Front Burner - Understanding the rise of ‘democratic socialism’

Episode Date: July 16, 2026

Recently, in the U.S., there’s been a wave of self described democratic socialists running for and winning elected office.There is the improbable case of Zohran Mamdani who won his New York mayoral campaign. But there are other high profile races where establishment incumbents are being unseated by much younger insurgents. From Denver to New York, Washington D.C. to Seattle.Even here in Canada, NDP leader Avi Lewis is a long-time self-described democratic socialist. According to new Gallup polling, “socialism” is officially viewed more favourably among democratic voters than “capitalism.” It’s a big shift from where we were not too long ago. So what exactly is democratic socialism? How does it differ from socialism, communism, or social democracy? Why has it returned now? And what does its resurgence reveal about this hour of history?Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of The Nation magazine, founder and editorial director of Jacobin, the former Vice-Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and the author of books including ‘The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality.’ For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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Hey, everybody. I'm Jamie Poisson. Recently in the U.S., we've seen this wave of self-described democratic socialist running for and winning elected office. There is, of course, the improbable case of Zoran Mamdani, who won the New York mayoral campaign, but also recent high-profile races across the U.S., where establishment incumbents are being unseeded by much younger insurgents, from Denver to New York to Washington, D.C.,

Even here in Canada, the new leader of the NDP, Ovi-Lewis, is a longtime self-described Democratic Socialist. According to a new Gallup poll, socialism is officially viewed more favorably among Democratic voters than capitalism. And the most positively regarded politicians of the country are self-identified Democratic Socialists. It's a big shift from where we were not too long ago. So today, we'll look at the principles and ideas which make up Democratic Socialism and discuss its century-long legacy in this part of the world and the pushback against it. Bosker Sankara is the president of the nation magazine, founder and editorial director of Jacobin, the former vice chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the author of books such as The Socialist Manifesto, the case for radical politics in an era of

extreme inequality. Bosker, thank you so much for coming on to Frontburner. It's such a pleasure to have you. Thanks for having me. So let's start maybe by defining democratic socialism, which has seen this huge rise in popularity, what exactly is it? And how is it different from socialism? Well, Democratic socialism aims to bring about a more egalitarian world. So at a minimum, that means that means that making sure that all people, by virtue of just being born, have the access to the necessities of a good life. So housing, health care, nutrition, education. And we can achieve. this through many different means. The most common ways that Democratic Socialists have not only advocated for, but actually enacted, have been through the expansion of social welfare programs,

including within capitalism. So, of course, the Canadian healthcare system was pioneered in part by the work of people like Tommy Douglas, you know, a Christian socialist, but it came out of a a similar sort of democratic socialist tradition. So not all socialists are democratic socialists. When I look at the experiences of the 20th century in states like the Soviet Union, it becomes very easy to make a no true Scotsman argument because I truly don't consider those states socialists because I think democracy is such an integral part of what socialism means. But given that experience, I think it's important to clarify and have the Democratic in front and to say that our version of socialism, our vision of socialism incorporates key insights from liberal traditions as well.

By that, I mean the necessity of having rights. There should be limits in the scope of the state. There should be certain things that an individual has free domain over, and no matter how democratic the state, you know, there should be limits. All these other sorts of insight. I think are important and distinguished democratic socialism from more authoritarian forms of socialism, if you will. For most of our political lives outside of the few years in which Bernie Sanders was kind of this insurgent force outside and then inside the Democratic Party.

What democratic socialism is about is saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top one-tenth of one percent in this country own almost 90 percent, almost own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. Socialism and democratic socialism have been pretty radioactive ideas in mainstream American political life. You, of course, have the red scare in which the federal government oversaw a kind of hunt targeting communists and socialists. Even today, you have many.

You will use the label of socialism or communism to fear longer, and they will put those labels on democratic socialist. Communism is a loser, and it always will be. The communist system is the opposite of the American system, and the communist system has never worked. Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America. We're not going to let it happen.

