What A Day - Is Democratic Socialism Taking Over The Party?

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

You’ve probably heard a lot about the Democratic Socialists of America this year. Political figures who are either members of the organization or associated with its beliefs are running in primaries across the country, sometimes even winning against their more moderate opponents. But what does D.S.A. want? Does the organization want to elect more left-leaning Democrats – or replace them? Is this a left-wing Tea Party movement? Or something else entirely? To find out, we spoke to Charles Homans. He’s a reporter for The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine who just did a deep dive into D.S.A.And in headlines, President Trump and his son-in-law disagree over whether the U.S. is negotiating with Iran, Meta is on trial in California for its platforms’ harms to children, and OpenAI launches ChatGPT for Teens.Show Notes: Check out Charles' piece – tinyurl.com/ha2chs3h Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail]

It's working for them to work inside the Democratic Party right now. You know, Bernie really showed the opportunity to kind of level up left-wing politics by simply participating in the process. And it's hard to, you know, remember what a revolutionary idea that was in 2016. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What a Day. The show that wishes just one Florida Republican could be normal for like 10 seconds. On Sunday, Geo-Mexam. House Representative Randy Fine was caught rifling through someone's mail while going door-to-door campaigning.

More seriously, Fine is also mind-bendingly Islamophobic. But his opponent in today's primary, right-wing weirdo, Dan Bilzerian, was condemned by both Democrats and Republicans for releasing a campaign ad calling Fine a, quote, Satanic horror and asking whether we should revisit the opinions of Adolf Hitler. Again, can we get just one normal Florida Republican? Just one! I know you can do it, Florida. On today's show, we do a deep dive into the Democratic Socialists of America with Charles Homance, reporter for the New York Times. Before we slide into a socialist summer,

yes, we're following today, Tuesday, August 18th. The street is open, and the oil prices are coming down, and they will continue to come down unless we decide to do something far more drastic than we're doing. Iran is in big trouble. They have 300% inflation. The country's a mess. President Trump said again Monday that the U.S. controls the Strait of Hormuz, and he added on Tuesday that there are no talks going on between the U.S. and Iran.

Which is weird, because his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, said that talks with Iran were ongoing. Seriously, Trump posted on True Social Tuesday, quote, There are no talks or conversations going on or scheduled with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The naval blockade remains in full force in. effect. The Hormuz Strait is open and operating. All water mines have been removed or detonated. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Which is not at all what a son-in-law and special envoy said. Hmm. Whom to believe? A guy who lies a lot, or a private citizen tasked with ending a war of choice who has also lied a lot. Maybe we should ask Iran. According to Iranian state media on Tuesday,

Iran's top negotiator said that the Strait of Hormuz is closed and will be closed. until the U.S. abides by June's Memorandum of Understanding, which the U.S. and Iran agreed upon. Remember that? Meta has decided that it is going to fight this tooth and nail in all of these different cases. We'll probably try to appeal it all the way up to the Supreme Court. So it must view this as existential, and it must view this as a principle worth protecting. Former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Cantor spoke to CNBC today about Mehta's summer of accountability. That's what I'm calling it.

States are seeking billions of dollars and damages for social media harms to children in a pivotal trial for meta platforms. Attorneys General for California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey want changes to how the company operates its platforms, as well as a penalty that could, in theory, total as much as $1.4 trillion. 29 states sued META in 2023 over child safety and privacy. The remaining 25 will go to trial later. The company also faces lawsuits in state. courts. The lawsuit accuses the social media giant of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features that addicts children to its platforms. It also argues that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents' consent in violation

of federal law. And maybe Meta is serving as a cautionary tale for all tech companies, but no one is listening because OpenAI launched ChatGPT for teens today. The highly anticipated chatbot is intended to help students work through homework problems instead of simply answering questions for them. Great. An AI tutor. OpenAI says the chatbot is tailored for kids aged 13 and 17 and has stronger protections and content restrictions around things like suicide, self-harm, and romantic or sexual chats.

