journalist Nathan Newman.
"Have moderates thought about presenting compelling policies more appealing to voters?" Newman asked. "Instead of going to war against the left, why not attract votes by going to war against insurance companies gouging patients, against employers busting unions, or against polluters?"
Even some critics more in line with Third Way's politics expressed skepticism of its proposed campaign.
Derek Thompson, co-author of Abundance, a book that critiqued progressive governance, argued that Third Way's efforts would only reinforce progressives' narratives about big moneyed interests trying to squash a grassroots rebellion against the status quo.
"People should do what they want with their money but moderate Democrats' deficits relate to candidates, messaging, organizing, and enthusiasm... not money," said Thompson. "Plus, I hope people see the risk in a headline about moderates raising millions of dollars to attack a popular left insurgency that attracts support in part... by representing themselves as a bulwark against moneyed interests."
New York University School of Law professor Chris Sprigman was similarly dismissive of the Third Way campaign, predicting that "centrists [are] likely to be no more effective against their own democratic left than they’ve been against the authoritarian right."
Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, argued that Third Way and other neoliberal organizations needed to look in the mirror when it comes to placing blame for the current state of US politics.
"The reason we are in this mess is because the biggest risk we face is market fundamentalism," Owens wrote. "That's what broke the country and voters know it. That's why they are turning against Third Way corporate Dem-style candidates. That’s the thing to fix."
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Democratic Socialism Is the Compromise Position
Given our scale of inequality, the egalitarian reforms of democratic socialism are only the start of what we should strive for.
Jul 31, 2026
Other than the continual circus in the White House, the most important political story in America may be the resurgence of democratic socialism. Ignited by the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the movement achieved its biggest victory last year when self-described democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City. Now, fueled by backlash to the extremist MAGA agenda and multiple ongoing crises, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have claimed 38 electoral wins so far this year and 120,000 active members, making them the largest socialist organization in US history.
Naturally, this has the establishment's hair on fire in both political parties. On the Democratic side, leadership oscillates between snubbing democratic socialists and disowning them outright, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) calling Mamdani’s rise a “gift to the Republicans” that makes Democrats look radical. Centrist-liberal magazine The Atlantic referred to DSA as “a parasite” that was “hijacking the Democratic Party.”
On the Republican side, the hysteria is even more severe. President Donald Trump, who seems quite enamored of Mamdani on a personal level, called him a “100% communist lunatic.” Recently Trump has been trying to resurrect the Red Scare, labeling DSA candidates “hardcore, godless communists” and invoking communism some 94 times in just a few weeks. Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Stephen Miller, connected leftist politicians, communism, and political terrorism into one vast conspiracy and declared it the “fatal cancer of civilization.”
Despite the delirium, many democratic socialist policies are popular, particularly those that expand public services and safety nets for healthcare and childcare. Such ideas only sound radical in a nation grown numb to the extremes of capitalism. But following decades of upward redistribution, worsening public services, deteriorating labor power, and all the other abuses of our current system, democratic socialism isn’t radical at all—it’s a compromise.
Defining “Democratic Socialism”
Like most political labels in America, “socialism” has been thoroughly twisted and misused. In 1952, President Harry Truman remarked that socialism was “a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.” It was a Republican slur for the New Deal, public power, social security, bank deposit insurance, free and independent labor organizations, and “almost anything that helps all the people,” in Truman’s words.
To this day, that’s about as good a definition as any. In America, “socialism” is often used to describe—or denigrate—almost any publicly funded, government-run service: libraries, parks, fire departments, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, highways, public schools, safety net hospitals, animal shelters, community pools, and so on. Under this definition, the US military might be the most expensive socialist program in history.
Elites should feel relieved that people are only demanding, say, a few public options for groceries, rather than revolting.
This American concept of socialism, though, bears little resemblance to the theories formulated by Karl Marx. Marx articulated socialism in direct opposition to capitalism, under which individuals or companies own and control land, natural resources, and means of production. Capitalists rent labor—at least in societies where they can’t own it—and fight to make the terms of that rental as favorable to themselves as possible. This tug of war between owners and workers, in Marx’s view, is the central struggle of history. Marx sought to invert that structure, advocating that ownership, control, and the fruits of labor belong to workers, and theorizing that the only way to achieve such a reality was through revolution.
