“Socialism,” once considered a scarlet letter in the United States, is growing increasingly buzzy and mainstream as a slate of politicians embracing the label have gained significant ground.
In the wake of November’s midterms, members of the Democratic Socialists of America — a leftist organization that’s made inroads within the Democratic Party — now lead cities across the country including its two largest, New York and Los Angeles.
DSA-endorsed politicians boosted their congressional seats from two to eight and won dozens of local elections, victories partly due to the Democrats’ wider battering of President Donald Trump’s Republicans.
The so-called “bluenami” of Democratic wins “would not have been possible without a socialist surge,” DSA communications chair Cara Tobe told AFP.
“People are starting to realize and learn that socialism is not a big scary word,” she said, noting that the Democrats’ focus on affordability was lifted straight from the DSA playbook.
But some political scholars aren’t convinced “socialism” earned votes.
“A rising tide lifts all boats. This was a huge win for the Democratic Party across the board,” said Stephen Ansolabehere, professor of government at Harvard University.
Hans Noel of Georgetown University attributed the success of Democrats — and DSA-backed candidates — to dissatisfaction with Trump.
“It’s important to remember that while DSA-aligned candidates did very well this year, that’s mostly in the primaries and in very Democratic areas,” the politics professor said.
Yet polls show a rising acceptance of socialism in the United States, a quintessentially capitalist country where politicians have long conflated the term with communism to vilify it.
The DSA, founded in 1982 with a focus on labor organizing, was for years a relatively tiny left-wing pressure group.
In 2015, about 6,000 supporters paid dues, but after Donald Trump’s first presidential election new membership surged.
Today, the group has more than 130,000 members and has proven an electoral force, with legions of volunteers helping elect candidates nationwide to state and local office.
Mamdani effect
Socialism has gained visibility through the campaigns and successes of prominent left-wing political stars, including the barnstorming of self-described socialist Bernie Sanders, who twice ran for president and has elevated younger candidates nationwide.
His protege Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has posted a successful congressional career and now is rumored to be considering a presidential run of her own.
And New York’s young and charismatic Mayor Zohran Mamdani has proven a poster child for furthering progressive politics under a socialist banner in cities, with a focus on core DSA issues including affordable housing, immigrant protections and healthcare access.
It’s a model politicians elsewhere in the nation are picking up on.
Eric Blanc, a Rutgers University labor studies professor, said Mamdani’s successes have “normalized” socialism, with candidates viewing the moniker as “a net positive for them to get elected.”
DSA member Nithya Raman was just elected mayor of Los Angeles on a platform of “pothole politics” — vowing to fix broken infrastructure — while harnessing the anger of younger voters over affordability.
The growing cadre of socialist mayors leading city governments are far from the first of their kind in the US.
Most notably, the so-called “sewer socialists” ran Milwaukee for more than half a century through 1960, dramatically scaling up public works projects including a modern sewer system, public housing and social infrastructure.
Mamdani has frequently referenced the sewer socialists as inspiration. Raman has also pointed to the legacy as offering a vision for future success.
Red Scare
Still, Blanc acknowledged that for some Americans, socialism still carries baggage.
Trump has called DSA candidates “hardcore, godless communists” — echoing Cold War-era Red Scare rhetoric.
Yet Noel of Georgetown said DSA candidates are far from radical, with views more closely aligned with ‘social democracy’ rather than ‘Democratic socialism.'”
Los Angeles’s Raman has had an arms-length relationship with the DSA, and has referred to the group as part of a bigger tent.
“We need that coalition in order to be able to push back against the status quo,” she told AFP in the run-up to her election.
DSA spokesperson Tobe said many of the organization’s candidates have succeeded by simply offering a different solution for working people.
“The big thing is people are looking for change. This is actually part of what even led Trump to victory,” she said.
Americans “want and need housing and accessible food and healthcare,” Tobe said.
“For a very long time, the establishment — whether Republican or Democratic — has failed the working class.”
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