This dispute is the same one that pops up anytime a new Leftist vanguard arrives and attempts to gain power. It was best described by Mikhail Bakunin in his "Statism and Anarchy", which was a direct response to Marx and his movement:
"....the pseudo-popular state will be nothing but the highly despotic government of the masses by a new and very small aristocracy of real or pretended scholars. The people are not learned, so they will be liberated in entirety from the cares of government and included in entirety in the governed herd. A fine liberation! Thus, for the masses to be liberated they must first be enslaved."
Bakunin suggested that the Marxists' real aim was a "pedantocracy": a regime in which theoreticians—their own type of theoreticians—would be in charge, in which a political intelligentsia, unemployable in normal circumstances, took the positions of power.
All of socialism PRETENDS to be about the suffering masses and provides endless litanies of injustices as a way to gain power, as the socialist vanguard sells itself as egalitarian humanitarians who will smite all oppressors and usher in a golden age of Justice. But from Robespierre to Lenin to Mao to Castro etc etc, there's always the same result: an ideological police state that calls servitude liberation and obedience freedom.
Maybe it was Mencken who said it best: “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve.”
Also, people need to stop suggesting or imagining that any Dems/liberals are going to abandon Trans or migrants or Palestinians or criminals—Progressivism is sacred dogma, all these groups are sacred victims, they exist in a realm separate and above electoral politics. What we think of American liberalism has been swallowed and supplanted by Social Justice ideology, which is a dogmatic and intolerant political religion founded on doctrinal purity and the suppression of dissent. The liberal world that older people grew up with in the 20th century is dead and gone. The Dems might fudge, veil, deceive etc, but they are not going to abandon their tribe's sacred beliefs. Their backers, voters, friends and families etc would never allow it.
I belly laugh at the salve that MAGA and the “new” right is repeatedly forced to apply to its guilty conscience. Y’all understand that you’re in charge, still. You realize that you control the entire federal government, again. You’ve, somehow, nominated ole Don three consecutive times. He’s been your pied piper for over a decade and counting, Yet, we never hear a defense of the aging, angry, incoherent, imbecile that leads your cult. Rather, it’s just a lotta whining, grievance, and blame. Diversions. Whataboutism. And salutes, always salutes to the dear leader. All coupled with a wish that we could somehow return to the halcyon days of your youth. It’s delicious to watch.
I understand your frantic attempts to blame the minority party. But dude, the record setting deficits are yours, MAGA’s Middle East war is yours, the Epstein coverup is yours, the taco tariffs are yours, RFK’s measles outbreaks are yours, Don’s bizarre, incoherent ramblings are yours, Don’s massive corruption is yours, the roving death squads are yours, the shredding of the rule of law is yours, the economy is yours, our humiliation on the world stage is yours, inflation is yours, Don’s record setting disapproval ratings are yours. Suck it up buttercup…
Time for Pete (the drunkard, abusive, Fox weekend talk show co-host posing as SecDef) and all the manly men to man up and take responsibility for the government y’all are running. Perhaps you should take Pete’s T test? The whining has become tedious. Boorish. Don is your intellectual lodestar. Your moral compass. The man you hope your sons ape.
Mamdani recently stated that someone making $250,000 a year could be considered “working class” if they aren’t able to “afford the basic dignities of life.” I realize the cost of living is much higher in NYC, but $250,000 is still above the median income in Manhattan. And it is a king’s ransom in many places in America. This sort of talk will absolutely not work politically in most of America as it will sound wildly out of touch and only something that an entitled Brahmin would take seriously.
I am glad that I don’t live in NYC or anywhere like it! All these DSA types are phonies who mix childishly unrealistic economic ideas with Islamism and Third-Worldism. The whole thing is too incoherent to win on a national level, but it will likely do damage in places like NYC.
Mamdani is far more savvy and effective than he would seem at first glance. But he’s a unicorn riding a black swan. Mamdani doesn’t extrapolate to the rest of DSA.
Oh, he is very media savvy! But I agree that he is a unicorn riding a black swan. And I am all in favor of local government and local control! So let NYC have him and deal with the consequences.
Don't write off the DSA as limousine socialists. Communist leaders have always been such. Vladimir Lenin came from nobility. Trotsky was a wealthy farmer. Nearly all the Bolshevik leadership were the early 20th century equivalent of limousine socialists highly educated and from wealthy (merchant class or above) families.
You use this to write off the DSA but it is instead their most dangerous attribute. These are people who know the language, mechanisms, and power structures of the American elite. They may be small in number, but they punch FAR above their weight class politically. When they say "by any means necessary" we must take them seriously and literally and treat them accordingly.
Revolutions are almost always led by frustrated, elite-aspirant, students who don't think received what their education and heredity entitles them to. (Picture the MA in Art History who’s working as a barista.) It may only be 120K members, but 120K ideologically motivated, angry, professional class, elite-aspirants have the very real capability of destroying America. Smaller numbers have overturned governments in many other nations.
To point out the obvious, the USA isn’t Tsarist Russia and they aren’t in the middle of losing WWI.
Both the DSA left and the alt-right are full of disappointed, angry, rich kids who want to burn it all down. What they don’t have is the mass social unrest to power their movements.
