Should We Really Be Worried About a Socialist Takeover?

Legitimate concerns about a political movement don’t excuse sweeping historical claims, questionable comparisons, or predictions presented as inevitable outcomes.

In her October 2026 article, “The Rise of Democratic Socialism,” published in Hillsdale College’s Imprimis, Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley A. Strassel warns that democratic socialists are working to capture the Democratic Party and fundamentally reshape American economic and political institutions.

There is plenty of legitimate material for such a warning. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has experienced substantial membership growth, its candidates have won increasingly important elections, and its official political program advocates sweeping changes to American government and the economy.

But Strassel goes beyond documenting those developments. She argues that socialism inevitably ends in tyranny and economic collapse, that today’s socialist politicians all share a common agenda, and that the DSA is on an almost-inevitable path toward political domination.

Those conclusions deserve more scrutiny than the article gives them.

1. Define the ideology before condemning it

Strassel acknowledges that socialism has taken many forms, but then offers a definition broad enough to encompass virtually every system involving collective or government ownership. She characterizes the ideology as inherently driven by class warfare and forced redistribution, with historical failure as its defining feature.

There is a legitimate distinction between socialism and social democracy that deserves attention here.

Social democracy generally retains a capitalist economy while using taxation, regulation, public services, and redistribution to address economic inequalities. Democratic socialism, at least as represented by the DSA, is more ambitious: it seeks to replace capitalism with an economy based on social ownership and democratic control of productive assets.

These are not interchangeable ideologies. Nor should democratic socialism be reduced to conventional European welfare-state policies.

The DSA makes its ambitions quite explicit in its 2026 national program. It advocates public ownership of major corporations and essential industries, describes a future without capitalism, and says that achieving its ultimate vision will require building a new society.

That is a legitimate basis for criticism. The question is whether the institutions it proposes are economically viable, politically sustainable, and compatible with individual liberty.

The distinction matters because criticizing the DSA’s actual economic model is much more productive than treating every policy involving public expenditure or government intervention as evidence of socialism.

It also matters when discussing individual politicians. Sanders, for example, has historically described himself as a democratic socialist, but his positions shouldn’t automatically be treated as identical to the DSA’s entire national program.

A critique should evaluate the actual policies and institutional arrangements being proposed, not simply assign ideological labels and transfer conclusions from one person or movement to another.

2. Historical failures are evidence, not proof of inevitability

Strassel asserts that historians generally agree that more than two dozen major national experiments in socialism have all ended in tyranny and economic collapse.

This is a sweeping historical claim, yet she supplies neither a list of the countries nor a methodology for deciding which examples qualify. She also doesn’t define what constitutes economic collapse or explain why the various systems she groups together are sufficiently comparable.

The problem isn’t that the historical record should be dismissed. Authoritarian socialist regimes have produced some of history’s most catastrophic examples of political repression, economic mismanagement, forced collectivization, and mass suffering.

Those experiences are highly relevant to evaluating proposals for public ownership and centralized economic control.

But identifying historical failures isn’t the same as identifying their causes.

Was the decisive factor centralized economic planning? The suppression of markets? One-party rule? The elimination of independent institutions? The concentration of political and economic power in an unaccountable state?

These mechanisms are related, but they aren’t identical. Understanding which ones produced particular outcomes is essential to determining whether those outcomes are inherent to socialism or arise from specific institutional arrangements.

A democratic socialist could reasonably argue that preserving competitive elections, independent courts, civil liberties, and some market mechanisms would avoid certain historical failures. Whether that argument is convincing is another question entirely.

Strassel needs to explain why those safeguards would inevitably fail, rather than simply assume they would.

The historical record provides powerful reasons for skepticism about centralized state socialism. It does not, without further analysis, establish that every proposed form of democratic socialism must produce the same results.

3. Association isn’t endorsement, and a coalition isn’t an ideology

Strassel opens with controversial statements attributed to socialist commentator Hasan Piker and Bernie Sanders’s response to Democratic strategist James Carville, who criticized Piker.

Sanders’s response is certainly relevant to understanding the political coalition he is willing to embrace. It suggests that he considers Piker and other socialist-aligned figures part of his political camp.

But that doesn’t establish that Sanders endorses Piker’s statements, much less that those statements represent the beliefs of democratic socialists generally.

There are several distinct questions here:

• Is Piker influential within the broader socialist movement?
• Do prominent socialist politicians endorse his views?
• Are his controversial statements representative of the movement?
• Do those statements provide evidence about the consequences of socialist economic policies?

The article doesn’t adequately distinguish among them.

Piker’s rhetoric could be relevant to an examination of political alliances and ideological attitudes. It isn’t evidence that a particular economic system will fail or that a proposed constitutional reform will undermine democracy.

The opening therefore relies heavily on guilt by association when the substantive argument should stand on its own.

