Are Democratic Socialists Democrats?

July 2, 2026

July 2nd. Oakland, California. You may not know this but today is the original Independence Day for the United States. It was on July 2, 1776 that the Continental Congress voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence. John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson that July 2nd would be the day Americans would celebrate its independence from Great Britain. It was on July 4th that the Declaration was read publicly, and that was the date that stuck in the minds and imaginations of generations of Americans to come. So for all you historical literalists out there - if that is indeed a real term - Happy Independence Day!

Okay, let’s move onto what divides us now.

There has been a lot of chatter in the media about whether democratic socialists can be members of the Democratic Party. The go-to Democrats attacking democratic socialists are people who have gotten rich off of supporting American capitalism through the party, do not represent anyone, and/or are incredibly unpopular among Democratic voters. It’s simply irresponsible that the media continues to demand newly nominated (by voters) democratic socialists respond to the rantings of people like James Carville (who hasn’t helped anyone win anything since the 90s and is an advisor to Palantir) and Jaime Harrison (who is a former DNC chair based on losing a Senate race) and Sen John Fetterman (D-PA) (who is obviously suffering from mental illness while also supporting Republicans on things like the war in Iran and ICE invasions of American cities). If you have nine minutes or so to spare, take a look at this YouTube discussion from the Sam Seder Show.

None of these people represent anyone, save Fetterman who polls show would lose the Democratic nomination for reelection by a landslide. So, while he technically represents millions of people in Pennsylvania, most of them no longer want him to do so. It is safe to say, I think, that if there were a process for recalling US Senators he would have already been recalled. I won’t even get into the big money people criticizing democratic socialists because they only represent themselves and always have. The real question is why is Carville or Fetterman a Democrat, not why a handful of candidates who have actually won elections this year and support a working class agenda are.

It is frustrating to see Claire Valdez being grilled by a CNN host to respond to these few unhinged attacks, but she handled it well and with grace that frankly wasn’t warranted. One thing seems to be revealing itself this year: democratic socialists are nicer people than establishment Democrats. But what of the larger question no one is asking: what brings Democrats together? Is it really true that there is not room enough in the party for someone like Joe Manchin and someone like Zohran Mamdani? Before you answer that question to yourself, consider the American political context seriously - we are very different than most other modern democracies. The US is a bit exceptional regarding the role of political parties, but it’s not a good thing. Parties tend to move to the center in attempts to win votes, but those attempts can be foolhardy and are often done in the service of a rhetorical conventional wisdom. We have historically believed that our system forces moderation and that produces stability. However, what the US system has is rigidity rather than stability, and our current political moment is revealing that.¹

This is what establishment Democrats sound like right now.

With first-past-the-post elections and a historical legacy embracing a two-party system, that has been validated by the Supreme Court, at almost any non-crisis point in American history the two major parties have been “big tent” parties looking to moderate for voters. Or, at least present the appearance of moderation in search of the median voters. Elections in the United States are zero-sum; you win or you lose. This thinking relates to how parties present themselves to voters in general elections. However, there have always been factional battles within American political parties for influence. Other democracies see parties form coalitions with each other to govern; in the United States those coalitions form within parties and present themselves fully-formed to the electorate at general elections.

It is hard to understand the Democratic Party (or the Republican Party, for that matter) as a singular political movement that has stood for the same things over time. After all, Democrats - who are now almost uniformly in favor of equal rights based on race - were the party that not only supported slavery, but was the one-party vehicle creating the Confederacy. And for a hundred years after the Civil War, it was the party of Jim Crow. Except that to say that is what all Democrats stood for during those years would be a fundamental misunderstanding of political history. As Lee Drutman explores in his essential book Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America, US politics was often place-based and legacy-based rather than ideologically-based. Until very recently there were not only very conservative elected Democratic officials, but very liberal elected Republican officials. In fact, one of the Americans Karl Marx most admired was Republican Abraham Lincoln, the first president I can think of who spoke publicly in favor of labor rights for workers.

But as Michael Kazin claims in What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party, there has been a common ideological thread throughout the long history of the party - the oldest American political party still operating. It is what Kazin calls “moral capitalism.”

[T]hroughout their history, Democrats won national elections and were competitive in most states when they articulated an egalitarian economic vision and advocated laws intended to fulfill it—first only for white Americans but eventually for every citizen. Even when they defended racial supremacy and instituted brutal policies that devastated the lives of Black Americans and other people of color, Democrats swore by Jefferson’s maxim of “equal rights to all and special privileges to none.”

“Moral capitalism” is a useful way to describe both that ideal and the policies it helped inspire. Only programs designed to make life more prosperous, or at least more secure, for ordinary people proved capable of uniting Democrats and winning over enough voters to enable the party to create a governing majority that could last for more than one or two election cycles.

Party leaders understood that most voters saw no alternative to the system of markets and wages, and they did not try to offer one. But they also believed, quite accurately, that the capitalist order failed to produce the utilitarian ideal of the greatest good for the greatest number.

Kazin, Michael. What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party (pp. 7-8). (Function). Kindle Edition.

I think we should think of this concept more simply as this: Democrats, with few exceptions, have consistently supported the use of government to solve people’s problems. And that is a fair way to distinguish them with Republicans, who, with few exceptions, have consistently supported the use of government to support the interests of business (in this sense, it really means “capitalists” in the true sense of the term). The reason I differ with Kazin on his use of the term “moral capitalism” is because it suggests that the Democratic Party excludes anyone who is not a capitalist. And that is a funny way to look at it, particularly from a Marxian point of view.