You heard the president talk about how he wants to effectively double the funding for national defense. Look, we live in dangerous times for fighting communism on our own show. shores and we're fighting. How would you describe the U.S. historical relationship with, with democratic socialism? So the U.S. actually has a long history of socialist currents. A little bit over 100 years ago, we had a socialist candidate running on an independent outline who got over a million votes. Democratic socialism or the Socialist Party of America is polling into double digits in even states like Oklahoma. It was a strong force in the unsettled region of U.S. capitalism in the American West, particularly, and also a major mass force in certain other enclaves like in Milwaukee, where there was socialist

governance for decades and decades. And even in parts of New York City, where garment workers in Lower East Side in the Bronx, particularly among Jewish workers, socialism is kind of a mass phenomenon. Obviously, there is that history. Socialism was always squeezed to the margins, in part because the U.S. is a very, very unusual political system that makes ballot access extremely restrictive. So we don't, not only do we have a first-past-the-post system, like in Canada or England, it's almost impossible to even maintain a third-party boutline. So as a result, generation of socialist had been within the Democratic Party tent and a major part of the New Deal Coalition. Building on what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said when he fought for guaranteed economic rights

for all Americans. A leading force behind movements like the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1968, and I quote, this country has socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor. And of course. When the founder of the Democratic Socialist America died in 1989, Senator Ted Kennedy said that Michael Harrington, you know, the founder's name, never believed that we could not do better. He never stopped urging us to do better.

You know, I'm paraphrasing, but this is, I think, the sentiment that a large segment of American liberalism had towards socialists, particularly democratic socialists, that these were voices of conscious. These are good people that are part of our movements. But we were always in the fringes of American political life, especially during the Cold War. It's only really been in the last couple of decades, really the last decade and a half that American socialism has made a more full-throated resurgence.

I want to talk to you about this moment that is the momentum, essentially, that's been building around democratic socialism. I'll just run through some examples here for people listening. You have the election of Mayor Zora Madhadi in New York. The conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate. I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. Democratic socialists.

Most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this. Just last month, two of three winning and surging candidates he endorsed in congressional primaries across New York identified as Democratic Socialists. Two sitting congressmen, longstanding establishment Democrats, were toppled. Another open seat won. The winning candidates ran on a shared platform of radical change, promising to abolish ICE, taxing the rich, but also ending unconditional arm sales to Israel. In Colorado, 9-year-old Democratic Socialist, Melet Kiroz, outsted a long-time congressional representative in

L.A., a Democratic Socialist, is currently in the mayoral runoff. Seattle is also governed by a Democratic Socialist. Washington, D.C. is likely to follow, as I understand it. Both Michigan and Maine could also soon become the site of major victories by Democratic Socialist candidates. And many more officials across the country were elected after endorsements from the Democratic Socialists of America. How would you characterize the energy around socialism in the U.S. today and to what do you attribute it to? Well, I think at least part of this momentum has to do with the fact that we do live in a deeply unequal society, and it's an equal at its roots. And any sort of class society, even if you want to make the argument that capitalism does more good than harm, any society with this level of inequality and this level of inherent disparities between those who are. own and those who have nothing to sell by their labor is going to provoke some sort of egalitarian

response. And I think the triumphalism of people who thought that all the political questions or the major political questions were being settled already discounted the extent to which there's always been, since the days of the Grakai brothers and Rome and the early Christians and so on, there's always been movements for egalitarian change in this world. And this generation is no exception. I think what's particularly interesting, though, is that the name of this egalitarian resistance is the name of democratic socialism. And in most parts of the world,

from the middle of the 19th century through to the end of the 20th century, it would have been taken for granted that those who felt like they were, not benefiting from the current system would identify with the language and imagery of socialism. But given the particularity of American history, it's very strange to some degree. And I think a lot of this just has to do with chance. It has to do with the fact that Bernie Sanders was someone who was politicized in the late 1950s. I don't know Bernie super, super well, but I had a conversation with him once where he referred to the Brooklyn Dodgers leaving Brooklyn

as a major politicizing moment for him because he saw the way in which big capitalists can just do what they want with the property they own with no regard to the community. And I said, Bernie, the media already thinks are too old to be president. It was a few years ago.

