Members of the Democratic Socialists of America gather outside of a Trump owned building on May Day on May 01, 2019 in New York City. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images It’s been quite a year for the Democratic Socialists of America. They got one of their own, Zohran Mamdani, elected mayor of New York City. They’ve taken down congressional incumbents in New York and Colorado. Their membership has soared to 120,000 dues-paying members, the group said. But with success has come more media interest — and scrutiny. National coverage has focused on controversial elements in the DSA’s platform, which calls for, among other things, defunding the Pentagon, taking steps toward abolishing the “carceral forces of the capitalist state,” making Jerusalem the capital of a free Palestine, and making the president of the United States chosen by Congress rather than elected. Internal controversies and splits within the group — such as debates over whether, and when, it should endorse a 2028 presidential candidate (such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) — have also risen to national attention. Some in the movement have also argued that candidates embracing ideas like prison abolition could limit their political upside. As the midterm elections near, Republicans are eager to link Democrats to the DSA as part of a broader messaging strategy. President Donald Trump derided the group as communists — a term many in DSA would reject, but that some happily embrace as a self-descriptor. So what is the DSA all about, anyway? And what do they really want? To answer those questions, I spoke to Peter Sterne, an editor at City & State New York who has covered the ins and outs of DSA closely in such articles as “DSA for Dummies,” “Understanding DSA’s structure,” and “Get to know DSA’s internal caucuses.” Sterne knows the group’s inner workings well, in part, because he was a dues-paying member himself. He joined DSA in 2017 but quit it in 2023 after taking his current role covering New York politics, viewing his membership as a conflict of interest. But, he told me, he has many sources inside the group that still keep him in the loop. Our interview, which has been condensed and edited, is below. Why socialists aren’t just progressive Democrats What are the core principles of DSA? What really unites the group and its members — and sets them apart from just progressive Democrats? I would say that everyone who is in DSA identifies as a socialist, and many of them would also identify as Marxist. So they are very critical of capitalism and a society and economy that is built on capital accumulation. DSA members go farther than progressives like Senator [Elizabeth] Warren in that they are not just looking to rectify the excesses of capital, or create a nicer capitalism, or a mixed economy where you still have capitalism along with a generous social welfare state. I think that, within DSA, people are critical of capitalism itself and believe in moving toward a society in which workers have more control over their workplaces and society. In terms of what that actually looks like in the short term, there are lots of different ideas. Now, certainly in terms of what democratic socialist candidates are running on, it is very similar to what non-socialist progressives are running on. It is largely an expansion of the social welfare state. But I do think there is an important philosophical difference. The Warrenites and progressive capitalists believe in the necessity of a free market economy. Whereas socialists — even if they don’t necessarily want to abolish it overnight — don’t believe that private ownership of corporations, private ownership of utilities is necessary. And that makes them much more willing to push for policies that others would see as being beyond the pale. The DSA’s ideological spectrum — from Bernie Sanders fans to full Communists So then, walk me through some of the main things people within DSA disagree over — whether tactically or philosophically. DSA identifies as a multi-tendency organization. In other words, it is a big tent of the left. So you have some people who are basically where Bernie is, in terms of identifying as democratic socialists — wanting to kind of bring back an FDR-style expansion of the social safety net but not necessarily wanting to go that much further. And then, on the other side, you would have people who identify as Communists and as Marxist-Leninists or Maoists who believe that, ultimately, the solution is a kind of Communist revolution — that, eventually, the workers are going to rise up and institute a new form of the state and society. They see their role as helping to radicalize the workers and prepare for that revolutionary moment, more so than trying to get elected and pass policies that will eventually move you into more of a social-welfare-type state. So that’s the central tension. You have, on the one hand, people who would consider themselves socialists and often Marxists but believe in a democratic road to socialism, and those who identify as more revolutionary socialists, following the model of Lenin or Mao, who believe that it is impossible to reform the system. How does that tension play out in debates inside DSA about electoral strategy? There’s a lot of debate over red lines for elected officials and whether DSA elected officials should work within the Democratic Party or not. DSA generally does not just endorse people who are running for office in the way that a lot of organizations do. They believe in strategically choosing specific races to get involved in — and ideally having their own members, people who have been involved in the organization and are accountable to the organization and loyal to DSA running as candidates. DSA’s official strategy is that, for now, they will run candidates on the Democratic Party line. But they want to build up the infrastructure to be their own party in everything but name. So DSA wants to have its own donor networks, its own data on who is voting, its own electoral strategy — as opposed to relying on the Democratic Party for any of that. Ideally, then, you can imagine DSA breaking from the Democratic Party. That would be the “dirty break” strategy, as opposed to the “clean break” strategy, which is, “we just stop running anyone as a Democrat right now.” The clean break strategy has been largely discredited within DSA, and they’re largely focused on the dirty break. But as DSA wins more power running as Democrats, it becomes harder for people to imagine them ever breaking with the party. So people say they’re now doing a “dirty stay” strategy, where they’re just going to try and do realignment, which means basically taking over the Democratic Party. The internal DSA tensions around electoral pragmatism There’s been some attention around how the national DSA leadership and the New York City DSA — which is seemingly the most successful of the DSA chapters around the country — have different views on these electoral strategy questions. Can you break that down? NYC’s DSA’s political leadership is dominated by two caucuses in