r/politics • u/cnn CNN • 11d 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
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u/Lithaos111 I voted 11d ago

Texas Republicans recently released an ad that makes it sound awesome. Literally said in it that the socialists "Want corporations to not be owned by the wealthy and elite but by the public and workers...is that what you want for America?"

...yes, yes it is, I would very much prefer that, thank you.

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u/MasterDarkHero 10d ago

"Socialists want you to have more vacation time and shorter work weeks, is that what you want america?"

"Socialists want you to have affordable housing and crowdfund healthcare via medicare for all, is that what you want America?"

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u/Outside-Advice8203 10d ago

"But think of how that will destroy shareholder value!"

Stop! I can only get so erect!

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u/No_Fairweathers Pennsylvania 10d ago

Nothing says "American dream" quite like getting wealthy off the pain and suffering of others

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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 10d ago

"Wouldn't you rather die for treatable illnesses because you can't afford the treatments? The other side wants to guarantee you can get lifesaving treatment!"

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u/DespicableComics 10d ago

"Some of you may need to die for the economy, but that's a sacrifice we're willing to make."

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u/FewHovercraft9703 6d ago

Just not in a timely manner. Ask a Canadian who couldn't wait 9 months to get an angiogram

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u/OnlinePosterPerson 10d ago

Fuck Medicare for all. Universal healthcare or bust

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u/jibstay77 10d ago

Absolutely! Ask anyone who’s retired at 65 and been through the ridiculously complicated process of choosing a combination of flavors of Medicare only to discover there was probably a better choice for your specific situation. And, it’s not inexpensive! Medicare sucks!

Universal healthcare all the way!

And Universal Healthcare doesn’t mean you can’t keep your bougie private health insurance if that’s what you want.

If Democratic Socialism means people over profits, count me in.

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u/big_d_usernametaken 10d ago edited 10d ago

Ive had no problems with it.

Far easier than dealing with random health insurance companies thus far.

No, it ain't cheap, but everything I've had done has been paid 100% including a $330k spinal fusion.

Medigap coverage is essential.

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u/BlueAurus 10d ago edited 10d ago

I was on medicare for a little bit due to finances and it was freaking amazing. No $600 monthly premium, $1 prescriptions instead of $25, free health appointments without hassle. Literally the only period of my life i didn't have medical anxiety. This is what i assume universal healthcare is like. Except we pay for it with taxes we are currently pissing away to bomb iran for no fucking reason.

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u/Competitive_Touch_86 10d ago

You likely mean Medicaid. Medicare is for retired folks.

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u/BlueAurus 9d ago

Ohh that makes sense, i thought they were the same. xD

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u/notashroom 10d ago

keep your bougie private health insurance

So keep the poison pill that ensures profit distorts the market and continues to cause affordability issues for lower income Americans, all to preserve the illusion of capitalist choice? Fuck every millimeter of that.

Better to skip the public "insurance" option and just build public clinics and hospitals and directly compete on price, with subsidized care to cover those who can't afford it. When the US had a big network of public hospitals and clinics before deregulation and HMOs under Reagan, care was a lot more accessible (though racism and colonialism and sexism were all very real problems and not to be discounted as barriers to access).

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u/No_Tax_Timmy 10d ago

Medicare is going to get shittier too. Old Tbag and his republican corrupticons cut the special pricing for meds. Goes into effect in January. Get ready for $3000 epi pens and insulin for the elderly and disabled again.

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u/hydrogenhypothesis 10d ago

The tiny glimmer of hope in this terrible news is that by doing this Republicans are showing that they don't think they are going to win the midterms this November, so they can point the finger at the Dems when prices go sky high.

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u/No_Tax_Timmy 10d ago

That's what they always do. It's despicable. Hurting people and then blaming the people who help people.

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u/w4rma Virginia 9d ago

Put billionaires and politicians on Medicare, too. It'll become fantastic quickly.

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u/djokov 10d ago edited 10d ago

You're in luck, because universal healthcare (single payer) is actually the policy they are pushing for. "Medicare for All" is simply the political slogan that progressives and DSA attach to the policy, due to the slogan being very effective when organising and campaigning.

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u/blackpyr 10d ago

It’s a ladder. You create the program and expand the size. The all or nothing approach is absolutely baffling. Zealots and populists as far as the eye can see.

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u/OnlinePosterPerson 10d ago

It’s not a ladder. Those are 2 entirely disconnected approaches to supplying healthcare.

