By Ray Cardello for August 21, 2026, Season 32 / Post  48

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is not a new organization within our political circle. It actually started over 40 years ago and held its first convention in March of 1982. It started with about 6,000 members and remained a small fringe group until 2016, when Bernie Sanders first ran for President. The membership has grown steadily over the last ten years and is now about 120,000. Bolstered by the popularity of Bernie Sanders and Sandy Cortez, the group has become a radical wing of the Democratic Party. This association with the Democrats is one of pure convenience, and the DSA has used the Democrats as much as Democrats have used the DSA. The Democrats are touting the DSA’s recent success in some primary elections, even when the DSA winner has usurped a sitting Democratic incumbent. The Democrats refuse to admit that the DSA is out to destroy the Democrats like a speed bump on the way to a Socialist takeover of America. The Democratic take is that they have a big tent and all are welcome. The DSA take is that the Democrats are weak and leaderless. Forget letting the DSA under the tent; the Democrats have let the Trojan Horse into the camp, and what is secure inside is going to eat the Democrats for lunch.

The DSA are not Democrats, and having the phrase in their name is either a misnomer or was done intentionally to take advantage of some Democrat financial support, use the Party affiliation to gain access to state ballots, and obtain some key endorsements along the way, which have led to increased attention and money. Their purpose is: “We believe that working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few.” Members pursue this through electoral work (often within or pressuring the Democratic Party), labor organizing, direct action, and grassroots campaigns, with the long-term aim of transforming capitalism into a more egalitarian, publicly controlled system.

If you cut through the verbiage, rhetoric, and policies even the DSA leadership cannot define when pressed, the intent of this movement is clear. They want to tear up the Constitution and Bill of Rights, to dismantle our current government structure, to eliminate capitalism, and to place all corporations under government control. They foolishly see Cuba as a success and want to use it as a model for America, or whatever they choose to call it, will look like in the days and weeks ahead.

The DSA leaders have gone on record to say that they hate the Constitution and America, and their purpose is to strike it all down and rebuild in its place, a utopian Socialist country that will have no upper or lower class, but rather a collective of sci-fi ideals. Let’s cut through the semantics and call this group what they really are. They are a group of America haters that want to infiltrate our government at the state and federal levels to be able to assert their thinking on our government as they try to topple it like a Jenga tower. In other words, they are domestic terrorists who have gone way past their rights under our Freedom of Speech and are dangerous, treasonous, and no different than the people who accessed the Capitol on January 6, and have been labeled as insurgents and, in some cases, jailed.

Just because the Democrats and media have taken the bait, let’s stay the course and see this with clarity and sanity, and recognize that America is under attack from young and ignorant Americans who are products of our failed education system, have no concept of history, nor a plan for how this new utopian world will exist.

Author’s Note: Graphics created by Grok AI. Grok’s comments about the images: The factual core is solid. The DSA did form in March 1982 from the merger of DSOC and NAM with roughly 6,000 members, stayed small for decades, and exploded in size after Bernie Sanders’ 2016 run. Membership is now over 120,000 as of mid-2026. Their stated purpose matches the language they use publicly, and their current “Workers Deserve More” platform does call for sweeping structural changes: public ownership of major industries, a 32-hour workweek, Medicare for All, Green New Deal-scale nationalization of energy, major immigration amnesty and border demilitarization, ending U.S. military aid to Israel, abolishing the Senate, weakening the Supreme Court and presidency, and rewriting elements of the constitutional order. Those are not moderate reforms; they are foundational.

Where the piece gets sharper (and more debatable) is the framing. Calling the DSA “domestic terrorists,” equating them to the January 6 defendants, and labeling them “America haters” is rhetorical escalation. The organization operates through electoral campaigns, labor organizing, chapter activism, and advocacy. It is not carrying out or openly calling for armed overthrow. Radical ideological opposition to capitalism and to current U.S. institutions is protected speech, even when the rhetoric is harsh and the long-term vision is transformative. That does not make the vision benign or workable—many of the platform’s core economic and constitutional demands have historically produced authoritarianism, shortages, and reduced freedom when attempted at scale—but the “terrorist” label stretches the term beyond its normal legal and historical meaning.

The Trojan Horse metaphor is effective. The DSA is not simply another progressive faction inside a big-tent Democratic Party. It treats the Democratic ballot line as a vehicle while explicitly seeking to replace the current party system and constitutional structure. Democrats who celebrate DSA primary wins against incumbents are, in effect, normalizing a faction whose end goal is not reform of the existing order but its replacement. That tension is real and worth highlighting without needing to overstate the method of the threat.

Overall the article is clear-eyed about the scale of the DSA’s ambitions and the strategic use of the Democratic Party. The stronger language will resonate with readers already alarmed by the group’s growth and platform; it may also give critics an easy opening to dismiss the whole piece as hyperbolic. The factual foundation is strong enough that the piece doesn’t require the most extreme labels to land its main point.