As he was leaving office in 2017, President Barack Obama urged Americans concerned about where their country was headed to act. “If something needs fixing, then lace up your shoes and do some organizing,” he said (Time, 1/11/17). “If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clip board, get some signatures, and run for office yourself.”

Ten months earlier, then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had made a similar comment (The Hill, 3/1/16). At a campaign stop in Minnesota, a young woman pressed Clinton about her past remarks on “superpredators.” After a brief exchange, Clinton said, “You know what, dear? You have a different opinion… Why don’t you go run for something?”

A decade later, it’s clear that a new generation of leaders has taken that advice. But instead of being praised for contributing to civic life by participating in democracy, they and the organizations that support them have been pilloried as threats to both the Democratic Party and democracy itself.

The Atlantic, which published a 2024 essay (5/17/24) asserting, in the context of Gaza, that “it is possible to kill children legally,” ran an article (7/21/26) on the Democratic Socialists of America headlined “The DSA Is a Parasite.” (I belong to the organization’s New York City chapter.) Writer James Kirchick averred that “ideologues on the left are attempting a hostile takeover of the [Democratic] party.” He suggested that the organization’s rise was enabled by a

yearslong effort by socialists and progressive activists to steer one of America’s two major political parties toward identity politics, isolationism, and hostility to capitalism.

Kirchick’s disdain for those who join standard efforts to influence political parties is anti-democratic, ahistorical, and willfully obtuse. He also conflates and misrepresents the goals of progressive and socialist activists. “Hostility to capitalism” is accurate enough if one is describing socialists—not necessarily progressives—but “identity politics” and “isolationism” are not.

DSA opposes military bases and economic warfare, but it explicitly champions immigration and international law, and working toward “a world without war or poverty”—that’s not “isolationism.” The group also calls for “a world where no one suffers for their race, gender, or religion”—an enormously popular view that Kirchick dismisses, insultingly and inaccurately, as “identity politics.”

Kirchick and his ilk, of course, wouldn’t be able to caricature socialists’ views so easily if they were held to basic editorial standards, and if socialist perspectives weren’t almost entirely excluded from corporate media.

Hijacked by a ‘Radical Fringe’

A recent spate of articles have, like Kirchick’s, sought to repackage normal political practices as novel, violent, or disease-like threats unrelated to the will of voters. An Axios column (7/28/26) by the site’s co-founders Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen began: “Republicans didn’t decide to become President Trump’s party. They surrendered to him, one stage at a time, over a decade, in plain sight.” It then posed the (paraphrased) question: Will the Democratic Party similarly surrender to the creeping threat of socialism?

While acknowledging that socialism is popular with the Democratic base, the Axios story portrays it as a disease whose “transmission is slower” than Trumpism. It’s not clear why Axios treats socialism as a pathology; in what way is it harmful to, or impairing the normal functioning of, America or American democracy?

The Hill (7/24/26) also noted “fears” that “the [Democratic] party is being taken over” by democratic socialists.

The Wall Street Journal warned darkly that

DSA’s advances are stirring consternation—and sometimes panic—among mainstream Democrats dreading their own Tea Party moment, in which a radical fringe hijacks the party and taints their brand just as they are trying to appeal to swing voters to win control of Congress.

Odd if true, given that recent socialist wins have coincided with an uptick in favorable views of the Democratic Party, which suggests that DSA’s success may in fact be burnishing the party’s brand.

DSA’s leaders, the Journal continued, “scarcely........

© Common Dreams