Democratic Socialists are contesting elections as if they are members of a party, but there is no party. This is not a small detail.
A DSA banner at an October 2025 “No Kings” protest against the Trump administration. (Personisinsterest /Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0)
By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News
The Democratic Socialists of America have been feeling their oats of late, what with Zohran Mamdani’s election to the mayoralty of New York last year and a succession of D.S.A. victories in primaries across the country since then.
On Tuesday another Democratic Socialist won a primary, this one in Michigan for a U.S. House seat.
What right-thinking person does not wish these people well? But where is all this going?
We all want to hear the plan.
You have on the one hand reports that all these oats the D.S.A. is sowing have conventional liberals and mainstream Democrats in a state of high anxiety. And then you have those who look with one or another measure of derision upon the organization, the movement or whatever we are to call what is not a political party.
In my read there is cause for both. This revival of the long-moribund D.S.A. confronts Americans with all sorts of political, economic and social questions that are well worth posing and well beyond the fence posts of the reigning ideology.
At the same time, you have to wonder whether those standing for the D.S.A. in coming elections are long on grand ideas but have a poor grasp of politics and are, in consequence, fundamentally unserious about how to make all the ideas realities.
Some notes on the D.S.A. phenomenon.
Megan Romer, a national co-chair of the D.S.A, sat for a four–minute, 34-second interview on Fox News Sunday on July 26. This exchange has since made the rounds for all the views Romer expressed, some with an “Absolutely!” in reply to Shannon Bream’s questions.
Romer was very big on abolishing things: “Abolish the Senate” was one, and then came “abolish I.C.E.” “abolish prisons” and “abolish borders.” A little cryptically, Romer also proposed, “Replace the presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them.” And then:
“Defund the Pentagon.”
What is my word for these policy positions? Back in the 1960s we used to call this kind of talk “left-wing adventurism” or simply “ultra-leftism.” Either term will do. They derive from the vocabularies of Marxism or Leninism or, indeed, both — meaning uselessly, destructively unthought-through.
The D.S.A. stands for some very worthy principles of a general kind: All people deserve to live in dignity, “free-market” capitalism is a destructive force and must be superseded, “a free Palestine in our lifetimes.” And abolishing I.C.E. is, of course, an excellent idea.
But Megan Romer’s menu of policy plans, which is by no means uncommon within the D.S.A., causes me to do something I am rarely inclined to do. Because of Romer I have to agree with an assessment the Cato Institute published Monday. “The Democratic Socialists of America are out of touch with normal Americans,” Rikki Schlott wrote on Cato’s website. Then came lots of polling statistics to back up Schlott’s case.
The Cato piece, which includes the video of the Fox News Sunday interview with Romer, is here. I do not know who qualifies as a normal American and do not think there is any credible way to quantify anyone being “out of touch.” But with ultra-leftists such as Romer at the top the D.S.A. most certainly tilts in that direction.
To Lead & Follow
A Palestinian flag flown in the crowd of Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration as New York City mayor on Jan. 1, 2026. (SWinxy / Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 4.0)
Let me get this straight. The D.S.A. proposes to accomplish the sorts of things its leadership and constituents demand — capitalism must go, major corporations must be nationalized, etc. — by way of the American electoral system? Say whaaa?
I simply do not understand obliviousness of this order. Is it purposeful self-deception? Are electoral politics merely the proscenium within which D.S.A. people such as Romer indulge in a performative radicalism?
Is it an unwillingness to address the very large implications, in terms of shared responsibilities, that come with concluding there is no getting anything worthwhile done by voting in a system wherein money gets all the votes that matter?
The D.S.A. had its annual convention in Chicago last week, as you may have read (or even attended). There were convocations on topics such as “Governing as Socialists” and “Building to a General Strike” and “Organizing Fundamentals,” the last a series of training sessions.
I read in The New York Times, so it must be true, that many of those present swelled with pride as they discussed the Romer interview. A delegate from Seattle named Chanpreet Singh took the podium and said à propos Romer, “You’re going to have to constantly push and advocate for things that people don’t think, until they think it.”
Do tell, Chanpreet.
My mind goes straight to a remark attributed to Alexandre Auguste Ledru–Rollin, a French lawyer and legislator celebrated (in France, anyway) as a leader of the Revolution of 1848 and then as a radical in the cause of republicanism during the Second Empire, 1852 to 1870.
“I am their leader,” Ledru–Rollin once said of the republican movement. “It is necessary to follow them.” A simplified translation: “To lead I had to follow.
This is not the utterance of a revolutionary avant-gardiste in the Leninist mold. What did Ledru–Rollin, whose role in the rise of French republicanism was key but also controversial, mean?
To keep things simple, he thought it essential to listen to people and address them on their own terms, in their own language. This led him eventually to oppose the more extreme of his contemporaries (and so fall out with them).
I conclude this note with a memo to Chanpreet Singh.
You have to listen to those you wish to lead and be where they are, not where you wish them to be. Zohran Mamdani is an excellent case in point.
