How Socialist Is the D.S.A.? Megan Romer Explains

0:23David Remnick

0:30is the emergence of democratic socialism as a force on the national stage. That surge really began with Bernie Sanders' run for president in 2016. The 40-hour work week, collective bargaining, the rights of workers to engage in negotiations were all described in one way or another as socialist. Then Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won her seat in Congress as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. And she really put the DSA on the map for a lot of Americans, particularly younger people. Zoran Mamdani is also a DSA member, and his election has had a galvanizing effect on young voters well beyond New York City.

1:14As of now, the DSA lists seven candidates for Congress who have won primaries against more establishment Democrats. Now, that is hardly a sweep of the Democratic Party, but these candidates are commanding outsized attention. But when I talk to individual members of the DSA, it's not always easy to tell what the group stands for or where those members stand within the DSA. When I talked to Nithya Raman last week, or Mayor Mamdani, or to AOC a while back, they often sound, at least to my ear, more like FDR Democrats than followers of Karl Marx. Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Senate candidate, shares some policy goals with DSA, but he's not part of the group at all.

1:59In fact, he told me on this show the other day that he's a capitalist. So how socialist is democratic socialism in America these days? That's just been one of my many questions about the group and what it stands for. To get more of a purchase on the subject, I sat down to talk with the co-chair of the DSA, Megan Romer. Now, you may have seen a clip of Romer recently on Fox News, where she seemed happy to do a lightning round on the group's more radical positions. I want to ask you, just give me sort of a true or false on these. Abolish the Senate. True. Okay. Replace the presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them.

2:37Yep. Abolish ICE. Absolutely. Abolish borders and give amnesty to anyone currently. Now, I should note that Romer stressed to me that she doesn't make policy for the DSA. Her job is to represent and implement the agenda that the members themselves vote on. I spoke with Megan Romer this past week. Megan, let's start with first principles. What, to your mind, is democratic socialism? So just very simply, it is people having a democratic say-so in all of the things that they need to survive. So democratic control of their workplace, democratic control of their housing, and democracy in what we already know as democracy in the political process.

3:20Okay. So that proposes about a million questions. What does democracy in the workplace mean? Does everybody get a vote on what we're going to do today, tomorrow, and the next day? The way we look at it is mostly probably pretty similar to how a unionized workplace would work today. You get to collectively decide with your coworkers what demands you want to make of your boss, what your schedule looks like, what your working environment looks like, can negotiate collectively with whoever the boss is. Okay, but that sounds like simple unionization, which we already have, even though unions are not in the best spot they've ever been in this country.

3:54That's true. So we'd like to see everybody have a union. Right now, it's quite low. It's in the teens, I think, percentage of unionized workplaces. We think everybody should have a union of some sort. And what does it mean for the larger economics of a country? For example, you know, Google or Apple or, you know, the biggest corporations in the country. Are they no longer privately owned under democratic socialism? Well, that's a good question. And we specifically say that the industries that you need power, I would say that the Internet is a necessity at this point. You can't really function without it.

4:34Water, things like this. A lot of these things are public in some places. We want them public everywhere. Do you believe in owning the means of production, as the Marxists used to say? I do. Yeah. Yeah. But you speak for whom? Well, I speak for the Democratic Socialists of America. And I think that you will find the demand long term for the working class to be in charge of the means of production is one that is pretty universally held. Again, we're not, you know, trying to flip a switch so that everything changes tomorrow. We're thinking about ways you can incrementally, you know, make life better, for starters, but also shift the balance of power from the billionaire class to the working class.

5:19Okay. So what is the difference between democratic socialism and what exists in a lot of Europe, which I would call social democracy, which is to say a greater emphasis and maybe a higher tax rate in order to have things like what we would call Medicare for all or single payer or either free or radically less expensive higher education? And I think, and I'm going to take a wild guess here, if you were using that vocabulary instead of the socialism category, you might have more adherence. Maybe, but the reality is that we do not think that we're not fighting for a kinder, gentler capitalism. We think that a democracy that's really controlled by the working class is the ultimate goal.

