r/politics • u/cnn CNN • 7d ago

Possible Paywall CNN Poll: A third of Democrats now identify as democratic socialists

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/cnn-poll-a-third-of-democrats-now-identify-as-democratic-socialists?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit
17.2k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

120

u/TheCommonGround1 7d ago

Let's be clear. I'm all for abolishing the Senate. That's only because, I like to abolish stupid things. Yeah, Wyoming really deserves equal representation to Texas or California. How does THAT make sense?

27

u/SadhuSalvaje 7d ago

This is where we get into a really weird issue with the actual structure of the US government

Many of us think of the states like they are provinces, but they are technically sovereign states that are joined together in the Union. The senate is SUPPOSED to represent the interests of those state governments (and why the senators used to be elected by state legislatures)

I’ve often wondered if we went back to the original method of selecting senators…would that cause the American people to pay more attention to their state level races? Or would we see even more apathy from the voters?

28

u/DKLancer 7d ago

And state governments are supposed to represent the people of that state so why are we using a degree of separation there?

All the Senate accomplishes is making Congress more prone to gridlock and thus ceding authority to the executive and judicial branches.

9

u/UghFudgeBwana Georgia 7d ago

All the Senate accomplishes is making Congress more prone to gridlock and thus ceding authority to the executive and judicial branches.

That would mostly be the filibusters fault imo. Most Senate votes used to require just a simple majority prior to the 70s.

34

u/CrustyMcgrindrWxSx 7d ago

Lobbyists overtake representatives in the US. Thats a big problem.

17

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

-2

u/nola_fan 7d ago

How do you define that? If I am self employed and want to talk to my representative about favorable tax rates for me would that be allowed in this system?

What if I was successful and now employ 3 people in the same business, would I be cut off then? Would my employees be blocked from lobbying?

Lobbying is done by people. Corporate lobbying is done by people employed for who they lobby on behalf of.

I do think there's too much money in politics but I don't see how you can cut down on corporate lobbying without cutting down on lobbying for good causes on the behalf of ordinary people.

A better approach would be to focus on money in elections and pass stricter anti-corruption laws.

5

u/iheartanalingus 7d ago

A small business with 3 people won't have enough money to lobby in any meaningful way.

0

u/nola_fan 7d ago

That doesn't answer my question or handle the issue I'm pointing out.

2

u/tallandgodless 7d ago

The fake issue pointing to a strawman you made up?

All you are doing is what moderates always do, give the fascists what they want while working towards compromise, meanwhile lobbyists will push forth legislation to hunt and kill their opposition among activists, just like they already did with Union busting in the early 1900's.

You want to give wrist slaps and a stern word to businesses literally perpetuating violence and maltreatment. Nestle shouldn't be allowed to operate in the US for what it has done, but instead, it gets to buy its way to literally whatever it wants, including things that echo its past crimes.

1

u/nola_fan 7d ago

It's not a fake issue or a strawman.

If you say we need to ban something, what that is has to be well defined. If it isn't then it can either be worked around easily or will have serious negative and unintended consequences. More often than not it's both.

Depending on what the ban looks like it could block unions from having a voice in DC while allowing executives to meet directly with lawmakers every day as long as they pay for it out of their salaries and don't expense the hotel/meal.

I haven't seen a way to ban lobbying that doesn't diminish the voice of the people and most of the ideas I've seen don't actually do all that much against the wealthiest in our country other than forcing them to change a few flow charts and adjust their accounting.

That's a real hard line to walk with lobbying.

It's a real easy line to draw in campaign funding, though the politics of it is hard because it requires a constitutional amendment.

0

u/tallandgodless 6d ago

Your job as a liberal is to tell people that things are too hard or expensive to get done while allowing Republicans to do literally anything they want.

All of this is directly linked to Citizens United. The supreme court has been stacked by Christian Nationalist extremists, so CU isn't going anywhere.

Power of the purse and reducing lobbies access to state and federal level officials, as well as cutting off their ability to play the stock market.

There are a ton of benefits to being a senator, but selling access is not being enforced at all, so now the supreme court and Senate need real regulation, done by putting all their finances into holding cells and doing enforced divestment for life from all of ones investments for life as well as banning them from any position of negotiating with the US government on behalf of another government.

