Socialism Upended

Primary wins by candidates running as Democrats but claiming membership or affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America along with candidates backed by the DSA but who aren’t full-time members has sent tremors of fear up and down the spines of traditional moderate Democrats. Republicans, on the other hand, are rejoicing because with President Trump’s polling numbers in the basement, their only hope for victory in the upcoming mid-term elections is the fear of socialism.

But the way the socialists are going about it seems all wrong. At least the DSA is not following the usual way that socialists takeover a country. Typically socialist victory is top down, either a revolution to overthrow the current government or a one-time election at the national level. The DSA seems to be running a grass roots election campaign winning mayoralties and city council elections in deep blue urban centers, like Mamdani in New York City and Katy Wilson in Seattle. And leftists have been able to win city council majorities in a number of cities.

In the 2026 election cycle they have been upping their game to contest for governorships, senate seats and in other statewide elections with considerable success. But this success may be the cause of their ultimate undoing. The Bolsheviks were able to overthrow the unpopular Kerensky government with only a few thousand soldiers and sailors and then went on to create the Soviet Union. The Chinese Red Army under Mao Zedong had been greatly weakened in the fight to control China before World War Two but according to Chinese expert Frank Dikotter emerged from World War Two with the assistance of Stalin and the Soviet Union to force the Chinese Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek to flee to Taiwan. These were top down takeovers by relatively small but well-organized socialist cadres. Most socialist victories are at the national level. That way they can change the levers of power more easily.

Socialists like to takeover by winning elections but they hate losing by elections so one of the first things they do when they take power is to eliminate the democratic institutions necessary for democracy. They replace the Supreme Court, change election laws, ban opposing parties, all with the goal of preventing citizens of changing their minds about socialism.

In the case of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, a disaffected Lieutenant Colonel in the Venezuelan Army, led an unsuccessful coup attempt in 1992, and was thrown in prison. He was later freed from prison, rehabilitated and ran for President in 1998 and won with 56% of the vote. As president, he immediately set about to usurp Venezuelan democracy by eliminating the few checks and balances that the country had. First, he called for a referendum to elect a constitutional assembly to change the structure of Venezuelan democracy within 2 months of his election and where his party represented 95% of the delegates after receiving only 52% of the votes. The new constitution eliminated the existing bicameral legislature and installed a unicameral legislature dominated by his political party. He packed the supreme court with his cronies and abolished term limits on the presidency.

The DSA platform closely follows the Chavez plan to overthrow democracy. The primary difference is that DSA plans to use congress to gain control instead of the presidency (this plan could change if someone in the DSA steps forward as a potential national candidate). Similar strategies have been used to overthrow democracy throughout Latin America. Daniel Ortega was surprised when a free and fair election ousted him in 1990 but he was able to regain the presidency in 2006 even though he only got 38% of the vote. That was the last free and fair election in Nicaragua and recently, President Ortega announced no more elections at all (not even sham ones).

Democracy has struggled to get a foothold in Latin America, making it easy for autocratic socialists to gain power. Countries in South America have complicated constitutions that are easy to change or ignore (the constitution of El Salvador has 274 articles, the US Constitution has 6). The Democratic Socialists of America want to add the United States to the list of counties adopting socialism. But rather than revolution or national elections, the DSA wants to take over from the ground up, rather than top down as had been the pattern since the October Revolution.

There have been numerous grass roots idealist and socialist communities in America. Many were religiously affiliated but some were also socialist (of course socialism, based on faith in a theory and not fact, has much in common with religion). People joined these societies voluntarily (such as the Owenite communities like New Harmony) but most only lasted a few years.

The kibbutzim (socialist farming societies) in Israel were voluntarily founded by idealistic Jewish refugees fleeing from the pogroms and discrimination in Europe (even before the Nazis), as illustrated by Nicholas Wade in his book, The Origin of Politics. The refugees wanted to create societies that were not burdened by the hierarchy and patriarchy of traditional societies. So they created societies (Kibbutzim) where everybody was equal, the people held no property and they all received the same pay (policies endorsed by the DSA). Another policy they implemented was the dissolution of the nuclear family with the children raised communally spending very little time with their natural parents. The DSA also accuses the nuclear family of promoting the patriarchy and endorses numerous policies to weaken the traditional family structure.

Initially, the kibbutzim were successful. Before the state of Israel was created and also in the early days of Israel, most of the Jews in the Middle East at that time had little wealth so the lack of wealth in the kibbutzim was not a factor. All the founders of the kibbutzim were dedicated socialists and new entrants were screened carefully to make sure they would fit into these socialist communities.

The only problem that arose initially, was that the communal raising of children, designed to end the patriarchy and liberate women to work alongside the men, met some resistance. The women (and presumably some of the men) missed their children. The family relationship among homo sapiens has been bred into people over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and is not easily broken.

And while the initial settlers were ardently and passionately socialist, not all human beings match their enthusiasm. The second generation of the people in the kibbutz contained some who were not as ardently socialist as their parents. Some did not like that they worked hard for the same pay as the slackers. Others with advanced skills in medicine or engineering were not happy receiving the same pay as simple farmers. And as Israel developed and became more wealthy, there were greater opportunities for ambitious folk outside the kibbutz. So they left. Only about 60 traditional kibbutzim (fully socialist farming communities) still exist.

I fervently hope it does not take a generation or two for Americans to realize the problems that socialism creates. But I don’t think it will take that long. Already DSA Mayor Mamdani of New York City has had to take money that was supposed fund the (already underfunded) pensions of city workers to pay for his promised programs. If I was FDNY or NYPD I would be pissed. And Seattle DSA Mayor Katy Wilson has already had to say “bye” to a number of wealthy residents and large corporations. She has also had to say “bye “to the tax revenues those residents and corporations use to pay.

The mounting problems these leftists administrations will face will ultimately undermine the public support for Democratic Socialists of America. I just don’t know if their inevitable collapse will be soon enough to impact the 2028 presidential elections.