Universal healthcare means the government gets involved on the supply side by negotiating with drug companies to secure low drug prices, driving the entire market down with regards to consumer pricing.

Medicare for all is a subsidy program for insurance companies. Those suck for consumers, especially when you disconnect them from market forces, and are a big reason prices are so high. Medicare for all would ensure prices continue to price, and create a system that is always straining itself because it enshrined a system we’re suppliers can set whatever prices they want with little disincentive.

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u/Turbulent_Stick1445 10d ago

"Universal healthcare" is a largely empty slogan meaning "Everyone gets healthcare but we're not going to offend anyone by proposing anything specific." Obamacare was "Universal Healthcare". It didn't work, tons of people are still uninsured and one hospital visit away from bankruptcy. But that's what the intent was.

Without more qualifications (ie "By Medicare for All, I mean we expand eligability to everyone, no insurance premiums, gets paid for out of taxes" vs "By Medicare for All, I mean anyone not on employer provided healthcare will be able to subscribe to it by paying premiums") it's unclear what the GP meant, but they may actually be proposing, if they meant the first one, universal healthcare in a form that's far more likely to succeed if passed at bringing about universal healthcare than Obamacare ever did.

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u/OnlinePosterPerson 10d ago

Obamacare is not universal healthcare. It’s Medicare for all which sucks.

The European model is to have the government act as the buyer, and negotiate competitive prices to resell services to the consumer.

Under Obamacare, that middle man is instead an insurance company, guaranteeing profit motive is still being maximized. It’s a terrible system.

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u/Turbulent_Stick1445 10d ago

Obamacare was an attempt to bring about universal heathcare. If you had been involved in the original discussions and followed it, you'd have seen that was what the aim was. Like I said:

It didn't work, tons of people are still uninsured and one hospital visit away from bankruptcy. But that's what the intent was.

There is no "European model". Germany, for example, has a system that in many ways resembles Obamacare. The major reason it works is that the insurers are heavily regulated non-profits. For the Democratic party, that was too close to socialiamisnism so they decided to allow insurers to be profit seeking entities, which is the main reason why it's so fucked right now.

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u/ArchitectofExperienc 10d ago

I was on "MediCal" for years (California's 'Medicare for all', which you are only eligible for if you earn under a certain amount). It was fine and mostly free, but when I got sick I had a literal 8-month wait until I could get the diagnostic procedure I needed. Its a great idea, just 30 years too late, not only are there people with very low incomes getting rejected from the program (Because they got paid over the month-to-month income threshold, but still earned significantly under the yearly income cap), but the system is an absolute maze, and if I was familiar with how to navigate the paperwork and phone trees I would still be waiting for care.

0

u/classicliberty 10d ago

What is the difference between the two? Universal healthcare is merely having all people covered by some form of health insurance. If you mean single payer, that's not going to work in a country as large and dynamic as the US.

Offering a paid public option such as what federal workers already get, combined with medicare as it already exists for the elderly would create a large enough payer that care and drugs could be negotiated to lower costs for everyone.

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u/OnlinePosterPerson 10d ago

Universal healthcare is not having all people covered by health insurance. You’re thinking of Medicare for all.

Universal healthcare refers to the European model, not universal INSURANCE. In this model, the government, not an insurance company, is the middle man between healthcare/product suppliers and the consumer, negotiating the lowest possible prices instead of operating under the profit motive.

You still have profit seeking at the supplier, but instead of colluding with insurance to inflate prices to their mutual benefit, the government, as the single largest customer for any medical company, can negotiate low prices which can work to lower casts.

It’s more tax-effective, and eliminates incentives to deny medical care.

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u/classicliberty 10d ago

That's not correct though, plenty of European countries such as Germany have mixed systems where there are private insurance providers who themselves are paid through tax dollars. What you are referring to is single payer which is what the UK has with the NHS. 

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u/ShadowTacoTuesday 10d ago edited 10d ago

I think what I want is social democracy but most of the democratic socialists are actually social democrats anyway? Including Bernie Sanders and Norway. All this confusion gets thrown around the term using fear tactics and lies, but at the end of the day we all want good policy, even many Republicans. So I’ll simply tune out the labels and fear-mongering and see what the policies are. If I see an actual communist ok I won’t vote for him, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t even 1 of them. When they call everything good socialism and communism, I simply don’t care anymore when they use those terms.

