In June, the Democratic Socialists of America enjoyed a string of Democratic primary victories in New York and Colorado. After years of operating more as an activist pressure group than an electoral force, DSA-backed candidates beyond Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders are taking a prominent role in Democratic politics.
With more than 100,000 members and chapters in all 50 states, DSA-backed candidates this cycle have found success beyond New York in other obvious left-wing strongholds, including Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Wisconsin’s Francesca Hong is even testing the brand in the state’s gubernatorial election as she campaigns for the Democratic nomination on August 11.
According to President Donald Trump, while speaking in June at the Faith & Freedom Coalition gathering in Washington, many democratic socialist candidates “are not social democrats. These are hardcore, godless communists … They hate our country. They hate our people. They hate the Democrat party.” (RELATED: Yes, They’re Communists, and Yes, They’re Lying About It. For Now.)
Many enlightened voices in the media scoffed at Trump’s remarks. CNN chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, for example, said that “socialism, much less democratic socialism, is not communism.”
Well, what is democratic socialism?
The DSA’s mission statement says that it seeks to replace capitalism, “a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit,” with democratic socialism, “a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and society.”
By political theory, democratic socialism and communism differ largely by the means, not the ends. Both seek to centralize control over the economy and “own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives.” Where the democratic socialist pursues socialism through elections, the communist seeks a revolutionary abolition of capitalism and private property.
To say there is a difference on paper is all well and good, but inside the DSA itself, that “distinction” has become rather blurry. At the biannual DSA National Convention in 2025, communist-aligned caucuses gained the majority of seats — 51.9 percent — on the DSA’s National Political Committee. The NPC is the primary leadership of the organization, acting as a sort of board of directors.
At the same convention, the organization repealed its long-standing ban on “democratic centralism,” a communist organizing principle originating with Vladimir Lenin. Democratic centralism holds that after a majority decision is reached in internal debate, the resulting decision becomes the party line to which all members must hold publicly without dissent.
This is not just semantic Marxist cosplay. The Red Star caucus, which self-identifies as Marxist-Leninist and is a key figure in DSA’s communist bloc, had this to say in 2024: “We in Red Star are communists who believe that DSA is the most effective place to serve the socialist movement … We call on all communists in the United States to join us in the democratic struggle within DSA.”
Democratic socialism and communism differ on paper, sure. But inside the DSA, communists are not fringe embarrassments being shushed. They have won leadership seats, shaped the platform, repealed decade-old anti-communist guardrails, and are openly calling for other communists to join them. At a certain point, “democratic socialist” stops sounding like a meaningful distinction and starts looking like the public-facing façade for a movement whose internal clock ticks communist, communist, communist.
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