You shouldn't invoke the Brooklyn Dodgers in such a way. But, you know, this is a man who was politicized. He joined the Young People Socialist League when he's at the University of Chicago fighting for the rights of meatpacking workers in Chicago and for civil rights.

So he was ingrained in a mid-20th century socialist tradition. And he carried that with him in his political prayer. And when he ran for president in 2016, he self-described as a Democratic socialist because that was his history. That was his formative years. And I think a lot of young people who were attracted to him adopting the label just had to do with that.

So I'm not sure. I think it's just contingency and chance in having like almost Bernie. you know, not to be too dismissive of his age, but almost being like a human time capsule of a certain period that allowed it to become this mass phenomenon again, especially among, you know, millennials and now Gen Z in the U.S. I mean, a lot of these people running today, they would have been kind of formulating their political beliefs at university or something, probably in 2016, when Bernie did his first run,

right? You were talking a little bit about attitudes and polling. I just wanted to bring up this new Gallup poll that found that 66% of Democrats now hold a favorable view of socialism. Well, just 42% hold a favorable view of capitalism. Does that, does it surprise you that the numbers are the way that they are? Well, I think in part, it doesn't surprise them because of how loosely defined all these terms are, to be perfectly honest. So, also the American right, to the extent socialism was alive in American civil society in the early 2000s, it was alive as a pejorative. You know, they would call Barack Obama a radical Kenyan socialist, right? They would call even a plan that I frankly consider to have some good parts to

it, but overall to be a giveaway to the health insurance companies in Obamacare as the sort of Marxist plot aimed at subverting American free enterprise. So they actually inject a lot of this language by associating socialism, not with red lines and gulags, but with redistributive programs that a lot of people like and wanted. And also, it just so happens that some of the most visible and talented politicians in the Democratic Party, people like Zoran Mandani, people like Alexander Akazir-Cortez, are Democratic Socialism America members and do identify with this label of socialism. So, you know, I'm, again, not super surprised in the sense that this now de-radicalized term

can get more residents. And again, if we zoom out into the global arena, even, you know, the center left in the UK, in the case of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, maybe the center right, you could say, identify as, you know, with a party that is programmatically committed to democratic socialism. This is kind of the norm for countries all around the world, you know, the U.S. and Canada being kind of rare exceptions of countries that haven't traditionally had a first or second party that has been nominally kind of committed to socialism. All your favorite CBC podcasts are now available on YouTube.

The best-in-award-winning true crime investigations, hilarious comedies, vibrant pop culture conversations, and even more audio series are all available on CBC podcast's YouTube channel. You'll also find exclusive video first episodes, YouTube shorts, and behind-the-scenes content from our hosts and producers that you can't find anywhere else. So if YouTube is your go-to source for podcasts, just search CBC podcasts and hit subscribe and you'll never miss the latest update. Is Democratic Socialism ultimately trying to save or reform capitalism or replace it? So I think there's different varieties of Democratic socialism.

In the immediate term, the types of changes that I would like to see are changes that we could call social democratic reforms. So attempts to administer many, many doses of social of socialism within capitalism, but ultimately not challenging the right of ordinary capitalists to start businesses and employ labor and engage in this kind of competitive, you know, market economy. And I think that's what a lot of people mean by democratic socialism. They essentially mean a social democracy, but that one that is going to encounter such rigorous opposition, from rich people and particularly from the big corporations of the U.S., that it actually requires quite militant rhetoric and demands to even win something

that has been won in much of the world, like single-payer health care or some sort of American national health service or something would require taking on basically one-fifth of the American GDP. So in that respect, you could understand why militant rhetoric and language and tactics might be needed to even achieve goals that, again, were achieved decades ago elsewhere. But for socialists like me, we believe in something deeper and a more radical transformation, which is the idea that the means of production to use the old language of the Marxist left should in fact be socialized. I'm a market socialist. I think the market is a wonderful

