Today, Explained - The socialists are coming!

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

The Democratic Socialists of America is seeing a surge of enthusiasm for its candidates around the country. This episode was produced by Danielle Hewitt, edited by Jolie Myers and Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Noel King. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on his election night. Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Summer 2026 has it all. World Cup, State Fair, Heat Dome, Empire State Building couple. Yeah, what's all the hoopla going on over there? Two geniuses climb to the top of the Empire State Building and the top of the spire. Oh, that's awesome. And across the country, Democratic Socialists are on the March. Three big primary wins for DSA candidates in New York City. The mayor's race in Washington, D.C., a shocker of a primary win in Colorado earlier this week.

We will not! Were those VibuZellel? is there at the end? I think those are air horns, actually. Air horns. Okay, thank you. Now Kamala is reaching out to Zohran and AOC is endorsing Abdul al-Sayed in Michigan and David Duke is endorsing Dari Elisa's tweets. And if you're confused about hot socialist summer, boy, do we have a show for you. What the DSA wants and why it won't settle coming up on today, explained. Climate change is making all kinds of natural disasters less predictable. And insurance companies are jacking up prices all across the country.

Someone in the insurance industry, intellectually, I understand it. But as a homeowner, it's awful. It really sucks. Today on Unexplainable, is the future uninsurable? There's a breaking point coming. Follow Unexplable for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday. Ever feel like your paycheck disappears the second it hits your account? Like a $25 cocktail and rent that costs you a kidney is just sort of normal now? Well, I'm Vivian 2, Your Rich BFF, and on Net Worth and Chill, we're looking into

what's really driving the cost of living crisis, where your wallet is hurting the most, and the hacks to bring those prices back down to something that actually makes sense. Ready to stop getting screwed at the pump, the grocery store, or on your rent check, listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com slash you're rich BFF. This is Today Explained. Will Staken, national politics correspondent for Politico. The DSA feels like a big deal right now. What's going on?

I keep hearing it's DSA summer, which seems to be. the trend, at least online. And yeah, I mean, DSA is coming off Tuesday night, which was maybe their biggest kind of win of the primary season so far with Malakiros, you know, knocking off a nearly 30-year incumbent in Deget. Denver voters of all ages, of all races, of all religions, Senta Clear!

But it's kind of been like a string of victories you've seen over the past few months where starting a few months ago, where Chris Rab and Pennsylvania, had a big win, and then that kind of transitioned into a week ago where these candidates in New York kind of shocking the world and really putting the stamp on the primary season for Democrats, ousting even incumbents. Tonight, we haven't just won an election.

We have declared that this movement is durable. No longer will we accept a politics that throws scraps at us and act as if we should be grateful for them. Really kind of showing the power of what the left flank of the party is looking to flex in this primary season. And I think the question is moving forward was how far outside of kind of like places like New York City can this leftist insurgent, how much success can they actually have? At least in Denver, a huge showing where, like I said, a 30-year incumbent was just, you know, ticked out of Congress. What does the DSA want? What is their platform? What do they believe?

What are their main talking points? Yeah, I think their platform in terms of policy, you know, is maybe not going to surprise folks. These are Democratic Socialists. So they want Medicare for all. They really push for strong unions and labor rights. They push for affordable housing. But I think one thing that's really resonating with folks that I talk to is their stance. They're pro-Palestinian right stance, their opposition to U.S. military aid to Israel.

I will continue to call for Palestinian liberation. We will stand. up to the genocide. We will refuse to abide by apartheid and we will use our money to improve lives here instead of destroy them abroad. And no, we will not wait to end the genocide in Palestine. I think those are kind of the big platforms and also just like I said, a larger affordability. When you talk to DSA candidates or members, a lot of what you hear is they want to put the working class forward. No longer will we accept anything less than respect and a seat at the table that our labor bills.

We know that no matter where you live, working people are struggling with the cost of living crisis. And in each of these campaigns and each of these candidacies, I see champions who would not only be partners of our affordability agenda in Washington, but also help to lead our party in a new direction where we understand that at the heart of everything we do must be the dignity of working class people. that for too long have been in the rearview mirror of the Democratic Party. And I think it's not only just a policy, but it's also the way it's wrapped in this anti-establishment fighter brand. How ideological is the DSA? We keep hearing this term sewer socialism. And I think that suggests something about the things that they want to get done, maybe versus the things that they believe. But how ideological is this group? If you talk to them, and I think they're very ideological. very policy forward. They want to get these, you know, not only do they want to get these policies

enacted, but I think they believe in the long game when you talk to them. They understand that it's about moving to Overton window. You know, in terms of are they ideological, they also know that they are working with a little bit of house money now because of how disliked and in the gutter, the Democratic brand largely is right now. And I think while you see folks like on the right, using the fact that these are DSA candidates and it's socialism and, you know, using that as thinking it's going to, you know, hurt them. They use the word social Democrat because it sounds so nice, but it's really communism you're talking about.