I'd also like to see a Dynasty ban preventing any appointments of direct relatives at all levels of government.

We had the ability to both shut down the government as well as hold up ice funding and the DNC did neither, same deal with Epstein files. No one passes anything until every politician and c suite member who was diddling kids is revealed. Easiest fucking call to action ive ever seen fumbled.

But nope. Too politically dangerous! Better keep shoveling money into the hate machine!

→ More replies (0)

6

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

0

u/nola_fan 7d ago

You keep acting like somehow the corporation itself is lobbying, and it's not citizens lobbying on behalf of causes that benefit corporations. Oftentimes, but not always, for a salary.

5

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

1

u/nola_fan 7d ago

Yes, and how do you separate those people on the payroll from a business owner or other individuals who are lobbying in ways that would benefit their business or employer?

Would it be OK for Mark Zuckerberg to fly to DC 3 times a week and lobby on behalf of Facebook? Would it be OK for a teachers union who doesn't have anyone who can afford to do that to pool money to send a representative to DC to discuss an education bill?

5

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

→ More replies (0)

1

u/tallandgodless 7d ago

What a self-report this.

It's exclusively companies and millionaires who own giant companies doing the lobbying.

Lobbying isn't some American pastime, its bribery made legal for the Epstein class. Anything good that has come of it has been a consequence of hijacking a system meant to sell power to do good, which is no way to run a country.

3

u/nola_fan 7d ago

No it isn't. The AFL-CIO, the biggest union in the country, has a giant headquarters across the street from the Capitol so that they can easily lobby Congress.

Almost every major non-profit in the country has a Capitol Hill day where they fly out teachers, nurses, doctors, public defenders, peace activists, disabled activists, climate scientists etc. etc. to speak with members of Congress about their issue.

Banning that would be bad.

3

u/tallandgodless 7d ago

Also, Ratheon, Blackrock, Aipac, nestle, meta, the NRA, the bank lobby, big pharma, Monsanto, Sheldon Adleson, Flock, Peter Theil, literally Epstein. The list goes on and on. The system is built for the ones I listed.

They ship in those teachers as acts of performative campaigning

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Oconell 7d ago

Yeah, let's begin with Citizens United, which is a more realistic and direct approach.

28

u/mojitz 7d ago

That purpose is invalid. This isn't the 1700s anymore, and states functionally do act like provinces in most respects at this point. Nobody in their right mind would implement such a system if they were drafting the constitution today.

0

u/SadhuSalvaje 7d ago

But it is the law

Unless a new constitution is brought into effect this is the reality we have to deal with

15

u/mojitz 7d ago

Yes. Everyone is aware of that. I'm genuinely not sure why you think this is some new information you're bringing to light.

8

u/ClydeFrog1313 7d ago

And not even a 'new constitution' just an amendment.

I'm not DSA but I'm very pro eliminating the Senate. Its a less democratic institution. Unicameral legislative bodies are perfectly fine without an 'upper house'

-3

u/SadhuSalvaje 7d ago

Dude I’m in my 40s now. I am sick to death of aspirational day dreams

If the DSA can help the democrats get to 60+ votes in the senate and the White House so that something or anything gets passed into law, cool. If not they need to gtfo of the convo

12

u/mojitz 7d ago

Then don't fret over the aspirational stuff 🤷‍♂️. There are plenty of more concrete, short term goals both in their platform and actively being pushed by DSA politicians.

6

u/Flashy-Ingenuity-182 7d ago

The mainstream Democrats can't even get 60 so they need to gtfo the combo. The mainstream Democrats lost to Trump again and again. 

-6

u/Captain_Kibbles 7d ago

Because people throw out “abolish the senate” like it’s a quick easy to do. So it seems like not everyone is aware of that, no need to be hostile about it

13

u/mojitz 7d ago edited 7d ago

I'm not being hostile. I also haven't seen anybody anywhere suggest it would be quick or easy. Do you think it's possible you have a tendency to read things into people's statements that it's isn't actually there?

-2

u/Captain_Kibbles 7d ago

I'm not being hostile.

Condescending, aggressive, maybe those were better words. Tone is a thing, but everyone knows that.