6:06social democracy. When you say we, forgive me, Megan, but when you say we, how has that stance arrived upon? Who's we? That's a great question and one that I love to talk about. So DSA is fundamentally and sometimes excruciatingly democratic. The highest decision-making body of the Democratic Socialists of America is our convention. It happens every two years. Chapters elect delegates. We come together, vote on a bunch of proposals that may or may not shift our overall strategies or our overall stances on some things. And this is this are representatives from a base of how many people? Well, right now, I think we're at one hundred and twenty nine thousand people.

6:49But we have grown significantly since since Zoran Mondani's election, which came after our last convention. And then we have we've we're seeing a growth spurt recently with the recent congressional primary wins as well. It's very interesting to me that maybe the highest profile political race that we're now seeing nationally for the midterm elections on the left is the ascent in the state of Michigan. If Abdul El-Sayed, who when I asked him about democratic socialism said, no, no, no, no, I'm a capitalist. Disappointed? he's not a dsa candidate if he was a dsa candidate i would absolutely be disappointed um but i'm i'm glad that there is a a movement sort of across the board of of people taking on some of these policies because i do think um they will improve life for the working class what is the working class in this country because zoran mamdani mayor of new york just gave an interview i believe to the new york times and he was asked please define the working class and he said anybody making under million dollars a year, which I got to tell you was news to me.

7:53Yeah. That is not how I would define the working class. How would you define it? So we're coming out of a socialist tradition where class is defined based on your relationship to capital. And so the working class is essentially people who make a paycheck. So if I'm a dentist, I can't be working class? Well, it depends. Are you a dentist who is working for a corporation and selling your labor and getting paid hourly? Or Or are you a dentist who owns your dental practice? It does get fuzzy around that edges. It gets you know, there's a lot of socialist theory happening right now about gig work and how these sort of like technically a gig worker works for themselves.

8:31But they're obviously not really the ownership class. So there's definitely a hot topic of debate. But but the simple definition is, do you make a paycheck or do you make money off other people working for you or or renting a place that you own? Are you making the money from the payoff of your capital investments? Are you making it because you sell your labor? Let's dig down a little bit here. DSA refused to endorse Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016. You happy about that decision? I think it would have hurt our credibility a bit as people who are actually standing for socialism and against neoliberalism.

9:08Yeah, but on the other hand, you let an authoritarian through the door. I mean, I'm not blaming you specifically. A lot of factors went into it. Yeah. Did you stay home in 2016? I didn't. No, you voted. I voted for Hillary Clinton and I voted for Joe Biden in 2020. So why did you do that against the recommendation of the organization? Well, I wasn't a DSA member in 2016, first of all. But I, you know, I did believe in in a harm reduction vote. But I don't think that the couple hundred thousand socialists are the ones who swung that vote. It's the millions of people who stayed home because all they were being offered was kind of a rainbow flag painted version of the same thing.

9:46In fairness, millions of people stay home every election. I mean, it's a sort of shameful part. And we think that's a huge problem. A big part of our strategy is trying to engage people who do not vote regularly, who do feel disenfranchised by the system in general. Absolutely. Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump, no endorsement. You agreed with that? Yeah, I voted on that statement. I was a member of the National Political Committee. Yeah. So most DSA members, I think, certainly in swing states, voted for Kamala Harris, I believe. But we felt that our credibility really stood on saying, we are socialists.

10:27We are offering you a real alternative. I didn't think that our endorsement would really make a difference one way or the other. And I don't think it would have. I think, again, people don't vote because they feel totally locked out, not because DSA told them to or to not vote for a presidential candidate. When we endorse somebody, that doesn't just mean we're putting a rubber stamp on it anyway. It means that we are turning out our people to hit the doors and hit the phones and really do a major voter outreach operation. And we weren't going to do that for Kamala Harris. And I don't know that it would have made a difference if we had.

