I'm a Socialist. The DSA Doesn't Speak for Me.
[July 2026]
I am a socialist. Not a liberal. Not a centrist. A socialist. I believe ordinary people deserve economic security, strong unions, universal healthcare, free education, housing they can afford, food they can afford, and an economy that serves human beings instead of billionaires. That commitment is exactly why I have so little patience for what passes for the American socialist movement today.
The Democratic Socialists of America has become a perfect example of confusing aesthetics with politics. It excels at performative radicalism while accomplishing remarkably little. Endless statements. Endless resolutions. Endless online purity tests. Endless meetings where everyone demonstrates that they know the correct vocabulary. Meanwhile, rent keeps climbing, healthcare keeps bankrupting people, wages stagnate, unions fight uphill battles, and fascists keep gaining ground.
Politics is supposed to improve people's lives. It is supposed to produce results. Instead, too much of the contemporary American left behaves as though displaying the correct moral posture is itself a political victory.
Nothing illustrates this better than the 2024 election.
I watched people who called themselves socialists spend months telling voters that Kamala Harris was unacceptable because of Palestine. They demanded ideological perfection in the middle of an election against Donald Trump. They acted as though refusing to vote somehow elevated them above the ugly realities of electoral politics.
Then Trump won.
Congratulations. You achieved ideological purity while helping hand the federal government to someone dramatically worse for Palestinians, dramatically worse for immigrants, dramatically worse for trans people, dramatically worse for workers, dramatically worse for unions, dramatically worse for climate policy, and dramatically worse for democracy itself.
Politics is about consequences. The consequences matter more than how righteous you felt while posting.
I am sick of hearing that refusing to vote somehow represented courage. Courage would have been recognizing that elections involve choosing between the options that actually exist instead of imaginary candidates who never appeared on the ballot.
That refusal to engage with reality has become one of the defining traits of large sections of the online left.
The same frustration applies to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I see someone who is extraordinarily good at social media, interviews, livestreams, and crafting a public image. I see someone who generates enormous enthusiasm every few weeks because she said something people already agreed with. I do not see someone transforming American politics in proportion to the attention she receives. Every viral clip becomes another cycle of excitement. Every speech becomes another round of fundraising. Every trending hashtag becomes proof that something important is happening.
Meanwhile ordinary people still cannot afford groceries.
The gulf between performance and material outcomes keeps growing.
Most other DSA-affiliated politicians are like this. To be fair, there are exceptions. The one prominent DSA politician who has genuinely impressed me is Zohran Mamdani. Since becoming mayor of New York City in January 2026, he has struck me as someone who actually understands that politics is supposed to produce tangible improvements in people's lives.
That brings me to something I think many people on the left have forgotten entirely.
Material conditions are politics.
Protecting marginalized people is not some separate issue floating alongside economics. It is economics. It is healthcare. It is housing. It is employment. It is education. It is safety. Marginalized people experience class oppression through specific systems of discrimination that shape every aspect of daily life.
As a disabled gay trans man, I do not have the luxury of pretending those things exist in separate boxes.
Too much of the DSA milieu seems determined to substitute symbolism for that work.
I have lost count of how many meetings begin with land acknowledgments.
I have lost count of how many conversations revolve around demonstrating fluency in academic language.
I have lost count of how many people seem convinced that everyone should already understand critical race theory, decolonial theory, intersectionality, and half a dozen graduate seminar concepts lest they be called a racist or a fascist.
Most working people are busy.
They are raising children.
Working multiple jobs.
Taking care of elderly parents.
Trying to pay bills.
Trying to survive.
If your political movement requires people to spend hundreds of hours learning specialized academic terminology before they are considered sufficiently enlightened, you have built a club instead of a mass movement.
People should not need a sociology degree to understand why they deserve healthcare.
They should not need to memorize activist vocabulary before they are welcomed into the fight.
Speak like a human being.
Meet people where they actually are.
Then there are the tankies.
