Democratic Socialists of America

thumb|One way or another, the era of uncontested drift into plutocracy is over. U.S. socialism is back. ~ DSA Editorial Board thumb|Capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit. We must replace it with democratic socialism, a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and society. ~ DSA thumb|What really scares the pro-plutocrats on both sides of the political aisle about...Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and other democratic socialists is that they have... an actual vision — the simple idea that it’s up to government to intervene and equalize the playing field between the capital that owns the politicians, the system and the rewards, and the general public toiling to provide those rewards Krystal Ball Democratic Socialists of America is a multi-tendency socialist and labor-oriented nonprofit organization of democratic socialist, social democratic and labor-oriented members who instead of running candidates in elections, work for reforms to weaken the power of corporations and strengthen the power of working people. DSA is the largest socialist organization in the United States in the 21st century. It currently is led by National Director Maria Svart and has endorsed three representatives in the United States Congress - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, and Rashida Tlaib. Quotes 2021 Capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit. We must replace it with democratic socialism, a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and society... We believe there are many avenues that feed into the democratic road to socialism. Our vision pushes further than historic social democracy and leaves behind authoritarian visions of socialism in the dustbin of history.. We want a democracy that creates space for us all to flourish not just survive and answers the fundamental questions of our lives with the input of all. We want to collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy production and transportation. We want the multiracial working class united in solidarity instead of divided by fear. We want to win “radical” reforms like single-payer Medicare for All, defunding the police/refunding communities, the Green New Deal, and more as a transition to a freer, more just life. What is Democratic Socialism? Democratic Socialists of America, 2021 Young Democratic Socialists of America is the youth and student section of the Democratic Socialists of America, and a national organization of recognized campus chapters and several hundred activists. We are students organizing in our universities, colleges, and high schools to fight for the immediate needs of workers and students while building our capacity to fight for more radical and structural changes. We work with labor campaigns to organize student workers of staff. We organize to defend immigrants through campaigns for sanctuary campuses. We campaign to divest our schools from fossil fuels. We do anti-poverty work through local mutual aid programs in our communities, and much much more. Young Democratic Socialists of America (2021) 2026 We understand that for many Americans, this new cycle will have been their first encounter with organized socialists as a factor in mainstream U.S. politics. Self-described socialist political organizations are a common part of the political landscape worldwide; their low profile in the United States is one of the oddities that inspired the term “American exceptionalism.” Given that history, we understand that people will want to know who we are and what we’re up to. This won’t, of course, be a neutral account, but we hope you come away with a sense of why 120,000 Americans (and growing) think this project is worth their time. DSA Editorial Board, "Meet DSA", 20 July 2026 One way or another, the era of uncontested drift into plutocracy is over. U.S. socialism is back. DSA Editorial Board, "Meet DSA", Democratic Left (20 July 2026) Quotes about DSA In the long run democratic socialists want to end capitalism... by pursuing a reform agenda today in an effort to revive a politics focused on class hierarchy and inequality... The eventual goal is to transform the world to promote everyone’s needs rather than to produce massive profits for a small handful of citizens.When democratic socialists choose reforms to rally behind, we favor battles with the potential to transform ordinary people’s lives for the better and teach millions of people the value of uniting to fight the capitalist Goliaths currently in charge of our society. Megan Day in [https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/8/1/17637028/bernie-sanders-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-cynthia-nixon-democratic-socialism-jacobin-dsa Democratic socialism, explained by a democratic socialist, Vox] (1 August 2018) The thousands of democratic socialists in the United States who have been organizing and fighting for justice in political obscurity for years likely never thought their ideas would be the subject of heated debates on prominent talk-shows like "The View" or feature pieces in such establishment mainstays as PBS and NPR. But—driven in large part by the persistent popularity of Bernie Sanders' brand of politics and the recent landslide victory of self-described democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York's congressional primary—the past several weeks have seen a torrent of news headlines, television segments, and hot takes on democratic socialism's rapid emergence into everyday political