Is Socialism Coming to America?

Remember way back in 2019 when Alexandria Ocasio Cortez spoke passionately about the Green New Deal and Medicare for all? At that time, we thought of those policies as the height of socialism. Those were the good ole days.

How times have changed.

Enter now the Democrat Socialists of America (DSA). Their current platform incudes such things as abolishing the US Senate, the Supreme Court, and the position of President. They support “demilitarizing” the police and getting rid of the prison system. They also want to eliminate ICE and CBP, grant amnesty to all illegal aliens, and allow non-citizens to vote. More mundane items such as wiping out capitalism and creating a whole new Constitution are of course included.

With a membership of about 120,000 people nationwide, the DSA is the currently the largest socialist organization in the United States. It is home to most of the far-left candidates upending moderate Democrats in federal and state primaries this election season. Demographically, they consist mostly of young, highly educated whites that have lower-to-middle class incomes. Their professions are primarily teachers, social workers, and non-profit employees.

The media characterizes the DSA as ascendent, propelled by an unstoppable momentum that is taking over the Democrat party. Traditional Democrats are furious that these upstarts, while popular among young liberals, are not the winning formula for the upcoming general election. A few of them may eke out a win, but it will only be those in overwhelmingly liberal districts, cities, or states that would have remained in Democrat hands in anyway.

Meanwhile, many conservatives are frightened that this is the start of a socialist (or even communist) takeover of the country, leading to the destruction of a Republic that just celebrated its 250^th birthday. Could this really be true?

Not a chance. Even if all the socialist candidates win their respective elections this coming November, the barriers that must be overcome to transform this country into a socialist society with a socialist style government are simply insurmountable. Yes, quasi-socialist enclaves may continue to exist and even expand in certain deep-blue urban areas of the country, but that is as far as socialism will ever go.

On the federal level, nearly every one of the DSA’s goals would require either a Constitutional amendment or a complete re-write of the Constitution. Not only is there no national will to make that happen, but the math is also not close to being in their favor. At the beginning of this article, we cited the fact that the current membership of the DSA is 120,000 people. That represents 0.034% of the US population. To put that in perspective, the current transgender population in the US is 30 times larger than that of the DSA.

Granted, not all those who support the DSA are necessarily full-fledged members of the DSA. Even so, this hardly represents a national movement. Beyond the constitutional barriers standing in the way of this group at the federal level, there is also the fact that we are a Republic of 50 independent states, each of which have their own constitutions, governors, supreme courts, legislatures, police forces, and prisons. We are not one big homogenous “state” as is the case in other parts of the world where socialism exists or previously existed before it failed.

People here in the US can easily move from one state to another to find a political ideology they prefer. This simple fact is the biggest deterrent to socialism in America. And it is being demonstrated in real-time right now by way of the unprecedented exodus of people from both New York and California, two states with relatively large socialist enclaves (New York is home to the nation’s largest percentage of DSA members).

That exodus has two devastating effects on the socialist governing model. First, the people leaving are no longer paying taxes to state, city, and local governments. That substantially reduces the available money to spend on government-run social programs. Second, it changes the apportionment calculation that determines the number of congressmen from those states to the U.S. House of Representatives. That, in turn, determines the number of electoral votes assigned to those states for Presidential elections.

California and New York began seeing a net loss in their respective populations near the end of the last decade. As a result, each state lost one congressional seat following the 2020 census. The net population loss for both states has increased dramatically since then.

Current projections from the census bureau indicate that by the 2030 census, California will lose 4 more Congressional seats and New York will lose 3 more seats. That’s a net loss of 9 congressional seats (and 9 electoral votes) between just these two states in only 10 years. This is entirely a consequence of their continued push towards socialist style economies, tax policies, and governing models.

Fewer representatives in Congress means less influence on government policies, and much less weight on the outcome of Presidential elections. What was already an extreme long shot to radically change the federal government and Constitution, now becomes a nearly impossible task.

One last thing about the socialist movement in America that will prevent it from ever taking hold at the federal level is their refusal to even consider learning from the historical record of failed socialist governments around the world. They are dooming themselves to repeat those same failures. This is partly due the generally weak intellect of its practitioners, as well as a maniacal desire to “die on this hill”.

We needn’t worry. Our current system of government has numerous self-healing features. We are seeing those features at work right now with the influence of California and New York diminishing and the power and impact of anti-socialist states like Florida and Texas rising. It may seem slow moving, but our construct of a Constitutional Republic is working just as it was intended to.