Democratic socialism, then, is also distinct from Marxist socialism. Both may strive for populist control of the political economy, but democratic socialists in America largely pursue their goals through reform, working within existing institutions. Democratic socialism often more closely resembles the Nordic model: a capitalist economy in which government takes a larger role in protecting human rights and guaranteeing certain essential goods and services.
Actually, this compromise of preserving the fundamentals of capitalism while trying to achieve the egalitarian goals of socialism is precisely what more committed Marxists don’t like about democratic socialism. They might argue that capitalism is inherently unsustainable, exploitative, and unreformable, relying as it does on never-ending growth and abuse of labor, and that working within it is doomed to only limited successes at best.
Reforming the Second Gilded Age
Whether or not one agrees with such ideas, it’s a discussion that free people are within their rights to have. Though we often treat capitalism as a national religion, there’s nothing sacred about it. Even the US Constitution is surprisingly agnostic on questions of economic organization. It’s not encoded in our DNA—in fact, we are much more naturally inclined toward cooperation than competition. Humans have a virtually infinite number of ways we can arrange society, and we are in desperate need of rethinking ours.
Because for the last few decades, the American economy has grown ever more off-balance, to the point where many analysts now say we’re in a second Gilded Age. We recently minted the world’s first trillionaire, while about half of us would be wiped out by any major illness, accident, or job loss. Workers have lost power, essentials like housing and healthcare are increasingly out of reach, and practically all the gains of our productivity have been accumulated at the very top, with corporations posting record profits. Billionaires are multiplying their wealth faster than ever, building anti-revolution doomsday bunkers, and plotting to rule their own fiefdoms as CEO-kings.
We live in a society that’s obsessed with law and order for things like shoplifting or overstaying a visa, but largely looks the other way on corporate crimes like pollution, wage theft, and fraud—not to mention war crimes and genocide. The president is a convicted felon who wants you to ignore his decades-long friendship with a child sex trafficker and instead fear and hate the immigrant next door.
In such a system, elites should feel relieved that people are only demanding, say, a few public options for groceries, rather than revolting. The wealthy surely all took note of the public reaction to Luigi Mangione, who is accused of murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on the streets of New York City. Mangione became a cultural icon who was openly celebrated in many circles, making clear the rage simmering within America’s dispossessed.
There’s a reason the progressive California Rep. Ro Khanna refers to a tax on wealth as an anti-revolution tax, or an attempt to save capitalism from itself. Progressive Democrats like Khanna often mediate between capitalist centers of power and the party’s left-wing base, who largely feel fed up with the party’s incremental approach of making small tweaks here and there. Democratic socialism, as practiced in today’s America, is still essentially incrementalism, but they’re much bigger increments.
Such a model works well in places like Finland, Iceland, and Denmark. These countries have high taxes, but they get far more out of them than we do. As a result they are consistently ranked as the happiest countries on Earth, with excellent numbers for education, homelessness, poverty, healthcare, life expectancy, and infant mortality—all areas in which the US, with its profit-first approach to every problem, is lagging behind.
High taxes and a mixed economy also once worked well in the United States. We dug ourselves out of the Great Depression with the New Deal. Government programs brought electricity to rural areas and established safety nets and Social Security. Our middle class boomed after World War II, when taxes were the highest they’ve ever been.
Republicans and Big Business called that socialism, too. They even conspired to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Now, faced with another socialist menace, they’re playing just as dirty.
The Billionaire and Republican Backlash
The rich and powerful pay good money for their political representation, and the main things they expect in return are to be untaxed and unregulated. When Mayor Mamdani announced a pied-a-terre tax on luxury second homes, The Washington Post—which is owned by megabillionaire Jeff Bezos—published a column criticizing Mamdani’s “‘creepy and weird’ attack on success.” Billionaire Steve Roth said on an earnings call, “I consider the phrase ‘tax the rich’... to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs… [the rich]... should be praised and thanked.”