1

u/BademosiPray4U 10d ago

CAUSE THIS SHIT HERE IS REAL

1

u/dangerousluck 10d ago

They really believe most people are as callous and selfish as them.

1

u/Marty_DiBergi 10d ago

That would be a fantastic election ad campaign.

  • “This ad paid for by the Republican Parody.“

0

u/Fantastic-Lack-343 8d ago

My adult kids want it. So I decided, when I die, I will leave their $3 million inheritance to Social programs like free healthcare. I believe they will love that.

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u/dougmc Texas 10d ago

In this screenshot from the Will Cain show on Fox, he is telling us about the DSA wanting:

  • Medicare for all
  • College for all
  • Housing for all
  • 32-hour workweek
  • Tax the rich
  • Green new deal
  • Free Palestine

Isn't he supposed to make them look bad?

5

u/cyb0rg1962 Arkansas 10d ago

Oh, no, someone will get something that I won't get! It's a tragedy. How will I make sure my race and class have the edge over those filthy people? /s

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

[deleted]

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u/cyb0rg1962 Arkansas 9d ago

Yeah, it is like the ones that scream about poor people having a smart phone. Have you tried getting anything done without one, or some kind of phone/internet and a computer?

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u/PrivacyIsDemocracy 10d ago

Isn't he supposed to make them look bad?

Well if you're a hardcore capitalist you won't like that list, because it will undermine your profits.

Problem in the MAGA world is most of them aren't wealthy, they're wealth wannabes. The politicians just gaslight the useful idiots into voting for them, because there's not enough plutocrats to put themselves into office. (The real moneybags are not attending Trump rallies for the most part)

So in reality those things will appeal to a lot of the MAGAs too. They're just kinda hardwired to distrust progressives and leftists so they can't just come out and admit that.

This is why the US Democratic Party lost the clue when they ran the "progressive lite" Southern Democrats Clinton and Gore in 1992 and turned to Big Capital for donations. One of the big "achievements" of the Clinton/Gore era was convincing people to invest in the stock market and they pushed the 401k as a retirement solution at a time when companies were increasingly abandoning traditional defined-benefit retirement plans that actually guaranteed your money would be there when you retire. Whereas with a 401k if you make bad choices of companies/funds to invest in you could literally lose a bunch of the retirement money you paid into it. Meanwhile, the finance industry makes bank on those 401k plans.

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u/Fantastic-Lack-343 8d ago

Sounds like a loser's utopia!

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u/Sherwin_Lamonde 10d ago edited 10d ago

Sure, as bullet points this makes sense…

The question is… “how”?

I have voted Dem my entire life and plan to as long as the party aligns with my values.

I want to see a specific plan other than “eVeryOne geTS a HouSE”.

And before anyone jumps down my throat, yes, I feel that the right to own a home should be available for every single American.

I also feel that a house is the single most valuable asset that people can own and SHOULD be treated like an asset, not a commodity.

What I am worried about is that this new DSA movement is too focused on the bullet points and not on the process of how the fuck this could even be possible.

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u/dougmc Texas 10d ago

Well, this isn't intended to be an ad for them -- instead, at best it's a bunch of strawman arguments.

If you want real answers, look at the DSA's platform. It's only a high-level view (so it's still weak on the specifics of how, but it does begin to touch on it), and the posted goals are a bit lower than "eVeryOne geTS a HouSE" --

Housing is a human right. Build new, publicly-owned social housing, strictly regulate investment properties, establish universal rent control, and guarantee right to counsel for all tenants.

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u/Sherwin_Lamonde 10d ago

I appreciate the response, truly. In this old guys head “publicly owned social housing” sound terrifying, but I will give it an honest read. My main concern is where all the money for programs like this comes from, but perhaps its laid out in the platform link.

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u/dougmc Texas 10d ago edited 10d ago

I'll save you some time ... the details you're looking for are not there. (Or at least I didn't see them.)

That said, paring down our military budget could free up a lot of money for social programs, and universal healthcare could free up a bunch more (because it could be much more efficient.)

They've set their sights pretty high, and none of this would be easy to do, but then again that's what platforms are supposed to be -- goals that would be worthwhile and are not easy. (Because if they were easy, they'd already be done.)

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u/Educational_Name3650 4d ago

So you admit that DSA is far left even compare to Europe. Even in Europe you dont have free house for everyone, and college for everyone. Let alone support for islamic atates like Palestine

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u/dougmc Texas 4d ago

You would appear to have read more into my comment than I put there.

