How Socialist Is the D.S.A.? Megan Romer Explains

One of the biggest stories of this election cycle is the emergence, for the first time in a long time, of socialism as a force on the national stage. Inspired perhaps by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani, D.S.A. candidates are running in congressional and state-level races all over the country. But some of those candidates, David Remnick thinks, talk more like F.D.R. Democrats than like students of Marx. How socialist is democratic socialism, and how does it square with the future of the Democratic Party? Remnick talks with a co-chair of the D.S.A., Megan Romer, who recently went viral for a lightning round of questions pitched at her on Fox News. Romer defends controversial D.S.A. positions on workers’ ownership of the means of production, U.S. support of Israel, the war in Ukraine, and defunding the police.  

Further reading: 

• “Will Left-Wing Democrats Reinvent the Party or Hurt Its Chances in November?,” by Isaac Chotiner
• “Which Way Should the Democratic Party Go Now?,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells
• “An Idea for Democrats to Keep It Together in 2028,” by Bill McKibben
• “Can Zohran Mamdani Sway the Commie Corridor’s ‘Civil War’?,” by Naaman Zhou
• “The Woman Who Made the Machine That Made Zohran Mamdani,” by Molly Fischer

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 

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