So it goes whenever anything similar is proposed: Socialism punishes success; the rich will flee if we tax them and leave us simple folk immiserated; and the government will take your home, car, TV, coffee machine, and everything else until, eventually, we’re all sitting in the dirt, eating worms and hitting each other with sticks.
There is no limit to the hysteria Republicans can drum up around socialism, no lie so bold that they won’t tell it with a straight face on TV. In 2016, for instance, the right-wing Institute for Policy Innovation accused the Democratic Party of going even beyond full-blown communism for supporting things like higher wages, vacation time, a 30-hour workweek, maternity leave, and universal health insurance—each of which sound like terrific ideas that would improve human lives, and almost none of which, sadly, are actually supported by establishment Democrats.
Rather than push people to the depths of despair while society breaks down all around us, progressives and democratic socialists want to prioritize human needs over the bottomless appetites of corporations and capital.
By design, Americans have come to expect very little from our system. We’re taught to regard the very concept of government as fundamentally incompetent, wasteful, and oppressive, rather than a tool we can take control of and use to improve lives. Despite the popularity of socialistic policies and goals, the word itself remains divisive. Some of those who have the least are the most aggressively anti-socialist. For this reason, there’s an open debate whether the movement should even label itself socialist.
However, public opinion is slowly evolving. Self-identifying as a socialist could have upsides, like signaling loftier aspirations for people who are desperate for change. And since Republicans will call anyone left of Sean Hannity a communist anyway, reclaiming the word could also blunt their attacks if people come to equate socialism with popular reforms like raising taxes on the wealthy and public options for healthcare.
Unfortunately, winning hearts and minds may not be enough. Because if the wealthy are unable to protect their power legally at the ballot box, the Trump administration has already declared its intention to combat democratic socialism with brutality and repression.
According to polls, Trump and the Republicans are heading toward a trouncing in the midterms, particularly in the House. As a result, Trump is already setting the stage for rigging or cancelling the election, using the threat of communism as one of his predicates. Stephen Miller and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have also been on the offensive, attempting to characterize leftist movements as inherently terroristic and calling on the state to “keep our people safe” from such threats.
Rubio said: “They can call themselves anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist, communist, anarchist or Marxist… It is a poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality and justice liberation.” Leftists, Rubio said, are “an encroaching darkness” and “the enemies of civilization.” Miller said: “The leftist looks at what is beautiful and what is good and what is natural and is filled with envy and hatred… We must stay the course and be completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization.”
These dehumanizing comments echo some of the worst periods in history, including the Red Scare of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Exactly what the administration plans to do is kept vague on purpose. The framework to take extreme actions—effectively criminalizing certain political beliefs—is laid out in National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7). Perhaps, if democratic socialism appears too strong on the ballot in November, they will see fit to protect the voters from their own bad decisions.
Society Is in Desperate Need of Rebalancing
While the establishment tries to trigger a panic about democratic socialism, Mamdani remains popular in New York and his brief tenure as mayor has already been, by many measures, a success. There are no gulags, and he hasn’t seized anybody’s home. He’s the first high-profile politician in recent memory to speak to, and start delivering on, people’s desire for more access to dignity, time, and their personal pursuit of happiness. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that message is resonating.
Every society has a mix of public and private endeavors. America is no different. The goal of the left is, broadly, to tilt the balance toward public support for education, healthcare, environmental initiatives, jobs programs, and so on. The goal of the right is to eliminate public investments, if not civic life altogether, and let people fend for themselves in a cutthroat social Darwinism. Our challenge as a society is to find a balance that fosters the kind of world we want to live in.
Capitalists will argue that our inequality is a natural consequence of the brilliance and drive of business leaders, that we all benefit from the largesse of the rich and anyone can get a piece of the pie if they work hard enough. But our inequality goes far beyond, say, a brain surgeon owning nicer golf clubs than an op-ed writer. The issue is a rigged system powered by insatiable greed, where a tiny handful own private islands and the masses can’t afford insulin.