Have you noticed how much time Zo — I can’t resist the tabloidese — spends walking the streets where New Yorkers walk? This is an essential feature of his m.o. He does not traffic in extravagant dreams and performative radicalism.
Zo is now working on dozens of regulations and deregulations to make work and life easier for shopfront merchants. Among these is a proposal to drop a strange old rule requiring those who sell ice cream to have a special permit.
One other thing, Chanpreet. People may not think some things you think because… because they don’t think them. To bang on with your “constant pushing” until they think what you think: It’s a bit Leninist, isn’t it?
It’s Not Denmark
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders at a “Fight Oligarchy” rally at Mullett Arena in Tempe, Arizona, in March 2025. (Gage Skidmore/ Flickr/ CC BY-SA 2.0)
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, the two most prominent Democratic Socialists now holding public office, customarily cite Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries when they explain their model of how democratic socialism would look and work in the United States.
This is sloppy thinking on any number of grounds. The Scandos are social democratic, not democratic socialist, and there are many differences.
Denmark and the others followed the Second International, founded in 1889, and, after various splits, committed to working within the capitalist model as against abolishing this, that and the other. These are also small nations, as against the sprawl of a nation of 340 million people.
The biggest difference, at least to my mind, has to do with politics and culture. I think of the former as at bottom an expression of the latter. The Scandos have long traditions of communitarianism, and this is deeply embedded in those extensive social-welfare systems we read about. Culture has everything to do with why social democracy has worked in the Scandinavian countries better than elsewhere.
Any dream of an immense version of Denmark working in a late-phase imperium— hyper-militarized, hyper-corporatized, given to a radical extreme of individualism — is culturally and politically illiterate. For good measure, the United States is now hyper–Zionized, too. Sanders, Ocasio–Cortez are, thus, selling the familiar snake oil: We can have empire broad and an authentic democracy at home.
No, we can’t.
Cases in point: Democratic Socialist Sanders votes in favor of the Pentagon’s scandalous defense budget time and again because there are companies in Vermont dependent on F–35 jet production.
Democratic Socialist Ocasio–Cortez hems and haws and bobs and weaves—remember her “There is the ‘what’ and the ‘how’” nonsense? — whenever support for the Zionist terror state comes up.
The last book Chalmers Johnson published shortly before he died was called Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope (Metropolitan, 2010). I do not see the D.S.A. taking on the reality Chalmers captured in his title through his passionately written essay.
What are we talking about? Democratic socialism with an imperium attached, or an imperium with a variant of Denmark at work on the home front?
Harrington’s Miscalculation
American socialist and political philosopher Michael Harrington in a 1965 portrait by Joan Bingham for a book jacket of his The Twilight of Capitalism. (Simon and Schuster/ Wikimedia Commons/ Public Domain)
What terrible damage to a true and effective American politics did the Cold War and the pernicious anti–Communism of Cold War liberalism wreak. Then came the New Left, and things got worse.
Centralized political organizations were a very major no-no. Authority, party discipline and associated hierarchies were dismissed as antithetical to the cause. Power was suspect; everything else had to be decentralized.
And so to the D.S.A.
Decentralization has been the ruling principle since the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, good old D–Soc, merged with the New American Movement in 1982 and Michael Harrington assumed leadership of the resulting D.S.A.
There was never any question of forming a party: That would require centralized lines of authority and hierarchies of one or another kind. This was Harrington’s most unfortunate miscalculation. The D.S.A. was to work within the Democratic Party, riding its centralized lines of authority and hierarchies like … like a donkey.
For decades prior to its recent rejuvenation, the D.S.A. was more or less beside the point, as readers may recall.
Now you have Democratic Socialists contesting elections as if they are members of a party, but there is no party. This is not a small detail. You have, in consequence, what amounts to a party platform except that any given candidate can disavow any plank in it if it is to his or her political advantage. It looks more than a little messy, to be honest.
I return to my initial point. Stalinist excesses and the Cold War liberals’ cowardly participation in the anti–Communist pile-on of the Cold War decades have been a disaster for left politics in the United States.
Centralized organization, the disciplines that come of principled lines of authority: If history is any guide there is no achieving enduring outcomes in the messy universe of politics without these.
A certain schizophrenia is now evident in the D.S.A., all its good people notwithstanding, and I do not hear anyone talking about it.
Michael Harrington’s legacy, in keeping with a long tradition of left-liberal movements and causes, was a movement that served as the reformist conscience of the Democratic Party. This turned out to be cheap thrills, or none at all.
And in its revived state, there is no way under the sun the D.S.A. will get the Democrats — not even the most “progressive” of its elected officials and certainly not the odiously corrupt Democratic National Committee — to accept its more honorable positions.
A theory, indeed: The worthier a given D.S.A. policy plank, the less chance there is of mainstream Democrats endorsing and waging political war in its cause. Let us say “Yes!” to advancing beyond capitalism, and again to bringing grossly powerful corporations under control in the interest of the American majority, O.K., but the Democratic Party is assertively capitalist and the willing, dependent servant of said corporations.