I despise tankies because they consistently betray the very values they claim to defend. Authoritarianism does not become socialism because someone waves a red flag. A police state does not become liberation because it quotes Marx. One-party rule, censorship, political imprisonment, crushing labor movements, invading neighboring countries, and glorifying dictators remain authoritarian no matter how many socialist slogans accompany them.
Tankies spend their time making excuses for governments they would condemn instantly if those governments happened to be aligned with Washington. They treat geopolitics like team sports. If America dislikes a regime, they immediately decide it must deserve unconditional support. That is not anti-imperialism. It is intellectual laziness.
I oppose American imperialism. I also oppose Russian imperialism. I oppose CCP repression. I oppose DPRK totalitarianism. I oppose authoritarian governments regardless of which flag they fly. Human rights are not negotiable depending on who committed the abuse. Unfortunately, many DSA spaces have become remarkably tolerant of this mindset. Authoritarian apologetics gets treated as merely another interesting perspective. People who admire brutal regimes become respected voices within supposedly democratic socialist organizations. That should alarm anyone who actually believes in democracy. Socialism without democracy becomes another system where ordinary people lose power. I have no interest in replacing billionaires with party bureaucrats. I want ordinary people to have more control over their own lives, workplaces, communities, and futures. That means democracy has to remain central.
Ultimately, I want a left that wins. Not one that performs. Not one that congratulates itself for saying the correct things while accomplishing nothing. Not one that mistakes internet applause for political success.
Build unions. Win elections. Protect trans people. Expand healthcare. Raise wages. Build housing. Strengthen disability protections. Defend civil liberties. Reduce poverty. That is politics. Everything else is secondary.
I do not care how radical someone's aesthetic is. I care whether working people are safer, healthier, freer, and better off than they were yesterday. That has always been the point. Somewhere along the way, too many people forgot it.
The Democratic Socialists of America has become a perfect example of confusing aesthetics with politics. It excels at performative radicalism while accomplishing remarkably little. Endless statements. Endless resolutions. Endless online purity tests. Endless meetings where everyone demonstrates that they know the correct vocabulary. Meanwhile, rent keeps climbing, healthcare keeps bankrupting people, wages stagnate, unions fight uphill battles, and fascists keep gaining ground.
Politics is supposed to improve people's lives. It is supposed to produce results. Instead, too much of the contemporary American left behaves as though displaying the correct moral posture is itself a political victory.
Nothing illustrates this better than the 2024 election.
I watched people who called themselves socialists spend months telling voters that Kamala Harris was unacceptable because of Palestine. They demanded ideological perfection in the middle of an election against Donald Trump. They acted as though refusing to vote somehow elevated them above the ugly realities of electoral politics.
Then Trump won.
Congratulations. You achieved ideological purity while helping hand the federal government to someone dramatically worse for Palestinians, dramatically worse for immigrants, dramatically worse for trans people, dramatically worse for workers, dramatically worse for unions, dramatically worse for climate policy, and dramatically worse for democracy itself.
Politics is about consequences. The consequences matter more than how righteous you felt while posting.
I am sick of hearing that refusing to vote somehow represented courage. Courage would have been recognizing that elections involve choosing between the options that actually exist instead of imaginary candidates who never appeared on the ballot.
That refusal to engage with reality has become one of the defining traits of large sections of the online left.
The same frustration applies to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I see someone who is extraordinarily good at social media, interviews, livestreams, and crafting a public image. I see someone who generates enormous enthusiasm every few weeks because she said something people already agreed with. I do not see someone transforming American politics in proportion to the attention she receives. Every viral clip becomes another cycle of excitement. Every speech becomes another round of fundraising. Every trending hashtag becomes proof that something important is happening.
Meanwhile ordinary people still cannot afford groceries.
The gulf between performance and material outcomes keeps growing.