Make no mistake: Corporate America wages class war constantly. Profit is their main motivation, and by definition, profit is created by getting more out of a deal than you put in. A little bit may be fine. Most people happily pay extra for good service or a worthy product. But trillions in profit means trillions in unpaid wages, overcharged rent, exorbitant medical bills, unpaid insurance claims, usurious lending, or any number of other ways the rich and powerful squeeze the poor.
In a business-run, profit-oriented society, human needs will inevitably suffer because they are simply not a factor in the decision-making. Libertarian right-wingers will argue that free-market capitalism meets human needs naturally through the invisible hand, but this amounts to a lot of hocus-pocus. If you value a more egalitarian distribution of labor, leisure, comfort, health, education, and happiness, the only way to achieve it is through some form of socialism.
Once you peel back the hype and fearmongering, democratic socialism looks more and more reasonable. Rather than push people to the depths of despair while society breaks down all around us, progressives and democratic socialists want to prioritize human needs over the bottomless appetites of corporations and capital. They want to pool our collective resources, distribute them communally, and work toward a more dignified life for everybody. It wouldn’t actually be socialism, though Republicans will surely call it that—but it could be a start toward something better.
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Really, Rubio? Mamdani, DSA, and More Are Terrorist Agents of Cuban Intelligence?
While Rubio has spent much of his political career fighting the Cuban regime, it is almost unbelievable that even he would lend his name to such a report filled with lies and threats against American citizens.
Jul 29, 2026
Marco Rubio's State Department has just issued a frightening 99-page report accusing many prominent liberal and progressive organizations and individuals of being agents of Cuban government intelligence.
The report claims that the liberal groups and individuals it names "have been involved in a disproportionate share of the total left-wing political activity in the United States over the past decade, organizing hundreds of protests and street actions, from anti-ICE clashes in Minnesota to the 'No Kings' demonstrations across the nation... At the same time, many of the network’s nodes have become fused with the Cuban influence infrastructure... modern Cuba plays a key role in supporting major foreign terror networks. At the same time, the regime continues to operate an extensive hard intelligence network in the United States, with significant penetration into sensitive civilian and military institutions on American territory."
Among those named in the report as de facto or de jure Cuban agents are Mayors Zohran Mandami and Karen Bass; Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.); Ben & Jerry's founder Ben Cohen; liberal journalist Karen Goodman; the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA); The National Lawyers Guild; and organizers of Black Lives Matters, anti-ICE, and No Kings demonstrations.
Cuba, with a population of 10.9 million people which can barely keep electricity running or provide basic nutrition presents a danger of conquering the US?
The Report describes DSA as "a mass membership organization operating openly in American electoral politics, with chapters across the country, a growing bench of elected officials, and real influence inside the Democratic Party coalition. The DSA has built a national infrastructure dedicated to moving extreme-left politics from the margins into the mainstream—and with it, a deep and abiding devotion to the Cuban regime."
It describes the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) as "one of the most persistently relevant—and insidious—organizations in Cuba’s US network. The association of extreme-left lawyers and radical street activists has played a key role in a disproportionate share of the far-left terror and violence that has plagued the United States from the 1960s up to today. Throughout its history, it has maintained intimate ties to Cuba and other communist regimes and has explicitly sought to advance the causes of the international far left, including by working to defend and facilitate terrorism and extremist violence."
It describe he NLG's mission as "manipulating and undermining the law to keep far-left terrorists and other violent 'revolutionaries' on the streets. Through its Mass Defense and Legal Observer programs, the NLG trains and deploys so-called 'legal observers'—easily recognizable in their distinctive neon-green hats or helmets at many of today’s notable left-wing demonstrations—to radical protests and 'direct actions.' In this capacity, Guild lawyers serve as an on-demand jailbreak force, capable of providing immediate support for arrested rioters and militants, mobilizing a network of bail funds and allied NGOs to secure their quick release... Today, the NLG is actively involved in radical anti-ICE street actions."
At a meeting last week about "far-left" extremism with 60 foreign government officials, Secretary of State Marco Rubio proclaimed, "The Cuban regime's sprawling intelligence and ideological networks helped build the far-left in our country and in our hemisphere... It remains inextricably linked to far-left groups and movements across and beyond the West."