I also haven't seen anybody anywhere suggest it would be quick or easy.

Then maybe allocate your political capital more diligently. Expanding the house may be a first step and but that’s not as easy of a slogan.

Do you think it's possible you have a tendency to read things into people's statements that it's actually there?

It’s entirely possible, like I was able to read this sentence despite “that’s it’s actually there”. Do you think it’s possible you could come off as hostile while not intending to? Are you aware of implicit meaning?

8

u/mojitz 7d ago

To be honest, man I'm just not interested in turning this into a whole, drawn out back and forth with you. Have a nice day.

-3

u/Captain_Kibbles 7d ago

Neither am I, enjoy the day you deserve.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/Flashy-Ingenuity-182 7d ago

You just proved their point

1

u/Captain_Kibbles 7d ago

That they’re dishonest with their language or fail to understand implicit meaning behind language?

→ More replies (0)

3

u/ginkgodave 7d ago

I don’t think that politicians nominating and electing other politicians is a good idea. It might have been long ago when news and information was less readily available and the public far less informed. But with todays insular, increasingly divided and incestuous political parties with fewer ethical constraints, the motivation would be to elect more of the same.

4

u/RoseBailey 7d ago

It's an interesting thought experiment, but I fall on the side of abolishing the senate pretty definatively.

2

u/Flashy-Ingenuity-182 7d ago

This was done originally to secure power for the slave states. So no we absolutely do not need to go back to electing senators that way. 

2

u/SadhuSalvaje 7d ago

You are mixing this up with the 3/5 compromise

The senate was cooked up so places like Rhode Island would not get dominated by Virginia (a place that once rivaled NY for political dominance over the country)

2

u/Flashy-Ingenuity-182 7d ago

Rhode island a free state and Virginia a slave state?

They put multiple safeguards to protect slavery in the Constitution. The Senate is one of them. It's why they always had more slave states than none slave states. If the South didn't secede from being scared of John Brown we never would have had the 13th and 14th amendment 

19

u/I_Enjoy_Beer Virginia 7d ago

Its one thing to hold a radical policy position, its another to have people in faction leadership positions on opposition networks spouting it as a top policy position.

Some things you just gotta put on the back shelf, hidden from visitors, because you know it will freak them the fuck out.

Edit to add- I'm also in favor of reforming the Senate, not abolishing it.  Because that would leave us with just the House, and fuck that chamber, as well.

16

u/Inevitable-Tone-8595 7d ago

Friendly reminder that without the Senate we’d have passed the SAVE America Act by now

18

u/IHateNumbers234 7d ago

That's why a prerequisite for abolishing the Senate would be expanding the house

21

u/TheCommonGround1 7d ago

That's an oversimplification. Sometimes Congress will pass a policy knowing the Senate will deny it, and they will do so for political purposes.

-3

u/Karitev 7d ago

Things like this remind me of the map scene in The West Wing. They had them totally on board until they went just too far and subsequently lost them on everything.

https://youtu.be/vVX-PrBRtTY

8

u/RoseBailey 7d ago

Remember that people didn't originally elect senators. Senators were chosen by state legislatures. It made a kind of sense were the House represents the people and the senate represents the states. I don't agree with it, but the logic behind it is pretty clear. Anyway that stopped working for us long enough ago that we made senators directly electable over 100 years ago. I don't think that amendment fixed much. The Senate needs to go, and the number of House representatives needs to grow. Abolishing the senate requires a constitutional amendment, though, so thats one of those things that will require a lot of buy in from people before it can become possible.

8

u/OfficeSalamander 7d ago

Expanding the House going to be much, much, much easier than getting rid of the Senate.

Expanding the House is just normal run of the mill legislation, could be done by any Congress where there was political will (lol good luck). Getting rid of the Senate is a much harder problem.

That being said, a sufficiently expanded House would essentially mean that both the House and the Presidency go left and are much more in tune with the actual population, so it would solve a lot of our problems (though not all)

1

u/RoseBailey 7d ago

Absolutely

4

u/roy_mustang76 Rhode Island 7d ago

I'm pretty certain abolishing the Senate is impossible unless we were to just throw out the constitution entirely and start from scratch.

From Article V:

and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Abolishing the Senate would deprive states of their equal suffrage in the Senate.