Listening to Americans is half of the task before the D.S.A. now. The other half is listening to itself.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, lecturer and author, most recently of Journalists and Their Shadows, available from Clarity Press or via Amazon. Other books include Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been restored after years of being censored.
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Nothing in the political field lasts forever. We all recognise this. Every system eventually reveals its limits. Politics is always a mirror of our collective thinking — a reflection of how we see the world and how we behave toward one another. Today, that mirror is showing us that the old patterns can no longer carry us forward.
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Patrick Lawrence offers a steady, insightful look at the contradictions shaping our moment, pointing to the deeper lessons now coming into view — and it’s time to include such analysis in our wider understanding. Thank you for the good read.
Re Michael Harrington: In his major work, “Socialism” MH had ONE reference to Karl Marx. Going from memory here, the reference was, “Marx’s theory of surplus value was wrong.” That’s it. One sentence. From the dean of American socialism. Feh.
Interesting! It strikes me as a type of unintended controlled opposition. Not controlled opposition in the traditional sense where paid agents pretend to be opposition to ensure that the opposition doesn’t accomplish the things they’d like to in ways directed by some J Edgar Hoover type person, but genuine opposition that is controlled.
There is most definitely a ceiling above them they can’t break through. As Patrick points out, they’re not actually a party, they’re a part of the Democratic Party.
Super-delegates were invented a long time ago to ensure a limit on how far they can go and that isn’t the only limiting factor, just the upper limit. Nina Turner reached the limit at a lot lower level several years ago.
They can certainly do cool things below that limit, like government grocery stores.
One thing MLK and Malcolm X had in common was the recognition of the connection between imperialism abroad and oppression at home.
Patrick sees that essential connection.
Since our fptp two-party system is a big impetus for people making up their own 3 letter name just to be a part of an already existing party which limits them instead of having their own party, I think it’s good to consider how the top-two have been changed in the past.
The Whigs sank slowly for some years until suddenly they sank very quickly.
Dissatisfied voters gradually drop off for a while. The rest of the voters sticking with the sinking party are hanging on for the odds. That’s the attraction of the big two in a first-past-the-post system, odds. The last 3 letters in VBNMW literally mean, “we are not particular.” In other words, they’re just there for the odds.
Odds move exponentially.
So, once a certain number of dissatisfied voters drops off, the remaining voters, just there for the odds, have to realize that the odds aren’t there anymore. Their strategic votes are no longer strategic.
At that point 70 million strategic voters have to shop around.
That’s why, in first-past-the-post systems, once the realignment happens, it happens a lot faster than you would think having watched the slow trickle for a long time.
This is the natural self-correction mechanism that a first-past-the-post system has. The DNC understands this. That’s why they’re constantly stepping up their anti GPUSA lawfare. This is why they teamed up with the Republicans to form the Presidential Debate Commission, taking the job away from the League of Women Voters who were doing a much better job of it.
They can put it off but it is bound to happen eventually.
In 2024 the Democratic Party itself knew from its own extensive 50-state polling that they would lose. They knew by how much and in which states. They knew why. They didn’t let on until November 8th in The Independent.
It’s not that big a step from the party itself knows it can’t win anymore to EVERYONE knows it can’t win anymore.
And most of that everyone is just there for the odds.
At that point, with their strategic votes no longer strategic, they are free to look for a real party.
And, when that happens, the new party will need progressives already seated to work with.
The DSA shouldn’t simp for the DNC against the GPUSA, as they have done in Southern California, thinking it will win them DNC points because, at some point, we’re all going to have to work together.
GPUS. There is no GPUSA.
“Centralized organization, the disciplines that come of principled lines of authority: If history is any guide there is no achieving enduring outcomes in the messy universe of politics without these.”
Oh? And this differs from Lenin (BOO HISS) how?
“Centralized organization, the disciplines that come of principled lines of authority: If history is any guide there is no achieving enduring outcomes in the messy universe of politics without these.”
Oh? And this is not an echo of Lenin (BOO! HISS!) how?
They’re doing something, which is more than can be said of the non-Republican American political class for decades now.
Is it the right thing? Maybe, maybe not. Don’t like it? Then do something else — but it’s a dead certainty that you’ll never beat the neoliberal consensus by constantly offering NOTHING.
It is extremely difficult, and sows confusion, to render abstract wish-list of ‘socialist’ phrasemongering as somehow ‘ultra-leftism’ when it originates entirely from a loose left-reformist tendency within the thoroughly bourgeois Democratic Party, moreover with a strategy still dominated by electoral politics. Of course, the DSA isn’t a disciplined party with a well-defined, let alone concrete, program to take power to begin the task of building an actual socialist society; nor does it have a structure and leadership committed to such based on democratic centralism.