4. The DSA really is pursuing political influence—but that doesn’t establish a takeover

This is one area where Strassel has a substantial argument.

The DSA is not merely an organization discussing political theory. It is actively building electoral power within the Democratic Party, recruiting candidates, organizing voters, and seeking representation at every level of government.

Its membership has grown dramatically. A recent New Yorker investigation reports that the organization has just under 130,000 members and that 123 DSA-backed candidates won primaries in the year following Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory, including 19 congressional nominees and five nominees for statewide office.

That is meaningful political progress. Strassel is justified in taking the organization’s electoral ambitions seriously.

The problem is her next step: treating those gains as evidence that the DSA is well on its way to controlling the Democratic Party.

Her argument rests on a plausible mechanism. Democratic primaries often have relatively low turnout, and candidates who win in safely Democratic districts enjoy a substantial advantage in the general election. An organized faction can therefore exercise influence far beyond its proportion of the electorate.

But several additional assumptions are necessary before this becomes a credible prediction of party control.

Winning a primary doesn’t establish that a candidate will win the general election. Winning a congressional seat doesn’t establish that the candidate will follow the DSA’s national program. And electing a number of sympathetic legislators doesn’t establish that they will operate as a unified bloc capable of controlling the party’s agenda.

The distinction is especially important because the DSA itself is a broad organization with internal disagreements over ideological purity, candidate endorsements, and electoral strategy. The New Yorker investigation documents these tensions, including disagreements about candidates who are considered politically useful despite not satisfying every ideological preference of the organization.

Strassel is right that the DSA is deliberately building influence within the Democratic Party. The term entryism is relevant to that strategy. But political organizing within a larger party is not, by itself, proof of an impending takeover.

The article provides evidence of growing influence. It does not establish that the DSA can translate that influence into sustained control of congressional leadership or the Democratic Party as a whole.

That distinction matters, particularly when the article offers little concrete evidence of the organization’s actual control over party decisions.

5. Distinguish public ownership from public financing and regulation

Strassel argues that Sanders has not abandoned his socialist ideology, citing his support for nationalizing healthcare and artificial intelligence.

There is a legitimate basis for discussing Sanders’s support for public ownership, particularly regarding AI. But the examples require more precision.

Consider healthcare. Sanders’s Medicare for All Act of 2025 proposes establishing a national health insurance program. It would fundamentally change how healthcare is financed and would largely displace duplicative private health insurance.

That is an expansive government intervention in the healthcare market. It is not, however, the same thing as transferring ownership of hospitals, medical practices, and pharmaceutical companies to the government. The legislation provides for participation by individual and institutional healthcare providers.

AI is a more complicated example.

In June 2026, Sanders proposed creating a sovereign wealth fund that would give the American public a 50% ownership stake in the largest AI companies through a one-time stock tax. That is genuinely a public-ownership proposal, and it is entirely fair to describe it as a form of partial nationalization.

In September, he also introduced legislation to ban artificial superintelligence and temporarily pause advanced AI development pending federal oversight.

These are substantive and potentially far-reaching proposals. They deserve direct scrutiny, particularly regarding government influence over private companies, investment incentives, and the practical consequences of transferring substantial corporate ownership to the public.

But they are different mechanisms: one proposes public equity ownership, while the other proposes regulation and prohibition.

The distinction is important. Nationalizing an entire industry, acquiring a substantial ownership stake in selected companies, establishing a public insurance system, and regulating private businesses are not equivalent policies.

Strassel is justified in identifying Sanders’s increasing willingness to pursue public ownership. But the argument becomes less precise when different forms of government intervention are treated as interchangeable.

The same applies to taxation. Even an extremely high marginal income tax rate is not the same thing as nationalizing an industry. It may represent aggressive redistribution, but it doesn’t establish government ownership of productive assets.

A strong economic critique should address the actual mechanism being proposed and explain its likely consequences.

6. The constitutional argument is legitimate, but some conclusions are overstated

The DSA’s proposed restructuring of American government is among the most consequential parts of its platform.

It advocates abolishing the Senate and Electoral College, expanding the House, implementing proportional representation, and replacing the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.

These proposals raise serious concerns.

Subordinating the judiciary to Congress would fundamentally alter the separation of powers and threaten judicial independence. Eliminating the Senate would remove an important institution through which states receive equal representation in federal lawmaking.

Strassel is justified in questioning whether these changes would weaken important constitutional safeguards.

But she goes further, declaring that the proposals mean “No more checks and balances. No more federalism. No more republic.”

Those statements need qualification.

The first has a substantial basis in the proposed subordination of the executive and judiciary, although the precise consequences would depend on how the replacement institutions were designed.

The second overstates the relationship between federalism and the Senate. Federalism is the distribution of governing authority between national and subnational governments. Eliminating the Senate would substantially change how states participate in federal lawmaking, but it would not necessarily eliminate state governments or their independent constitutional powers.