coordinating mechanism to signal what people desire and to coordinate goods and services. But ultimately, I think the firms competing in this market economy should be administered by the people who work there. Again, even if they have to elect management, even if there has to be a pretty extensive division of labor, even if there has to be plenty of wage dispensual, within those firms, I think that workers deserve not just the power to exit, like we have within capitalism, but not feudalism, the power to leave our jobs and find new ones to exert our bargaining power there, but also that they deserve voice at the job. And in my mind, that is a vision that more and more people can get behind. But honestly, if you can't win

something like Medicare for All or an American NHS in the in the U.S., then it becomes a comes almost silly to foreground so much your far-reaching demand. But me as a Democratic Socialist, a lot of people in the Democratic Socialist America have this far-reaching goal of socialization that we're not afraid to talk about, you know, as it is relevant as it comes up. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you worry, though, that by talking about that you might freak some people out? I think, you know, Michael Harrington, the founder of DSA, used to say something to the effect that socialists and radicals as a whole had to walk a tightrope. So on the one hand, we had, we could fall to our left into, you know, a pit of just talking about our far vision of a new society.

And the problem with that is that we would just be talking in our vision, but we would almost be aloof to the demands of actual movements fighting not to transform the system, but for some little incremental dignity or even just kind of a piece of bread and not having to worry about losing their job and losing their health care and things like that. So lofty talk can often isolate yourself to the left. But also to the right, I think, is the danger of subsuming our vision in a very narrow prism of what's possible. And I think that's the other danger as well. Because I think what people were attracted to with a candidate like Zora and Mamdani was the fact that he thought everything was broken and everything needed kind of a refurb. form or change. And obviously, when in power, he's governing very responsibly. He's governing as someone who right now administers a police department with over 30,000 armed men and women, you know, bigger than a lot of standing armies in the world. The administers a budget in the billions.

He, by many accounts, at least the polls, think that he's doing a very good job in his first six or seven months in office. So I think we always need a balance. those two things. We always just need to communicate a vision that explains our principles, but also explains the fact that, you know, the Democratic comes for a socialist for a reason. You know, ultimately, this is going to be a vision that we win over a majority of people to, or it's not going to be enacted. You mentioned throughout this conversation, the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, several times, this organization that you were once vice chair of.

They're the largest socialist organization in American history, I believe, at the center of many careers of the politicians that people listening will know. Ocasio-Cortez, Mamdani, they give support for grassroots campaigns that can boost their name ID. And as you said, I think, is not an independent political party. Obviously, they filter their candidates for the Democratic Party. And I just wonder if you could talk to me a little bit more about the role that the organization plays in American politics today, or the role that you think that it is playing. The DSA is actually, in a sense, not a political party because we don't aim to have our own outline. But in another sense, also the only major political party in American political life, because we have 125 or so thousand members. those members are active in their chapters.

They have to pay their dues every month. They elect the leadership. They vote on platforms. They vote on whether or not to endorse a candidate. At a somewhat recent election forum in New York City, Zeran Mamdani was mayor-elect at the time. Not yet. Mayor wanted to speak in favor or against or neutral on a particular proposal.

He showed up to the meeting and, you know, he waited in line. Of course, you know, he didn't really have to wait in line. We would have to let him cut to the front of the lines. But he waited in line, which again made his two-minute intervention. When he was going over a little bit, over two minutes, someone told him to, you know, he had to wrap up. This is not that unusual for people around the world used to parliamentary traditions because, you know, parliamentary system, you know, you're, party leader is just an ordinary MP and that MP can be voted out and or, you know, your prime minister can change if the party decides to elect a new leader through its internal processes.

