The Democratic Socialists of America are out of touch with normal Americans. That was made abundantly clear by a July interview with a DSA co-chair, during which she affirmed that the organization is far more radical than many voters may realize. Fox News’s Shannon Bream asked Megan Romer of the DSA to respond to a list of the most fringe reforms in the organization’s platform with a “true or false” response. She agreed that the group supports the following proposals:
“Abolish the Senate”
“Replace the presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them”
“Abolish ICE”
“Abolish borders”
“Defund the Pentagon”
“Government or public ownership of large corporations”
She wasn’t embarrassed to be the face of the DSA’s radicalism. In fact, she responded with an enthusiastic “absolutely” to several positions. The only qualification she gave was that abolishing borders and prisons would be “part of a long-term program.”
The DSA has been experiencing success in elections nationwide in recent years. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani made history by summarily defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo. More recently, affiliates of the DSA pulled off several surprise primary victories, including Mamdani-backed Darializa Avila Chevalier, who unseated an incumbent in the Democratic primary for New York’s 13th House District, and Janeese Lewis George, a self-described socialist who won the Democratic primary for mayor of Washington, DC.
But this doesn’t mean that large swaths of Americans are eager to burn down all of our institutions, nationalize corporations, and restart the government from scratch. In fact, according to a national survey from the Cato Institute in collaboration with Morning Consult, the DSA’s proposals are totally out of sync with the vast majority of Americans’ views.
The poll found that just 17% of American adults strongly agreed when presented with the statement, “We cannot fix the problems in our government; we need to tear it down and start over.” Among self-identified Democrats, that percentage ticked up just slightly to 19%. That’s pretty slim support for the DSA’s “raze it to the ground” attitude.
The survey found that the vast majority of Americans agree that our country has a lot of good to offer: 79% of respondents had a favorable view of the Constitution, and an even larger 86% were grateful to be Americans. All available metrics seem to point to the conclusion that Americans, regardless of their affiliation, understand that we have something precious to protect — even if our nation is imperfect.
Still, socialism is proving seductive to voters. The survey also found that many Americans—37% of all respondents—had a positive view of socialism and that a full 61% of Democrats would consider backing a socialist candidate. Even 24% of Republicans said the same. “This helps illuminate recent wins by candidates using the Democratic Socialists of America label in Democratic primaries over the past few weeks,” Emily Ekins, Vice President for Policy and Society at the Cato Institute, wrote in a recent blog post summarizing the survey results. But it’s worth asking what exactly the typical voter believes socialism to be and whether they’d still be supportive if they understood what exactly the DSA stands for.
Romer’s Fox News interview should be a wake-up call for those voters casually flirting with socialism, and it will no doubt feature heavily in campaign messaging coming from the Republican Party as we head towards elections this fall. Though the clip is a salient admission of what the DSA stands for, it’s important to remember that this is not what all Democrats, or even all “leftists,” believe. In reality, Americans have a lot in common—including love for the country and a desire to preserve our Founders’ vision.