However, the existence of the DSA does need to be placed in the context of two apparent overriding features of US politics. The first, almost unique to the US, is the absence of a mass working class party, historically prevented from arising through the power of the US ruling class and its state in effectively repressing any organised political expression emerging from the working class. This was effected through the Cold War and McCarthyism that was able to purge the workers movement of any ‘red’ leaders to replace them with thoroughly corrupted and compromised union (mis)leaderships with no program beyond bread-and-butter economism and no political ambitions outside the narrow Repubicrat pro-capitalist spectrum.
The second factor, not confined to the US but afflicting all the advanced capitalist countries, has been the decades-long abdication of the left from addressing the essential material and ongoing needs of the working class in favour of chasing and tailing liberal causes like environmentalism and all manner of identity politics. These causes have had little bearing on defending working class interests, let alone infusing any kind of communist consciousness in the working class. Instead the left swallowed whole the liberalism of the ruling classes.
Thus in a world today wracked by crises that have gnawed away at working classes throughout the ‘west’, where attempts to fight back have been sabotaged by misleadership almost universally, it is no wonder that the working classes of the west now look in desperation to the far right to ‘defend’ their interests.
The DSA is a loose swamp to be sure, but today it has attracted large numbers of young, subjectively revolutionary members quite open to Bolshevik politics (ie, Leninism). In the current US situation this is a positive development that a left group with Bolshevik politics would work to exploit.
Every crisis in American life is a watershed, and in every crisis the liberals – even the left-liberals, so called — fail to make it over the pass. I’m sorry to see Patrick Lawrence slide down the mountain into the dry gulch of liberal abjection. He should know that if he finds himself agreeing with the Cato Institute his thinking has gone awry, a point made plain by the erssential incoherence of his essay.
The range of possibility in American politics has been claustrophically narrow from the beginning, but especially so since 1945. The internet, by giving establishment media the raspberry, has measureably widened this narrowness. It is now possible to say things that were mere heresy even in the 60s, when the self-anointed leadership of the New Left allowed itself to be swallowed whole by the Democratic Party. The DSA has turned the thing inside out: it raises the possibility that the Democrats can be destroyed from within.
But that’s as may be. The important thing about Romer’s interview is the fact that a member of the DSA has had an opportunity to air radical views on network television. Fox News may have thought it was allowing Romer to demolish herself; the reality was that it allowed her into a room from which TV has hitherto been most careful to exclude her kind. Romer exposed millions of Americans — conservative Americans — to ideas that they may at present find risible or grotesque, but that may at the same time resonate with them. Trump is at once the reductio ad absurdum of American politics and an incohate protest against those politics. Romer invited Trump’s constituency to think beyond the impieties invoked not only by Trump and Fox News, but also the pietisms upheld by the New York Times, CNN, The Atlantic, AOC, Sanders and so on. This invasion of American minds by outrageous proposals for change was made possible by the electoral victories of the DSA but is more important than those victories. The “progressives” in Congress are not likely to make much headway against the Democratic mainstream, and the Democratic mainstream is committed to the wishful fanstasy that fascism is not, in fact, on the march. But the invitation to Americans to think the unthinkable, ironically validated by the Moloch of Fox News, is a new wrinkle, if a very small one. By all means, let the DSA sweep away the corrupt minions of APAC. Some good may follow. But what we really need, if fascist oligarchy is not to prevail, is a national conversation about first principles and received ideas – including the idea of “the United States” itself.
If you think the Democratic Party will be destroyed from within by the Democratic Socialists then I’m sorry to say, that is delusional. AOC and Saunders (and I guess the rest of the “squad”) are clear indications of this. The Democratic Party is rotten to core, just as is the Republican Party. The entire US political system is rotten to core. Nothing short of a complete take down and rebuild is going to change anything in a meaningful way.
IMHO if the Democratic Socialists of American can’t run and win under their own banner, what is the point?
The basic problem with this kind of entryist or even activist-oriented organizing the DSA likes to practice is that you eventually end up pitting small groups of people with limited resources against a massive organized ruling-class complex. Whether it’s the professional incubator of the non-profit industrial complex, or the politician incubator of ruling-class parties like the Democrats or Republicans, they both function the same: Individuals attempting to exploit or “trick” these machines have to compromise or sell out to succeed–or rather its the sellouts that the massive organized ruling-class complex allows to succeed in order to give the impression of token resistance.
Working “within the system” with these kind of strategies inevitably entails abandoning mass organizing for cults of personality because the functional power gap between activist and elected official is so large. And the moment a cult of personality replaces real organizing, it becomes easy prey for co-option and smothering by organized ruling-class complexes.
By nature of the extreme class inequality in our society, the working class will simply never have the monetary resources to build equivalent machines of their own that can counterweigh the massive resources our rulers put into their own lobbying groups, political parties, non-profit organizations, etc.. That’s why the only way to effectively confront their ruling class complexes is with class action. And an effective political party must be an outgrowth of this class action and not the other way around.