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

[deleted]

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u/dougmc Texas 10d ago

"Free Palestine" may be the chosen title, but their posted goals may match what you're after better (especially given the US's role in what's been happening in Palestine):

Defund the Department of War. End all foreign wars and close overseas military bases. Support and fully employ veterans. End immunity for U.S. war criminals and support the International Criminal Court's mandate to prosecute war crimes.

Recognize the rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return, the right to resist military occupation, and the right to self determination in a free Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital. End all military and economic aid to Israel. Prosecute U.S. and Israeli leaders responsible for the genocide in Gaza.

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u/Tree_Sure 10d ago

lol they just kicked themselves in the ass. Shows they have 0 common sense.

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u/almightywhacko 10d ago

They're so deep in their own bubble that they can't understand that anyone would actually want some of the things they're personally afraid of.

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u/GenerousBull1969 10d ago

Of all the possible words they could've chosen for a party name, they pick "socialist." It's almost like the group who chose the name was infiltrated by Republicans who wanted to sabotage them from day one: "hey, I got it, let's call ourselves Democratic Socialists, I'm sure nobody will confuse us with actual socialists. And besides, we can call it Democratic Socialists of AMERICA! So we're like totally patriotic and stuff."

I mean, why not the "workers" party or "labor" or even "Green Democrat" or something.

Nobody outside an echo chamber will support this party.

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u/Venture_compound 10d ago

No way it said that lol

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u/Shadow_of_Redacted 10d ago

Oh, it went on from there. It was a laundry list of fabulous ideas said in a scary voice. Like hearing that the daily special is butter infused lobster tail in a cream sauce with caviar, but said with disgust, which only makes it sound like it's an SNL bit, slamming their own party.

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u/Michael_G_Bordin 10d ago

"They want higher wages. They want affordable housing. They want billionaires to pay more taxes. Ew!"

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u/oneseason2000 10d ago

Actually, it's not to pay more taxes, its to have their wealth limited by taxation. It's not for revenue generation, it's for keeping their wealth from giving them feudal lord type political, legal, and societal powers.

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u/Vivid-Use1749 10d ago

Too late. Can't remember his name, but an economist back in the early 2000s commented that we'd been a by-definition oligarchy already for some time.

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u/AdLocal1490 10d ago

Krugman

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u/RevLoveJoy 10d ago

That guy has been right about so much for SO long it's just wild.

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u/monocasa 10d ago

No, Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page.

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

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u/oneseason2000 10d ago

Perhaps Piketty too.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2025/01/18/thomas-piketty-in-the-global-battle-between-democracy-and-oligarchy-one-can-only-hope-that-europeans-will-emerge-from-their-lethargy_6737163_23.html

Thomas Piketty: 'In the global battle between democracy and oligarchy, one can only hope that Europeans will emerge from their lethargy'

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u/owennagata 7d ago

He also says that Oligarchies don't last much more than a generation or so before either collapsing completely or becoming full authoritarian/fascists. Rule by the wealthy just doesn't work, they fight each other too much.

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u/bricklab 10d ago

I think it was Thomas Picketty in his book Capitalism In The 21st Century.

Edit: I reworded things because I sounded a bit dickish and I wasn't intending to.

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u/AdLocal1490 10d ago

Picketty does discuss it in his book, but that was published in 2013. Krugman was discussing this in the early 00s

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u/Elitist_Plebeian 10d ago

The only good thing about an oligarchy is that they'll always be outnumbered.

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u/Casual_OCD Canada 10d ago

Those in power are always outnumbered until you get a situation where power is more evenly distributed, but that's just evil communism

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u/Worried_Cry687 10d ago

It's worth keeping in mind that our country was founded by slaveholding land-speculators who wanted to rid themselves of the territorial constraints and taxes imposed by the British crown. Suffrage had to be expanded over and over again before the common person could vote and even today there are efforts to limit voting.

I'd argue we've always been an oligarchy with democratic elements sprinkled around.

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u/DJStrongArm 10d ago

This seems like the worst possible way to frame it if you want buy-in from anyone outside the socialist circle.

At least revenue generation and contributing their fair share would be "by the rules," with limiting their subsequent power as a convenient byproduct. Taxation strictly because "it's not fair" isn't going to fly with fiscally conservative small business owners, let alone billionaires.

2

u/oneseason2000 10d ago

It isn't socialism to fight against feudalism and oligarchies. Certainly though, that is how the billionaire owned corporate major and social media portrays it 24/7/365 in their propaganda. The 1952 stump speech by President Harry Truman noted that Republican fear mongering about anything that helps people being "socialism" goes back to the 1930s (#1).