The State Department Report concludes, "These various threads can only be understood through the prism of the Cuban regime’s ideological foundation, imbued by its founder with the singular goal of conquering the neighboring United States."
REALLY??? Cuba, with a population of 10.9 million people which can barely keep electricity running or provide basic nutrition presents a danger of conquering the US?
I must admit that, while Rubio has spent much of his political career fighting the Cuban regime, I find it almost unbelievable that even he would lend his name to such a report filled with lies and threats against American citizens. Is it part of a campaign to gain support for a US invasion to overthrow the Cuban government and attack all opponents as "communist agents"?
In response, ten US Congresspeople issued a statement denouncing the report as "an attack on Americans' constitutional rights to free speech and assembly. We denounce this administration's irresponsible attacks against civil society organizations, activists, journalists, labor leaders, Members of Congress, elected officials, and private individuals based on their advocacy for peaceful foreign policy and social justice at home."
"We stand firmly against this report and other efforts by the Trump administration to weaponize the federal government against dissent, which is a patriotic tradition."
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'They Want Change': Bernie Sanders Explains Appeal of Democratic Socialism to Fox Reporter
"The American people are disgusted with an economic system in which one guy on top, Elon Musk, owns more wealth than the bottom half of American society."
Jul 24, 2026
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday explained to Fox Business reporter Chase Williams why candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America have been racking up victories in Democratic primaries throughout the US.
While walking the halls of the US Capitol building, Williams asked Sanders (I-Vt.) if he believed DSA-backed candidates would hurt the Democratic Party's chances of retaking Congress from Republicans this fall.
Sanders said he didn't think so and then offered his opinion on why many voters are attracted to democratic socialism.
"The American people are disgusted with an economic system in which one guy on top, Elon Musk, owns more wealth than the bottom half of American society," Sanders said. "They're tired of a situation where 60% of our people live paycheck-to-paycheck... they are tired of a corrupt political system in which billionaires buy elections."
NEW: I asked Sen. Bernie Sanders whether the rise of Democratic Socialist candidates could hurt Democrats politically in November.
"No," Sanders replied. "The American people are disgusted with an economic system in which one guy on top - Elon Musk - owns more wealth than the… pic.twitter.com/eYb41K3o3h
— Chase Williams (@ChaseWilliams_) July 23, 2026
Williams attempted to interject, but Sanders kept speaking.
"They want change," he continued. "They want candidates and members of Congress with the guts to stand up for working families and not simply take big checks and not simply have super PACs elect... the next senators and members of Congress."
Williams again pressed Sanders if he thought democratic socialists were a liability for the Democratic Party.
"No," Sanders replied. "I think that if you have candidates who are standing up for the working class, and explaining that there is something wrong when the billionaire class is getting richer and richer, while so many Americans can't afford groceries, they can't afford housing, they can't afford healthcare. That's not the kind of economy the American people want."
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Progressive Support for McKinney Grows as Top House Dems Back Rep. Thanedar in Michigan
"In Congress, Donavan will fight for strong union jobs, environmental justice, and for universal childcare."
Jul 20, 2026
As Democratic Michigan Congressman Shri Thanedar on Monday announced endorsements from party leaders in the US House of Representatives, his primary challenger, Donavan McKinney, secured more support from key progressives.
Already, McKinney counted among his backers various Michiganders, US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and progressive congressional candidates who have recently won their primaries: Dr. Adam Hamawy in New Jersey, Melat Kiros in Colorado, and Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania.
On Monday, just over two weeks away from the August 4 primary, Congresswoman Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) also backed the lifelong Detroiter's bid to oust Thanedar in Michigan's 13th Congressional District.
"Donavan McKinney is the fighter his community needs: principled, hardworking, and unafraid to speak truth to power," Lee said in a statement. "I'm proud to support his people-powered campaign, and proud to endorse him for Congress in MI-13. Detroit deserves real representation, and I know Donavan McKinney will deliver it."
McKinney welcomed her support on social media, writing that "I am honored to receive the endorsement of my sister in service, Rep. Summer Lee. Our shared commitment to standing up for our communities unites us deeply, and I am thrilled to have a fighter like Summer join our people-powered coalition."