If (when) the US bond market gets Liz Trussed... if (when) China invades Taiwan and we can do nothing about it... a significant domestic threat or further polarization that veers into a N. Ireland Troubles-like situation... a 2008 recession mirror...
There are lots of things that can cause a crisis, especially in a society as fat, dumb, and wealthy as we are. And a revolutionary vanguard this well connected can easily create the very crisis they need.
Argentina was a prosperous, wealthy, democracy (although a young one) until Peron. It's hardly the only example.
Social unrest could lead the USA to the hard right, never to the hard left. A non-ideological populist strongman is also likely, and probably the most likely.
Juan Peron was a populist, not a Marxist. The Communists and Socialists in Argentina opposed him. His original rise to power started as being part of a right wing coup. He changed ideology whenever it suited him.
Also, Peron came to power in after nearly two decades of political instability, including multiple coups.
Yes, it's an excellent point. The Bolshevik takeover is not necessarily typical. It would be useful to examine a much broader set of case studies to understand how socialist takeovers happen. This book might be a good starting point: https://iea.org.uk/publications/socialism-the-failed-idea-that-never-dies/
The Bolsheviks took power in some pretty specific circumstances. WW1 was breaking the back of Russia's economy--far beyond the level of economic pain that modern Americans could even imagine. There were a number of competing leftist parties in Russia at the time, which disliked the Bolsheviks due to Lenin's authoritarianism. In the chaos of WW1, the Bolsheviks managed to outmaneuver the other leftist parties in the Russian worker's councils ("soviets") and seize power. Then they had to fight a civil war to maintain it.
From my perspective, the lesson of the Bolshevik takeover is that it's important to avoid a crisis which could allow such wacko radicals to seize power. I'm thinking scenarios like: a punishing war with China, AI-induced mass casualty event/mass job loss, US sovereign default. Cooler heads should carefully steer clear of such disasters to avoid giving the DSA an opening.
Do people actually think these DSA candidates are anywhere near Marxism?
The satire legit writes itself.
Meanwhile the centrist candidates are just taking corpo PAC money, passing crap like H1-B, basically removing our ability to vote for them no matter how much I don't like DemSocs
We should be discussing the DSA's Marxist tendencies a lot more, in fact.
BTW, it's ironic that you bring up H-1B given that the DSA endorses open borders. With open borders, we could go from perhaps new 100K H-1B visas per year, to ten million people flooding in from India alone every single year. Factor of 100 difference.
Most DemSoc candidates tend to have negative views of H1-B; "open borders" is a made up policy hallucinated to dunk on opponents.
To this day, I have not seen a single Marxist on the ballot, but if it was between them and a lobbyist riddled candidate with an OpenSecrets page longer than an Excel sheet...
>The Open Borders resolution calls for the “uninhibited transnational free movement of people, the demilitarization of the US-Mexico border, the abolition of ICE and CPB without replacement, decriminalization of immigration, full amnesty for all asylum seekers, and a pathway to citizenship for all non-citizen residents.”
An article on the DSA website states:
"We in the U.S. socialist movements have called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and for open borders. While this is a minority position in our country, it is the one position that is not only morally just,but also in the best interests of the vast majority of people in the U.S.. And we believe that there is growing support for it."
I always thought a Bernie vs Trump race would have been wonderful: 2 polar opposite ideas about the country. Alas, the Democratic Party thought Bernie was too extreme so they booted him in the primaries.
10 years later, the Democratic party would likely boot him because he's not extreme enough.
Only a WEIRD would say immigration is primarily an economic act. Everyone else in the world recognizes it as a political or cultural one.
However, let's say you're right. It's "self-limiting"? Well, sure, if the wages of your own country are dragged down so much that it's no longer worth emigrating, it will stop. While an economist might declare such an outcome Pareto-optimal and be happy with it, most natives of any country would not.
If you're literally advocating open borders, or defending DSA advocacy of such, why would you expect WEIRD norms to persist after half a billion beggars etc. from India arrive and start doing the exact same scams and corruption which characterize Indian society?
Our WEIRD society has persisted just fine without open borders for decades and decades. How, exactly, will arguing against open borders "drag our wonderfully WEIRD society back to something less developed, poorer, and more primitive"? Why would maintaining our current status quo drag us back that way?
Why are we seeing burgeoning anti-immigrant movements in virtually every society which allows mass immigration, including the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia, etc.?
When the theory doesn't match the reality, perhaps revisit your theory.
Self limiting until an economic race to the bottom is complete, eventually defeating the establishment as disenfranchised voters decide populism sounds good.
A balanced immigration policy is necessary, not corps using it to drive down wages and rig the market when there is no real shortage. There's a difference between filling real gaps and rigging the market.
"Free market" only seems to count when it goes their way it seems. Otherwise it turns into corporate socialism or rigged policies
A panel of economists was asked if they agreed or disagreed with the following statement:
"Unless they were compensated by others, many low-skilled American workers would be substantially worse off if a larger number of low-skilled foreign workers were legally allowed to enter the US each year."
The data on H1-B says otherwise, as do correlated layoffs.
It's basic supply and demand. Artificially inflate supply with imported labor and a visa tied to your corporation, demand goes down and therefore wage suppression forms up.