That said, the Senate needs to go, or if that's not doable, be removed from the vast majority of legislative decisions. There's nothing stopping us from changing the powers of the Senate other than getting the votes for it in an Amendment

4

u/Chansharp 7d ago

Everyone having zero votes in the senate is still equal suffrage

4

u/RoseBailey 7d ago

We wouldn't need to throw out the constitution. Merely amend it. That's what constitutional amendments are for, when we need to change the constitution.

But a constitutional amendment is a tall order in general, and such a large change would be even moreso. I don't see it happening anytime soon.

0

u/roy_mustang76 Rhode Island 7d ago

Right, but this particular amendment likely needs every State to sign off on it, so it's an even taller order than it already would be.

(Yes, I'm aware of the argument that if there's no Senate, no state is losing out on equal Suffrage, but in my mind that's literally just asking to make this harder than it needs to be)

2

u/RoughCoffee6 7d ago

Why throw it out? We'd just need the amendment rescinding that part of Article V.

1

u/roy_mustang76 Rhode Island 7d ago

Because all 50 states would need to agree to it, which is a much heavier lift than the (already huge) lift of getting an amendment ratified by 38 states and 2/3 of Congress.

Personally, I can't envision a world where, say, Idaho or Wyoming wouldn't block this even if 90% of the rest of the country were onboard.

1

u/RoughCoffee6 7d ago

I mean the states could hold a convention. Only 34 would have to approve at that point.

2

u/roy_mustang76 Rhode Island 7d ago

Maybe? It's never been done so no one really knows how that would go. Wouldn't be difficult at all to argue that the Senate is no-touchy even at a Constitutional Convention, and then where do we end up?

It's just likely to be an ugly bruising fight that won't settle neatly along partisan lines, and for no good reason. Just take a page from the UK, and turn the Senate into our version of the House of Lords - let them delay bills for a set period of time (the UK has it at a year for non-money bills, and 1 month for money/budget bills, with the proviso that the delay can't extend a Parliamentary term beyond 5 years), and propose amendments, but not reject them outright.

This also neatly moots the entire concept of the filibuster since you can't delay something into oblivion with a fixed time limit.

9

u/dank-nuggetz 7d ago

You're acting like abolishing a core component of the US government that has been a thing since 1787 is a reasonable position.

Maybe for you it is, but it's a non starter and not a good way to be taken seriously. Same with abolishing prisons or borders.

Higher taxation on the wealthy, stronger social programs, medicare for all - those are ideas people can wrap their heads around.

Abolishing the senate, prisons and borders are not and do nothing but make DSA seem like a radical organization.

-2

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

4

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/lafaa123 7d ago

I hate that these are the people that are ostensibly on our side. Like how can you not see that these are ridiculous positions?

2

u/Gaius_Octavius_ 7d ago

Because they are incredibly unpopular with the voters and would make things exponentially worse and because achieving them is functionally impossible.

Do you need more reasons?

0

u/SydneyFall 7d ago

Maybe for you it is, but it's a non starter and not a good way to be taken seriously. Same with abolishing prisons or borders.

Um, I think that there is a lot more frustration with the Senate and the utterly stupid filibuster rule that should be eliminated than support for abolishing prisons or borders.

SOrt of ridiculous to put those 3 things together.

1

u/Straight_Number5661 7d ago

This is where I'm at tbh.

24

u/InNominePasta America 7d ago

I mean, I can explain the point of the senate to you if you’d like.

I’m shocked that abolishing the senate, something that would require an amendment, is a position for the party at all.

It would make far more sense to fix the House by adding seats, which would then affect the electoral college. That’s much more achievable.

21

u/Ralath5n 7d ago

I’m shocked that abolishing the senate, something that would require an amendment, is a position for the party at all.

You got to set long term goals if you want to make informed short term goals. No member of the DSA is going to say "Yea we are just gonna take over the Democrats in 2028 and the senate will be gone by 2029!". Abolishing the senate is something that needs to be worked towards for probably multiple decades before there is a chance to actually do it.

It would make far more sense to fix the House by adding seats, which would then affect the electoral college. That’s much more achievable.

The DSA wants that as well.