Howie Hawkins wrote a good article article arguing for a mass-organized left party several years back. It’s a shame so many people didn’t learn their lesson after all the Sanders heartache:
hxxps://popularresistance.org/from-the-bottom-up-the-case-for-an-independent-left-party/
Unfortunately, Howie has shown himself to be a dupe for imperialist foreign policy. Ukraine has been the tell.
Party? Plan? Oh, good. Once we have that, the powers that be, the owners, are going to obediently roll over and we’ll have paradise.
I am neither a supporter nor opponent of DSA, yet I applaud any efforts to broaden the minds of the brain-dead, MSM-ingesting populace. Asking for what we assume to be impossible is the necessary first step in making smaller gains possible.
But, then, I don’t see elections as a realistic path to change anything that’s not essentially local. The owners of this country are experienced in manipulating thought and cracking heads when that doesn’t work; we’ve seen countless examples of it around the globe. Have no doubt that they’ll do the same things here, too.
The owners don’t see themselves as evil, but as righteous. They are as passionate about their ethos as we are about ours. They will not willingly hand over the power they have accumulated under any circumstances.
We must continue to push outside of the box–way outside. “Realistic” alternatives are useless.
I have no doubt “The owners of this country are experienced in manipulating thought and cracking heads when that doesn’t work we’ve seen countless examples of it around the globe. Have no doubt that they’ll do the same things here, too.”
They “will do that too”? They’ve done it already, many times.
You’re right, of course. They’ll do whatever else they need to do to maintain their dominance and they’ll fight to the last investment banker.
Working within the system has brought us to what we have now. Look where it got Bernie Sanders!!! The Geen Party has been around for years. We have more Independant voters than we have Rs or Ds. I think it’s a great new idea to NOT have a party. It’s way past time for some NEW WAYS OF THINKING and it looks like it’s working. Many of us agree that the STATUS QUO isn’t working and hasn’t for years! Why in the world wouldn’t we want to try something NEW??
James David “Scooter” Vance says Trump should be locked up.
The depth of this mans ignorance passes the Mariana Trench!
A lot to late to attempt to distance yourself there “Scooter”!
MY regrets here, this should read;
James David “Scooter Libby” Vance says, “Trump should be locked up.”
The depth of this mans ignorance passes that of the Mariana Trench.
Should read, Quite a lot to attempt to distance one’s self from this late in the game.
As a supporter of the Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site, I put forward what we Marxists have been saying all along: The DSA are just left-wing Democrats. They support the capitalist system. They are tolerated because their job is to herd the population back into the Democratic Party. Since the Democratic Party is capitalist to the core and answers to the same banks and corporations and warmongers as the Republicans, this is a trap and a dangerous one for anyone who supports actual socialism. This is not glib simplification. It is simply a fact. As Rosa Luxemburg said, the choice is either socialism or barbarism. We have barbarism, and will continue to have barbarism until capitalism is either crushed, or the world ends. Pick one.
Thank you. Well said.
What the DSA does identify like defunding and even getting rid of police requires some very “interesting” argumentation given that the USA per person ranks very very high on the crime scale.
And open borders like we had under Biden when somewhere around 10 million people came here in caravan after caravan requires even more persuasive argumentation, given the impact Spain’s border had on being open for just a few days and absorbing about 50,000 people had on it and Europe.
Richard Pelto:
First of all, it is not only US crime statistics that are off the charts….but also its actual number of policemen. It is one of the most overpoliced countries in the world. I think the stat is that the New York City police alone constitute one of the largest armies in the world. So…..I think it is fair to consider that spending all that money on policemen….aint actually solving the crime.
Which is no surprise actually. The US crimiminalises everything, except actual mega crimes. But simple things like drug addition, a medical condition, in the US are felony crimes. Mentally ill people having episodes, are “guilty” of disobeying the police and at best improsoned, and at worst summarily executed. Every day, I think one in 3 people killed by US police are mentally ill – WTF is there funding for police but no funding for actual qualified healthcare responders to handle mentally ill people,
Minor petty infractions like those allegedly committed by Eric Garner or George Floyd? The US is the only country in the industrialised world that actually uses so much police resources that they have time to summon 4-5-6 police to not just apprehend but acually kill the person on the spot.
Yes, defund the police. Fund mental heathcare. Fund community programs for kids. Fund fre national daycare.
Plus overpolicing generates prisoners – slave workers – and hostages to squeeze their families for money for the privatized prison industry.
Nobody said you dont need police at all. BUt its blindingly obvious the US makes poor choices in pouring money at policemen who are NOT the ones needed for a great deal of the actual problems.
READ the actual DSA program:
hxxps://program.dsausa.org/#demand-end-mass-incarceration
Read the actual DSA program, so you can actually critique it correctly. You misquoted them to the point of basically spreading misinformation.
And no I dont think the DSA will work. But that is because it is a part of the Democratic Party Inc, which we know spends money on lawfare to keep actual socialists like the Green Party, off ballots. So the DSA is a sheepdogging excercise.