The invisible hand via rigged immigration policy comes in for a reacharound, after they gifted the US's institutions.
I was so glad to see your byline. Oh, how your keen insight has been missed. Thank you, Ruy, for this. You help clarify what the DSA is doing and how it isn't a winning strategy among mainstream Democrats. Please contribute again soon.
So far, no DSA candidate is impressive, either intellectually or from a character perspective. In fact many are very ignorant of just basic economics and general knowledge of the world and country. New York City's Chevalier thinks that Sweden and Denmark are socialist countries - they aren't. Milos Kilaot of Colordao was insubordinate to her white glove law firm in NYC when she place a political article in a journal which her law firm asked her to take down, fearing for the firm's reputation. She refused and they fired her. It's astonishing that she blew up her legal career that her parents worked hard to fund because of some righteous stance - oh and she's from Ethopia but she hates the USA - so why is she here any way? So she and her parents can keep grifting off the goodwill of the American people? The DSA is bereft of political talent and people who are worthy to represent the American people. Ne wYork's Mamdani who hails from Uganda also hates the USA although it's given his parents a very good life and him an excellent education. It's baffling why so many DSA types are new immigrants - yet they hate the USA - so it begs the question - why are they here ? It's dark times in the Democrat Party for sure.
DSA Party members are often wealthy nepo babies that, obviously, rarely heard the word "no" as children. They now believe they are entitled to run the world, and they want to do so from the comfort of the US.
For example, in a recent interview, DSA Co chair Gustavo Gordillo recently noted the US exported the notion of capitalism to his birthplace of Peru. It so destabilized the Peruvian utopia, his family was forced to flee. Without a hint of irony, he failed to mention of all the countries on earth, his family fled to the US.
Ditto for Mamdani, who often opines on US intolerance, yet chose to marry in a multi million dollar Ugandan wedding. Uganda not only still criminalizes homosexuality, it openly brags the LGBTQ community is welcomed with execution or a life long prison sentence. Yet the Mamdani family chose Uganda for their wedding venue and the intolerant US as their residence?
Wealthy nepo babies. Um, like Don and his kiddos? Someday, y’all will realize the jokes been on you. After Don has pocketed all the corrupt crypto loot, gaslit the cult, and slipped off to the land of Ron Desanctimonious, it will dawn on you. It’s sooo delicious to watch:) Life is good!
>Gustavo Gordillo recently noted the US exported the notion of capitalism to his birthplace of Peru. It so destabilized the Peruvian utopia, his family was forced to flee.
FWIW, I think Gordillo's account is heavily distorted (unsurprisingly). Peru was destabilized by a Maoist terror group. The US provided a little bit of aid to Peru to defeat the group, but it was mostly done by Peruvian security forces.
Practically all countries have some degree of “socialism,” which involves certain services being provided by government, paid for primarily by taxes. That includes the U.S., with the oldest being public roads, schools, and parks, followed by public hospitals,Social Security, Medicaid, etc., financed by taxes that are quite progressive at least at the federal level.
I support the existing system basically as is, and resent the claims of DSA types that it is grossly unfair. I would support some adjustments to it to better achieve goals like enhancing the earning power of lower skilled people and reducing dependence on fossil fuels, but don’t trust DSA extremists to implement those goals fairly and effectively.
It would have been helpful if you had defined the term “Brahmin Left”. I had to search the internet, and only found two articles that used the phrase. One was your article from 2023, and the other was an article by the guy who coined the term. If you want a working class reader, don’t use esoteric words unless you define them first for less “educated” readers.
But your points were imported and I encourage you to keep writing about this, just remember who your readers are.
Respectfully, neither you or Edsall mentions the obsession with Israel, the rancid antisemitism and constant blood libel that animate the DSA and has been infecting the Democratic Party, and unfortunately a lot of Democrats.
That’s actually their best quality, because thanks to them, the Democrats have handed the Jewish vote—one of their strongest constituencies—over to the GOP on a silver platter.
The Edsall recommendations would be a great start, but the problem is exacerbated by non DSA Dems that hold DSA beliefs, while wearing moderation like a Halloween costume.
In Texas, Dem Senate candidate James Talarico was devoted to DSA policy, before it was was cool. More than a 1/2 decade ago, Talarico donated thousands to a coalition seeking to end the Austin Police Dept. With Talarico's help, the coalition succeeded in a 1/3 reduction in Austin police funding, even as crime soared.
That should not be surprising. Talarico has repeatedly noted prisons are "violence" that must go extinct. To that end, Talarico voted against Texas mandatory minimum sentences for convicted people traffickers, even as Texas was the epicenter of migrant child trafficking. Talarico also refused to support limiting bail for accused repeat violent felons.
Nor are Talarico's Socialist leanings, limited to police and incarceration. Talarico's response to Dobbs was to beg Biden to federally install and operate abortion facilities within Texas Federal Courthouses. Little is more antidemocratic, than illegal governance by federal fiat.
Likewise, Talarico refused to support Texas law banning minor child transition surgery and fertility ending medication. Talarico has also sought to abolish ICE, noting God commands aid for our poverty stricken brothers and sisters, regardless of Immigration status. Positions Talarico now refutes, laughingly, claiming to be a moderate.