11:02And I don't know that she wanted it. This article in Jacobin, which, as you know, is a DSA-aligned journal, it's called A Blueprint for a New Party. And it said the goal is not to immediately form a third party, which is seen as suicidal in today's two-party system, but to, quote, mount the electoral equivalent of guerrilla insurgency, unquote, by using the Democratic Party line. We do love to talk like that, don't we? Is that a good idea, Megan? I think people like us being rather bold. I think I think the boldness actually. It's sort of the badass imagery. Someone's got to be. People are furious about Trump and the Democratic Party.

11:41I mean, James Carville's writing op eds that say roll over and play dead. Like what? What is that? People want a fighter. And I think I think they appreciate that we just come right out and say it. So before we came on, we alluded to the fact that you were just on Fox News and you were read a series of positions, statements, you very cheerfully responded, yes, without any embarrassment to this, you know, series of issues. I think open borders was one. Why are you for open borders? I think to a lot of ears, it sounds like a John Lennon song, not a political reality. Well, John Lennon was very popular.

12:23I think, you know, again, all of these policy points, They're all part of this long term goal where we are putting huge amounts of resources into alleviating poverty, into stopping destabilization of countries internationally that are that are causing a huge migrant flow. But, you know, most people in the U.S. are here because of a prior period of unrestricted immigration or of much looser immigration. We put caps on certain countries and don't allow migration from other countries and and then, you know, kind of wide open for for some countries. I understand that. But people would argue back and say, OK, that there may be deep flaws in both the history and the system of immigration.

13:03Why not correct those flaws and make them more just? But by just throwing the gates open, whether it's the gates of prisons or the gates of immigration, that chaos will ensue. I think you probably get that argument a lot. Sure. And we're not saying throw the gates open. We're saying let's do that. Let's let's look at where the system is really flawed, really problematic. I think that's called immigration reform. It is. But we think that you have to look at all of these things from first principles. Right. We started here from first principles. So what do we want out of an immigration system? Let's start there.

13:38That doesn't mean just throwing open the borders and then building from the ground up. It means reforming the system we have while we rethink the system, while we build this new one from the ground up and then hopefully eventually flipping the switch. Do you believe there should be millionaires in this country? I'm less concerned about millionaires, more concerned about billionaires. I don't have like a hard line where you're good or you're bad. I think the question is less about how much is too much and more about what are you doing to keep and maintain and get that wealth in the first place.

14:13I think most billionaires got their wealth because they exploited the working class in some very significant way. usually. Are we exploiting people is the bigger question, as opposed to some sort of arbitrary red line of you can have this much money or not have that much money. But we do believe in taxing the hell out of millionaires. Yeah, absolutely. Well, what is taxing the hell out of them mean? Yeah, you know, I don't have like a solid, but I think. But shouldn't you? I mean, if you're the co-chair of the DSA, shouldn't you be more specific than just taxing the hell out of something. What exactly do you mean?

14:50So again, it's democracy, right? And we have to look at what we need to spend and what we need. We don't want to depend on the existence of millionaires because that means people are still getting exploited. So yeah, we need to look at what we need to pay for in the interim, what sort of tax base we need for that to happen, and build from there. Megan Romer is co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, along with Ashik Sadiq. We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

15:38This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I've been speaking today with Megan Romer, the co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America. Candidates affiliated with DSA are running all over the country in congressional races, Wisconsin governor's race, some big mayoral races, for some state houses and city councils as well. Megan Romer is one of the chief spokespeople for DSA and will continue our conversation now. Is support of Israel in any form essentially a red card in DSA? As I understand it, in 2024, DSA's National Political Committee withdrew its endorsement of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over her support for House resolutions stating that denying Israel's right to exist is a form of anti-Semitism.

