Photo by Richard Scalzo/Shutterstock
THE MOVEMENT
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are enjoying a winning streak. The news media is calling it a movement, because it is.
The DSA describes its strategy as a “democratic road to socialism,” seeking to advance its agenda at the ballot box, and it’s succeeding. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is a card-carrying member of the DSA, as are Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan), Pennsylvania state Representative Chris Rabb, New York Assemblymember Claire Valdez, Democratic nominee for New York’s 13th congressional district Darializa Avila Chevalier, and D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George.
The Democratic Socialists of America’s 2026 agenda calls for a government takeover of major industries, voting rights for noncitizens, taxpayer-funded abortion and “gender-transition” procedures, and a new constitution replacing the House and Senate with a single federal legislature.
WHAT THEY WANT
The DSA describes itself as a “big tent” organization and includes an openly communist faction, known as Red Star. The organization says its 2025-2026 program seeks to “bring together millions of people throughout the U.S. to fight for a true democracy,” where working people “can beat the ruling class and forge a better world.”
Under the DSA’s economic plan, the government would assume public ownership of the country’s largest corporations and essential industries, including major energy and transportation infrastructure. The DSA also supports a 32-hour workweek without reductions in pay or benefits, stronger union powers, the cancellation of all student debt, and higher taxes on wealthy earners and corporations.
The platform calls for universal health care at no direct cost to patients. Abortion and “gender affirming” procedures would be paid for by the government, not the individual. It also proposes free public education from prekindergarten through college, publicly funded housing, universal rent control, free childcare, and paid family leave.
The immigration section of the DSA’s program calls for demilitarizing the border, ending immigrant detention and deportations, and allowing workers to migrate between countries without restrictive immigration controls. It would also extend full voting rights to noncitizens and people with criminal convictions. The DSA separately supports redirecting police funding to community services, while its National Political Committee created an Abolish ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Committee to develop a nationwide campaign.
Some of the platform’s most far-reaching proposals aim to restructure the federal government. The DSA calls for a new constitution based on proportional representation and a “single federal legislature” that would replace the current House-and-Senate system. The organization also says the new system should “end the role of money in politics.”
The program calls for replacing the electoral college with a national popular vote, expanding the House, ending the Senate filibuster, and reducing the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review. The organization also wants to replace the two-party system with a multiparty system.
In foreign policy, the DSA calls for sharply reducing the military budget, closing overseas bases, bringing troops home, and ending economic sanctions against countries including Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran. The program demands an end to all U.S. military and economic aid to Israel and recognition of a Palestinian state. The platform also would recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice.
In other words, the DSA is anti-American.
TARGETING KIDS
Defending Education warns that the DSA’s 2018 pamphlet, “Why Socialists Should Become Teachers,” calls K12 education “a strategic industry to organize” and urges members to build “a militant minority of class-conscious teachers” inside their unions. In 2023, the DSA’s national convention went further, formally adopting a resolution to run DSA candidates for school board seats nationwide. Delegates noted that school board races are how they “build relationships with teacher unions.”
The teachers, school board members and union leaders the DSA produces are serving in their positions today, in school districts across the country, with real influence over what kids are learning in K12 classrooms. Here are a few things the DSA’s own national platform calls for in our nation’s schools:
Its “Gender and Sexuality Justice” plan instructs the state to let trans minors “access gender affirming care without parental consent.”
Its “Abolition of the Carceral State” plan calls for removing police “from all schools, colleges, and universities.”
DSA chapter-level materials recommend school districts implement “anti-racist and anti-imperialist” ethnic studies curriculum with the stated purpose of dismantling capitalism, and a DSA teacher training calls for “heroic resistance to Zionism.”
Some of the DSA’s action items target students as young as five. In recent years, the DSA has grown its membership, expanded its presence inside teachers’ unions, and won school board seats – including board president seats – in school districts from Los Angeles to Milwaukee. Clearly, Democratic Socialists see an opportunity to add numbers to their movement — and have their way with our nation sooner rather than later — by influencing American children and youth in our schools.
KIDS FIRST recommends that parents and concerned citizens closely monitor their local education boards and communicate opposition to such uninvited influence with tireless diligence. And, let us resolve to talk with our children and grandchildren about the numerous socialist experiments — both past and present — which always diminish liberty and never fail to usher in unnecessary suffering.
KIDS FIRST. NOT AGENDAS.
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