Dem candidates that speak Spanberger while campaigning, only to govern as Mamdani, are hardly rare. Minn Governor Tim Walz, while not on the ballot, recently pardoned a convicted child rapist, seeking to avoid his deportation. The predator blamed the child for enticing him, when he confessed to repeatedly raping the girl from age 10-12, while instructing her on his oral gratification. As the rapist was finally set to be deported 2 decades later, not a single Dem supported his removal.
Unless a large coalition of Dems demand a return to sanity, Dems can look forward to more Bill Mahers. The famous lifelong Hollywood Liberal who donated 7 figures to Obama not that long ago, has noted he will leave the Party, if the march to Socialism does not cease.
And look who the MAGA Republicans nominated to replace the reliably conservative and scandal free John Cornyn, whose chances of defeating any Democrat would have been considerably better than Paxton’s.
Bush Republicans have no business in high office…I voted for Paxton over George P Bush and would do it every time again! Get rid of Collins and Cornyn and move forward! No going back to globalists like Bush that sacrificed American soldiers and jobs to make China great again!
I think this misses some facts that have changed, and the growing possibility that Mamdani and most other elected officials will bolt if the CCPers officially take over at the next convention. Did you see Bhaskar’s interview with Ross Douthat? Much of it was downright stunning, he seems to be laying the groundwork for such a move after the midterm.
Also, inasmuch as you’re right about the demographic impact on the Democratic Party, it’s not as if the Republican base and bench won’t also be a smoking pile of rubble with Trump gone.
I think you're writing off both parties prematurely. Mandami and his ilk are in the same position in the Democratic Party as Trump and MAGA were in the GOP in 2015. He's not going to bolt; he's going to take over.
Picture a A Rubio-Vance ticket (or visa versa) against a Newsom-Cortez ticket in 2028. I think that's a really viable possibility. And I honestly don't know who wins.
Leaving aside that Vance is the only one of those four people I expect to see on a general election ticket, I meant a bolt from DSA in service to taking over the Democratic Party.
Vance is awful…Rubio should pick another Reagan conservative and ditch the Nixon apologists like Vance AND along with Bush apologists like Pence. I was involved in the campaigns of Tim Scott and Rubio in 2010 and neither were Tea Party Republicans as they got their start in the GOP in the 1990s when Reagan was still relevant. I attended quite a few campaign rallies and I don’t recall ever hearing them discuss the Iraq War either although I could be wrong??
DSA is not "the largest socialist membership organization in American history". At its peak, there were 120,000 Wobblies, in a country a fraction the size. (And they did a lot more good than the DSA.)
Yeah I think the term "intelligentsia" is more accurate than "professional". They aren't necessarily gainfully employed, but they are sure they know how to run society and deserve to control the levers of power. You'd struggle to find one who has experience running even a small business.
In terms of "taking care of our own"--the DSA supports open borders. The Indian government could offer beggars on the streets of Delhi a free one-way ticket to the US. Imagine 10 million impoverished Indians coming in every year. Medical and welfare systems would quickly be overwhelmed. We're already $32T in debt.
This dispute is the same one that pops up anytime a new Leftist vanguard arrives and attempts to gain power. It was best described by Mikhail Bakunin in his "Statism and Anarchy", which was a direct response to Marx and his movement:
"....the pseudo-popular state will be nothing but the highly despotic government of the masses by a new and very small aristocracy of real or pretended scholars. The people are not learned, so they will be liberated in entirety from the cares of government and included in entirety in the governed herd. A fine liberation! Thus, for the masses to be liberated they must first be enslaved."
Bakunin suggested that the Marxists' real aim was a "pedantocracy": a regime in which theoreticians—their own type of theoreticians—would be in charge, in which a political intelligentsia, unemployable in normal circumstances, took the positions of power.
All of socialism PRETENDS to be about the suffering masses and provides endless litanies of injustices as a way to gain power, as the socialist vanguard sells itself as egalitarian humanitarians who will smite all oppressors and usher in a golden age of Justice. But from Robespierre to Lenin to Mao to Castro etc etc, there's always the same result: an ideological police state that calls servitude liberation and obedience freedom.
Maybe it was Mencken who said it best: “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve.”
Also, people need to stop suggesting or imagining that any Dems/liberals are going to abandon Trans or migrants or Palestinians or criminals—Progressivism is sacred dogma, all these groups are sacred victims, they exist in a realm separate and above electoral politics. What we think of American liberalism has been swallowed and supplanted by Social Justice ideology, which is a dogmatic and intolerant political religion founded on doctrinal purity and the suppression of dissent. The liberal world that older people grew up with in the 20th century is dead and gone. The Dems might fudge, veil, deceive etc, but they are not going to abandon their tribe's sacred beliefs. Their backers, voters, friends and families etc would never allow it.
I belly laugh at the salve that MAGA and the “new” right is repeatedly forced to apply to its guilty conscience. Y’all understand that you’re in charge, still. You realize that you control the entire federal government, again. You’ve, somehow, nominated ole Don three consecutive times. He’s been your pied piper for over a decade and counting, Yet, we never hear a defense of the aging, angry, incoherent, imbecile that leads your cult. Rather, it’s just a lotta whining, grievance, and blame. Diversions. Whataboutism. And salutes, always salutes to the dear leader. All coupled with a wish that we could somehow return to the halcyon days of your youth. It’s delicious to watch.
