Thomas Edsall takes a break today from attacking President Trump and instead turns his attention to the extreme left-wing of his own party. Like all good Marxists, the Democratic Socialists of America present themselves as a party for the working class. But it turns out there are almost no working class people in the party.
Candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America are surging to victory on the claim that they are proponents of “a government by, for and of the working class” that will wrest power from both “far-right Republicans and corporate Democrats.”
Here’s the problem. Most of the leadership of the D.S.A. and a majority of voters who back its candidates are in no way working class. Instead, an elite made up of well-educated professionals dominates this insurgency…
In 2021 the D.S.A. surveyed its members and found that 85 percent were non-Hispanic white (far more than the national population, which was 57.8 percent white in 2020, according to the census)…
Four percent of the members held blue-collar jobs, according to the survey, the most recent publicly available…
More than 80 percent of members who were 25 years old or older had college degrees (just more than double the percentage for the United States as a whole), and 35 percent had a master’s degree, a doctorate or a professional degree (again, more than double the American average). Sixty percent identified as agnostic or atheist (with the American average, taken at its most generous, at less than half that).
The DSA isn’t the party of the people, it’s the party of the white, atheist college grads almost none of whom hold blue collar jobs. When asked about this, the DSA communications person said the group’s policies were working class even if their members aren’t. But that’s not true either. For instance, the DSA is hard left on trans rights while America in general and working class people in particular are not.
…the D.S.A.’s March 31 declaration, “We Will Not Be Erased,” would be met with some skepticism if not hostility by working-class voters disdainful of the D.S.A.’s commitment of support for “bodily autonomy, for moving past arbitrary restrictions and conservative norms around gender and family and for the right of all to obtain medical care.”
The same is true of the DSA’s stand on immigration. It’s not the position held by actual working class people.
The D.S.A.’s platform declares workers should be allowed “to freely migrate between countries to seek employment without restrictive immigration controls” and calls for an “immediate amnesty for all immigrants, regardless of current immigration status.”
Polls consistently show non-college voters opposed to unrestricted immigration. In 2024 the Cooperative Election Study asked voters whether they supported completion of a wall along the border with Mexico. Those with a high school diploma or less favored the wall by 62.2 percent…
Another position supported by the DSA: Defunding the police and emptying the prisons. These are positions held by far left professors, not working class people who live in neighborhoods that have real crime problems.
As Edsall points out, all you have to really do is look at who voted for DSA favorite Darializa Avila Chevalier who narrowly defeated Adriano Espaillat.
Chevalier won majority-college-educated areas 58 to 38 and higher-income areas 51 to 45, while Espaillat won lower-income areas 52 to 42 and majority-Hispanic areas by 56 to 40. Black precincts were close, as Chevalier carried them by two points, 48 to 46.
The working class voted for the other guy. But of course none of that really matters to the DSA. They’ve got a good PR campaign going, electing Marxists for the people. It just so happens the people are nearly all white atheists with college degrees.
Editor’s Note: New York City is now facing the consequences of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist takeover.
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