How Socialist Is the D.S.A.? Megan Romer Explains

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tagsdsa, democratic-socialism, interview, transcript, mamdani, foreign-policy

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How Socialist Is the D.S.A.? Megan Romer Explains

Source: The New Yorker Radio Hour | URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RWsHLvBntg Speakers: David Remnick (host, unnamed in transcript but identified by “The New Yorker” framing — host identification inferred, see Notes) and Megan Romer, national co-chair of the DSA.

Summary

An adversarial-but-civil long interview with DSA national co-chair Megan Romer, conducted after her appearance on Fox News and after Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York City mayor. The host presses Romer for specificity on democratic socialism, the definition of the working class, DSA’s non-endorsements in 2016 and 2024, its Israel/Palestine red line, October 7 attacks, Ukraine, prison abolition, defund the police, abolish the Senate, and 2028 presidential preferences. Romer repeatedly answers procedurally — “we decide it democratically” — and declines to supply numeric thresholds (e.g., what “taxing the hell out of millionaires” means). She states DSA membership is roughly 129,000 and growing after Mamdani’s win and recent congressional primary wins.

Key Claims

  • Definition: Democratic socialism = democratic control of workplace, housing, and the political process; not “a kinder, gentler capitalism.” Distinguished explicitly from European social democracy.
  • Ownership: Romer affirms belief in social ownership of the means of production; near-term demand is public ownership of “necessary industries” — power, water, internet.
  • Class: Working class defined by relationship to capital (you sell labor vs. you live off capital/rent). Romer explicitly rejects Mamdani’s reported definition (“anybody making under a million dollars a year”).
  • Membership: ~129,000 DSA members; growth attributed to Mamdani’s election and recent congressional primary wins.
  • Governance: DSA’s highest decision-making body is its biennial DSA National Convention; chapters elect delegates. Romer denies any “one true arbiter” of DSA thought.
  • Electoral strategy: Cites the Jacobin piece “A Blueprint for a New Party” — not a third party, but “the electoral equivalent of guerrilla insurgency” using the Democratic Party ballot line. Romer endorses the boldness of the framing.
  • Non-endorsements: DSA declined to endorse Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024; Romer voted on the 2024 no-endorsement statement as a member of the DSA National Political Committee. She personally voted for Clinton (2016) and Biden (2020) as “harm reduction.”
  • Israel/Palestine: Convention set “no defense or economic support for Israel” as a red line; DSA’s position is “a free Palestine with the capital in Jerusalem,” which Romer says “could be safely read as a one-state solution.” References the 2024 NPC withdrawal of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement over a House resolution on antisemitism, with her local chapter dissenting.
  • October 7: Romer says the attack was “largely inevitable” given conditions in Gaza; says she would probably have attended the October 8 rally Darializa Avila Chevalier attended, and supports her.
  • Ukraine: Opposes sending US weapons; calls for diplomacy. Describes Russia as “oligarchic dictatorship, which is hypercapitalist” and Putin as a “right-wing oligarch.”
  • Policing: “Defund” read as reallocating police funding to schools, social services, recreation; not abolishing police “entirely tomorrow.” Prison abolition argued from “first principles” of community safety.
  • Models: No existing state offered as a model; cites the Cuban Family Code as an interesting participatory-democracy example and blames US sanctions/CIA interference for socialist projects’ failures. Cites Karl-Marx-Hof in Vienna as social-housing proof of concept.
  • 2028: DSA convention passed a plan for a “Labor Left coalition” to run a Labor Left presidential candidate; names floated: Shawn Fain, Sara Nelson, AOC. Romer says she’d door-knock for Ro Khanna if DSA endorsed him.

Direct Quotes

“We’re not fighting for a kinder, gentler capitalism, we think that a democracy that’s really controlled by the working class is the ultimate goal.” — Megan Romer

“DSA is fundamentally and sometimes excruciatingly democratic.” — Megan Romer

“We felt that our credibility really stood on saying, ‘We are socialists. We are offering you a real alternative.’” — Megan Romer, on the 2024 Harris non-endorsement

“I think that October 7th was largely inevitable. If you put people in an open-air concentration camp, and you deprive them of rights, of dignity, of food, of the ability to live in safety, you have to expect that they are going to not take that for that long.” — Megan Romer

“So if you’re looking to me to be the one true arbiter of DSA thought, I’m absolutely not.” — Megan Romer

Entities: Megan Romer, DSA, Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, Abdul El-Sayed, Ro Khanna, Shawn Fain, Sara Nelson, Jacobin, DSA National Political Committee, The New Yorker Radio Hour Concepts: democratic socialism, social democracy, working class, social ownership of the means of production, defund the police, prison abolition, abolish the Senate, open borders, harm reduction voting, entryism Events: 2024-dsa-harris-non-endorsement, 2024-dsa-aoc-endorsement-withdrawal, 2025-nyc-mayoral-general Debates: is-the-dsa-a-socialist-or-social-democratic-project, should-dsa-endorse-democrats-in-general-elections, what-does-defund-the-police-mean

Notes

  • Year inferred from content (Mamdani serving as NYC mayor, 2028 primary speculation, “recent congressional primary wins”); the transcript itself carries no date — year 2026 is inferred, not stated.
  • The interviewer is never named in the transcript. Attribution to David Remnick is inferred from the program (The New Yorker Radio Hour) and from the host saying “I did read ‘The New Yorker’” exchanges — treat host identity as unclear.
  • Piece-level note: the outlet is center-left, but the interview register is sharply adversarial toward DSA positions, particularly on October 7 and Ukraine. Do not treat outlet lean as a proxy for the framing of this piece.
  • Romer’s stated membership figure (129,000) is her own claim, unverified here.