I understand your frantic attempts to blame the minority party. But dude, the record setting deficits are yours, MAGA’s Middle East war is yours, the Epstein coverup is yours, the taco tariffs are yours, RFK’s measles outbreaks are yours, Don’s bizarre, incoherent ramblings are yours, Don’s massive corruption is yours, the roving death squads are yours, the shredding of the rule of law is yours, the economy is yours, our humiliation on the world stage is yours, inflation is yours, Don’s record setting disapproval ratings are yours. Suck it up buttercup…
Time for Pete (the drunkard, abusive, Fox weekend talk show co-host posing as SecDef) and all the manly men to man up and take responsibility for the government y’all are running. Perhaps you should take Pete’s T test? The whining has become tedious. Boorish. Don is your intellectual lodestar. Your moral compass. The man you hope your sons ape.
Defend him. And enjoy your war.
Mamdani recently stated that someone making $250,000 a year could be considered “working class” if they aren’t able to “afford the basic dignities of life.” I realize the cost of living is much higher in NYC, but $250,000 is still above the median income in Manhattan. And it is a king’s ransom in many places in America. This sort of talk will absolutely not work politically in most of America as it will sound wildly out of touch and only something that an entitled Brahmin would take seriously.
Mamdani needed to include his Columbia University-tenured father and successful film producer mother in the mix.
He's a phony, but anyway serious in his Islamist leanings.
Man, do I hate him.
I am glad that I don’t live in NYC or anywhere like it! All these DSA types are phonies who mix childishly unrealistic economic ideas with Islamism and Third-Worldism. The whole thing is too incoherent to win on a national level, but it will likely do damage in places like NYC.
This is a good thing.
Mamdani is far more savvy and effective than he would seem at first glance. But he’s a unicorn riding a black swan. Mamdani doesn’t extrapolate to the rest of DSA.
Oh, he is very media savvy! But I agree that he is a unicorn riding a black swan. And I am all in favor of local government and local control! So let NYC have him and deal with the consequences.
Mamdani is picking a lot of low hanging fruit. That's a big part of his popularity and what other politicians should be paying attention to.
He's also far more flexible in practice than his rhetoric would have you believe.
"Don't get too invested in the politics of places you don't live" is good advice for everyone.
Don't write off the DSA as limousine socialists. Communist leaders have always been such. Vladimir Lenin came from nobility. Trotsky was a wealthy farmer. Nearly all the Bolshevik leadership were the early 20th century equivalent of limousine socialists highly educated and from wealthy (merchant class or above) families.
You use this to write off the DSA but it is instead their most dangerous attribute. These are people who know the language, mechanisms, and power structures of the American elite. They may be small in number, but they punch FAR above their weight class politically. When they say "by any means necessary" we must take them seriously and literally and treat them accordingly.
Revolutions are almost always led by frustrated, elite-aspirant, students who don't think received what their education and heredity entitles them to. (Picture the MA in Art History who’s working as a barista.) It may only be 120K members, but 120K ideologically motivated, angry, professional class, elite-aspirants have the very real capability of destroying America. Smaller numbers have overturned governments in many other nations.
To point out the obvious, the USA isn’t Tsarist Russia and they aren’t in the middle of losing WWI.
Both the DSA left and the alt-right are full of disappointed, angry, rich kids who want to burn it all down. What they don’t have is the mass social unrest to power their movements.
Until they do. That's what worries me.
If (when) the US bond market gets Liz Trussed... if (when) China invades Taiwan and we can do nothing about it... a significant domestic threat or further polarization that veers into a N. Ireland Troubles-like situation... a 2008 recession mirror...
There are lots of things that can cause a crisis, especially in a society as fat, dumb, and wealthy as we are. And a revolutionary vanguard this well connected can easily create the very crisis they need.
Argentina was a prosperous, wealthy, democracy (although a young one) until Peron. It's hardly the only example.
Social unrest could lead the USA to the hard right, never to the hard left. A non-ideological populist strongman is also likely, and probably the most likely.
Juan Peron was a populist, not a Marxist. The Communists and Socialists in Argentina opposed him. His original rise to power started as being part of a right wing coup. He changed ideology whenever it suited him.
Also, Peron came to power in after nearly two decades of political instability, including multiple coups.
Yes, it's an excellent point. The Bolshevik takeover is not necessarily typical. It would be useful to examine a much broader set of case studies to understand how socialist takeovers happen. This book might be a good starting point: https://iea.org.uk/publications/socialism-the-failed-idea-that-never-dies/
This argument involves a lot of equivocation around the word “Socialism”.
There is a big difference between “Socialist” democratic parties like British Labour and German SPD and Stalin and Mao.
The Bolsheviks took power in some pretty specific circumstances. WW1 was breaking the back of Russia's economy--far beyond the level of economic pain that modern Americans could even imagine. There were a number of competing leftist parties in Russia at the time, which disliked the Bolsheviks due to Lenin's authoritarianism. In the chaos of WW1, the Bolsheviks managed to outmaneuver the other leftist parties in the Russian worker's councils ("soviets") and seize power. Then they had to fight a civil war to maintain it.