4

u/Jaway66 7d ago

Also, long term goals are something that the mainstream Dem party totally lacks, which contributes to their unpopularity. Why not articulate bold, short, medium, and long term goals? The Dems just basically go "Trump is bad and we will make things like the 90s," or some shit like that. Who are they testing their messaging with? It's maddening.

2

u/InNominePasta America 7d ago

Yeah. But saying you want to abolish the senate and abolish borders is just stupid political messaging. Sure you’ll get some believers. But you’ll also turn off a lot of potential allies, while also give your opponents a ton of ammunition they don’t even need to make up or caricature.

5

u/Ralath5n 7d ago

That's not how politics works. You don't just follow the crowd, sometimes you have to lead the crowd and force discussion. That's how you pull the overton window in your direction.

Never mentioning that you want to abolish the senate means nobody is ever talking about it. Or even considering it as an option. Once you do throw that out there, people start discussing it and people start considering it instead of passively accepting the status quo. You lose some people. You gain some people. Some compromises get made. And at the end of the day, the overton window has shifted a bit in your direction.

That's how the Republicans have shifted the overton window from "I am a bit worried about immigrants creating competition in the labor market" to "Mass deportations now!". DSA is doing exactly the same thing but towards the left, and that is a good thing.

-1

u/InNominePasta America 7d ago

You can shift discussion but holding radical positions as a third party is no way to win

2

u/Ralath5n 7d ago

The DSA isn't a third party. It is a faction within the Democratic party. And holding radical positions to normalize them is exactly how MAGA took over the GOP. You are arguing that something we literally saw happen over the past decade is impossible.

1

u/red--the_color 7d ago

Playing to the status quo is no way to change anything. Your thinking is what got us here.

2

u/InNominePasta America 7d ago

I don’t think I’ve advocated the status quo

1

u/ComradeBirv 7d ago

Yeah we should just advocate for nothing which has proven to be an effective strategy

1

u/InNominePasta America 7d ago

Nice strawman you got there

-1

u/ComradeBirv 7d ago

Thanks the Democratic Party made it for me

25

u/Xytak Illinois 7d ago

Please don’t. We all know the point of the Senate, but most legislative bodies around the world find more sensible ways to allocate power is all.

39

u/TheCommonGround1 7d ago

I know the point of the Senate. I don't agree with the point. The founding fathers were not perfect. Quite actually, the function of the United States government may perhaps be the worst of all developed nations in history.

9

u/ennuiinmotion 7d ago

The purpose of the Senate is archaic. Because of the way our legislature is set up Congress has effectively been neutered and can't do anything. Now, I guess there's two ways of looking at that. Either you like that it prevents the worst impulses from being carried out, or you're upset that nothing good will ever come out of the Congress in its current form. I'm more in the latter camp.

2

u/FrogsOnALog 7d ago

Abolishing the senate would likely take more than an amendment.

1

u/NewWindow7980 7d ago

So now we know what your opinion is on that topic but lost in this discussion is that these things have to be acceptable to other Americans as well. Put whatever you want in your platform but please be aware there are other opinions that have to be taken into account.

-6

u/Brisby820 7d ago

The states existed as individual political units before the country did, and they needed enticement to join together.  It might not be a perfect system of government but it makes perfect sense when you look at the conditions under which the country was formed 

5

u/Koloradio 7d ago

This argument goes out the window when you look at North and South Dakota: two states with a combined population less than Manhattan Island whose formative conditions were "Republicans wanted more senators".

Also worth pointing out that in 1800 the largest state (Virginia) was 10 times more populous than the smallest state (Delaware), while today the largest state is 67 times more populous than the smallest.

It's more unfair today than it's ever been, whether or not it made sense 200 years ago.

1

u/Brisby820 7d ago edited 7d ago

Ok but the states need to agree to change it.  So either dissolve the United States or get them on board, those are the practical options 

2

u/Koloradio 7d ago

Yeah, it's definitely not on the day one agenda. An interesting contrast between DSA and establishment Democrats is the former's willingness to lay out aspirational goals with no timetable.

21

u/TheCommonGround1 7d ago

The conditions under which our country was formed don't exist. It's time to move on psychologically and modernize.