But yes cut the taps on money wasted from US overpolicing. It’s a no brainer.
Believe the vast majority of Morrocans returned to Morroco. Big question for me is why Spain maintains a strip of land in Africa? Believe Cueta et al that should belong to Africa.
It seems to me that DSA’s approach to politics is entirely in line with the primary modern approach to planning in America. It essentially has devolved to utilizing variations of the following “plan”:
1. Do something (theoretically “good”)
2. Magic happens
3. Get the result you want
We see this everywhere from corporate operations to political action to Trumpian “foreign policy” (yes, the quotation marks are necessary).
Throw money at LLMs. Magic happens. Artificial General Intelligence arrives and saves us all from ourselves.
Surprise attack Iran. Magic happens. We somehow improve on what was going on.
Elect members of DSA to Congress. Magic happens. We get change to the political system that works in the interests of working people and everyday Americans.
The more you look for this kind of “planning”, the more you realize that it has become the backbone of plan to maintain American Exceptionalism in every walk of America life.
If only somebody could (or would) define what “magic happens” actually requires and plan a way to make it so. But alas….
I agree with your assessment.
It seems that the DSA ‘planners’ have spent too much time watching ‘South Park’ and have internalized the logic of the underpants-stealing dwarfs:
Step 1: Steal underpants
Step 2: >something happens<
Step 3: Collect large profits
How do you think change is produced in a an elected republic? If enough congress people say no to increased military budget, or war on Iran, or for universal health care or as Democrats led by FDR did for social security the government acts on those decisions. Do you have a better way?
Ladies & Gentlemen, imo, itsa B I N G O!!! i.e., “The Scandos are social democratic, not democratic socialist, and there are many differences.” TY, Patrick Lawrence.
….. Agreed! Meanwhile, $tirring the pot, “the two most prominent” [politicians, posing as] “Democratic Socialists’ [credibility, is “GONE! South of the equator. “Sandy”- AOC & Bernie] “customarily cite Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries when they explain their model of how democratic socialism would look and work in the United States”.
The JACKPOT!!! “This is sloppy thinking on any number of grounds. The Scandos are social democratic, not democratic socialist, and there are many differences”. Clarity Counts!!! TY, Patrick Lawrence.
100%!!! “Democratic Socialists are contesting elections as if they are members of a party, but there is no party. This is not a small detail.” Agreed! “Never Say Die”. IMO, in the present, Big “D” Socialists are “under the thumb” of The DNC; BUT, these socialists are the children [“small detail”] of the people, “parents”, who for f/ever, rocked “The $tatus Quo has got to Go!” Some day, “we” will “LIVE, FREE” of the those who currently reign supreme.
How about “abolish” the duopoly? In the meantime, imo, Socialists will rock and roll the $tatus Quo, “Got” Receipts! The mountain wins, again!
And, the ABC’s of the DNC, “Sandy” AOC & Bernie, eyes wide open, minds shut! Well, “many people” live to never f/ever, again, be buffaloed, bamboozled, betrayed by that independent, hot-air factory fm Vermont via NY, &; his $idekick, “Sandy.” Buh-bye, Bernie/AOC, yesterday!!!
Onward & Upwards! TY.
p.s., JULY 25, 2016, A Master Class, in Real-Time, “How to “Abolish” a Platform, a Party, Politicians wailing, “I’m w/HER!” i.e., Done & Dusted by the artist, Mr. Fish, @ hxxps://www.truthdig.com/videos/democratic-national-convention-demonstrators-led-by-chris-hedges-cornel-west-multimedia/
….. Mr. Fish created the illustration, based on the footage, captured by Alexander Reed Kelly.
“On the [FIRST] day of the Democratic National Convention” [July 25 to 28, 2016, in Philly, PA.,] Chris Hedges & Cornel West “Shut the Front Door” on The Democrats’ National Convention, Inc.! “BIGLY”!!! Hedges & West led a whole lotta people, straight outta that party’s Democratic National Convention!!! “[FROM] Philadelphia City Hall down Broad Street.”
…..All, hail, Collective Resistance! SEE, Mr. Fish’s illustration“Rendered, by the way, from a series of shots expertly snapped from Alex, who risked life and limb to walk backward in flip-flops down the middle of Broad Street while being circled by rotund and panting policemen on bicycles,” said Mr. Fish of his creation of the illustration. (July 26, 2016, WATCH in full @ link above. TY, Victor Davis Hanson) CN, et al.
our own spooks couldn’t undermine the movement more efficiently than the several pie-in-the-sky anti-institutional planks the movement itself has put together, wedding righteous common sense populist ideas that the majority of americans are in such desperate need of with a burn-it-to-the-ground potpourri of ideas elon musk, steve bannon, and the fruitcake in the white house share as well.
Excellent critique and a realistic appreciation of the current US political environment. Without a party, a plan, and the discipline to move forward there is no hope of making lasting changes. Just getting on the ballot is nearly impossible even if you have a party—just ask Jill Stein.