Okay, here's just a sample of what they're about. They put this on paper. They're saying the quiet things out loud. Abolish the electoral college or place the two-party system with a multi-party democracy. In a primary, I think they wear that as a badge of honor. They get to point at the establishment Democrats and say, yeah, I'm not. with Hakeem Jeffries. I am not an establishment Democrat. And, you know, that helps them. It gives them a little bit of street cred, at least in a primary. We'll have to see how that plays out in a

general election, obviously, in some of these closer battleground states. But right now, I mean, it is a brand that's both policy and the fact that it's, you know, running against the Democratic brand, which is in the gutter for a lot of folks. I think that's what they see as a plus. What I think you're going to see is, while you might not see DSA candidates in places like, you know, purple or especially red states, I think you're going to see a lot of candidates mimicking that fighter anti-establishment style as much as possible, which is clearly there's so much hunger, at least in Democratic primary for that. Yeah, we heard this week, or we saw some reporting this week, that Kamla Harris has reached out to Zohanam Dhani, indicating that she at least is interested in what he, he and his have going on. But it's still notable that some of these DSA candidates are being criticized by both mainstream Democrats and Republicans. James Carville said the other day, you know, more or less, he doesn't want them in his tent. And I think that came down to some tweets from the New York

winner, Dari Elisa Avelia Chevalier. She has attacked interracial relationships in the American flag. Lady, I ain't in the same party as you. I'm sorry. They're just, I just not. And I actually do think it's time for Democrats to talk the S word, schism. I really do. What do you make of their ability to polarize? In a primary, I think they like that. You know, I think they want to polarize people that, especially the old guard of folks that had been telling,

especially younger voters, or so long, wait your turn, don't be so loud, don't go so far as Medicare for all. I think they, number one, that's part of what, they want to do. They want to, like, you know, fight back against those kinds of folks. They look at, they look at the Kamala Harris campaign. And when I'm talking to these kinds of candidates and these kinds of voters and folks on the ground and surrogates, you know, they were completely turned off by the Kamala Harris campaign. The Kamala Harris campaign that embrace Liz Cheney, that embraced, you know, a lot of folks that for the left flank of the base would never want to be

associated with. In order to broaden the tent, sure, I mean, that's what they were doing to try to win the election. But for them, I think they felt like they weren't getting Kamala Harris's ear in the Democratic Party's ear in terms of major issues like Israel or Medicare for All or really wanting to push her to the left. And so I think right now they want to kind of throw a Maltalf cocktail into the party and just say, we're blowing this up. And so if it's going to ruffle feathers, so be it. I think a big test for this movement is going to be Michigan, the Michigan Senate race with with Abdul-Sayed, I think that is going to be a huge test for where this insurgent energy can go. We need Democrats who are willing to take the fight to Donald Trump, who are willing to take a fight to the system that created Donald Trump and are willing to go take them.

So you reported that the DSA has ambitions to run a candidate in the 2028 primary? Tell me about the, is that candidate chosen yet? Do we know who it is? And how are they trying to figure this out? they view 2028 the presidency as like a gigantic opportunity. They don't play cute. They're straight up saying like you work fine. We're looking for a candidate right now.

And I think they really see 2028 on the backs of Mamdani's rise with Bernie Sanders, with the potential of AOC presidential run. They view that as a huge opportunity. And what they're doing right now is DSA is actually they're sending, you know, hundreds of surveys out to all their members across. the country surveying them, asking them,

who should DSA endorse? What are you looking for in a candidate? You know, what are the things that you want that are deal breakers and they're going to

collect all those I'm hearing it's going to be like potentially hundreds of thousands of pages of research, which seems very on brand for them,

maybe. And I think they're going to put that all together and in September come to a decision and see who they're going to endorse.

And another thing that's kind of bittersweet when I talk to them is that they found this kind of gem in Zoran, Mammada, who they view, and I think a lot of people view, as kind of a once-in-a-lifetime political, generational talent. And he can't run for president.

I noticed that you're turning 35 soon, right? A few months, yes. So you now hit one of the constitutional requirements to run for president. But there's another one that says you have to be a natural-born citizen. You were not born here. Yes. But do you think that's something that should be changed

in the Constitution. It would take an amendment, but do you think that we should change that? No. I think the Constitution looks good the way it is. Just the way it is. Just the way it is. I'm very excited to focus on New York City. But thank you for reminding me of my upcoming mortality. 35 years old, 35 years old. Yes, sir. And so I imagine he will be deeply involved in finding out who that person is, but also campaigning for them. But it's not going to be Mamdani. And when I was talking to the DSA members, they were even saying, like, you know, they laugh and there's like an ongoing joke inside DSA where they're like, we should just run Mumdani anyways. Like, it's just cause a constitutional crisis and just see what happens.