discourse, an indication that ideas previously defined as "fringe" by corporate media outlets, pundits, and politicians are quickly going mainstream. Socialism on the Rise as Americans Seek Out Bold, Humane Alternatives to the Brutality of Trump and Capitalism, Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, July 31, 2018 It's easy to focus on the "socialist" part here, but the word "democratic" is also a part of the group's name, and members often stress that part of their ideology. They say putting workers in charge of businesses, for example, necessarily makes those businesses more democratic... In addition to skyrocketing growth, the group is benefiting from young American adults growing more open to socialist ideas. One 2016 Harvard poll of 18 to 29 year olds found that 33 percent supported socialism. Capitalism was only slightly more popular with that cohort, drawing 42 percent support. "Thanks to the economic downturn of 2008, which turned the millennial generation in a significant way to the left, it made them much more open to the idea of socialism," Isserman explained. On top of that, he added, movements like Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street acquainted young Americans with organizing, making them more open to a group like DSA, with its ambitious agenda. And Bernie Sanders, despite not being a DSA member, claimed the label of "democratic socialist," helping the group gain visibility as well. What You Need To Know About The Democratic Socialists Of America by Danielle Kurtzleben and Kenny Malone, NPR, July 26, 2018 Socialism is no longer a dirty word in the U.S," noted the Guardian'''s Arwa Mahdawi in a recent column highlighting the massive surge of interest in socialism over the past several months, which has translated into a record-breaking membership spike for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Previously hovering below ten thousand members, DSA's membership exploded past 20,000 in the months following Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential elections. Now, just over a month after Ocasio-Cortez trounced corporate Democrat Rep. Joe Crowley, DSA boasts more than 47,000 dues-paying members....It should perhaps come as no surprise that Americans—and millennials in particular—are seeking a bold and humane alternative to capitalism, a system that has produced staggering and ever-growing levels of inequality, rampant poverty, an existential environmental crisis, and, of course, soaring wealth for the few at the very top. Op-Ed: Americans like socialism now, By Harold Meyerson, Los Angeles Times, July 19, 2018 The next generation of socialists believes that the intolerable cannot be tolerated. And if you believe that, you just might be a socialist yourself... The word “socialism” is becoming more and more mainstream. When Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders launched his 2016 presidential bid, only a fringe few dared to use the label. To call yourself a socialist was supposedly a political death sentence. Now, in part thanks to Sanders, many are wearing “socialism” as a badge of pride. Dozens of socialist candidates have won seats all over the country, including two members of Congress, and membership in the Democratic Socialists of America has exploded. According to a 2019 YouGov poll, 70 percent of millennials now say they would vote for a socialist. But what is socialism? How do you know whether you’re a socialist? Could you be one already without knowing it? In fact, it can be difficult to answer the question of what precisely socialism is, because socialists themselves disagree over it. That’s not surprising; Democrats disagree over what it means to be a Democrat, too. Millennials support socialism because they want to make America great — but for everyone By Nathan J. Robinson, NBC News Jan. 1, 2020 Over the last several months, as more members of Democratic Socialists of America have entered office and our membership has grown rapidly, I have sometimes found myself thinking about the phrase “the dog who caught the car” — a classic acknowledgement of the challenge we face when we finally achieve an apparently impossible goal.Since I was a teenager attending anti-Iraq war rallies, I have organized and agitated from a position of little-to-no power. If you were there and paying attention, you will remember how little appetite there was for anti-war sentiment in the early 2000s, let alone deep criticism of capitalism. My young and naive illusion that change was coming with Barack Obama’s win in 2008 was quickly diminished with each capitulation to capital and bombing of the Middle East. Somewhere along the line, the identity of a permanent underdog, fighting back against larger and more entrenched power, took root within my psyche — and, I think, in the psyche of the Left more broadly.When Bernie jumped into the national spotlight in 2015, his campaign had that same underdog feel to it, and after the Democratic Party successfully torpedoed his momentum, we socialists found ourselves again picking up the pieces and organizing from a position of little power. Dogs chasing cars. Patrick O'Neill, "Catching the Car", Democratic Left, 23 July 2026 A decade later it can be hard to appreciate the speed with which these realities have begun to shift. According to recent polling, DSA now has a higher approval rating among Democratic voters than the Democratic Party itself. If the 2026 summer primary election results in New York and other cities across the country are an indication, this changing sentiment in