Under the radar

Emma Freire took a deep dive into socialism this month for her cover story on Zohran Mamdani (see Socialism’s salesman, in this issue). Mamdani’s win in New York made headlines in part because he’s one of the few outspoken members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Given its seemingly low number of acolytes, Americans might consider the DSA a fringe group, but Emma discovered its reach extends much further than people realize.

Mamdani is the current face of the DSA. What other politicians or candidates are openly embracing the party? Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is considering a run for president in 2028, and she’s a proud democratic socialist. In Congress, there’s also Rep. Rashida Tlaib and former Rep. Jamaal Bowman. The DSA has some very young rising stars. Their youngest elected official is Hannah Shvets, an undergraduate at Cornell University. She got elected to the city council in Ithaca, N.Y., in 2025.

What about politicians who keep their affiliation with the DSA quiet? How would I know if there’s a DSA-backed candidate in my local government? That can be tricky. A DSA member usually appears on the ballot as a Democrat. You have to do your research. Stu Smith is an investigative analyst with the Manhattan Institute who researches the DSA. He told me he follows local politics, but even he was recently surprised to discover a member of his city council belongs to the DSA. But some locations are less surprising. You can expect to find a lot of DSA members in blue cities, like Portland, Ore., and Minneapolis. Smith thinks college towns are also likely to elect DSA candidates because they have a lot of students and often the rents are high.

The DSA isn’t just focused on U.S. politics. What kinds of activities does it do internationally? The DSA has an international committee that has contact with socialist and far-left movements all around the world. It organizes trips to Cuba for its members who are then expected to do pro-Cuba organizing afterward. The members of the international committee are generally highly educated and took decolonial studies. Zohran Mamdani’s father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a prominent thinker in this field. Decolonial studies center on the idea that colonial power structures—which feature American hegemony—are still exploiting the developing world.

One of your sources found the DSA’s international work more alarming than its national political activism. Why? Stu Smith told me these DSA members buy into the taking points put out by communist regimes. They visit Venezuela and believe former President Nicolás Maduro “was just a labor organizer, a bus driver who became president one day.” Smith says they also believe Cuba is a wonderful place because it is LGBTQ-friendly. Any problems in Cuba are purely the result of America’s embargo. He thinks if Americans knew about these radical views, they’d be “running for the hills.”