It’s a seductive tale. Nasty villains with evil plans to make us miserable. But they can be beaten. When they are, life will be fuller and more rewarding with peace and harmony forever. All you have to do is elect us.
That’s no second-rate movie script. It’s the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, “Workers Deserve More!” Once a fringe group, the DSA has become a rising faction within the Democratic Party.
The DSA platform calls food, education, energy, medicine and transportation “common goods and utilities” to be run by government through “public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries.” The government takeover of the economy would bring about “the end of capitalism.” That’s paradise: no more “worrying about cost,” no more “dreading going back to work” as “we labor for our common good instead of private profit.”
What the platform omits is that when government is in charge of food, education, energy, medicine and transportation, you’ll have to take what government gives at the price it sets and relinquish the ability to make core decisions about your daily life.
Today, if you don’t like a job, grocery store, restaurant, doctor, hospital, car or airline, you can pick another. Because free markets empower you as a consumer, you have technology, services and goods that in the past would have been available only to the very wealthy, if at all.
If the DSA has its way, those free-market blessings will evaporate. It promises “new, publicly owned social housing.” In practice, it would look something like the giant blocks of Soviet-era apartments in Moscow. When government is the landlord, you live where you’re assigned. You may not like where that is.
The DSA platform is also economically impossible to achieve. It calls for “a 32 hour work week with full pay and benefits.” For businesses to keep operating at current levels, they’d have to hire 20% more people. How many businesses have the cash to spare? For that matter, where will they find 20% more workers?
The DSA makes expensive promises that would bankrupt the country. “Universal healthcare at no cost to individuals” is one of many “free” things government will dispense. Also on the list: “all medical education and training,” “paid family leave,” “education from pre-K to college,” “reparations” and “a green future” with “massive investment in sustainable, publicly owned energy.” The group would also “cancel all student debt,” adding nearly $1.9 trillion to the national debt.
“Workers Deserve More” is chock full of fantastical promises. “Speaking of bills: you don’t really have them anymore.” How would that work? “You have no debt” and “you don’t pay a mortgage or have a landlord.” It’s reminiscent of Steve Martin’s bit: “You can be a millionaire and never pay taxes.” How? “First, get a million dollars . . .”
The DSA would also “demilitarize police departments” and “redirect funding” as “steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system.” Borders would be completely open. Every migrant would be eligible for citizenship and could vote before naturalizing.
DSA would “defund the Department of War”—yes, it uses Donald Trump’s designation for the Pentagon—and “close overseas military bases.” The DSA would “end all military and economic aid to Israel”—and possibly end Israel. Palestinians would have “the right to self determination in a free Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital.”
When the “billionaire class” loses power, the DSA imagines, the world will become peaceful. Those “bosses” deliberately brought about wars in “Beirut, Gaza, and Tehran.”
The platform doesn’t mention terrorist regimes or anti-American dictators. You’ll search in vain to read who slaughtered 1,100 people in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, or who invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
The Constitution is also on the chopping block. “Building a new society from the ground up”—France 1792 and Russia 1917, anyone?—entails making the District of Columbia a state, expanding the size of the House and instituting ranked-choice voting. Also abolishing the Senate and the Electoral College—though the latter wouldn’t give way to the popular vote. Instead, the platform calls to “replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.”