In a Monday social media post promoted by Kiros and Rabb, DSA said that "Donavan knows what it takes to fight, and win. Now he's ready to take that fight to DC. In Congress, Donavan will fight for strong union jobs, environmental justice, and for universal childcare."
"The Motor City is ready to put working people in the driver’s seat. Let’s get Donavan across the finish line and grow our socialist bloc in Congress," the organization added.
The fresh endorsements followed a weekend rally in Detroit, where McKinney appeared with Sanders, Tlaib, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed—a progressive US Senate candidate who notably secured support from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday.
While El-Sayed and Congresswoman Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) battle over the seat currently held by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, McKinney is aiming to oust Thanedar, "a pharmaceutical entrepreneur who has spent millions of dollars from his personal fortune on several campaigns," as the Detroit Metro Times reported Monday. He "was first elected to Congress in 2022 after winning a nine-candidate primary with 28% of the vote. His victory left Detroit without a Black member of Congress for the first time in nearly seven decades."
After journalists noted in recent days that Thanedar "lost more than $630,000 in investment income last quarter after he put $3.7 million in campaign funds into the cryptocurrency industry," and just loaned his campaign another $650,000, Ravi Mangla, national press secretary for the Working Families Party, declared Monday that the incumbent "is panicked."
"He's emptying out his bank account and begging his AIPAC and crypto buddies to bail him out," Mangla said, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—which is also backing Stevens in the state's Senate fight. "Detroiters deserve better than an out-of-touch politician who's willing to sell them out to the highest bidder."
In a clear signal of where Democratic Party leadership stands as they try to reclaim both chambers of Congress from Republicans in the November midterms, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY), Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.), and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (Calif.) on Monday issued a joint statement supporting Thanedar. They said that he "has always shown up for his constituents and is fighting every day to lower the cost of housing and groceries, and to make life more affordable for everyday Michiganders."
Responding on social media, Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim said: "I understand that Dem leaders always endorse incumbents, but this one is particularly absurd. Shri is basically a con man who spent his way into Congress. But his opponent Donovan McKinney has Bernie's backing, so the con man will have to do."
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Pope Serving as 'Chinese Communist Agent' by Criticizing AI, Says Tech Billionaire Peter Thiel
Thiel in the past has also speculated that AI critics are doing the bidding of the Antichrist.
Jul 03, 2026
Right-wing tech billionaire Peter Thiel is accusing Pope Leo XIV of doing the work of the Chinese Communist Party with his criticisms of artificial intelligence.
According to a Thursday report from CNN, Thiel told the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado on Tuesday that the pope was inadvertently serving as a "Chinese communist agent" when he released a 42,000-word encyclical that called for strict regulation of AI, a technology that the pontiff said heightens the "risk of dehumanization" throughout the world.
Thiel argued that this sort of thinking was dangerous, CNN reported, because it could result in the US losing the "race" to build more advanced AI to China. Because of this, Thiel continued, the pope is essentially "working for the Chinese communists" by trying to tap the brakes on AI development.
Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, has long decried AI critics in harsh terms. Over the last year, he has been delivering a series of lectures in which he has said that opponents of AI development are working as agents for the Antichrist.
Journalist Christopher Hale, who writes the Letters From Leo newsletter, noted on Friday that Thiel in the past has even speculated that Pope Leo could be "a manifestation of the Antichrist."
Thiel has said that he instructed Vice President JD Vance, a longtime political ally who received major funding from the tech billionaire for his 2022 Senate campaign, to ignore the pope's moral guidance despite influencing Vance to convert to Catholicism, Hale added.
"Thiel seeded the vice president’s Catholic faith," Hale wrote, "and he now tells wealthy festival audiences that the leader of that faith works for a communist government."
In addition to his attacks on the pope, Thiel also warned about "a democratic-socialist takeover of the Democratic Party," pointing to recent victories in New York and Colorado of candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.
Thiel said that this "takeover" would doom the US, arguing that "when the Democratic Party goes, this country is over," according to CNN.