Also, I strongly endorse your centering the problem of the US hyper-militarized empire and its necessary requirement for endless wars, as a starting point for any realistic solution to our hyper-capitalist exponential growth model.
Working within the Democratic Party is a surrender. Working as a lone legislator without a party to support you is simply an ego trip.
Spot on. In Washington state, their failure to endorse politically experienced socialist Kshama Sawant against imperialist Democratic congressman Adam Smith, reportedly because she’s been critical of DSA, is inexplicable. This is not the action of people who are serious about analyzing class politics and forming effective strategies that include all workers, not just those who are socially acceptable.
Right on! Kshama Sawant is truly a socialist and an example to all the DSA fakes.
I have to wonder about viability of the leadership of the Democratic party.
Where does the funding for these splinter groups who pop up randomly come from. Our country has without any doubt become the target of individuals who seek to destroy what remains the presidential and congressional processes pressed into use by the two major political parties currently being ravaged by the dark money which is assuming control of the political processes in use currently in this country.
The SCOTUS rulings reversing previous rulings of the Citizens United case. The result has become chaos apparently.
The harbinger of bad things lurking in the immediate future is a very real problem.
Lawrence’s mindset is penned in in 1960’s rules!
I disagree to a point here. Can you give me some examples of the rules you speak of here?
The rule book went out the window when CIA started death squads for Presidents in the western hemisphere and North America proper
Do you approve the SCOTUS 2010 reversal of the Citizens United ruling?
Do you approve of the U.S. Governments protecting, aiding, and prosecution of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, yes or no?
Corporations are DEFINITELY NOT equivalent to ‘human Beings’.
The word Rules has been Weaponized and turned into Ruses. At this late stage, is it even necessary to still ask: BY whom?
Despite the Supreme Court never having actually ruled that corporations are human beings, the Court established the legal concept of corporate personhood; meaning a corporation is treated as a “legal person” (or jural person) under the law. Purdue Global Law School [1]
What Corporate Personhood Means in actuality.
Corporations may:
Own property and land in the corporate name.
Sign legal contracts and agreements.
Sue and be sued in a court of law.
Pay taxes and exist continuously past the lives of their owners. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
(How many of these ‘corporately legal persons’ pay their fair share towards the maintenance and improvement of the system that they extort?)
Real working people once had real Unions, which these purported of “legal persons” made sure to kill off.
While millions of active corporations may pay taxes or remit sales and payroll levies, studies by groups like the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy show that dozens of large, profitable corporations pay zero federal income tax in a given year due to legal deductions, credits, and tax provisions.]
April 14, 2026
At Least 88 Profitable U.S. Corporations Paid Zero Federal Income Tax in 2025 on $105 Billion in pre-tax Profits,
Because a court, of nine human beings, decided amongst themselves, in secret, at the behest of any ‘evil person’, who happens to be the sitting President at the time the change comes into force of simply establishing a new legal concept of ‘corporate personhood’; does not change the natural evolution of ‘human nature’ for the better. [Institute On Taxation and Economic Policy]
Fact: Today the SCOTUS is loaded 6 – 3 with ultra zealous MAGA conservative Homosapiens.
Simply juridically changing rules—known in legal theory as “rules of change”—refers to the authorized legal processes by which laws, regulations, and institutional policies are created, altered, or repealed. These mechanisms ensure legal systems can adapt to societal needs, economic shifts, and new technologies without resorting to extra-legal or revolutionary actions. [US Legal Forms].
Not when an all-powerful sitting president, with the blessings of “the swamp” he leads, has autocratically decided to take the country in the direction of a totalitarian plutocratic dictatorship.
Extra-legal means refers to actions, methods, or practices that fall outside the regular scope, control, or authority of the law. These activities are not officially regulated, authorized, or sanctioned by the legal system, meaning they exist in a space that the law does not cover or recognize.
Reply to your 1st question
This is the terrain this President has now brought the country to, and is now part owner operator of, or so, in personal capacity, he believes.
Reply to the 2nd.
MOST DEFINITELY NOT!
.
Suggest you take a deeper look at Caroline Zaremba’s comment on ‘the topic’ “A Certain Schizophrenia” for a discerning insight.
Vague calls to defund whatever. Sounds to many like a threat to their families and belongings. Anxiety. Nihilism. The far right wants chaos; then any order seems better than none especially when they offer certainty and control. Left dogmatists want an elite vanguard since the really don’t trust “the People.” DSA types say they do, yet don’t seem to bother to get to know personally the working class they claim to represent. General strike! Great idea–so how are you going to pull off that lofty armchair proclamation? Ask anyone who’s done union organizing. Or who experienced the intense danger of civil rights activism. It takes many years of dedicated effort.
Not saying Bernie or AOC can’t improve, but declaring them sell-outs is a purity test. It also shows a profound lack of understanding how politics works. An elected official has to represent all residents in a district, not just those with the proper beliefs. And members of a legislative body have to reach agreements by compromise. Certainly there are times when the only answer is no. But be pure, be totally inflexible, get nothing. Probably not even elected in the first place.