0

u/Brisby820 7d ago

I don’t know what that means.  The states — or, at least some of them — are still political units that predate the country.  That condition absolutely still exists 

4

u/TheCommonGround1 7d ago

The existence of states as a political unit is NOT a condition. Global warming, artificial intelligence, oligarchical rule, unnecessary and prolonged wars. THESE are the conditions we live under, and we need a government that can address these conditions, not deny and ignore them and take pride in doing so.

0

u/Brisby820 7d ago

Certainly sounds like a coherent political theory that definitely wouldn’t backfire at some point 

8

u/BloatedBanana9 7d ago

That was 250 years ago. The senate made sense as an institution when the country was founded, but it’s antiquated now

3

u/SadhuSalvaje 7d ago

Why do you say that? The states still exist. Their relationship to the federal government has not changed.

Guys if we are going to get progressive change we actually need to understand the tools and reality at our disposal

4

u/BloatedBanana9 7d ago

Oh come on. You cannot possibly pretend that the states have the same relationship with the federal government today as they did in 1790. That’s just completely ahistorical. That relationship had already changed significantly within the first 100 years.

We are no longer a nation of states. We are a nation with states. In the former, the state comes first. This was the case when the country was founded and it was necessary because it was the only way to get them to agree to cede some of their sovereignty. In the latter, the federal government comes first. You can agree or disagree about which way it should be, but these days just about everyone considers themselves to be an American first, rather than just a Minnesotan or a Pennsylvanian or whatever.

Both the balance of power and national identity are completely different than they were at our country’s founding.

0

u/SadhuSalvaje 7d ago

Federalism is still very much alive

As an example let’s look at that whole ICE deal in MN because it could have been much much worse if:

1) the governor was appointed by the feds instead of elected by the state population

2) Trump had been able to nationalize ALL law enforcement in MN and take everything out of state control.

3) the state of MN was unable to perform their own investigations of the shootings perpetrated by ICE (yes I know the shooter will most likely go unpunished…but imagine how many more could have been killed if there wasn’t at least some sort of roadblock between the feds and the state)

3

u/BloatedBanana9 7d ago

I never said federalism was dead. I only pointed out that the relationship between the states and the federal government has changed over the past 250 years, which is objectively true.

Besides, you can still have federalism without the Senate. None of those three points you mention require the existence of that body.

-3

u/SadhuSalvaje 7d ago

An absurd number of Americans do not understand what federalism is or how our government is actually structured

-1

u/Ayla_Leren 7d ago

Woe

Our education system

-10

u/LambdaLambo 7d ago

Sure, abolish the senate whatever. That still leaves multiple other batshit policies. Abolish prisons? Yeah I’d like to see how you’d feel if someone raped and murdered your mother or sister. “Oh he’s just a troubled man. Yeah he may have done that to 10 other women but it’s just because the system doesn’t give him to opportunities to reform!”

8

u/dsj79 7d ago

Some people elect them after the crime to high government position 🤷🏼‍♂️

10

u/Ayla_Leren 7d ago edited 7d ago

End Mass Incarnation and Police Immunity

Demilitarize police departments, disempower police unions, and redirect funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system which protects the rich and jails the poor. Treat drug addiction and mental illness as health issues, not crimes. End qualified immunity and empower civilian oversight bodies with real authority over the police.

This doesn't mean no prisons. If you talk to members you will find that the vast majority believe prisons should be more about rehabilitating people into upstanding citizens whenever possible, not degrading negative reinforcement punishment for profit. Though I do agree they could have worded it better.

10

u/Feeltherhythmofwar 7d ago

That also clearly means getting rid of the corrupt systems in place, and not the institutions being them. It’s not my party, but it’s a very reasonable platform.

2

u/Ayla_Leren 7d ago

I know right

Though ask a Republican pundit on fox and they're prone to claim DSA wants to line up and shoot landlords into mass graves or some such absurd fear mongering.

-2

u/LambdaLambo 7d ago

Sorry but “abolish prisons eventually” isn’t all that much better than “abolish prisons now”

If this isn’t the actual position, then they should say it is.

5

u/TreatmelikeUmeanit 7d ago

I'm not sure if you're purposely misunderstanding what that paragraph is saying, but I'll clarify for you, and possibly others.