A lot of Americans seem to love to call themselves capitalists - a group of 13 centrist Democrats just released a manifesto (which, as Mamdani noted, sounds a lot like something socialists would do) explicitly referring to themselves as such. But what they mean is they support a capitalist economic system. Almost none of these people - including these 13 Democratic officials - are capitalists in the true sense of the word. A “capitalist” is one who owns the means of production and accumulates the surplus wealth created by workers. It says something very important about the ideas that most people who support capitalism will never be capitalists while everyone who supports socialism is a socialist.

That just gives you some context about why I do not think “moral capitalism” is the right term to use, but since Kazin seems to be writing for a popular audience (although, to be clear, his work is quite serious) it is understandable. In the United States, the colloquial way to indicate support for capitalism is by calling oneself a capitalist. It’s an American thing; I doubt more than a handful of workers in European democracies would ever call themselves a capitalist, even if they support a pro-capitalist party in their country.

JONATHAN KARL: It's not a communist manifesto. It's a moderate manifesto. Saying, “we are capitalist and not socialist. We believe in a growing, fair, and competitive economy, entrepreneurship, ownership.” I mean, this is a direct response, they've made it clear, to what you did here on Tuesday.

NYC MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI: Well, I mean, you know, that's great, but what's a party if not its voters? And I'm proud to sit in front of you as the mayor of our city, having received more than a million votes a little over -- a little less than a year ago.

And when we're talking about these incredible congressional candidates, they won their races, and they won their races with a vision of what politics should be, and one that actually speaks to working people. And for a lot of people who ask themselves, what does Democratic socialism mean, and you can tell them the answer at a theoretical level, it’s choice to extend democracy from the ballot box to the rest of their lives. But in terms of what it means over these last seven months, we've seen a city with Democratic socialist principles at the heart of it within our administration. And what we've delivered has been record lows when it comes to murders and shootings.

KARL: So is it pragmatic Democratic socialism?

MAMDANI: I think Democratic socialism at the heart is pragmatic, because if we cannot deliver for working people, then what is this for? I'm not interested in writing a manifesto or, frankly, in reading one. I'm interested in delivering, and that's exactly what we've been showing.

Source: Meet the Press

Even since the Clintonites attached the Democratic Party to Reaganism in 1993, there have been important distinctions about the role of government in people’s live between the two major parties. With Democrats tacking right under Clinton, Republicans worked hard to make sure the Overton Window likewise shifted right.² At this point, it is hard to see establishment Democrats - so many of whom cut their teeth with Clinton in the 90s - fitting into the Kazin’s historical understanding of their party. But it is also hard to see Republicans as the “party of small government” as they continue to bankrupt the country to create their own Gestapo. We understand them bankrupting the country as the party of the bosses, but they are now creating large government agencies, albeit security operations in the service of protecting the rich and their political patrons.

Now, thirty years later, American capitalism - or neoliberalism, which represents the political and economic aspects of it - is, in any meaningful sense, only about privatizing the surplus and socializing the liabilities. This is a fancy way of saying the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That is not just a consequence of capitalism anymore - it is the design, and it has been the design since Clinton perfected in the 90s what Reagan started in the 80s.³ Democratic socialists are pushing back on what American capitalism has become. Regardless of whether capitalism ever really did serve working people, it is impossible to seriously argue that it does so today. Voters are fed up with how difficult it is to afford any material necessity today. Luxuries like TVs and smartphones may be within the reach of most people. But housing, health care, education, groceries? Those are not only expensive but continue to outrun wage growth.

Now, in a poorer country we might wonder what could be done. But this is the richest country to have ever existed. After all, some clown who was already wealthy thanks to his family profiting off of apartheid South Africa oppression just became (on paper, anyway) a trillionaire. And he continues to make money through government corruption. And he was the guy Trump brought in to destroy what meager social programs already existed. Is there really so much wealth out there that one person can earn more than every worker who ever lived could in 1,000 years working full-time? And why is this clown paying no taxes? It’s not even plausible to most voters today that we do not have the resources to at least address, let alone, solve our affordability problems.

So, perhaps it is fair to say today that it is democratic socialists who are more aligned with the historical mission of the Democratic Party today than its elites and establishment are. Maybe the media should start asking Carville, Harrison, and Fetterman why any of them think they should be dictating who should be in the party. Political gatekeeping is the work of the insecure and, at least in our present situation, an admission of abject failure.

1. I hope to have an article on this idea out next week. In short, the constitutional challenges to making change have long been considered a benefit that provides stability when, in fact, it has produced a rigidity that prevents necessary democratic change over time.

2. I don’t hate saying “I told you so,” but it is a bit smug for my tastes. However, I want the record to show that I predicted this would happen to my friends in 1992 when Clinton was just another candidate running for the Democratic nomination. Especially in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the pressure it put on the American right to generally behave themselves lest prove the communists right, it was clear to me that Republicans were going to use any Democratic shift right to their advantage - and do so quickly and forcefully. And they did. This is not rocket science.

3. In some ways, it started under Carter in the 70s. I hate to say this because Carter was perhaps the most decent person to ever be president, but his domestic policy thinking was fairly conservative.