From my perspective, the lesson of the Bolshevik takeover is that it's important to avoid a crisis which could allow such wacko radicals to seize power. I'm thinking scenarios like: a punishing war with China, AI-induced mass casualty event/mass job loss, US sovereign default. Cooler heads should carefully steer clear of such disasters to avoid giving the DSA an opening.
Do people actually think these DSA candidates are anywhere near Marxism?
The satire legit writes itself.
Meanwhile the centrist candidates are just taking corpo PAC money, passing crap like H1-B, basically removing our ability to vote for them no matter how much I don't like DemSocs
Look at the governing body of the DSA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Political_Committee_(DSA)
A number of powerful caucuses are explicitly Marxist.
See coverage here: https://www.city-journal.org/article/democratic-socialists-of-america-communism
We should be discussing the DSA's Marxist tendencies a lot more, in fact.
BTW, it's ironic that you bring up H-1B given that the DSA endorses open borders. With open borders, we could go from perhaps new 100K H-1B visas per year, to ten million people flooding in from India alone every single year. Factor of 100 difference.
Most DemSoc candidates tend to have negative views of H1-B; "open borders" is a made up policy hallucinated to dunk on opponents.
To this day, I have not seen a single Marxist on the ballot, but if it was between them and a lobbyist riddled candidate with an OpenSecrets page longer than an Excel sheet...
I would probably stay home.
This leftist magazine claims DSA delegates voted "overwhelmingly" for an open borders resolution in 2019
https://proteanmag.com/2019/08/02/breaking-dsa-votes-to-endorse-open-borders-and-a-green-new-deal-program-at-atlanta-convention/
>The Open Borders resolution calls for the “uninhibited transnational free movement of people, the demilitarization of the US-Mexico border, the abolition of ICE and CPB without replacement, decriminalization of immigration, full amnesty for all asylum seekers, and a pathway to citizenship for all non-citizen residents.”
An article on the DSA website states:
"We in the U.S. socialist movements have called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and for open borders. While this is a minority position in our country, it is the one position that is not only morally just,but also in the best interests of the vast majority of people in the U.S.. And we believe that there is growing support for it."
Source: https://sfarchive.dsausa.org/issues/fall-2019/ten-arguments-for-open-borders-the-abolition-of-ice-and-an-internationalist-labor-movement/
Holy shit I completely missed that, I'd sooner vote for MAGA over this
More under the impression DSA is similar to a guy like Sanders (he isn't associated) they're much further left than I thought.
I always thought a Bernie vs Trump race would have been wonderful: 2 polar opposite ideas about the country. Alas, the Democratic Party thought Bernie was too extreme so they booted him in the primaries.
10 years later, the Democratic party would likely boot him because he's not extreme enough.
Cosplay communists.
Immigration is primarily an economic act and is, therefore, self-limiting.
Immigration, legal and illegal, dropped significantly after the 2008 financial crisis. Nobody is coming here when unemployment is double digits.
With unemployment below 5% and boomers retiring, limiting immigration is self-defeating economic policy.
Only a WEIRD would say immigration is primarily an economic act. Everyone else in the world recognizes it as a political or cultural one.
However, let's say you're right. It's "self-limiting"? Well, sure, if the wages of your own country are dragged down so much that it's no longer worth emigrating, it will stop. While an economist might declare such an outcome Pareto-optimal and be happy with it, most natives of any country would not.
I would rather be Western, Industrialized, Educated, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) than the alternative.
And this is precisely why I oppose you: You want to drag our wonderfully WEIRD society back to something less developed, poorer, and more primitive.
If you're literally advocating open borders, or defending DSA advocacy of such, why would you expect WEIRD norms to persist after half a billion beggars etc. from India arrive and start doing the exact same scams and corruption which characterize Indian society?
Our WEIRD society has persisted just fine without open borders for decades and decades. How, exactly, will arguing against open borders "drag our wonderfully WEIRD society back to something less developed, poorer, and more primitive"? Why would maintaining our current status quo drag us back that way?
I suppose you would've voted for Trump on the grounds that his supporters were mere "cosplay Nazis"?
"Immigration is primarily an economic act and is, therefore, self-limiting."
Sure. It will self-limit when wages/quality of life in the US and India have equalized, and there is no gain to immigrating.
Classic lump of labor fallacy. Go learn some economics.
Why are US wages higher than those in India?
Why are we seeing burgeoning anti-immigrant movements in virtually every society which allows mass immigration, including the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia, etc.?
When the theory doesn't match the reality, perhaps revisit your theory.
European data shows that immigrants from many countries contribute negatively to public finances: https://xcancel.com/jonatanpallesen/status/1879634729756135736
Self limiting until an economic race to the bottom is complete, eventually defeating the establishment as disenfranchised voters decide populism sounds good.
A balanced immigration policy is necessary, not corps using it to drive down wages and rig the market when there is no real shortage. There's a difference between filling real gaps and rigging the market.
