DSA leaders bomb on live TV

Megan Romer and Ashik Siddique, the Democratic Socialists of America's co-chairs, gave disastrous interviews last month. They couldn't answer basic questions and defended extreme policies like abolishing prisons and police.

“Our leaders aren't politicians. They're working-class people and new to doing media.”

Everyone blames media training

DSA supporters claim the group just needs better media training. The communications director said the leaders are working-class people new to media, implying better preparation would have prevented the disaster.

But the real problem runs deeper

The DSA is actually led by unpractical extremists whose views differ sharply from successful electoral figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Media training can't fix actual extremism.

The DSA has two warring wings

One wing includes AOC and Mamdani, committed to democracy and mass politics. The other is sectarian and extremist, with little commitment to democracy and open admirers of Hamas, Iran, and dictators like Mao Zedong.

Romer's ignorance reveals ideology

Co-chair Megan Romer didn't know what the Camp David Summit was and couldn't explain her own tax policy. When asked about authoritarianism in Cuba, she praised the country's constitution instead of criticizing it.

Red Star celebrates Mao

Romer's faction, Red Star, is a self-declared Marxist-Leninist group that posted quotes from Mao's speeches to celebrate his birthday. Members study Mao and Stalin as part of their political education.

Red Star backs Hamas and Iran

The faction has declared unequivocal sympathy for Hamas and praised Palestinian groups for working with Iran, Hezbollah, and other members of Iran's Axis of Resistance.

Red Star won't criticize any anti-US state

Red Star's policy states that publicly criticizing any government opposing the United States is doing the State Department's work. This means authoritarian regimes get a free pass from criticism.

“To publicly critique a government or movement that stands in opposition to the American government is to do the U.S. State Department's work for them.”

The sectarian wing dominates leadership

Last year's DSA convention rejected a resolution opposing all governments that repress democratic rights. This shows how much the sectarian wing controls the organization despite being a minority of members.

DSA observers whitewash Venezuela

DSA electoral observers reported no fraud when monitoring Venezuela's 2024 election under Nicolás Maduro, despite results so bogus that left-wing governments of Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay rejected them.

Sectarians want to disrupt Congress

One DSA faction suggested that socialist lawmakers should disrupt Congressional business that doesn't benefit the working class and creatively abuse their powers to make legislating difficult, like packing galleries with hecklers.

Sectarians dropped AOC over Israel

The sectarian wing got the DSA to drop its endorsement of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and refuse to support Kamala Harris in 2024, primarily because AOC wasn't sufficiently anti-Israel.

Most members aren't extremists

The average DSA member has more in common with AOC than with Mao. The sectarian wing controls leadership by manipulating internal processes and opposing one-member-one-vote procedures.

The mainstream wing envisions Nordic socialism

Democratic DSA thinkers like Eric Blanc and Bhaskar Sunkara advocate for Nordic-style social democracy as a step toward overcoming capitalism, grounded in serious economic research and liberal values.

Moderates must break with extremists

If AOC, Sunkara, and other democratic socialists want the public to take their ideas seriously, they need to break with the DSA's fans of Mao and Hamas. No media training can solve this.

“No amount of media training can solve that.”