particular: Socialist Majority Caucus and Groundwork. Both of those are sometimes described as being on the “DSA right” — although, they do not like that term. They would say that they are focused on “mass politics,” on trying to bring in the largest number of people into DSA, on trying to get DSA members elected into positions of power who can then support legislation that will materially improve the lives of the working class, can win people over to socialism and bring in more members, and build a large influential powerful socialist organization. That is essentially the Zohran theory. Most of the people in DSA who were involved in the Mamdani campaign, and a number of them who are now involved in NYC government — such as the head of the Office of Mass Engagement, or the head of the mayor’s office to protect tenants — those are DSA members, and specifically, they are members of the Socialist Majority Caucus. SMC and Groundwork are very focused on that kind of electoral approach and, generally, are more pragmatic. They are very averse to disciplining electeds or trying to force electeds to publicly defend positions that are politically unpopular — like, say, police abolition. Their counterparts would be the “DSA left.” Within New York City, the main left caucus is Emerge. You also have Marxist Unity Group, Red Star, and Springs of Revolution, which is primarily an anti-Zionist faction. They have less influence within New York City overall. But they have more influence within DSA nationally. A lot of chapters outside of New York City and California are more ideologically focused — and less focused on just having the most electoral success running as Democrats. Recently, there’s been some discussion about the national DSA platform. Francesca Hong, who’s running for governor of Wisconsin and is a democratic socialist, distanced herself from the platform this week. How should we understand the tensions around this question about appealing to voters versus being ideologically pure? Generally speaking, I’d say most people in DSA agree on the overall ideology. The issue is more: Are you holding candidates to support that platform publicly? Do you allow your electeds to distance themselves from DSA’s positions when that seems to be the politically pragmatic choice to make? Or does that undermine the organization or even mislead the working class? You see this a lot around anti-Zionism. There is a faction of DSA members who have been very critical of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, because they feel that she has been insufficiently public in terms of criticizing Israel. Initially, she voted “present” on the Iron Dome. She said she was not opposed to defensive military aid to Israel. She infamously said during the DNC in 2024 that she believed that Biden and Harris were tirelessly working for a ceasefire. And a lot of people within DSA have been critical of AOC for what they see as compromising with Democratic leadership when it comes to Israel and Palestine and not taking a very strong kind of unconditional stance against Israel. And there have also been a lot of people, particularly within NYC DSA, who have defended AOC. Their argument is that AOC needs to be pragmatic about these things. You see it with Zohran in terms of his relationship with the NYPD and with NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch. A lot of people in DSA are very critical of Tisch, who worked for [Eric] Adams. She is a billionaire and a Zionist — definitely not in keeping with DSA’s politics. And she is someone who helped to create the surveillance dragnet under the Adams administration and the De Blasio administration. So there have been people in NYC DSA who have called for Zohran to fire Jessica Tisch. And there are other people who say that they do not like Tisch, but they feel Zohran needs to make the pragmatic decision of working with her and not confront entrenched police power. The DSA’s complicated relationship with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Can you talk to me about the complicated relationship, the ups and downs between DSA and AOC over the years? That relates to the tension between national and NYC. NYC DSA is really, really pro-AOC. They have a close relationship with her and work closely with her, and she really likes a lot of the leaders in NYC DSA. National DSA is much more skeptical of her, seeing her as willing to compromise and be opportunistic in ways they don’t like. AOC was first elected in 2018. In 2024, she was easily reendorsed for election by the NYC DSA, which then applied for the national DSA to endorse her as well. The national leadership dragged their feet because they were divided, particularly around her rhetoric around Israel and Palestine. Ultimately, they issued a conditional endorsement, saying, “we will endorse AOC if she agrees to support the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement and oppose all aid — defensive and offensive military aid — to Israel.” NYC DSA was concerned that AOC would not agree to that and that requiring her to agree to those conditions would alienate her from the organization. So they told national DSA, it’s fine, if you’re only going to offer a conditional endorsement we don’t need it. Generally, I think it’s safe to say that NYC DSA believes DSA needs AOC more than AOC needs DSA. So they’re very wary of alienating her; they want to maintain a positive working relationship. And all this leads into the question of what will happen in the 2028 presidential race, right? If she runs, it doesn’t seem like there’s another plausible socialist candidate in the mix. If you talk to people who are skeptical of AOC, they would say that they would love [Rep.] Rashida Tlaib to run, because she is obviously the most committed to Palestinian solidarity. All indications are that she is not interested in running for president, so that’s kind of a dead letter. You’ll also see people say they would like Shawn Fain to run, the head of the United Auto Workers, as a real left-labor candidate harkening back to the days when union leaders were major political figures. Again, he’s very unlikely to run. And you have some people who say that they would support Ro Khanna, even though Ro Khanna is not a socialist and is probably worse on Palestine than AOC. So it really does seem like it’s going to be AOC or no one. And that’s why I think that even the people who are skeptical of AOC have largely resigned themselves to the idea that if she runs, DSA will endorse. I think the tension now is around how supportive DSA would be. DSA could spend 2028 being an AOC surrogate, deeply involved in the campaign, making their primary goal getting her elected president in 2028. I think there are also people in DSA who believe that, even if AOC is the best candidate and DSA should support her, they don’t want to fully kind of liquidate themselves into the AOC campaign. They want to maintain an independent organization where DSA could set up an independent expenditure and come out with messaging that says: we support AOC but we don’t agree with her on everything.