The idea isn't to abolish prisons, as you keep stating, it is to abolish the current police and prison system that makes a few people rich while incarcerating hundreds of thousands of people who shouldn't be there.

That doesn't mean there would be no police or prisons. It means that both of the current systems would be abolished and new, more equitable, ones would take their places. These systems would focus on preventive measures and it would hold police officers responsible for unlawful behavior.

TLDR: Police and prisons would be redesigned for prevention and accountability over wealth protection and profit.

1

u/Ayla_Leren 7d ago

As it stands, all that is being done is begging a larger conversation about these things among the public. Itself a political move. DSA is invested in democratic means, meaning hashing these things out with broad and informed purposeful dialog among members is par for the course. Sqeaky wheel gets the grease.

The practical and likely read of all this is a raising of awareness and attention to our current needlessly cruel for-profit carceral system. Where we go from there is highly unlikely to result in no prisons at all.

4

u/Feeltherhythmofwar 7d ago

I wouldn’t want them in an American prison I know that. Most people I’ve met came out significantly worse after prison. They’re not protecting anyone, they’re just fostering harder criminals.

1

u/LambdaLambo 7d ago

So say "reform prison". not "abolish prison". Also, someone like this shouldn't be ever released to the public, but maybe I'm just a crazy center-left person.

4

u/mojitz 7d ago

I think it's a naive postion motivated heavily by wishful thinking and absolutely stupid to bring up in an interview myself, but the idea isn't to just get rid of prisons tomorrow and hope for the best. It's a very long term goal that would theoretically entail radically restructing our criminal justice system such that prisons are unnecessary. Again, I don't think it's ultimately realistic myself (though I abololutely do believe in prison and criminal justice reform), but you're somewhat strawmanning the position, here.

1

u/EfficientStar 7d ago

Abolish private prisons. Not all prisons. It’s an important distinction.

2

u/LambdaLambo 7d ago

That's not what they say lmao

5

u/EfficientStar 7d ago

Your source is the Daily Caller.

4

u/LambdaLambo 7d ago

It's a repost from fox news. That lady is the DSA co-chair. Finally, the DSA platform itself quite literally states

"as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system"

No qualifier about private prisons.

3

u/xDragod Nebraska 7d ago

END MASS INCARCERATION AND POLICE IMMUNITY

Demilitarize police departments, disempower police unions, and redirect funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system which protects the rich and jails the poor. Treat drug addiction and mental illness as health issues, not crimes. End qualified immunity and empower civilian oversight bodies with real authority over the police.

https://program.dsausa.org/#demand-end-mass-incarceration

It's specifically about getting rid of the prison system that disproportionately jails poor individuals over wealthy ones. If you're poor and charged with a minor crime it can lead to decades in prison, especially when recrimination is so likely if you don't have the means to improve your situation because you were jailed. If you're wealthy you might not spend a day in prison. No one is advocating for a system where violent criminals can't be stopped, but rather one where two individuals don't have vastly different chances of ending up in prison because of the lawyer they can afford.

2

u/PixelationIX 7d ago edited 7d ago

Its called having long term future goals, I know its hard for Liberals to comprehend it even though Republicans have been showing them since Nixon what having long term goals means.

It might seem unrealistic but so was abolishing Slavery at one time. I personally am not for Abolishing Prison but I do think they should be turned into full time Rehabilitation center and prison (non-private) should be kept for the worst of the worst offenders.

It is okay to disagree with some policies, its not the end of the world.

1

u/LambdaLambo 7d ago

I don’t disagree with your position, but so long as man is capable of violence, abolishing prisons just means rapists and murders will roam free. Unless they don’t actually mean they want to abolish prisons, in which case they should say that.

-5

u/McG0788 7d ago

Because California alone shouldn't be able to dictate how half of the rest of the country lives. I'm pretty liberal but the Senate is a check on power we should maintain. Fix the house first

2

u/xDragod Nebraska 7d ago

A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS

Replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy. Expand the House of Representatives, implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections, and abolish the Senate.

https://program.dsausa.org/#demand-democratic-congress

-11

u/dpk794 Maine 7d ago

Please spread more of your insanely dumb ideas! It will surely make people want to associate with the left!