the electorate is starting to show up in election results.If trends continue and DSA and our principled socialist candidates continue to out-organize the corporate cardboard cutout politicians put up by the Democratic National Committee, by the time 2028 rolls around, centrist Democrats could very well find themselves in the marginalized position socialists have been stuck in for decades. If this seems hyperbolic, consider how quickly the Mitt Romneys of the Republican party found themselves supplanted by Tea Party insurgents, the most recent major American political party schism — albeit one with a very different organizational form and ideological content. Patrick O'Neill, "Catching the Car", Democratic Left, 23 July 2026 Zohran’s first six months in office as New York City’s Mayor have in many ways been a model for how we can use an executive office to bring our theory of change to a larger audience: by using his profile to build up other socialists and the movement generally, by winning structural reforms that change the balance of power from capitalists back to the people, showing people how elected socialists can and will make the lives of working people better, and by showcasing a clear distinction between democratic socialist politics and progressive politics. Mamdani has successfully maintained an affirmative vision of the future while combatting the very real crises people in his city face and managing the inherent challenges and contradictions that come with socialists in executive positions in a country built for capitalism. It has not been perfect, but at this point it is hard to believe that the socialist movement would be better off as principled opponents of a Cuomo administration. Patrick O'Neill, "Catching the Car", Democratic Left, 23 July 2026 For those who have been organizing for decades the next handful of years may be disorienting as we transform from a marginal power to a mainstream one. It may feel like the movement you once had a firm grip on is now becoming so large that it is slipping away. But this was always the goal: to build a movement so large that it sustains itself. In organizing, we are always training someone to replace us because our organizing needs to reproduce itself, to learn and grow. Our movement’s success demands that same openness.Through growth and setbacks, Democratic Socialists of America and the building of a socialist movement has continuously been one of the most important projects in the lives of tens of thousands of dedicated, determined organizers. I have no doubt that over the course of the next decade we will welcome tens of thousands and ultimately millions of new DSA members. Those of us who are here now are challenged with kindly welcoming them from where they are coming. We are, indeed, close to catching that car. We know what we need to do when we do finally catch it: we must organize the working class, kick the capitalists from the driver’s seat, and get this car driving toward socialism. Patrick O'Neill, "Catching the Car", Democratic Left, 23 July 2026 For more than a decade, the biggest story in America has been Donald Trump, and for good reason. A real estate conman and reality TV star somehow, despite being a racist, sexist, narcissistic, juvenile, and just plain stupid man, became president of the United States. And then he did it again—after a failed coup, no less. In the process, he fitfully but ruthlessly took over one of the country’s two major parties and remade it in his own authoritarian image. Then he set about doing the same to the country as a whole. The Republican Party is now a cult of personality, and America is a plutocratic paradise governed by the president’s whims.That is still very much the biggest story in the country. The president is waging two destructive wars—a literal one in the Middle East, and an economic one pretty much everywhere else—while jailing political opponents, detaining and deporting hundreds of thousands of people, attempting to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections, and musing—maybe joking, maybe not—about running for an unconstitutional third term.But for Axios founders Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, that’s old news—a status quo that no longer raises alarm among the Beltway punditry. There’s a new political threat brewing in America, and it’s just as frightening as Trump: There are reds under Democratic beds. The democratic socialists have arrived, and they’re the left’s equivalent of MAGA. And the Democratic establishment may well succumb to these unhinged insurgents, just like the Republicans before them. Alex Shepard, "The new red scare is here—and it’s dumber than ever", The New Republic (29 July 2026) Sounds scary! But here’s the evidence Allen and VandeHei provide:“All three candidates New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed won their June 23 House primaries, defeating two incumbents: Brad Lander over Rep. Dan Goldman, Claire Valdez over Brooklyn’s borough president, and Darializa Avila Chevalier over Rep. Adriano Espaillat—the Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair, backed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.Sit with that: A Jeffries-endorsed incumbent lost to a democratic socialist. That’s Stage 4 machinery switching on, with the primary electorate punishing the establishment side of the fight.It’s not just New York. In Colorado, 29-year-old democratic socialist Melat Kiros toppled 15-term Rep. Diana DeGette, who leans progressive.” Alex Shepard, "The new red scare is here—and it’s