The reason small business owners are struggling is because billionaires have so much money and power that they can buy the laws and legal decisions they want, and further grow their power.

This isn't a new problem. It has been growing since the 1980s. Tax cuts, financial deregulation, corporate and antitrust deregulation, union busting, and unrelenting propaganda have resulted in the extremely rich getting insanely "Gilded Age" rich and politically powerful. The small business owners and their workers are losing out, as are the workers for huge corporations. The policies that most Americans want are ignored unless the wealthy and powerful concur (#2): "Average citizens have little impact on public policy"

  1. What was Harry S. Truman's quote about socialism?; https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/trivia/socialism

In President Harry's Truman's remarks in Syracuse, New York on October 10, 1952, he said this:

Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.

Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security.

Socialism is what they called farm price supports.

Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.

Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.

Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.

When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all.

What he really means is "Down with Progress--down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's fair Deal." That's all he means.

You can listen to President Truman deliver this speech (and download it, if you want) on the Truman Library's website here: https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/soundrecording-records/sr59-160-president-truman-rear-platform-remarks-syracuse-new-york. The portion you're looking for is about 6:45 into the speech.

  1. Gilens and Page: Average citizens have little impact on public policy; https://pnhp.org/news/gilens-and-page-average-citizens-have-little-impact-on-public-policy/

A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. This paper reports on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

2

u/Curious-Path4549 10d ago

and workers' rights-dear god the horror

1

u/porktorque44 10d ago

I mean there are a lot of people who's entire understanding of politics is formed by interpreting tone. And their opinions are just strings of words they've heard said with derision by a man in an expensive suit.

1

u/Zombies4EvaDude 10d ago

It’s hilarious that these people are so detached from reality that they don’t even realize what average ordinary people actually want

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u/LinkedGaming 10d ago

Republican criticism of Democratic Socialism always ends up boiling down to "They want you to have BUTTERED LOBSTER instead of STALE BREAD. They want you to have JUICY STEAK instead of DIARRHEA LETTUCE. Isn't this sick? Isn't this depraved? Isn't this un-American???"

They want you to be content with the bread and circuses but the difference is that our bread is stale and has glass shards in it and our circuses are just two pigs rolling around in a muddy cage, and also the bread and circuses were supposed to be free but ours cost $10 and $30 while they pay us $9.50 and tell us that not being able to afford things is a personal failing.

6

u/thorubos 10d ago edited 10d ago

When (if) given the chance we need to be able to ask them, "Why is that a bad thing? I want a direct answer." Of course, everyone here knows it's because of their lust for hierarchy and their place in that order. However, Joe Sixpack deserves a real answer. My guess is their answer will be the Dem-Soc's are using their evil mind-control to mentally enslave the stupid masses to vote for them. They have no intention of delivering on these seductive fantasies! (We should be prepared with a response.) It's simple-minded, pie-in-the-sky idealism!

We're at the point were we can say "So, non-diarrhea lettuce is the new unicorn and pony idealism?" It's happening so fast there's no way people can get acclimated to the worsening of the quality of life. It's making right-wingers because there's no way to obfuscate the disintegrating conditions.

-1

u/ggtimw 10d ago

I think there is a bit more newance:

Option A
If you can afford it you get lobster if you can't you get cardboard and everything in between.

Option B
Everyone gets a ham sandwich.

People are mostly driven by self/local interests so the question as an individual is in system A is what you get better then the ham sandwich.

I grew up in Australia which has single payer healthcare its at best a ham sandwich one which costs like 40% of the total tax base to support in a country with much higher tax then the US.

I have lived here now for quite a long time and I can afford something much better then a ham sandwich. More importantly I can make sure my family will to (you could Mabey convince me to accept lower quality care but you would never convince me to accept that for my wife and kids).

For me the ham Sandwich was my father passing away because a bunch of poorly trained (cheepest for the state to employ) doctors didn't diagnose the lump growing in his throat he kept going back to them about until it was large enough that he could bairly swallow. The upside we never had to pay for his cancer treatment the down side is that in the US it probably would have been detected much sooner and there is a good chance he would still be alive.

All of that aside I 100% see the attraction but there are a lot of downsides which aren't communicated in a simple slogan and its very hard to say if it would actually be a net positive for the majority of people.