And one of the DSA chair was like, I think people are joking, but I also think a lot of people aren't really joking. Obviously, I don't think that's going to happen. But to the point of like trying to find someone, that works already being done. Politico's will staken. When we come back, we're going straight to the source. A DSA co-chair joins me to talk about policy, ideals, and reality, bad tweets, Israel, and 2028. Support for the show comes from Chime. Ding dong.

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Which journalistic endeavors do you pay money to support? Oh my gosh. Which or like how many? Let me think. That one and that one and that one and that one. A bunch of public radio stations. Mm-hmm. A big newspaper that I can think of.

Some substacks? So many newsletters. I don't know if there's substacks, but I was trying to count the other day because someone asked me. And I think it's like six newsletters at least. Dang. Like a lot. How about you? Are you in the newsletter camp, too?

All of that, not so much newsletters, a lot of podcasts on Patreon. Heck yeah. Which reminds me. Oh, yeah. You were like, you were like yes anding me. Okay. You, dear listener, can support this show. Today Explained and in doing so support Vox, which makes this show possible by going to vox.com

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The DSA has had big primary wins in New York in Colorado just last night. on Wednesday in the mayoral race in Washington, D.C. That's where I live. Why do you think DSA candidates are doing so well in elections right now? I think there's both the kind of rage that people have about seeing any remnants of our safety net, social safety net, be dismantled. I think they see their wages stagnating while inflation continues to go up and cost of living continues to go up. And I think that has people really on edge. But I also think that they're looking for for answers and for solutions and things that are actually going to change their lives for the better. When we talk about expanding child care for all or Medicare for all,

child care debt and medical debt, those are very real issues to real people. So I think they're excited to see someone not just saying, well, the other guy's worse, but really saying, look, we're going to rethink some of these things and come up with solutions together. Your economic message definitely seems to have caught fire for Americans who really do feel like life is too expensive. But the DSA's positions on some domestic issues like borders, like policing, open you up to claims that the DSA is just too extreme for regular Americans. I know that you're aware of this charge. How do you respond to that?

Yeah, so a lot of the charges coming from sort of documents or sometimes panels where they're clipping people and talking about it that are really sort of expressing this long-term view because we're trying to, we're not just trying to like fix little problems. we're trying to really get to the root of these societal problems and think about what life could look like and what society could look like if we change them. So things like abolishing the carceral state as we know it, right? People say, so you're just going to fire all the police? Like, well, no. The goal is free child care, free health care, free college, these sort of things that will actually make there be less crime.

We know crime is inextricably linked to poverty. We're not saying, like, yes, let murderers run free in the streets. where you're saying, if we have eliminated in this long-term vision, a lot of these crimes of poverty, crimes of desperation, what can the system look like? And, you know, it will have to be different. It's hard to convince people on that score, too, because even in a much better world, people will still murder other people. This is an unfortunate fact. And voters here abolish the carceral state, whether it's next week or 50 years from now. And they sense that you are unrealistic. They sense that you are not where they are. Working class voters in the last election

moved toward Donald Trump, in part because, as we understand it from polling, many people felt like the Democrats were just, had just gotten two pie in the sky, right? They were too extreme on cultural issues. And so I wonder whether the DSA considers that the economic platform is very appealing. Abolish the carcoral state simply isn't. We think it's important to connect those two things, right? So the reason you do something matters too, right? So they say, well, you want to abolish the police. It's like, well, we're not doing that right now. But we have invested in Care not Cops programs because the long-term goal is to stop prosecuting people for crimes of poverty. It's not to make you less safe. It's to make you more safe. Because right now, the system as it works does not make us more safe. There are real concerns about some candidates who are affiliated with the DSA. Dari Elisa Avelia Chevalier just won a big election in New York City. She said in tweets at one point that she wiped her dirty hands on an American flag because she didn't have napkins. She suggested that white people shouldn't be in interracial relationships. There's a lot more. She has apologized, and independently, she deleted her Twitter account.

She told my colleague is Ted Herndon, she finds it better to not spend too much time online. But I wonder if you are working with anti-establishment candidates, right? There is a level of vetting that just isn't going to be the same as with establishment candidates. Do you think you're going to have difficulty finding candidates who are strong on your economic message, but don't have to issue these embarrassing apologies. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the, that is an interesting spot we're in. We're not forming our candidates in a lab, right? We're not like raising perfect model UN children and sending them to Polysite.

