Speaker
Will Steakin
Appearances over time
1 episodes
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1
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Quotes & moments
DSA candidate Mayla Quiros knocked off a nearly 30-year incumbent congresswoman in Denver, Colorado, in a shocking primary upset.
The DSA is sending hundreds of surveys to members nationwide to choose a 2028 presidential endorsement, with potentially hundreds of thousands of pages of research expected.
The DSA plans to collect member surveys and announce their 2028 presidential endorsement in September.
Zohran Mamdani, the DSA's breakout star, cannot run for US president because he was not born in the United States, a constitutional requirement.
The DSA's core policy platform includes Medicare for All, strong labor unions and workers' rights, affordable housing, and opposition to US military aid to Israel.
DSA-aligned voters and candidates were deeply turned off by the Kamala Harris 2024 campaign's decision to embrace Liz Cheney in an effort to broaden the coalition.
The DSA just knocked off a 30-year incumbent in Denver and won mayoral races in New York City and Washington D.C. all in the same primary season. Politico's Will Steakin calls it the biggest demonstration yet of left-flank insurgent power within the Democratic Party.
The Kamala Harris campaign's embrace of Liz Cheney was a turning point for the DSA's base. Politico's Will Steakin reports that DSA-aligned voters felt completely shut out, and the movement's response is to throw a 'Molotov cocktail' into the party and dare establishment Democrats to stop them.
DSA co-chair Megan Rohmer doesn't pretend the vetting problem doesn't exist. New York winner Daria-Liza Avila Chevalier tweeted about wiping her hands on an American flag and suggested white people shouldn't be in interracial relationships. Rohmer's defense: 'We're not forming candidates in a lab.'
The DSA does not equivocate: they call Israel's actions in Gaza a genocide and describe Gaza as an 'open-air concentration camp.' Megan Rohmer says the fury is justified by the facts, but concedes that people's words don't always carry the nuance they should.
The DSA conditioned its endorsement of AOC on a pledge to vote no on all Israeli military funding. AOC had previously voted 'present' on the Iron Dome. She ultimately came around. DSA co-chair Megan Rohmer: 'The pressure worked.'
The DSA's 2028 presidential ambitions aren't solely about winning. They want a democratic socialist on the debate stage holding other candidates to account — the same way Bernie Sanders forced rivals to sign Medicare for All pledges in 2016 and 2020.
The DSA doesn't want to fire all police tomorrow. Their vision is eliminating crimes of poverty by providing free healthcare, childcare, and education, making heavy policing unnecessary in the long run. The problem: voters hear 'abolish the carceral state' and don't stick around for the footnote.
The DSA's platform isn't just about policy — it's a brand. Medicare for All, labor rights, affordable housing, and fierce opposition to US military aid to Israel are the pillars. The anti-Israel stance, more than any other issue, is what separates them from the mainstream Democratic Party.
The DSA isn't playing for incremental wins — they're playing for ideological transformation. Will Steakin explains how the DSA's anti-establishment brand works precisely because the Democratic Party's brand is in the gutter, and how they're turning socialist purity into political street cred.
The DSA is actively surveying hundreds of thousands of members to find a 2028 presidential candidate, with a decision expected in September. The catch: their biggest star, Zohran Mamdani, is constitutionally ineligible because he wasn't born in the US.
Megan Rohmer identifies two forces driving DSA victories: fury at the dismantling of the social safety net and a genuine hunger for solutions, not 'the other guy's worse.' When the DSA talks childcare debt and medical debt, voters hear something that feels real.
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