"Free market" only seems to count when it goes their way it seems. Otherwise it turns into corporate socialism or rigged policies
That’s not how economics works.
A panel of economists was asked if they agreed or disagreed with the following statement:
"Unless they were compensated by others, many low-skilled American workers would be substantially worse off if a larger number of low-skilled foreign workers were legally allowed to enter the US each year."
The most common answer was "Agree". Source: https://kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/low-skilled-immigrants/
The data on H1-B says otherwise, as do correlated layoffs.
It's basic supply and demand. Artificially inflate supply with imported labor and a visa tied to your corporation, demand goes down and therefore wage suppression forms up.
The invisible hand via rigged immigration policy comes in for a reacharound, after they gifted the US's institutions.
I was so glad to see your byline. Oh, how your keen insight has been missed. Thank you, Ruy, for this. You help clarify what the DSA is doing and how it isn't a winning strategy among mainstream Democrats. Please contribute again soon.
So far, no DSA candidate is impressive, either intellectually or from a character perspective. In fact many are very ignorant of just basic economics and general knowledge of the world and country. New York City's Chevalier thinks that Sweden and Denmark are socialist countries - they aren't. Milos Kilaot of Colordao was insubordinate to her white glove law firm in NYC when she place a political article in a journal which her law firm asked her to take down, fearing for the firm's reputation. She refused and they fired her. It's astonishing that she blew up her legal career that her parents worked hard to fund because of some righteous stance - oh and she's from Ethopia but she hates the USA - so why is she here any way? So she and her parents can keep grifting off the goodwill of the American people? The DSA is bereft of political talent and people who are worthy to represent the American people. Ne wYork's Mamdani who hails from Uganda also hates the USA although it's given his parents a very good life and him an excellent education. It's baffling why so many DSA types are new immigrants - yet they hate the USA - so it begs the question - why are they here ? It's dark times in the Democrat Party for sure.
DSA Party members are often wealthy nepo babies that, obviously, rarely heard the word "no" as children. They now believe they are entitled to run the world, and they want to do so from the comfort of the US.
For example, in a recent interview, DSA Co chair Gustavo Gordillo recently noted the US exported the notion of capitalism to his birthplace of Peru. It so destabilized the Peruvian utopia, his family was forced to flee. Without a hint of irony, he failed to mention of all the countries on earth, his family fled to the US.
Ditto for Mamdani, who often opines on US intolerance, yet chose to marry in a multi million dollar Ugandan wedding. Uganda not only still criminalizes homosexuality, it openly brags the LGBTQ community is welcomed with execution or a life long prison sentence. Yet the Mamdani family chose Uganda for their wedding venue and the intolerant US as their residence?
Wealthy nepo babies. Um, like Don and his kiddos? Someday, y’all will realize the jokes been on you. After Don has pocketed all the corrupt crypto loot, gaslit the cult, and slipped off to the land of Ron Desanctimonious, it will dawn on you. It’s sooo delicious to watch:) Life is good!
>Gustavo Gordillo recently noted the US exported the notion of capitalism to his birthplace of Peru. It so destabilized the Peruvian utopia, his family was forced to flee.
FWIW, I think Gordillo's account is heavily distorted (unsurprisingly). Peru was destabilized by a Maoist terror group. The US provided a little bit of aid to Peru to defeat the group, but it was mostly done by Peruvian security forces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shining_Path
If you ever heard the song Civil War by Guns N Roses, there's a voiceover near the end which goes:
"We practice selective annihilation
Of mayors and government officials
For example, to create a vacuum
Then we fill that vacuum
As popular war advances
Peace is closer"
That voiceover was a quote from a Shining Path guerilla.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAYmGCYhVAo
Practically all countries have some degree of “socialism,” which involves certain services being provided by government, paid for primarily by taxes. That includes the U.S., with the oldest being public roads, schools, and parks, followed by public hospitals,Social Security, Medicaid, etc., financed by taxes that are quite progressive at least at the federal level.
I support the existing system basically as is, and resent the claims of DSA types that it is grossly unfair. I would support some adjustments to it to better achieve goals like enhancing the earning power of lower skilled people and reducing dependence on fossil fuels, but don’t trust DSA extremists to implement those goals fairly and effectively.
Always insightful, Ruy. Trenchant analysis
Good article.
It would have been helpful if you had defined the term “Brahmin Left”. I had to search the internet, and only found two articles that used the phrase. One was your article from 2023, and the other was an article by the guy who coined the term. If you want a working class reader, don’t use esoteric words unless you define them first for less “educated” readers.
But your points were imported and I encourage you to keep writing about this, just remember who your readers are.
Respectfully, neither you or Edsall mentions the obsession with Israel, the rancid antisemitism and constant blood libel that animate the DSA and has been infecting the Democratic Party, and unfortunately a lot of Democrats.
That’s actually their best quality, because thanks to them, the Democrats have handed the Jewish vote—one of their strongest constituencies—over to the GOP on a silver platter.
The Edsall recommendations would be a great start, but the problem is exacerbated by non DSA Dems that hold DSA beliefs, while wearing moderation like a Halloween costume.
