Yet another socialist has unseated a longtime Democratic incumbent, making this the fifth victory for the Democratic Socialists of America in recent weeks; last night, socialist Melat Kiros defeated a 15-term incumbent, Congresswoman Diana DeGette, in Denver.
The socialists want you to believe these victories are the result of working-class people flocking to their candidates. They want you to believe they are “fighting the oligarchy!” and taking on the billionaires and special interests and bringing back an agenda focused on the multi-racial working class.
Alas, this is a load of malarky.
A Thomas Edsall noted in the New York Times, a 2021 survey of DSA members found that 85 percent were white. Just 9 percent were Hispanic and just 4 percent Black. Even Trump got 25 percent of Black men to vote for him, and he won Hispanic men outright.
As for a working-class organization, just four percent of DSA members had blue-collar jobs, while six in 10 had professional jobs and the remainder were unemployed or students. Over 80 percent had a college degree.
Of course, not everyone who votes for the DSA is a member. But the people voting for these candidates have a similar profile.
In Maine, Republican Susan Collins is polling 21 points ahead of democratic socialist Graham Platner. 21 points! So why is Platner ahead of her by two points overall? Because he is cleaning Collins’s clock with the college educated—by 34 points.
In New York, Darializa Chevalier, the DSA candidate who ousted a two-term incumbent, lost the Hispanic vote by 16 points. She lost the Bronx by 30 points, while winning the more affluent areas of Manhattan.
The DSA’s Claire Valdez crushed Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso by beating him 62 to 28 in the district’s high-income neighborhoods, while Reynoso carried low income areas 63 to 31.
The DSA is running and winning with over-credentialed college elites, over the candidates chosen by the working class they pretend to represent, whose views are often diametrically opposed to those of the DSA.
The socialists support abolishing ICE, while 60% of working-class Americans support building a wall.
The socialists support allowing trans athletes to compete against women, while 72% of working class Americans oppose it.
The socialists routinely smear America, while Americans without a college degree are deeply patriotic.
It’s true that working-class people of all political persuasions support Medicare for All.
But so do the incumbents ousted by the DSA! If your real goal is Medicare for All, why are you spending all this money ousting candidates who support it?
It’s all so fake.
These candidates don’t care about Medicare for All. The bulk of their campaigns are devoted the things that make the college educated feel morally superior: Free Palestine and Abolish ICE.
“Free Palestine” is the new land acknowledgment—a virtue signal one throws out to avoid being called racist and curry favor with a youth radicalized at fancy universities.
If they were being honest, they would just admit that they don’t care about the working class. They care about being seen as more anti-Israel than the other guy, just as in 2020, they cared about being seen as more anti-racist, and in 2022, they cared about being seen as more worried about climate change, and in 2024, more worried about trans rights.
This isn’t a working-class agenda. It’s trust-fund socialism.