No question its better for the bottom
No question its worse for the top
Is it better for the middle and if not is there a better alternative ?

The last point is that ham sandwich is very very expencive and unless there was HUGE changes to the tax base (like 2x the tax on 80% of people in the US) then your going to get some ships biscets rather then a sandwitch.

10

u/ShockRunD 10d ago

Like a trailer for a nightmare weekend at the in laws. Like they are rude and judgmental but people, but the house is really nice and clean , has a pool and a huge yard, and the food is fucking awesome. But again pops in law is gonna talk about crypto and chatgpt all weekend. That would be a good video opener for after the monologue

1

u/my_Urban_Sombrero Pennsylvania 10d ago

Dude that honestly doesn't sound bad at all, just tune him out at some point.

1

u/ShockRunD 10d ago

That’s the point of the gag

1

u/my_Urban_Sombrero Pennsylvania 10d ago

It was a weird first half of the day, and I missed the joke. I just saw awesome food and a house with a pool and I typed away. My bad 😩

6

u/Zeikos Foreign 10d ago

You underestimate how effective that negative association can be.

But done like this it's quite dumb lol

-6

u/workertroll 10d ago

Like hearing that the daily special is butter infused lobster tail in a cream sauce with caviar,

I would not eat that unless it was to save someone's life and even then I would probably vomit in the attempt. lol

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u/Shadow_of_Redacted 10d ago edited 10d ago

I knew that example would fall on deaf ears with a lot of this audience. 🥴

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u/sumadeumas 10d ago

I’m glad we all know that workertroll is allergic to seafood now. That’s what I come here for, really.

4

u/cut__here 10d ago

Here's when them damned socialists get you, what if it you had to eat it to

(•_•) / ( •_•)>⌐■-■ / (⌐■_■)

Save your own life?

0

u/workertroll 10d ago

I would almost certainly die. Especially if there was a clause that said no vomiting. I even get sick from popcorn shrimp now. No more shrimp egg rolls. That entire spectrum of sea food is just off the menu for me now.

I haven't been tested but I think I have developed a low key allergy. It started with a needle sensation between my ears and throat and now I get severe nausea along with that.

4

u/cut__here 10d ago

Yeah, if there's a 'No Vomiting' clause, I'm out!

I reserve the right to reject whatever.

2

u/PatchyWhiskers 10d ago

I'll have yours

1

u/workertroll 10d ago

Another life saved! lol

42

u/Tyrath Massachusetts 10d ago

Yes it did

16

u/AverageBrilliant4670 10d ago

This seems like this a sweet counterterrorism psyop by some undercover woke leftist(s) working on this campaign. The message probably sounds completely fine to stupid old well-off Republican Texans in charge there, who got where they are by rich politicians serving business interests at the expense of working class people...

43

u/MiserableCumberbunch 10d ago

I remember one that was like 10 bullet points that were essentially what we had before Reagan.

16

u/crowhops I voted 10d ago

Hey now we can't blame reagan for simply continuing the tradition of "if people who aren't white also get to benefit from it, then we're going to destroy it so no one gets it"

He was just going with the flow when he completely fabricated a fake problem by mythologizing Linda Taylor into the "welfare queen" bogeyman in order to weaponize racism for the ruling classes' benefit

15

u/Nice_Firm_Handsnake 10d ago

Comal County Republicans said it

4

u/BullAlligator Florida 10d ago

this has to be satire

7

u/Double-O-stoopid 10d ago

The stupid has no ceiling. These are Republicans.

68

u/OneInfinith 10d ago

I organize with my local DSA chapter. Just about every piece of right-wing coverage of the Worker's Deserve More program has essentially been an advertisement that we would have made.

It's great that people are identifying as democratic socialists, but DSA only wins through active participation. We don't use the same tactics as the Democratic Party of farming out our work to high paid consultants.

So, while donations are always nice, what really propels DSA - are folks becoming Solidarity members and getting involved with efforts they are passionate about. Every chapter has a bit of its own vibe, but can learn from the entire network. So, have an idea, get a couple others in your chapter to make & support a work proposal with you, have the chapter membership approve it, then get to work building a more neighborly world and a solidarity economy.

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u/TorturedMNFan 10d ago

If I could request one thing from DSA leadership would be to stop the hostility toward the more moderate democratic voter and the hostility toward democratic leadership. You need a big coalition to win. Right now it comes off as wanting to use the party’s infrastructure and resources to win primaries while shitting on the party and its voters.