In an American-style presidential system with weak parties, this is extremely, you know, unusual. So I would say that the Democratic Socialist America is essentially a political party just without a outline in part because it is so difficult to get in the ballot in the U.S. That was our goal. That's all we would be doing. And we would have the risk of a spoiler effect, which we don't have, you know, now through our mechanism, only running in primaries and generally voting for whatever Democrat gets through a primary process. Right, right. Because I'm sure if there are a few things that you agree on with establishment Democrats, it's probably, you know, beating, beating the Republicans. Yes. Yes. And but I do want to talk to you about. the reaction within the Democratic Party and among its establishment leaders to this wave of DSA endorsed candidates. Some of whom, well, many of whom, articulate this really more radical vision for the party itself.

And there has been open debate about primaring all these establishment figures like Chuck Schumer and Akeem Jeffries, previously Nancy Pelosi, among lots of others. Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville has talked about not wanting to be in the same party as someone like New York City congressional nominee Avila Chevalier. These people are really out there. And a lot of people feel like I do. We just don't want to be in the same political party with them. Do you think this in danger? I hope they feel the same way about me. Former chair of the Democratic Party, Jamie Harrison has said about the socialist wing of the party. If your movement is so strong, why does it keep needing the Democratic Party's ballot line, infrastructure, volunteers, donors, and voters.

file to win. Apparently your apparatus isn't strong enough to do it on its own. You've addressed some of those issues in your last answer, but what do you make of how the Democratic Party has responded to its Democratic Socialist contingency? Is there a world in which the two are able to coexist successfully? Well, I think some parts of the Democratic Party or existing Democrats have responded quite constructively. Barack Obama, for instance, has done events with Zoran, Mamdani. What's his first name? A lot of people around the Obama coalition, like David Axelrod, have said, oh, we should pay attention

to why people are voting for them. They have a lot of good points. And once we, we one Democratic Party primaries, the Obama types like Axelrod and others have been the first to congratulate Democrats and congratulate the Democratic Party nominee and not support even independent runs by other Democrats and Andrew Cuomo against Zeramandani. Other people have been more hostile. You know, of course, the political system in the U.S. is constructed in some way. No one organization without massive constitutional reform would be able to escape this dilemma of having to run on one of the major party of outlines. But I think the best version of the criticism from people at James Carville has to do with winning over semi-rural and rural districts and winning over

areas that lean more Republican. And so much of the Democratic Socialists of America sort of push and successful primaries have happened in deep blue district, where we're turning liberal or just generally center-left districts into further left socialist districts. And I think it is a real challenge to think about how we translate our appeals to areas that are more socially conservative, are more rural, and I think this will have to happen through trial and error over time. Tell me more about how you think you might do that or if you've seen anything that you think could be working. And if you think, you know, I know it's a big tent and there are a lot of political, you know, views in a movement.

But if you think kind of some of the more controversial policies like abolishing border police or the police are like a distraction or aren't helping you. achieve that goal. Yeah, I mean, first of all, of course, some policies pushed by some Democratic Socialists are not only not popular, but are broadly counterproductive in my mind. Like, for example, when it comes to demands previous for defunding the police or something like that, you know, policing is a social good. It can be done well. It can be done poorly. In my mind, having less resources or no resources for policing are only going to attract the worst people to policing and ensure less accountability, less training, less whatever. And I think this is common sense across not just the center left, but the far left in Europe and across much

of the world in the U.S. because of the particular nature and history of policing in the U.S., because of racialized outcomes in policing and other things, you could understand the disgruntlement that I think the policy solution there was wrong. Now, when it comes to winning over these districts, I think it's worth noting that the phenomenon of what we would call class the alignment of parties that are of the center left and of the far left that had traditionally had the allegiances of workers really since they're founding all the way through 20, 30 years ago, now are relying more and more on a professional class base. And a lot of workers are kind of drifting into a million different directions, including apathy.

