Former Democratic Socialist Jake Altman lays out an interesting case in a post at City Journal:
Well, I know the DSA, and as someone who was a member and served in local leadership, I can say that Chait has it right: today’s DSA is not a harmless organization. It includes disciplined, radicalized networks that have methodically expanded their power over the last decade in pursuit of extremist goals.
As the Democratic Party grapples with the DSA’s growing influence and extremism, it would do well to recognize that the same dynamic underway now—first accommodation, then capture, then surrender to insurgent radicals—already played out on a smaller scale within the DSA itself. The only defense is to out-organize it.
He concludes:
What happened to the DSA can and will happen to the Democratic Party if more moderate Democrats don’t organize against it. As Reuther, a man with experience fighting Leninists, wrote in 1948: “You have to show [Communism] up in the marketplace of ideas, expose it by honest dealing.”
But the battle is not merely ideological. Reuther’s victory over the Communists in the United Auto Workers union was the result of a clear-eyed strategy of exposing, isolating, and driving out those who rejected democratic norms. He also built a broad anti-Communist coalition. Dissident Democrats would do well to take inspiration from him.
Michael Harrington, one of the founders of the DSA, graduated from the same high school I did, albeit several decades earlier than I. I often wonder what he’d think of today’s DSA. They’re a long way from Dorothy Day’s vision of voluntary charity and personal responsibility.
I frequently think that the best way to gauge someone’s actual views is to consider what they accomplish rather than what they promise. If leaders consistently prosper personally while advocating socialism, that tells us something. If jurisdictions they govern consistently fail to become more peaceful, prosperous, or orderly, that tells us something else. Campaign rhetoric matters less than observable results.