The New York Times reported in May that Thiel has grown so concerned about the political situation in the US that he's created a "foothold" for himself in Argentina, which is currently being governed by ideologically likeminded libertarian President Javier Milei.
"Thiel, who has a history of collecting backup countries as he hedges his bets against the United States, is considering making Argentina another Plan B," the Times reported. "Born in Germany and raised in the United States, he received citizenship in New Zealand in 2011, and applied for a passport in Malta in 2022."
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Progressives Call On NYC Council to Expel Member Paladino for Saying CIA Should 'Neutralize' DSA Organizers
"Yet another example of Vickie Paladino calling for the federal government to retaliate against people she disagrees with," said congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier.
Jun 30, 2026
Darializa Avila Chevalier, the progressive organizer whose primary victory over five-term Democratic Congressman Adriano Espaillat last week stunned the party's establishment, was among those calling for the expulsion of New York City Council member Vickie Paladino Tuesday night after the Republican issued "a thinly veiled call" for the government "to kill" democratic socialists.
On the social media platform X, Paladino posted an image of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) 2025-27 National Political Committee, including national co-chairs Ashik Siddique and Megan Romer, and mused that in the past, government agencies may have mobilized to kill the 27 people in the picture to stop their left-wing activities.
"There was a time in our history, not too long ago, when the CIA/FBI would’ve made sure unabashed revolutionaries like this were neutralized one way or another," said Paladino (R-19). "In fact, that was basically the entire point of having them."
Paladino appeared to be referring to the FBI's Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), which surveilled, infiltrated, and tried to disrupt groups and movements that fought for civil rights and against the US war in Vietnam. COINTELPRO was involved in the 1969 raid in Chicago in which police killed Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.
"This is insane," said US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) after Paladino suggested the US government should use the FBI and CIA to "neutralize" DSA organizers, who are working to elect advocates for Medicare for All, universal childcare, and abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, among other increasingly popular progressive proposals.
Chevalier, a member of the DSA's New York City chapter, called for Paladino to be "expelled."
"We need public leaders who will fight for a politics of life and the council member has shown time and time again that she does not," said Chevalier.
Paladino's call to "neutralize" left-wing organizers came a day after she urged New York City police to "run over" protesters who were blocking officers on bikes. Last December, Paladino said the US should "take very seriously the need to begin the expulsion of Muslims from Western nations," and last June she suggested New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who was then a primary candidate, should be deported.
The Brooklyn Young Democrats also accused Paladino of "encouraging political violence" and called on the City Council to condemn her comments "and consider appropriate action—including expulsion."
Ryan Deitsch, co-founder of the gun control group A March for Our Lives, addressed the New York Police Department and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, asking whether Paladino's threat raised any "red flags."
The council member's comments came less than a week after a number of progressive primary victories in New York City, including Chevalier's. The election results led centrist Democrats to quickly mobilize against democratic socialist candidates, warning that progressive contenders are “bomb-throwers, not problem solvers"—even as Mamdani secured a two-year rent freeze that will affect roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments, as New Yorkers and people across the country struggle with rising costs.
One DSA organizer said in response to Paladino, "Imagine if Zohran Mamdani said something about having the [Republican National Committee] chair and co-chair 'neutralized one way or another' with a secret police force."
"Expel Vickie Paladino from the NYC Council," they added, "and have her arrested and charged for making a terrorist threat."
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DC’s Elections Were Divisive—But Embracing Partnership is the Path to Jewish Safety
History has taught us that Jews are safest in societies and political systems that pursue true safety for everyone who faces marginalization and hate.
Jun 28, 2026
During an election season, it’s natural to take sides—that’s what elections are for. But taking sides doesn’t have to mean dividing the Jewish community, or isolating Jews from the broader community around us.
As the Executive Director of Jews United for Justice and the JUFJ Campaign Fund in Washington, DC and Maryland, I lead a group that has worked for more than a quarter century to ensure that everyone in our region—no matter our religion, where we come from, how much money we have, or what we look like—can live with freedom, safety, and belonging. Unfortunately, in DC, we just witnessed primary elections that saw national political polarization impacting us locally. Disagreements and concerns within the Jewish community are intersecting with local electoral politics—in ways that I fear could leave us more divided and less safe. But there is another path forward.
