The DSA Is Learning the Wrong Lesson from 2024

Let’s begin with something both supporters and critics of the DSA should be able to agree on.

The Democratic Socialists of America’s current platform was not on the ballot in 2024. Americans didn’t vote directly on abolishing ICE, replacing the Senate, eliminating prisons, or fundamentally restructuring the presidency or the Supreme Court. So, it would be inaccurate to claim that voters explicitly rejected those proposals.

But that’s not the right question.

The better question is this: What did the 2024 election tell us about the priorities of the American electorate?

Elections don’t answer every policy question. They do tell us which issues matter most to voters, and which messages are capable of building a governing majority. That is why the DSA’s response to the election deserves scrutiny.

In a recent Fox News interview, DSA National Co-Chair Megan Romer reaffirmed support for abolishing ICE, eventually eliminating national borders, replacing the Senate, replacing the presidency and Supreme Court as we know them, abolishing prisons as part of a long-term vision, and expanding government ownership of major corporations.

Supporters are free to advocate for those ideas.

But where is the evidence that Americans are asking for them?

The dominant issues in 2024 were not difficult to identify. Inflation, the cost of living, immigration, border security, public safety, and whether government was delivering results dominated the campaign. Those were the issues that shaped the election and ultimately helped Republicans build a winning coalition.

You don’t have to like that outcome.

But you do have to acknowledge what it tells us.

Voters rewarded candidates who focused on the problems they were experiencing in everyday life. Nothing about the election suggests that a broad cross-section of Americans was demanding a sweeping reconstruction of the country’s constitutional framework.

If anything, the election pointed in the opposite direction.

This is where the conversation often breaks down.

Even some Republicans I know, including plenty on Staten Island, don’t oppose every progressive idea. Many are willing to discuss expanding access to affordable health care. Many from the Baby Boomer generation are open to eliminating wasteful government programs, reforming agencies that consistently fail taxpayers, and redirecting those resources toward priorities like Social Security and Medicare. They’re willing to debate practical reforms that improve government.

That’s called governing.

But abolishing borders isn’t governing.

Abolishing ICE isn’t governing.

Replacing the Senate and fundamentally restructuring the presidency isn’t governing.

Those aren’t reforms.

They’re proposals to remake the American constitutional order.

That distinction matters because most Americans appear to understand the difference between improving institutions and replacing them.

Supporters of democratic socialism are entitled to argue that their vision represents America’s future.

But extraordinary proposals require evidence.

Where is the broad public movement demanding the abolition of the Senate?

Where is the national coalition calling for the elimination of ICE?

Where is the electoral mandate for replacing constitutional institutions that have existed since the nation’s founding?

The burden isn’t on critics to prove Americans reject these ideas.

The burden is on those proposing them to demonstrate that Americans support them.

So far, neither the 2024 election nor the broader political conversation provides much evidence that they do.

Political movements don’t govern because they’re loud.

They govern because they persuade.

Winning social media and blue districts in NYC isn't the same as winning Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. Winning over people who already agree with you is easy. Winning over independents, moderates, and persuadable voters is what determines elections.

If the DSA’s agenda reflected where most Americans are politically, we would expect to see evidence of that in our elections.

At the time of this writing, we don’t.

Instead, the movement appears to be responding to defeat by moving further away from the political center.

That may satisfy activists.

Whether it persuades the country is another matter entirely.

Defenders of the DSA often point to Sweden, Norway, or Denmark as proof that democratic socialism works. But those comparisons only go so far.

The Nordic countries have robust welfare states, yet they also maintain market economies, enforce their borders, operate prisons, fund national militaries, and govern through stable constitutional institutions.

Whatever label one prefers, those countries are not proposing to abolish the Senate, eliminate national borders, or replace core institutions of government.

Those ideas go well beyond the model that Americans typically associate with "Nordic socialism."

Every political movement has a choice after losing.

It can ask why voters turned away.

Or it can convince itself that the answer is to double down.

The Democratic Socialists of America appears to have chosen the second path.

The 2024 election did not ask Americans whether they supported the DSA’s platform because the platform wasn’t on the ballot. But elections reveal priorities, and nothing in those results suggests the country is asking for abolishing ICE, eliminating borders, abolishing prisons, replacing the Senate, or fundamentally restructuring America’s constitutional system.

Americans are willing to debate health care.

They’re willing to debate government efficiency.

They’re willing to debate accountability and reform.

Those are healthy debates.

But reform is not the same as revolution.

The DSA is free to advocate for its vision. Every political movement should be.

It should not, however, mistake ideological conviction for public demand.

Nothing about the 2024 election suggests that this is the direction the American people are asking the country to go.