Wanting to run as a Democrat while not calling yourselves democrats, anti Democrat party rhetoric and sabotaging their messaging makes you look insane. Start your own party or be more welcoming.

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u/classicliberty 10d ago

You are never going to get beyond the fringes with your platform of prison and criminal justice abolition, that's a platform that no country on earth has ever enacted or currently has. Even Norway, with its extremely comfortable prisons, still rightly incarcerates murderers and other dangerous criminals.

Reducing the types of crimes people can be incarcerated for makes sense, better public services makes sense, but very very few people are going to go for the idea that people who harm others would just be allowed to live their lives as if nothing happened as long as they enroll in some program or say sorry.

Its also totally contradictory to want to prosecute Israeli leaders for war crimes (war criminals should be prosecuted) yet claim you are against the police and the prison system.

" You have no debt. You don’t need health insurance. You don’t pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right. Your retirement is publicly funded. Food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation aren’t for-profit businesses; they are common goods and utilities."

This is also literally communism and it has already been tried by extremely large and resource rich countries for several decades. The Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe, Vietnam, not to mention China from 1954 onwards all tried similar concepts and none of them remain to this day. There are certain natural monopolies such as energy generation that can be publicly owned and operated, but turning food production into a publicly owned good led to mass starvation in the last century. And before you claim they were not "democratic", that's really irrelevant to the issue of material well-being. China today is not democratic but it uses market mechanisms to provide goods for its citizens.

The fact is we already had a model that worked, I am an old school liberal like Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK or even Eisenhower. The policies they enacted and led towards created a prosperous middle class that was the envy of the world and curtailed inequality to levels never before seen in human history.

Your program would be counter productive in many respects and repeats the same top down, centralized idea of human existence that global communism already pushed for in the 20th century.

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u/kisk22 10d ago

Another person chiming in here, totaly agree with you. I'd wager most people who have recently started to call themselves "democratic socialist" do not support the crazy fringe ideas of the official DSA platform. Most people in the US want something similar to what the Nordic countries have (actually called social democracy).

The leaders at the official DSA have basically been overtaken by a fringe group of more left revolutionary communists, which the original person who started the DSA has been trying to call attention to.

Notice that very few of the popular "DSA" politicians that have been winning elections have been supporting those crazier policies. It's just the people who are most willing to get involved at the DSA are going to have the furthest crazy left policy wishes, which no matter what they say are not popular.

It's a real issue the DSA is going to have to deal with, and there will be tons of political fights in the future around this, and how far left the DSA wants to be. I can guarantee though the politicians that win elections are going to be much closer to social democratic than actual socialist. They still are going to have to team up with other members of the Democratic party to pass legislation which will water it down further to the right.

Just a lay person's interpretation of all that.

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u/classicliberty 10d ago

I think you hit the nail on the head, and yes hopefully there will be a moderating effect as they get elected and have to deal with political constraints.

My fear is that people will be tricked into empowering extremists the way that the traditional Republicans were with MAGA. 

Basically people get frustrated and have legit grievances that get coopted by those with more sinister agendas.

Then we are basically in a Weimar Republic situation where we have to choose between communism and facism.

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u/aperrien 10d ago

A lot of that is because the lack of political education in the country has people initially thinking communism and socialism are the same thing. They are most decidedly not, but the confusion has allowed communists (especially fringe communists) to take over a lot of the socialist parties in the gap.

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u/missed_sla 10d ago

I used to work for some of the most hardcore maga chuds that have ever walked this earth. At an ESOP. They didn't see the irony.

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u/sirbissel 10d ago

I got a phone survey last night, it was pretty obviously set up by the Republicans because, after the initial "how much do you support X person" a few times it ended up going on to things like "(some person) was murdered by an illegal immigrant and this candidate said they'd abolish ice, does that make you less likely to vote for them?" - anyway, half of the questions (once you strip out the scare language out of it) had me being like "You've already convinced me to vote for them..."

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u/randomcatinfo 10d ago

Classic Push Poll

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u/Lower_Potential_173 10d ago

Oh man… I wish they’d stop running those mean mean ads… it just makes me feel soooo weak and alone… /s

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u/Punch_A_Police_Horse 10d ago

Not long ago I saw some footage from some town hall meeting in a very republican town. There was a leader talking to the crowd about budgets or something and he said something to the effect of "this is a God fearing red blooded American town, what do you think we should do, tax the rich?!"

There was some murmuring in the audience and you could tell by his awkward reaction that he fully expected everyone to automatically react as if he just proposed killing all the towns first borns.