The JUFJ Campaign Fund endorses candidates who we believe will use their voices and their offices to build a more just region for all of us, including Jews. In this month’s DC Primary election, all seven of the progressive candidates that we endorsed won. That includes Janeese Lewis George, the winner of the Democratic Primary for Mayor, and soon-to-be Councilmember Aparna Raj, both of whom have also been endorsed by local chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Given DSA’s anti-Zionist positions, for some Jews, DSA’s backing is enough to warrant labeling these politicians as a threat to our community. Yet for myself and our organization, our personal experiences of these candidates could not be more contrary to that image.
When we feel alone and misunderstood, every disagreement can seem like a threat. Yet I know, from these past 20 years, that the way through this anxiety is relationships.
All of our endorsees, including Lewis George, Raj, and others endorsed by DSA, have shown up for my colleagues and me individually, our organizations, and their own Jewish constituents. They’ve cited our community’s needs and concerns as important to them, and recognized our community as part of their winning coalitions on election night. Even—and especially—when we have had disagreements, we have remained in relationships that allow us to recognize each other’s humanity and to build a strong Jewish presence in our shared political work.
At JUFJ’s community seders this spring, we hosted a dozen candidates for local and statewide office in DC, Montgomery County, and Baltimore. These candidates were Jewish and non-Jewish, ones who had received our endorsements and ones who hadn’t, DSA members and not, of many races and ethnicities—and they all came together to retell the Passover story and connect it to the struggles we face here in our region. I’ve seen these candidates build relationships and create space for conversation with our Jewish community over many years, and throughout this campaign season. And these relationships bear fruit during hard times.
After the terrorist attack against Temple Israel in Michigan this March, a non-Jewish, DSA-endorsed candidate wrote to one of my colleagues: “I saw the news coming out of Detroit and just wanted to say I’m thinking of you. It means a lot to be able to organize alongside you and others in the Jewish community to create a vision for a multiracial democracy where we’re all safe together. Hope you're doing ok.” Another non-Jewish DSA-endorsed elected official called all the senior rabbis in their jurisdiction on October 8, 2023, and has since worked to arrange additional security for Jewish institutions after antisemitic violence. In DC and Montgomery County, our endorsed candidates in elected office have voted time and time again to support funding for Jewish nonprofits and providing security grants for places of worship.
When I started at JUFJ in 2008, I didn’t see antisemitism as one of the pivotal challenges to address in our region. Today, that has changed. We’ve made dismantling antisemitism a key piece of our ongoing work, including working with candidates and elected officials to help them gain a better understanding of antisemitism, how it affects us, and what they can do. Unfortunately, we are living through a time when some politicians and community leaders attempt to build their own power by fueling antisemitism and exploiting divisions within our communities. They want Jews to feel isolated and alone. But isolation is not a path to safety. Anger and resentment is not a strategy.
When we feel alone and misunderstood, every disagreement can seem like a threat. Yet I know, from these past 20 years, that the way through this anxiety is relationships. Building and maintaining relationships with people who are different from me means that I have people to reach out to for a better understanding of our differences. As the great Black activist and musician Bernice Johnson Reagon put it, “Coalition work is not work done in your home.” To build coalitions with people who are different from us, we must resist the urge to isolate—despite fears and disagreements.
As DC’s next mayor and other progressive and democratic socialist candidates across the country take office, we in the Jewish community have a choice ahead of us. We can treat them as potential threats—even as they say they are working to build a city where everyone can thrive. Or, we can consider them to be potential partners and allies, despite any differences—and engage openly and honestly with them on that basis.
History has taught us that Jews are safest in societies and political systems that pursue true safety for everyone who faces marginalization and hate. That is why our movement here in the DMV has endorsed candidates who are committed to tackling antisemitism, and who are also looking out for my Black, brown, immigrant, and low-income neighbors. When we look out for and talk to each other, only then can our society be a place where all of us can live with respect and dignity.
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