In Texas, Dem Senate candidate James Talarico was devoted to DSA policy, before it was was cool. More than a 1/2 decade ago, Talarico donated thousands to a coalition seeking to end the Austin Police Dept. With Talarico's help, the coalition succeeded in a 1/3 reduction in Austin police funding, even as crime soared.
That should not be surprising. Talarico has repeatedly noted prisons are "violence" that must go extinct. To that end, Talarico voted against Texas mandatory minimum sentences for convicted people traffickers, even as Texas was the epicenter of migrant child trafficking. Talarico also refused to support limiting bail for accused repeat violent felons.
Nor are Talarico's Socialist leanings, limited to police and incarceration. Talarico's response to Dobbs was to beg Biden to federally install and operate abortion facilities within Texas Federal Courthouses. Little is more antidemocratic, than illegal governance by federal fiat.
Likewise, Talarico refused to support Texas law banning minor child transition surgery and fertility ending medication. Talarico has also sought to abolish ICE, noting God commands aid for our poverty stricken brothers and sisters, regardless of Immigration status. Positions Talarico now refutes, laughingly, claiming to be a moderate.
Dem candidates that speak Spanberger while campaigning, only to govern as Mamdani, are hardly rare. Minn Governor Tim Walz, while not on the ballot, recently pardoned a convicted child rapist, seeking to avoid his deportation. The predator blamed the child for enticing him, when he confessed to repeatedly raping the girl from age 10-12, while instructing her on his oral gratification. As the rapist was finally set to be deported 2 decades later, not a single Dem supported his removal.
Unless a large coalition of Dems demand a return to sanity, Dems can look forward to more Bill Mahers. The famous lifelong Hollywood Liberal who donated 7 figures to Obama not that long ago, has noted he will leave the Party, if the march to Socialism does not cease.
And look who the MAGA Republicans nominated to replace the reliably conservative and scandal free John Cornyn, whose chances of defeating any Democrat would have been considerably better than Paxton’s.
Bush Republicans have no business in high office…I voted for Paxton over George P Bush and would do it every time again! Get rid of Collins and Cornyn and move forward! No going back to globalists like Bush that sacrificed American soldiers and jobs to make China great again!
I can’t decide if this makes me want to drink or makes me want to drink. I choose drink.
I think this misses some facts that have changed, and the growing possibility that Mamdani and most other elected officials will bolt if the CCPers officially take over at the next convention. Did you see Bhaskar’s interview with Ross Douthat? Much of it was downright stunning, he seems to be laying the groundwork for such a move after the midterm.
Also, inasmuch as you’re right about the demographic impact on the Democratic Party, it’s not as if the Republican base and bench won’t also be a smoking pile of rubble with Trump gone.
I think you're writing off both parties prematurely. Mandami and his ilk are in the same position in the Democratic Party as Trump and MAGA were in the GOP in 2015. He's not going to bolt; he's going to take over.
Picture a A Rubio-Vance ticket (or visa versa) against a Newsom-Cortez ticket in 2028. I think that's a really viable possibility. And I honestly don't know who wins.
Leaving aside that Vance is the only one of those four people I expect to see on a general election ticket, I meant a bolt from DSA in service to taking over the Democratic Party.
Sorry. I thought you meant a departure of DSA FROM the Democratic Party.
Vance is awful…Rubio should pick another Reagan conservative and ditch the Nixon apologists like Vance AND along with Bush apologists like Pence. I was involved in the campaigns of Tim Scott and Rubio in 2010 and neither were Tea Party Republicans as they got their start in the GOP in the 1990s when Reagan was still relevant. I attended quite a few campaign rallies and I don’t recall ever hearing them discuss the Iraq War either although I could be wrong??
I don't like Trump & Co., but I'll take the other side of that last bet.
Oh of course Vance could still win even with Marley’s chains (in the words of Ross Douthat).
Douthat is a huge loser…he supported the Iraq War.
This article claims the majority of the DSA governing board is already explicitly communist:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/democratic-socialists-of-america-communism
I'm not exactly sure which caucuses would count as tankies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Political_Committee_(DSA)
What I’ve heard is that the non-tankies have a bare 6-5 majority and are barely holding it together.
DSA is not "the largest socialist membership organization in American history". At its peak, there were 120,000 Wobblies, in a country a fraction the size. (And they did a lot more good than the DSA.)
Every single word of this.
the funny party is that actual professionals (doctors lawyers, pharmacists and engineers) are more conservative than the average
Yeah I think the term "intelligentsia" is more accurate than "professional". They aren't necessarily gainfully employed, but they are sure they know how to run society and deserve to control the levers of power. You'd struggle to find one who has experience running even a small business.
How about the vanguard of people who think we should take care of our own, especially those who need a little help. Got a problem with that?
Considering the fraction of the population that lives on $30 per day or less, the US is already comparable to Sweden
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/poverty-share-on-less-than-30-per-day
In terms of "taking care of our own"--the DSA supports open borders. The Indian government could offer beggars on the streets of Delhi a free one-way ticket to the US. Imagine 10 million impoverished Indians coming in every year. Medical and welfare systems would quickly be overwhelmed. We're already $32T in debt.
And always twirling, twirling, twirling toward freedom!
DSA shows you don't have to be brilliant to win converts. You just need organization and money ( foreign?) behind you.