The Misery Strategy

By Abe Greenwald

Monday, July 27, 2026

 

It’s well known, or it should be, that the Democratic Socialists of America believe in a number of maximalist policies aimed at razing and remaking the United States into something unrecognizable. Their liberal defenders play this down, but the DSA itself boasts of its enthusiasm for destruction. The DSA’s new platform calls for abolishing not just ICE but also police, prisons, the Defense Department, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the presidency, and national borders. If any vestige of America is left standing after that, I’m sure it’s also on the DSA target list.

 

You can see for yourself how gleeful the socialists are at the prospect of using the wrecking ball. Yesterday, the DSA’s national co-chair Megan Romer went on Fox News Sunday, where Shannon Bream asked her to confirm the policies mentioned above. Romer smirked and giggled while copping to each one, as if it’s only common sense to want to destroy the country.

 

But as I say, we knew this. What I found more interesting about the segment was something Romer was quoted as saying about the DSA’s methods for attaining power. “We will win by making conditions so intolerable to the ruling class that they would rather give in to our demands than live with the disturbance we cause,” she said. “Until we are able to fully seize power ourselves.”

 

So the plan is to make people so miserable that they’ll accede to the DSA’s agenda against their will. In other words, compulsion.

 

This is the opposite of the logic and ethics that govern all our politics. You’re supposed to gain support by doing good for people. That’s the civilized approach. But the DSA’s tactics are also the opposite of civility. I often describe loud leftist agitators as “the mob,” but what Romer describes is the way of the actual Mob—organized crime. It’s an aggressive extortion racket aimed at bullying others into paying up just to get some relief. “The worse, the better” goes the old Leninist maxim.

 

You know who else does things that way? Terrorists. The purpose of terrorism is to hurt the enemy until he submits.

 

The DSA’s victory plan is interesting for a number of reasons. For one, it sheds some light on what our elected DSA politicians are actually up to. If you think, for example, that Zohran Mamdani wants to launch government-run discount grocery stores to help New Yorkers buy groceries at more affordable prices, think again. He wants to make life “intolerable” for private storeowners by undercutting them. Just as he wants to slap intolerable taxes on corporations, pied-à-terre owners, and job creators. It’s not even about raising revenues to spend on new elaborate social programs for the needy, because we’re nowhere near that yet. As Romer also says, the DSA understands that it won’t be able to implement its full remaking of America for a long time to come. This is just the “making conditions intolerable” phase, in which socialists put the screws to those who resist.

 

Recognizing the DSA’s arm-twisting plan to seize power is also important because it’s the only part of their Communist fantasy that’s actually going to happen. And it’s happening. These giggling ignoramuses aren’t going to abolish the presidency or the Senate or anything else. But they’re going to make us good and miserable trying.