16:28Her local chapter stuck with her. And this was an argument that continued on. Where are you on it? Yeah, so that was like a very complicated and very like inter-DSA bureaucratic question. But convention decided that, yeah, this is a solid red line. No defense or economics support for Israel. Does Israel have the right to defend itself, according to DSA? What is the position that DSA is headed toward here? Is it for a two-state solution? Is it a binational, one-state solution? What, in fact, is the position of DSA? Yeah, so our position is a free Palestine with the capital in Jerusalem. I think that could be safely read as a one-state solution.

17:16So the Camp David accords that were being negotiated at the beginning of the century under the Clinton administration, had the Palestinians accepted it, that would have satisfied you? Good question. I need to look at what the actual specifics there were. I don't know them off the top of my head. But humans, peoples, have the right to live in safety. Absolutely. But if that safety means doing genocide to somebody else, then no, that's not defensible. Daria Liza Avila-Chevalier recently won a primary election in New York City for Congress, and she's almost sure to win the general election there, too.

17:53She attended an October 8th pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas rally, which many people saw as a justification of the October 7th violence. And some of her tweets have been extremely ugly on this score and on other things too. Do you fully support her in all these activities and what she's had to say? I think Daria Lisa can speak for herself, certainly. And I think she's apologized for some pieces of that. Not for attending that rally. Unapologetic about other pieces of that. Do you support her yourself in that? Yeah, I do. Why? In other words, you would have gone to that rally had you been able? That's a good question.

18:35I probably would have. Yeah, yeah. I don't live in New York City, So I wouldn't have one day after the slaughter of twelve hundred people and taking of over 200 hostages, you would have come and rallied behind Hamas. I think that October 7th was largely inevitable. If you put people in a an open air concentration camp and you deprive them of rights, of dignity, of food, of the ability to live in safety, you have to expect that they are going to not take that for that long. And that is not defending any harm of civilians or of noncombatants. Well, sure it is. Do you think it is? You're saying you're supporting it.

19:18I'm saying that I think it was inevitable. I think that you cannot put people in a cage and expect them not to revolt. And I think that supporting the civilians, the noncombatants, the children who are being killed, you know, that's really the primary thing. So you live in upstate New York. You describe yourself as a Jon Stewart liberal. Tell me about your life until 2018. What were you doing? What was your mindset and why did it change? Absolutely true. Got most of my news from Jon Stewart. That was my primary news source. I'd read The Sunday Times and I'd read Jon Stewart. And I actually I did read The New Yorker and sometimes even for more than the cartoons.

20:06I appreciate that. Absolutely. Keep it up. But what happened? What turned? So after Hillary Clinton did not win and I was supportive of Hillary Clinton, I was not a registered Democrat at that point. I was registered independent. And then she didn't win. And I was horrified. I was baffled. I tried to become involved in the Democratic Party. What I ended up involved in was this like women's club where you'd like have speakers like you weren't actually making any decisions. You were hearing people talk about a book. That was all really frustrating because I was like, who's doing anything? What are we pushing anything toward?

20:40And a friend who was a folk musician said, you know, we are starting this DSA chapter. You should come to a meeting. And I was like, the socialists. And I was like, all right, well, I'll come to your meeting because because we're friends, but I'm not saying comrade. And I was just so relieved they were actually doing something, just anything. They had plans to just do something. We're going to lobby for this bill. We're going to do this community service activity together. We're just going to do stuff. And I was like, great. and then organizing and actually thinking constantly about like what an actual change to the system.

21:15Eventually, I read some theory and I and, you know, I didn't go to college. But, you know, most of the great socialist theorists were writing pamphlets to be distributed to factory workers. Megan, I think what might have disturbed some people who are watching that Fox clip, there was a certain kind of, you know, breezy. Yeah, I'm for that. I'm for that. and there was no detail at all. And when you come to an issue like prison abolition and just say, yep, I'm for that, or defund the police, sure, I'm for that, it was a little startling. Now, it might have been the form of the show, so let's flip the switch here and dig down a little.