Oh, come on. Perfect model UN. White people shouldn't be in interracial relationships. I agree. No, that is way out there. No, what I'm saying is like, we are. are dealing with imperfect, messy people for sure. And I, you know, we're not, like, I don't know why she tweeted that. I'm imagining there was like, like she had a bad breakup and was just tweeting too close to the sun or some, some terrible thing. Yeah, that's a, that's a bad tweet.

She apologized for it. Trump did bad tweets this morning, right? Like, we're just like, oh, God. But yeah, you know, that is going to be, that is going to be the reality of running candidates who did not come into adult life thinking they were ever going to be a candidate. I want to ask you about an issue that's become very sensitive over the past few years. The DSA's focus on Israel strikes some people as obsessive, possibly even tipping into anti-Semitic. So let me give you a couple of examples that I see cited frequently. On October 7th, after Hamas attacked Israel, the DSA released a statement, expressing solidarity with Palestine. It did condemn the killing of all civilians, but it added,

this was not unprovoked. Mayor Mamdani recently set some Jewish leaders on edge when he referred to A PAC as monsters. He said he was quoting the philosopher Antonio Gramsci. A DSA candidate in Colorado, who had a big win last night, Milat Kiroz, she was recently asked by a reporter whether a firebombing attack on a peaceful Jewish gathering in Boulder was an act of anti-Semitism. And she said, I don't know what's in the perpetrator's heart. Now, there's an argument that these types of things taken together illustrate that there is anti-Semitism within the DSA. There's also a more nuanced argument that says the DSA isn't anti-Semitic, but you're fostering a culture that allows you are members to talk in ways that are. What do you say to American Jews who think the way that DSA-affiliated politicians talk about Israel goes beyond taking issue with foreign policy and into something darker? Yeah, I mean, that is something that I think we think a lot about, but what we see is that that Israel is perpetrating a genocide. People are mad and should be mad. It's a genocide. We don't equivocate on that definition or on that understanding of the events. We see an apartheid state. We see people being in an open-air concentration camp, essentially in the Gaza Strip. So people are mad, and sometimes, yeah, People are mad and they're going to not nuance their words as much as they should. I do think it's very important, obviously, that we stand against anti-Semitism in all its forms. But I do not see the state of Israel as something that I, like, I don't think we should be defending it on any grounds. It's a genocidal apartheid state, and I'm not apologizing for that. In 2024, the DSA rescinded an endorsement of AOC. AOC, of course, is a fierce critic.

of Israel. After she attended a panel with Jewish leaders on anti-Semitism, a lot of people looked at that and said, you have a fierce critic of Israel who attended a panel on anti-Semitism, and the DSArescended their endorsement of her. You can see the math here. You can sort of see where the brain goes from here. Why did the DSA rescind its endorsement of AOC? Yeah, so that was actually a complicated process. We didn't actually rescind our endorsement of AOC in the United States. that way. So what we did was we made an endorsement that came with some strings attached, which was kind of the first time we'd ever done that. And we said, we want you to pledge to not fund Israeli military anything, not defense, not offense, no weapons for Israel. We want you

to not sign on to any of that, which she had voted, I think she voted present on the Iron Dome. She had, she, basically we want her in line in the, in the same voting line as, is Rashida Talib. If Rushita Talib votes for it, who is one of the most, you know, fearless defenders of Palestine and the Palestinian people in Congress. So AOC had voted present on some, and she had equivocated on some. And so we said, okay, you can't do that anymore. AOC has since pledged to vote no on all funding of any kind for Israeli military. So ultimately, she came around to your point of view. The pressure worked.

Yeah. Yeah. So. The DSA, we're told, and you can confirm it, wants to run a presidential primary candidate in 2028. Tell me what that means about your ambitions. We would love, you know, the Bernie Sanders campaign, it kind of changed the face of the American left a bit. He was the first person who went out there on stage and said, I am a Democratic socialist. And it kind of felt like it gave a lot of people, they felt like they had permission to say it out loud.

it kind of broke the dam a little bit on using that big scary S word. So if we run a presidential candidate, we can at least make sure that there is a voice in the primary, holding people to account. I think when Bernie was in the primary, him standing strong for Medicare for All, got a bunch of the other candidates to sign a Medicare for All pledge. Like, those things are good. And so we would love to win the presidency. We would also, at the very least, love to move the needle by having an actual Democratic Socialist voice in the debates, fighting for working families, fighting for labor unions, fighting for health care for everybody, and fighting against the military industrial complex. Megan Romer is co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Danielle Hewitt produced today's show. Miranda Kennedy and Jolie Myers edited. Patrick Boyden, David Tadishore, engineered, and Gabriel Dunatub was on deleted tweets. Additional thanks today to Zach Beecham and Andrew Procop. I'm Noelle King. explained.