Democrats Think They’re Voting for Sweden. DSA Is Offering Venezuela

Fifty-nine percent of Democrats now call themselves supporters of the Democratic Socialists of America. That’s scary because the stated goals of the DSA are not some bloated European welfare state but a radical overhaul of American society. It’s an overhaul that would eventually cost us both our economic and democratic freedoms. 

A new Quinnipiac poll did not sugarcoat wording to ask about “fairness” instead of socialism or whether people were “open-minded” to so-called “democratic socialist” policies. It directly asked, “On political matters, do you consider yourself a supporter of the Democratic Socialists of America, or not?” Twenty-six percent of those surveyed answered in the affirmative, while a whopping 59% of Democrats did. 

In the past, DSA politicians have confused the public by saying things like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez touted after she was first elected, “What we have in mind and what my policies most closely re-resemble are what we see in the U.K., in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden.” Bernie Sanders made a similar claim in a 2015 presidential debate, saying, “I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people.”

But the Nordic countries are not socialist. They are all market economies with strong private property rights, open trade, and relatively light business regulation. All but Norway rank in the top 25% freest economies, i.e., capitalist, in the world, and Denmark is in the top 10. Nordic countries just have high taxes and big welfare states grafted on top of a capitalist economy. Reasonable people can disagree whether that is better or worse than the United States’s economic system. 

Maybe that is what 59% of Democratic poll respondents thought they were supporting. But the DSA is more honest about its agenda today than its politicians have been in the past. This summer, it released a foundational document, “Our Program,” outlining its agenda. It’s a hardcore socialist agenda, not some bloated European welfare state. 

The document is remarkably honest. It states, “We are workers fighting to transform society: to win the battle for democracy, draft a new constitution, and create a democratic socialist republic. DSA has written this program for ending capitalist oligarchy and creating a real democracy. Some of these demands may be won under our current system, but we know complete victory will require building a new society from the ground up.” 

The economic program calls for “public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries” and the stated goal of a “classless society.” There is no market mechanism anywhere in the plan the way there is in Nordic countries. I don’t know what the 59% think they signed up to support, but what is outlined in DSA’s agenda is more like Venezuela than Sweden. 

Hugo Chavez ran on a “democratic socialist” platform when he was elected in 1998. He subsequently was reelected and ushered in a new “democratic socialist” constitution. He implemented a program that expropriated private property, controlled prices, and centrally directed economic activity. At first it was praised as successful “democratic socialism,” while high oil prices and exports hid the economic unraveling. But socialist policies eventually led to a collapse in oil and non-oil output alike, shortages, and hyperinflation. The socialist economic platform failed just as economic theory predicts. 

What’s more interesting than the economic failure is the political one. A government that causes an economic collapse has a problem no incumbent wants: an electorate about to vote it out. The answer for Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s successor, was not to hold the promised elections and lose gracefully. It was to hollow out the courts, jail the opposition, and rewrite the rules until losing was no longer on the menu. 

“Democratic socialism” is impossible to maintain because socialism leads to economic stagnation and simultaneously centralizes power in such a way that it can be used to undermine democracy when the inevitable stagnation occurs. The DSA program is already preparing for a transition that centralizes power when it calls to “abolish the Senate” and “Replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.”

It is no accident that every socialist experiment has led to dictatorship and political tyranny. Real “democratic socialism” is a unicorn, and attempting to realize it in the United States would result in the same horrific outcome as it has everywhere else. I doubt that 59% of Democrats are closet Chavistas, but they need to wake up and realize that is the agenda of the Democratic Socialists of America—not a Nordic-style social democracy.