Democratic Socialists of America vs. John Adams

The Democratic Socialists of America don't like being called Communists, though many members might echo the sentiment of leftist influencer Hasan Piker when he says, "I don't have an issue with an end goal of communism."

Yet however the group self-identifies, its agenda is openly revolutionary.

Its plans call for, among other things, abolishing the United States Senate and making the executive branch and the Supreme Court subservient to the House of Representatives.

Like many a revolutionary organ, the DSA acts as a party within a party, and it increasingly represents the youth wing of the Democrats.

Elected officials aligned with the group, like Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, look to be the future of the party.

Yet DSA's ideas are remarkably old-fashioned — so old, in fact, they were refuted by John Adams in 1787.

That was the year he began publishing a multivolume work called "A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America."

It was so long ago Americans still spelled "defence" with a "c."

The book refers to "constitutions," plural, because Adams hadn't seen the new U.S. Constitution drawn up in Philadelphia that year.

He was actually defending the state constitutions against French intellectuals who insisted they should be more radical.

That was just two years before the outbreak of the French Revolution, with all the murder and mayhem it would bring.

The old French versions of today's DSA schemers condemned bicameral legislatures for the same reason Mamdani's and AOC's fans do now: their idea of "democracy" called for centralizing power in a single body.

No checks, no balances, and certainly no federalism — the whole nation was to be personified in an omnipotent unitary legislature.

Adams, who had been one of the first American revolutionary leaders to call for independence from Britain, was no enemy of popular self-government.

But pure democracy would be as bad as any other kind of centralized despotism — so he defended the "mixed" constitutions of the states, almost all of which had separate upper and lower legislative chambers and divided legislative, executive and judicial power.

The federal Constitution was drawn up on the same principles — and combined them with a division of powers between the states and national government.

A glance at how the Constitution has performed for the last 239 years, compared to the chaos and bloodshed that engulfed revolutionary France once the proto-DSA types started getting their way there, shows who was right.

But DSA, not content with dreaming of an end to capitalism, wants to end constitutionalism as well.

Revolutionary parties, like Russia's Bolsheviks, have often had such farfetched goals — the point isn't to achieve them so much as it is to wreck whatever already exists.

DSA's first step is to radicalize the Democratic Party, making previously outrageous ideas like packing the Supreme Court seem mild by comparison to the Democratic Socialist program.

Abolishing the Senate may be politically impossible, but de-legitimizing it is a way to de-legitimize obstacles to centralized power — not just the Senate itself, with its equal representation for all states, large or small, but the very principle of federalism.

Why should North Dakota have a government of its own?

What gives the people of Idaho a right to govern their own territory?

California has the largest absolute number of Republicans in the country, but because they live in what operates as a massive one-party state, they not only lack adequate representation, but what representation they have can be snatched away by the Democratic majority — as is happening now thanks to the congressional gerrymandering championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

DSA wants to make the whole country like California, only worse.

That's their idea of democracy — the socialist version.

It's the revolutionary French version as well, and it's as un-American as anything can be.

Yet it's a magnet pulling the Democratic Party hard to the left.

Notoriously, DSA has a disproportionate number of members who are highly educated but low-paid or unemployed.

Like the Marxists of the last century or the French philosophes of the century before that, they're sophisticated enough to seem like they know what they're talking about, if you haven't learned how disastrous their ideas have proved to be in practice.

But American education doesn't teach much about the horrors of Communism or France's Reign of Terror.

Radicals occupied the educational establishment early on, and now they're reaping political rewards for the ignorance they've fostered in the public.

According to recent Cato Institute polling, Generation Z — Americans between ages 14 and 29 — favors socialism over capitalism by 53% to 45%, though the "Democratic Socialist" label polls less well.

