How Democratic Socialism Went Mainstream

July 25, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

How Democratic Socialism Went Mainstream

The Democratic Socialists of America began in 1982 with 6,500 members and a founder who was pro-Israel, anti-Soviet, and opposed to violent revolution. By 2023, the organization had grown to roughly 100,000 registered members, over 200 elected officials at federal, state, and local levels, and an annual budget of $6 million. Ninety percent of those elected officials won office after 2019. The question is how a fringe intellectual group became a force capable of reshaping the Democratic Party from within.

The Founding and Early Strategy

The DSA formed as a merger between the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the New American Movement. The key figure was Michael Harrington, a socialist writer whose book The Other America had inspired Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. Harrington broke with other socialist groups in the 1970s because they romanticized authoritarian communism and third world revolutionary movements. He wrote that charging Zionism with racism "drains the concept of racism of any serious meaning." His strategy was not to run separate candidates but to operate as a pressure faction inside the Democratic Party, pushing socialism through elections, unions, and civil society.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **Advertisements** - Multiple ad reads for Facebook, Meta Glasses, and Pluto TV.
2 (01:30) **Introduction: The DSA's Origins and Founding Philosophy** - Ben Shapiro introduces the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as a splinter faction of the Democratic Party that is "eating the host organism."
3 (03:46) **The DSA's Fringe Period (1980s-1990s)** - After Harrington's death in 1989, the DSA became a small, aging intellectual organization with little mass appeal.
4 (04:23) **Post-9/11 Growth and the 2008 Boost** - The failures of the Bush administration and the 2008 financial crisis gave the DSA new relevance.
5 (05:07) **Ad Break** - Advertisement for PDS Debt.
6 (06:09) **The 2016 Surge and the Bernie Sanders Vehicle** - The DSA hitched its wagon to Bernie Sanders, leading to a massive membership and revenue spike.
7 (07:11) **The "Squad" Era and Electoral Strategy (2018-2023)** - The DSA began systematically primarying establishment Democrats in deep-blue districts, starting locally and moving nationally.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

The Democratic Socialists of America aren’t a fringe activist group anymore—they’ve spent decades building influence inside the Democratic Party and now shape politics from city halls to Congress. If you want to understand the Left, you first need to understand the DSA.

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