Trouble in the Democratic Socialists’ Paradise

By Noah Rothman

Monday, June 22, 2026

 

John Fund’s timely warning about the march of the Democratic Socialists through America’s electoral institutions should not be missed.

 

His forecast of a future in which the DSA becomes a full-fledged urban “political machine” is a dire one, and his criticism of the GOP for failing to “promote their own solutions to urban problems” is doubtlessly true. “The result,” Fund warns, “is that socialism, which had never really taken root in America, is now in danger of becoming the secular religion of many voters — especially disillusioned young people.”

 

The menace posed by the rise of a hate group to political prominence should not be underappreciated. But the threat it represents can be overstated if projections of its inevitable ascendancy rest on the straight-line fallacy. There will be plenty of potentially debilitating bumps along the road.

 

The New York Times identified one of those bumps on Sunday. In his quest to conquer the Democratic Party, New York City’s most famous socialist, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, “still has work to do,” the paper conceded. Without Mamdani on the ballot, early voting in New York’s primary has featured an electorate that is “trending toward being smaller and older.”

 

That’s an existential crisis for a political movement that depends on younger voters. “The trend was pronounced enough that, in recent days, the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America called an emergency meeting to discuss what one leader described as the ‘cratering’ youth vote and how to correct course,” the Times report added, citing anonymous DSA sources.

 

The DSA platform — which emphasizes the expansion of collectivist social programs, reduced reliance on law enforcement and cooperation with the federal government, and, perhaps above all, the scourge of Israel — appeals primarily to young voters.

 

The socialist candidate who won her primary for mayor of Washington, D.C., last week relied on that very coalition, according to pre-election polling: “younger white residents who’ve lived in Washington less than 10 years, the Times reported. Indeed, often a lot less than ten years, insofar as many Janeese Lewis George voters are likely students and young professionals. The DSA candidate’s more conventional Democratic opponent, by contrast, “did better with older Black residents” as well as Washingtonians who “say crime is the city’s largest problem.”

 

In his own primary election for New York City’s mayoralty, Mamdani himself struggled with a similar dynamic, performing worse in districts that were dominated by poorer or predominantly black longtime residents.

 

If progressives and socialists were successful in their quest to restore “affordability” to life in American cities, they’d be doing themselves a disservice. After all, they owe their political careers to the apprehensions and pretensions of youngish transients.

 

That could be a problem when the DSA attempts to export its political model into the suburbs. That’s where progressive policies have pushed erstwhile city dwellers, after all. The DSA could thus become a victim of its own successes in American cities.