dumber than ever", The New Republic (29 July 2026) Wow, it’s not just New York City—a young democratic socialist also won in Colorado! Four primary victories for the 435-member U.S. House of Representatives. That’s the sum of the argument here. But Allen and VandeHei nonetheless insist that Democrats are in the dreaded “Stage 3” of this entirely made-up “party transformation” scale: The Democrats are rationalizing their takeover by the socialists. “Now listen to the language: ‘It’s not socialism, it’s affordability’ is the left’s ‘It’s not the tweets, it’s the judges,’” the wrote.It’s worth taking a moment to remember what those Trump tweets were, back in the day: Sexist attacks on news hosts Megyn Kelly and Mika Brzezinski. Racist digs at entire nations and the Obamas. Ridiculous accusations of “wiretapping” and voter fraud. And he never stopped, of course. There were threats of state violence: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Incessant lies that the 2020 election was “stolen.” Today, we’re subjected a daily deluge of braindead AI slop—and, yes, the usual racist, sexist garbage.But we’re supposed to worry that socialism is masquerading as affordability? Alex Shepard, "The new red scare is here—and it’s dumber than ever", The New Republic'' (29 July 2026) About a third of Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults identify as democratic socialists, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. They’re some of the party’s staunchest supporters, but many are also raring for a party overhaul at a time when democratic socialists are seeing new momentum at the polls. Building on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s victory over Andrew Cuomo last year, candidates describing themselves as democratic socialists have secured the Democratic nomination in several US House races around the country, including defeats of incumbent Reps. Adriano Espaillat in New York and Diana DeGette in Colorado.Primaries over the next few weeks will test whether the trend can expand beyond Democratic strongholds – with recent polling on the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin finding democratic socialist Francesca Hong leading the field in that critical battleground state. Edward Wu, "CNN Poll: A third of Democrats now identify as democratic socialists", CNN (30 July 2026) The House on Tuesday adopted a resolution to denounce socialism "in all its forms" in a political messaging exercise ahead of the November elections. The House adopted the resolution in a 220 to 192 to 2 vote, with eight Democrats voting with all Republicans in favor. Two Democrats voted present. The Democrats who supported the resolution included Reps. Kathy Castor of Florida, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Darren Soto of Florida and Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico. Those who voted present were Reps. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire.GOP leaders scheduled the vote after Democratic primary voters embraced a number of democratic socialist candidates. Republicans connected those wins to their own push to pass President Trump's signature voting regulations bill, the SAVE America Act. The resolution also reaffirms their support for the legislation that has been stalled for months in the Senate, where it lacks even a simple majority support. "Not only do we denounce socialism, but also the idea of people that aren't American citizens voting in our elections, because that's part of their platform," House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, said Tuesday of the Democratic Socialists of America. Caitlin Yilek, "House votes to condemn socialism, with 8 Democrats joining Republicans", CBS News (1 September 2026) A small handful of congressional Democrats identify as democratic socialists, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, though several candidates aligned with the movement have won primaries in recent months, with Darializa Avila Chevalier of New York and Melat Kiros of Colorado defeating incumbent Democrats. The vote nearly didn't come to fruition as a handful of Republican hardliners voted "no" in a party-line procedural vote earlier Tuesday to tee up the resolution and other related measures for final passage. The protest votes stemmed from their issues with a short-term government funding bill. But two moderate Democrats — Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez — defected and helped the procedural vote succeed, putting some of their Democratic colleagues in a politically tricky situation. Caitlin Yilek, "House votes to condemn socialism, with 8 Democrats joining Republicans", CBS News (1 September 2026) In a statement ahead of the vote, [Hakeem] Jeffries said he would vote against the resolution because of the SAVE America Act inclusion. "House Republicans continue to desperately push toxic voter suppression legislation instead of working to make life more affordable for everyday Americans in the midst of a searing cost-of-living crisis. House Resolution 1490 explicitly calls for enactment of the so-called SAVE America Act, which is the top legislative priority of far-right extremists," the New York Democrat said. Caitlin Yilek, "House votes to condemn socialism, with 8 Democrats joining Republicans", CBS News (1 September 2026) See also Democratic socialism Social democracy List of Wikiquote articles related to socialism List of Wikiquote articles on socialist thinkers and activists External links Category:Political parties in the United States Category:Socialism