I follow the, you know, Canadian politics and situation a lot, a lot more loosely nowadays, but obviously lots of debates within the NDP as relates to, particularly in Alberta and other places, kind of get to this point of, like, are we losing over, losing our traditional base and what would it take to kind of win back over these people? I think, one, we shouldn't be excessively pessimistic about the ability of rural voters to embrace egalitarian demands because a lot of these people have the same struggles, are worried about the same things as their peers in other areas. So I think just showing up and organizing is at least part of the battle. I also think it's really important to run campaigns in dialogue with constituents.

to come up with demands and actually meet particular, you know, districts. So, for example, he is certainly not a socialist, but he's a left populist. Dan Osborne in Nebraska, who ran 14 points above Harris running as an independent for Nebraska Senate. One of his major demands is the right to repair. The idea that if you have the John Joe tractor, you should be allowed to open it up and perform basic maintenance on it, without voiding your warranty.

Because right now with a lot of these farm goods, if you even open it up, if you even replace something very small, you void your warranty, and they make you take it to an authorized service center and not even like your regular mechanic down the road it might be able to handle it. And of course, that's essentially a cartel that boosts prices.

No democratic socialists in America has a problem with that demand. None of us are in the pocket of like John Deere or something like that. But it's not something that as a New Yorker would ever occur. to me. I do not have like a patch of grass in front of my, my apartment building, much less like need for a riding mower. But so I think a lot of this will come from that. And also if you hear, you know, Dan Osborne talk about, let's say, immigration. Osborne will be in a room filled with Trump supporters and he'll give two sentences on immigration. The first one will make every Democratic socialist gas and I'll say, I am not afraid to say that I believe that,

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did not do a good job on the border. You know, I agree with Donald Trump. We need a strong border. But then the second sentence would be, but I can't tolerate these ICE tactics and these ICE policies of separating mothers from their children. And then he'll get applause from a room full of people who otherwise voted for Donald Trump. And I have to ask you, what's more progressive, saying abolish ICE in New York City, a demand that I agree with. I think we need some sort of border custom enforcement,

but this actual institution, I think, needs to be kind of ripped up and recreated at its roots. But what's more progressive? Me saying that in New York City or Dan Osborne saying that and winning over kind of the middle and the right, a certain portion of the persuadable right in American politics in Nebraska. And I would argue that the latter is objectively more progressive.

One of the defining ideas of American life has been that Hard work produces upward mobility, the American dream, right? We've all heard it, that the U.S. is a land of possibility and abundance that through hard work and determination, success can be made available to you. Much of this dream has rested on the individual, the rights of the individual, the land of the individual, the freedom and liberty of the individual. And democratic socialism, as you have laid out, is about collectivism and seems to begin from kind of the premise, that the American story itself is not sufficient, even that, like, it's a myth. And so what version of the American dream does the Democratic Socialist outlook rely on?

I think the Democratic Socialist outlook actually relies on something pretty close to the original vision of the American dream, which is a vision that was popularized in 1930s, but drew on labor Republican discourses of freedom. of independence and the vision of the yeoman farmer of the 19th century. And I'll take it far away from America to this famous song of the German labor movement, the United Front song. And it described the worker as wanting no servants under him and no master above him. And I think that's still true of a lot of Americans.

It's actually why I think Americans valorize small business ownership. It's why they valorize just the idea of being free of someone else. It's why they valorize, you know, just kind of driving out west and finding a little quiet part of the world where you can kind of exist with your family and you could, you know, not be burdened by, you know, the troubles and oppressions that a lot of people were fleeing out east. And, you know, obviously we know the true historical record. We know about the displacement of native people. know what a lot of this meant in practice. And nowadays, so many young people don't actually

believe that a better life is possible. And I think that sort of cynicism is kind of fools gold for the socialist movement. Because we actually need people to believe that something else is possible and that politics, in addition to their own hard work and personal virtues and other things that we all as individuals need to cultivate, is part of living a better life. You know, my parents came from Trindad and Tobago the year before I was born. You know, I'm glad they came to the U.S. and, you know, they came to the U.S. for a reason. So I still very much believe in the promise of the U.S. I just think that, you know, building a better life requires social solutions to social problems,

not just individual solutions, though, again, you know, I want to live in a society that cultivates individual, you know, virtue and hard work and things like that as well. Okay. Fosker, this is really interesting talking to you. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for having me. All right. That is all for today.

I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.