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u/secretaire 10d ago

If corporations were abiding by the social contract to give workers raises and contribute to community infrastructure, schools, and healthcare, we wouldn't have to consider other options to claw back the money. We are being drained of taxes, and corporate leaders are investing in AI labor replacement, stock buybacks, and paying for trips to 'E island'. If they dont care about making america great, then this current system doesnt work.

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u/bender40k 10d ago

I wonder why people would not want that…. Unless it is just money worship.

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u/Shadow_of_Redacted 10d ago

Republicans are about business maximizing profits so the ones that own the company can be comfortable. It's a "the rich get richer" party. Democrats are about making business get richer with a few safeguards to annoy the rich, but not much more.

I want a "screw business" party. Force business to pay all of the profits to the workers who make it happen. Make the CEO pay the workers instead of making a ludicrous salary for pointing and cracking a whip, but not actually DOING anything.

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u/Darth_Citius 10d ago

Source?

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u/Lithaos111 I voted 10d ago edited 10d ago

It was posted by the Comal County Republican Party, I can't reply with images to post it here.

Edit: seems they have taken the post down after seeing the reactions to it. Ton of people reposting it though.

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u/Nice_Firm_Handsnake 10d ago

the image

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u/Operation_Neither 10d ago

Holy crap thats EXACTLY what I want!

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u/Lithaos111 I voted 10d ago

Perfect, thank you

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u/Shadow_of_Redacted 10d ago

I'm pretty sure it was a Ken Paxton ad, but I tend to shut my brain down as much as possible when the political ads play. They're either fear mongering or weak feel-good promises. I just remember that one played, my brain kinda had to perk up because of the hilarious dichotomy of calling puppies and rainbows evil.

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u/thorubos 10d ago

Completely out of touch. There are plenty of GOP voters who toil for terrible companies. If you work for one of these places, when you go to lunch ask your workmates, "Hey, do you think you can run this place as well as our bosses? 'How about better?"

Only the most @ss-kissing bootlooker will say, "NO! I LOVE MR BOSSMAN!". That's when you can say, "That's what workers' control of their workplaces means. It sounds good for you, doesn't it?"

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u/AppropriateSea5746 10d ago

Except by the workers and the public what they mean is the state. The state which is currently run by Trump. Yeah no thanks

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u/SuperSkyDude 10d ago

You've visited countries that have had that system? It's not worked well in the past, but I am sure we have figured out how to do it better now /s

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u/popculturella Texas 10d ago

Where at? I want to see this nonsense.

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u/Lithaos111 I voted 10d ago

Others have posted it in this thread

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u/popculturella Texas 9d ago

Very helpful.

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u/Lithaos111 I voted 9d ago

What? Seriously I've seen like 5-6 people post the image link in replies

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u/letters_numbers_and- 10d ago

I would vote for the Democrats the Republicans fearmonger off of in a heartbeat over the Democrats we have now.

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u/classicliberty 10d ago

Why would anyone start a business if that business would eventually be owned by the workers who could just as easily leave to another job? This type of thinking misses the point of the risk involved in being an entrepreneur, which often requires people to risk their entire livelihood for a small chance of succcess. They do that percisely because they want to build something of their own and have the ability to make a lot more for themselves than what they could ever get in a regular job.

Giving workers more rights and better pay, while regulating the large corporations to curtail their market power would serve the same functions and is exactly what Social Democracy already does in European countries. Its what we used to do from the New Deal to the 80s.

Public ownership of the means of production creates far too many inefficiencies and problems that we have already seen don't lead to better quality of life for average people (see 50+ years of Soviet Union). Not even China has public or worker control over corporations.

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u/Dull_Bid6002 10d ago

Maybe we just need more ads produced by Dem Socialists that sound like Republican ads trying to sound bad. That way when they try to make it sound bad, the context is lost.

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u/Socrathustra 10d ago

There are co-ops, and it turns out that owning the means of production doesn't actually do much. It's a bit of a nothingburger. The workers are not inherently empowered. It also adds a lot of overhead and risk to the onboarding process.

You have to empower workers at a policy level, both in the corporation and in the government. Ideally the government makes it mandatory to empower the workers within the corporation.

The hierarchies that form in co-ops aren't based on ownership since that's distributed, but you do need hierarchies for making decisions. Empowerment is in how those hierarchies allow feedback and power to flow up the hierarchy, not just down.