Look at alliances like the complex coalition during the huge 1999 “Battle of Seattle” anti-WTO demonstrations. Those against? Labor unions, churches, Indigenous peoples, small farmers, eco-activists, scientists, Cancel the Debt activists, students, small businesses, medical professionals, alt. economists, community organizers and more. Both local and from around the world. No purity test required to participate. Alliances are seldom perfect.
“…social democratic, not democratic socialist, ”
“Are you the Judean People’s Front? F*ck off! ‘Judean People’s Front.’ We’re the People’s Front of Judea!”
I couldn’t resist.
Having ones cake and eating it whilst promoting pipe-dreams seems to be how generations of politicians were raised to believe the system works. Whatever could have given them such an idea…
Unlucky for us we live in a Monty Python sketch. A disturbing parody of one, at least.
You’ve offered solid sustenance as food for thought, Mr. Lawrence. Thank you for caring.
piss all over it all you want, but I’m voting for someone I agree with, and I don’t know why it took so long for them to surface… I think old people don’t like change, and that’s ok but it’s not their future.
I just had hernia surgery, I can’t urinate well at the moment but I am healing up quickly.
A couple of questions are in order here.
How about you, are you all in with Death squads for presidents by CIA? The rule book went away when CIA allowed JFK’s murder.
While I’m at it, what about the USA’s support, material aid to Israel for the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Yes or no!
km, this isn’t change. Some of us “old people” have been a round the block a few times and have seen this before, at least once. You want meaningful change? Get off your phones, learn some history and get involved.
‘Democratic Socialist Sanders votes in favor of the Pentagon’s scandalous defense budget time and again because there are companies in Vermont dependent on F–35 jet production.’
He has voted with the Democrats 98 percent of the time. Let us put his qualified support for $15/hour into context:
1865: ‘Instead of the conservative motto, A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work, we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, Abolition of the wage system’ (Marx, Value, Price, and Profit).
1928: ‘Earning a wage is a prison occupation’ (Wages, DH Lawrence).
1965: Workers still ‘don’t realise that they can abolish the wages system’ (Socialist Standard).
2019: $15/hour by 2024? (Sanders’ Raise the Wage Act).
2026: The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.
FWIW, ?’Democratic Socialist’ is a a tautological misnomer – Sanders et al. as well as the DSA ?are better described as social democrats: they are socialist in name only.
Hear, hear!
I’d argue that they are best described as naked opportunists. Bernie was bloodied when he marched in Selma, and he honeymooned in the USSR when he married. He sought to waken the sleeping American masses who he may have believed could fundamentally change the party that had been transformed to a war party by the Clinton influence.
He had a moment where he was poised to win the DP nomination, but the DNC was not having it. Sanders had made a Faustian bargain for the ability to run for office via a party to which he wasn’t a member, and not surprisingly, when he was beating their candidate, they bent the rules. It happened again in 2020, and the public seemed to catch on before the monotone crusader. Again, he campaigned for Biden, just as he had done for Hillary, because that was the price of admission.
Then, he paid again when the Democrats embraced the neocon agenda, and Sanders found himself blaming Russia for an “unprovoked” invasion of Ukraine. And he criticized Netanyahu, but never Israel, and he couldn’t bring himself to call the war on Gaza a genocide.
Maybe this is just part of a developmental phase. I’m not likely to agree with Megan Romer on many counts and I think it true there needs to be more listening and organizing to be truly successful and like the Zionists, take the slow path and get yourself ensconced in city, county, school boards, state levels, etc. Mamdani is a great example to follow and learn from.
Lawrence begins by saying not having a party is wrong.
He follows by saying not having a plan is wrong.
He then criticises the plan they do not have.
Having a party means you vote for someone who represents the party. Your representative.
Having a plan means the party gets to decide, not the people who vote.
That is how we got to where we are now. Maybe they want to try for something better. Like a real democracy.
Good point.
Exactly, John. A party can be taken over by elites. A loose organization of like minded people can provide plausible food for thought to an entire population. A real democracy mulls this intellectual meal and comes up with something wide ranging experience and intelligence decides is a proper first step away from corporatist disaster.
Capitalism rules out democracy, which can only develop under socialism which demands the resources of the globe be under the control of the workers, who have the greatest interest in preserving it.
Lydia, that was succinct, simple and clear enough that even I could understand it. Thank you
Teach, sister!! ?
Yep. :)
You argue that democracy can only develop after the arrival of world-wide socialism under the control of the workers.
In that case, how do you propose to get working class control?
Just sit around and wait for capitalism to run out of steam?
I think it would be more productive to build democratic structures at the grass-roots level and extend them upward. Beginning perhaps with democratic labor unions.
I’d love to see some political candidates who are committed to removing the legal impediments to labor organization.
Hear! Hear!