Despite having "democratic" in their name, however, DSA doesn't need majority support to bring about revolutionary change for the worse: a motivated minority is enough when the majority is unaware of its danger.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• 07/21/26: Why Dems Can't Do Better Than Kamala Harris in 2028
• 07/14/26: Prescription for a Socialist Workforce
• 07/07/26: The Smithsonian's Patriotism Problem
• 06/30/26: Bill Maher, Liberalism's Apostate
• 06/23/26: Can Anyone Govern Britain -- or America?
• 06/16/26: University Professors Against Academic Freedom
• 06/09/26: Pope Leo Courts the Global Left
• 06/02/26: A Mass-Graves Myth Is Media Malpractice
• 05/28/26: Dems Face Midterm Disappointment
• 05/26/26: Dems Face Midterm Disappointment
• 05/12/26: Dems finally come clean 'bout their radical design
• 05/05/26: The Silenced Generation
• 04/28/26:Colleges Are Making Political Violence Worse
• 04/21/26:Immigration Amnesty by Any Other Name
• 04/14/26: A New Extreme in Gerrymandering
• 04/07/26: A New Extreme in Gerrymandering
• 03/17/26: Why Are Senate Dems Making Air Travel Worse?
• 03/10/26: Cuba Should Accept Trump's 'Friendly Takeover'
• 03/03/26: Immigration Enforcement Saves Lives
• 02/24/26: How a Party Offends Its Voters
• 02/17/26: Why Are Anti-ICE Activists Building Borders?
• 02/10/26: A Japanese Lesson for Troubled Britain
• 02/03/26: The Trump Coalition Wins But the GOP Brand Doesn't
• 01/27/26: Canada Should Warm to Trump's Arctic Plans
• 01/20/26: From Rock to Tech, Talent Flees Taxes
• 01/13/26: Woman Who Weaponized Car Against I.C.E Endangered Her Life -- and Yours
• 01/06/26: Tim Walz Personifies Dems' Decline
• 12/30/25: Harvard Says Yes to Discrimination, No to Western Civ
• 12/23/25: JD Vance Gets America's Creed and Heritage Right
• 12/16/25: Trump's Inflation Trap
• 12/09/25: Biden's Immigration Debacle Is the Media's, Too
• 12/02/25: 'Iryna's Law' and the Bad Judges Who Make It Necessary
• 11/26/25: Marjorie Taylor Greene's Exit Is a Warning to Republicans
• 11/19/25: Trump Hasn't Lost Hispanics (Yet)
• 11/11/25: Trump's Tariffs on Trial
• 10/28/25: MAGA Makes Allies Great Again
• 10/21/25: How To Make the AmericaS Great Again
• 10/16/25: Columbus Day Celebrates Our Civilization
• 10/09/25: Why Sharpies Are Made in America Again
• 09/30/25: Assata Shakur and Other Parents of Political Violence
• 09/09/25: Who's Accountable for Autopen Pardons?
• 09/02/25: Gender dysphoria is a mental-illness, NOT an all-encompassing delusion
• 08/26/25: Trump's Industrial Policy Is Realism, Not Socialism
• 08/19/25: Is Gavin Newsom the Dems' Answer to Trump?
• 08/12/25: Just Say No to More Marijuana
• 08/05/25: Will the GOP Make Libs Generous Again?
• 07/30/25: Trump's Trade Lesson for Economists (and the World)
• 07/22/25: Whose Politics Canceled Stephen Colbert?
• 07/08/25: A Big Beautiful Test of GOP Principles and Discipline
• 07/01/25: Dems Need Populism, But Not Zohran's Sort
• 06/25/25: Secure Borders Win Wars Like This One
• 06/18/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
• 06/17/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
• 06/04/25: State that's long eluded GOP turns toward Trump
• 05/21/24: Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs
• 05/14/24: What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum
• 05/07/24: The Vietnam Era Never Ended for Biden's Party
• 05/06/24: Nationalists of the World, Unite?
• 04/25/24: Foreign Policy Splits
• 04/16/24: How pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe
• 04/02/24: PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.
• 04/02/24: Who Wants to Be House Speaker?
• 03/26/24: Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home
• 03/19/24: Princess Kate and Democracy's Discontents
• 03/12/24: Can Biden Buy the Voters?
• 03/05/24: Veepstakes Give Trump an Edge
• 02/20/24: Do Americans Trust Either Party?
• 02/13/24: Vladimir Putin -- A Passive Aggressor
• 01/23/24: Will 'Lawfare' Take Trump Off the Ballot?
• 01/16/24: Will Africa Save America?
• 01/09/24:'The Sopranos' at 25: A new world tragedy
• 01/02/24: Trump, Biden and a Fight for the Heart
• 12/12/23: What Happened to Ron DeSantis?
• 12/12/23: Biden Looks Doomed -- But Is He?
• 12/05/23: A Test for Trump and His Rivals
• 11/21/23: When Inequality Is Fatal for Men
• 11/14/23: Nevermind, The Battle's Over
• 11/07/23: War in the Dem Party -- and at the Opera
• 10/24/23: Israel's Lesson for 2024: A Lib Crackup
• 10/17/23: Libs' Dilemma: Immigration or Israel?
• 10/10/23: Why Bidenflation Defines Bidenomics
• 10/03/23: Will Gavin Newsom Copy Trump?
• 09/26/23: Biden's a Loser -- but Dems Can't Ditch Him
• 09/19/23: Do Sex Scandals Matter?
• 09/12/23: Cornel West Spells Doom for Biden
• 09/05/23: What Trump Does for Democracy
• 08/2/23: Ramaswamy: A Trump Versus Trump?
• 08/22/23: Take 'Rich Men North of Richmond' Seriously
• 08/16/23: How America Kills Its Own
• 08/08/23: The Biden Pardon That Can Spare America
• 08/01/23: Harding, a consevative for the ages
• 07/25/23: Demography Destiny, for Us and China
• 07/18/23: The Frontrunner Who Looks Like a Loser Is Biden
• 07/11/23: Britain's Bad Example for American Conservatives
• 07/05/23: Could We Still Win a Revolutionary War?
• 06/27/23: Civilizations Clash -- in Ukraine and at Home
• 06/20/23: China Comes for the Caribbean
• 06/13/23: Fertility, Family and Bio-Socialism
• 06/06/23: From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare
• 05/23/23: Ukraine war is an existential struggle --- for the West
• 05/23/23: Learn the Right Midterm Lessons -- or Lose in 2024
• 05/16/23: Feinstein Today Is Biden Tomorrow
• 05/09/23: Trump, DeSantis and Political Courtship
• 05/02/23: RFK Jr.'s Threat to Biden
• 04/25/23: Biden's Lost Generation
• 04/25/23: Who's In Charge of Clarence Thomas?
• 04/11/23: Beyond AI, Our Cyborg Future
• 04/04/23: 2024: 3 Leaders, 1 Way to Win
• 03/28/23: Climate Science Makes a Bad Religion
• 03/21/23: All the Conspiracy That's Fit to Print