Most other DSA-affiliated politicians are like this. To be fair, there are exceptions. The one prominent DSA politician who has genuinely impressed me is Zohran Mamdani. Since becoming mayor of New York City in January 2026, he has struck me as someone who actually understands that politics is supposed to produce tangible improvements in people's lives.
That brings me to something I think many people on the left have forgotten entirely.
Material conditions are politics.
- If people have healthcare, their lives improve.
- If people have affordable housing, their lives improve.
- If people have union jobs with decent wages, their lives improve.
- If disabled people have guaranteed income and can see specialists and afford medication, their lives improve.
- If trans people have access to healthcare without fear, their lives improve.
- If gay people cannot legally be fired for existing, their lives improve.
- If Black families are less likely to be brutalized by police or trapped in poverty, their lives improve.
Protecting marginalized people is not some separate issue floating alongside economics. It is economics. It is healthcare. It is housing. It is employment. It is education. It is safety. Marginalized people experience class oppression through specific systems of discrimination that shape every aspect of daily life.
As a disabled gay trans man, I do not have the luxury of pretending those things exist in separate boxes.
- My rights are material.
- My healthcare is material.
- Whether I can safely exist in public is material.
- Whether disabled people can survive on benefits instead of being condemned to poverty is material.
Too much of the DSA milieu seems determined to substitute symbolism for that work.
I have lost count of how many meetings begin with land acknowledgments.
I have lost count of how many conversations revolve around demonstrating fluency in academic language.
I have lost count of how many people seem convinced that everyone should already understand critical race theory, decolonial theory, intersectionality, and half a dozen graduate seminar concepts lest they be called a racist or a fascist.
Most working people are busy.
They are raising children.
Working multiple jobs.
Taking care of elderly parents.
Trying to pay bills.
Trying to survive.
If your political movement requires people to spend hundreds of hours learning specialized academic terminology before they are considered sufficiently enlightened, you have built a club instead of a mass movement.
People should not need a sociology degree to understand why they deserve healthcare.
They should not need to memorize activist vocabulary before they are welcomed into the fight.
Speak like a human being.
Meet people where they actually are.
Then there are the tankies.
I despise tankies because they consistently betray the very values they claim to defend. Authoritarianism does not become socialism because someone waves a red flag. A police state does not become liberation because it quotes Marx. One-party rule, censorship, political imprisonment, crushing labor movements, invading neighboring countries, and glorifying dictators remain authoritarian no matter how many socialist slogans accompany them.
Tankies spend their time making excuses for governments they would condemn instantly if those governments happened to be aligned with Washington. They treat geopolitics like team sports. If America dislikes a regime, they immediately decide it must deserve unconditional support. That is not anti-imperialism. It is intellectual laziness.
I oppose American imperialism. I also oppose Russian imperialism. I oppose CCP repression. I oppose DPRK totalitarianism. I oppose authoritarian governments regardless of which flag they fly. Human rights are not negotiable depending on who committed the abuse. Unfortunately, many DSA spaces have become remarkably tolerant of this mindset. Authoritarian apologetics gets treated as merely another interesting perspective. People who admire brutal regimes become respected voices within supposedly democratic socialist organizations. That should alarm anyone who actually believes in democracy. Socialism without democracy becomes another system where ordinary people lose power. I have no interest in replacing billionaires with party bureaucrats. I want ordinary people to have more control over their own lives, workplaces, communities, and futures. That means democracy has to remain central.
Ultimately, I want a left that wins. Not one that performs. Not one that congratulates itself for saying the correct things while accomplishing nothing. Not one that mistakes internet applause for political success.
Build unions. Win elections. Protect trans people. Expand healthcare. Raise wages. Build housing. Strengthen disability protections. Defend civil liberties. Reduce poverty. That is politics. Everything else is secondary.
I do not care how radical someone's aesthetic is. I care whether working people are safer, healthier, freer, and better off than they were yesterday. That has always been the point. Somewhere along the way, too many people forgot it.
© Finleigh (FlameAndSong), 2026.
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