What do Democratic Socialists want?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Support for Here and Now Anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com.
WBUR podcasts, Boston.

**Megan Romer** (0:22)
Among Democrats, Democratic Socialism has a higher approval than Democrats in Congress, and just Donald Trump's general approval ratings are quite low.

**Chris Bentley** (0:33)
The Democratic Socialists of America are riding high on a string of primary wins. How far can the left go?
It's Tuesday, July 7th, and this is Here and Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley. Today on the show, a look at the impact of higher temperatures on our air quality as wildfires burn in the West.

**Mary Rice** (1:06)
Air pollution contributes to more deaths in the United States than breast and prostate cancer combined.

**Chris Bentley** (1:12)
Also, with AI companies left largely to self-police, third-party auditors say they're backsliding in safeguards against doomsday scenarios.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:22)
The choice before us is not between facing AI or fear of it. It is between governing by design and drifting by default.

**Chris Bentley** (1:34)
But first, it has been a banner year for the Democratic Socialists of America. Their candidates have won Congressional primaries recently in New York, Colorado, and Pennsylvania. Now, the group, and the Democratic Party that has spent millions fighting to defeat them in those elections, are wondering how far the movement can go. The highest profile DSA member in elected office is probably New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani. And while Senator Bernie Sanders is not a member, his campaigns for President Calling himself a Democratic Socialist helped bring the term into the national political conversation.
Megan Romer is National Co-Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. She told Indira Laxmanan what the group stands for.

**Megan Romer** (2:21)
We believe in a system of economics and politics that puts the working class in charge of their own basic needs, right? So it means that we get to decide together as the people whose labor creates all wealth, how the world we live in looks.

**Indira Laxmanan** (2:39)
All right. Well, President Trump used part of his July 4th speech to say that the US is facing an internal threat from communist candidates. It's an apparent reference to the rise of progressives. There's a concern that DSA candidates could end up handing elections to the GOP if people see them as too far left. What do you say to that?

**Megan Romer** (3:04)
My assessment is that voters from really across the political spectrum are extremely frustrated that they have so little power in the management of their lives and their communities. They are tired of wages stagnating while prices go up. They're tired of us sending money to fight countless wars overseas while their schools and roads crumble.
I think that message resonates with a lot of people, both sort of across the political spectrum, but also it's really activating a base of people who are, who have these progressive values, who have felt really checked out of politics.

**Indira Laxmanan** (3:44)
Well, it's been more than a decade since Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with progressive Democrats gained a national following for his Democratic socialist ideas. But there are newer DSA candidates like Daria Lisa Avila Chevalier, who just won a Democratic primary for Congress in New York City and looks likely to be elected to Congress. She has praised communism and even defended Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a response to Western bullying. So what do you say to voters who say, sure, I'm a progressive, but I'm not a communist?

**Megan Romer** (4:18)
Yeah. DSA is a big tent left movement, and so we have people coming from all strains, all historical strains of leftist thought.
But I think what we come together on is, the collective platform and the policies that our candidates end up running on, and those policies are really resonating with voters.

**Indira Laxmanan** (4:35)
All right. Let's talk about Israel.
Because the DSA has called for an end to Israel's occupation of Arab lands and has described the war in Gaza as genocide. Your group's candidates have been called anti-Semitic for allegedly blurring the line between criticizing Israel's current government and questioning Israel's right to exist. What do you say to that and how do you overcome concerns from people who are supportive of Israel's right to exist?

**Megan Romer** (5:07)
Obviously, we are not in favor of anything even brushing up against anti-Semitism. But we believe that yes, Israel is an apartheid state and saying that point blank to voters is resonating with them because they see us funding this war that is killing children and journalists and doctors in Palestine.