Entryism
Working inside a larger host party to capture or redirect it, rather than building a rival party.
Definition
A radical group joins an established party, uses its ballot line and infrastructure, and pulls it toward the group’s program. The canonical case cited in the corpus: Militant Tendency inside the British Labour Party (early 1980s) — captured Liverpool City Council and three parliamentary seats before expulsion for being “a party within a party.” The term is the analytical core of the right’s DSA narrative; notably, the DSA’s own framing partially embraces the mechanics: Romer endorses the Jacobin “Blueprint for a New Party” line about using the Democratic ballot line as “the electoral equivalent of guerrilla insurgency.”
Key Properties
- Contested application: critics say concealment is essential to DSA entryism; DSA leadership operates openly and rejects the deception charge (implicitly — direct response is a data gap).
- The Militant analogy’s punchline in the hostile source: a DSA member suggested Mamdani’s team study the Marxist-led Liverpool council as a model.
- Watch for: whether Democratic leadership attempts a Kinnock-style expulsion response — no source on this yet.
Examples from Sources
| Example | Source |
|---|---|
| Militant/Labour analogy built at length | reason-2026-the-democratic-socialist-deception |
| ”Guerrilla insurgency” ballot-line strategy affirmed | new-yorker-radio-hour-2026-megan-romer-how-socialist-is-the-dsa |
Related
Concepts: democratic-centralism, democratic-socialism Entities: dsa, red-star-caucus, democratic-party Debates: is-the-dsa-taking-over-the-democratic-party