21:55What do you mean by prison abolition? We've had on this show Michelle Alexander, who wrote The New Jim Crow, and plenty of people in the Democratic Party, even in the establishment, have rejected mass incarceration and some things have been done to bring it down. What does prison abolition mean to you? So again, let's start from first principles, right? What do we need? We need safety. We need our community. Let's begin from what is to be done, to use a Leninist phrase. No, I mean, I think you have to start from first principles. And that is the core of this. We need community safety. We need people to be safe.

22:33We need people to be able to live their lives without fear of being assaulted, without fear of being robbed, without fear of violence. What communities do we know are the safest? It's not communities with cops on every corner. It's communities that have good schools, good jobs, good park systems, good recreation for their teenagers, things like that. Those are the safe communities. What does defunding the police mean in your mind? Every year, police budgets go up. every year. There's a backlog of rape kits that don't get tested. Should they be maintained? I am not in favor of getting rid of police entirely tomorrow.

23:10No, defunding the police means no funding. I think that's, you know, I don't think so. I think I think it means I think it means taking funding back and moving it elsewhere. Right. So so pulling some of that funding back and moving it elsewhere. To the extent to which we are fully funding social services, to which we are fully funding schools, lunch programs for kids, after school programs for kids. Communities should be clean and they should be safe. We should be funding putting trees up so people have more. I don't think anybody's going to argue about any of that trees or anything of the like, but they're concerned.

23:44But they do. They do. Because there's always more money for the police budgets and there is never money for how do we just literally make our communities safer, nicer, healthier and and and that that does come to the question we say we don't have enough money why do you think a number of politicians in your orbit who use the rhetoric of defund the police have kind of taken it back or muffled it or gotten rid of it entirely i think you see you know different phrasings of the same idea and you know if we're just talking about branding i think that's not really the exercise we need to be spending a bunch of time on i think we need to be talking to people about like, what makes your community safe?

24:23And that is how DSA functions. We have a million conversations on the door. We are out in the communities actually changing minds. Democrats really like a slogan. They like an ad. They like a mailer. You've made an argument for abolishing the Senate. And we both live in a state that has a, I don't know what, multiple of a population of Wyoming, which also has two senators. We all understand that. The Electoral College, we We understand why it was put in place in the first place and why it's outdated now. But I think we can also agree that the chances of amending the Constitution to that effect are about zero.

25:00Does taking that kind of theoretical position, however principled, distract from DSA policies that might really succeed or be more urgent? I don't think so. I think taking principled positions tells people that you're principled. And I think we see voters really responding to that. And we see people saying, oh, you're actually thinking about the systems. You know, even Thomas Jefferson, for all of his heinous problems, I think he was writing letters to James Madison where he talked about we need a new constitution every 19 years because he did some calculation in his head that that that is when a generation changes over.

25:37And he said people should not be haunted by these rules set for them by previous generations. So this is not actually it's not a new concept to say, like, hey, wait a second. Why are we doing this thing this way? Give me the dynamics within DSA. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zoran Mamdani, too, have been criticized by people in DSA for moderating various positions. AOC took advice from Nancy Pelosi. Momdani retained the New York City police commissioner from the previous administration. So what I think often on the outside looks like infighting or mess, we just call it democracy. We think it's good.

26:18We're always happy to pick apart anything, ruthless critique of all that exists, to use a Marxist phrase. You've quoted Marx now a few times in our conversation. I did quote Thomas Jefferson, too. Not happily, not without ambivalence. Well, I was ruthlessly critiquing him for all that exists. You think you're going to get far by quoting Marxist theory in this country? Or do you think that that kind of Cold War antipathy to Marx, to say the least, is gone? i think that people see that capitalism is not working for them and i think uh you know when you talk to people on the doors they don't care if you're quoting marx or thomas jefferson they care about whether or not uh their their building is safe whether or not there are rats crawling around in their children's bedrooms of course but but but and you can say hey guess what there's this thing in vienna called the carl marx hoff uh and it's a house and it's called named after Karl Marx.