The third is particularly imprecise. A republic is not defined by the existence of a bicameral legislature, an Electoral College, or America’s particular system of judicial appointments. Parliamentary republics, for example, operate under very different institutional arrangements while remaining republics.

The DSA itself describes its goal as creating a democratic socialist republic.

One can reasonably argue that its proposed government would abandon essential features of America’s constitutional republic. One can also argue that subordinating the judiciary to the legislature would dangerously concentrate power.

Those are substantive criticisms. They don’t require the additional claim that the resulting system would no longer be a republic in any meaningful sense.

Strassel also asserts that proportional representation would leave Congress dominated by blue states. But she doesn’t explain the proposed electoral design or demonstrate how that particular outcome would follow. Proportional representation determines how representation is allocated according to electoral support; it does not inherently guarantee domination by particular states or political parties.

If the argument is that the proposed system would disadvantage particular geographic or political interests, that needs to be demonstrated rather than assumed.

7. Educational decline is a hypothesis, not an explanation established by evidence

Strassel eventually attributes growing support for democratic socialism to deficiencies in American education.

Her theory is that inadequate instruction in history, civics, economics, and personal finance has left younger Americans poorly equipped to recognize the dangers of socialism.

There is a reasonable argument that better education in these subjects would help citizens evaluate political ideologies more critically.

Strassel also suggests that students at wealthy universities become accustomed to seemingly free services—recreation facilities, transportation, campus amenities, and other conveniences—without appreciating who pays for them. She argues that this creates an unrealistic expectation that similar services can be provided throughout society without meaningful costs.

That’s an interesting hypothesis about how people perceive publicly funded services. But it isn’t evidence that these experiences cause students to embrace socialism.

The article offers no research demonstrating a relationship between exposure to subsidized campus amenities and support for socialist economic policies. Nor does it seriously consider alternative explanations, including housing affordability, healthcare costs, economic insecurity, and dissatisfaction with established political institutions.

Her use of a 1912 eighth-grade examination from Bullitt County, Kentucky, is particularly questionable. She presents it as evidence of the educational knowledge American children once possessed and concludes that it provides a one-document explanation for the socialist threat today.

There is an important caveat: the Bullitt County History Museum itself, which maintains the examination, explicitly cautions that the test covered subjects more relevant to its era and should not be used to compare student knowledge then and now.

An examination from a different educational system, a different society, and a different era may be an interesting historical artifact. It does not establish that children were better educated in political economy or that educational differences explain present-day political attitudes.

Strassel’s recommendation for stronger civic and economic education may be worthwhile, but her attempt to make educational decline the primary explanation for socialism’s resurgence is unsupported.

8. The demographic evidence doesn’t establish the claim being made

Strassel characterizes democratic socialism as a movement composed almost entirely of young, white, privileged Americans.

She cites strong electoral performance in college towns and a Fox News survey showing that 75% of Black Democratic voters in Michigan intended to support socialist-aligned Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

There are two problems with this argument.

First, electoral support and organizational membership are different things. Where a candidate performs well does not establish the demographic makeup of the organization supporting that candidate.

Second, describing 75% support among Black Democratic voters as evidence of weak support is misleading without context. The figure may represent a decline relative to another candidate or election, but it still indicates substantial support within that surveyed group.

Strassel would need representative demographic data about DSA membership and a clearer comparison of voting patterns before making such a sweeping claim about the movement’s composition.

She may be correct that the movement’s membership is disproportionately young, educated, and urban. But the evidence she presents doesn’t establish that it is almost entirely composed of young, white, privileged Americans.

A better critique demands better evidence

None of this means the DSA’s platform is beyond criticism. Its proposals for public ownership, economic restructuring, and constitutional reform raise serious questions about individual liberty, institutional accountability, economic incentives, and the concentration of political power.

Its electoral strategy is real, and its growing influence deserves attention. Its long-term ambition to replace capitalism is not merely a conservative invention; it is stated explicitly in the organization’s own program.

But those facts should make the discussion more substantive, not less.

Strassel’s strongest arguments concern the DSA’s actual proposals and its growing ability to influence elections. Her weakest arguments are those that turn historical generalizations into universal laws, political associations into ideological endorsements, and electoral successes into predictions of inevitable domination.

A serious critique of democratic socialism should explain why particular forms of public ownership are likely to produce economic inefficiency, why particular institutional arrangements threaten political freedom, and why the safeguards proposed by democratic socialists would be insufficient.

It should distinguish what the movement officially advocates from what individual politicians support, and what candidates have won from what the organization can actually control.

Political arguments should be judged by the strength of their evidence and the soundness of their reasoning, not by how alarming their conclusions sound.

That standard applies to socialism, capitalism, conservatism, and every other political ideology. If the DSA’s ambitions are as dangerous as Strassel believes, they should withstand rigorous scrutiny without the assistance of guilt by association, unsupported historical generalizations, or predictions presented as facts.