One wild feature. The chatbot will predict a user's age based on its messages, automatically setting up an account with teen restrictions if the user is deemed under 18 years. years old. Adults can verify their age if mistaken for a teen. And that's my cue to head out, as I talked like I was 38 years old when I was 15. On today's episode of, are we living in a democracy or a plutocracy, we take a look inside the Trump administration and the numbers are damning. According to a report from the Consumer Advocacy Group, a public citizen, 57 people in the Trump administration are worth at least $100 million. That includes 17 ambivalrous.

and 40 officials in senior posts across the executive branch. That's obviously a lot of people, but let's put that into perspective for you. According to the report, George W. Bush's administration and the Biden administration each had five members worth $100 million or more. The Obama administration had just three. Again, Trump's administration has 57. But that's not all. The report also estimates that the total combined personal net worth of Trump and his cabinet lands somewhere between $3.5 and $7.1 billion.

No wonder they're not phased by astronomical gas and grocery prices. And that's the news. Let's talk about DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America. You've probably heard a lot about DSA this year, as political figures who are either members of the organization or associated with its beliefs are running in and winning elections across the country. But this isn't 2016, when the divide between DSA and mainstream Democrats in the midst of the Democratic presidential primary exploded into a conflict that is still ongoing in some pockets of left-wing Twitter and blue sky.

Sure, you've seen a lot of socialism as coming concerns from some Democrats, but others are starting to say, if we want to win elections and energize the party, we need to hear what DSA has to say. here's Kentucky Democratic Governor Andy Bashir talking to CNN's Pamela Brown today. Just to drill down a little bit more on the DSA, do you believe that this is a blip on the radar for the Democratic Party with these more progressive socialist candidates being elected? Or do you think that this could be the future of the Democratic Party and it could be changing before our eyes in the way the Republican Party changed with Trump? What do you think? I think the Democratic Party has to be a big tent party where people can have different ideas.

on how we solve a problem as long as we agree that that problem exists. So what does DSA want? Do they want to elect more left-leaning Democrats or replace them? Is this a left-wing Tea Party movement or something else entirely? To find out, I spoke to Charles Homance. He's a reporter from the New York Times and New York Times Magazine who just did a deep dive into what DSA wants to do next. Charles, welcome to what today.

Thanks for having me. So it feels like there are a lot of the United States. are more Democratic socialist candidates on the ballot than ever before this year. And in a lot of cases, they're winning their primaries against more moderate Democrats. Now, as you wrote in your piece, DSA has been around for a while. Socialists have been around the United States for a very long time. Why do you think DSA candidates are having such a successful summer? I mean, it's very interesting. And I think you don't want to overstate the scope of this. I mean, what they're achieving is still far less than what, for instance, the Tea Party achieved in 2010 and

terms of the sheer numbers, but they are really multiplying the number of people they have, especially in Congress. It's now looking like the sort of DSA caucus in Congress is probably going to go from two people what it is currently to seven people in the next term, which is, again, in terms of the overall makeup of Congress, not a huge number, but is a real growth for them. And I think that you can point to a number of things, but probably the biggest one is like they are very well positioned to take advantage of both the sort of real, collapse of faith that even Democratic voters have in the Democratic Party right now, and also the way in which the party is now out of sync with its voters on a couple of issues for various

reasons. One being Israel, Palestine, and another being data centers and sort of big tech in general. Like, these are areas where DSA has been able to move very quickly to kind of seize ground that Democrats have been very, you know, reluctant or slowed to occupy. Can you just quickly explain what the Democratic Socialists of America is and where it came from because they would say they are not a political party. That's not how they describe themselves. But like if you watch CNN, you know, there are Democrats and then there are members of DSA. They are technically not a political party. They are an organization that exists, you know, somewhat within the Democratic Party at this point, but formally apart from it and is sort of

agnostic about the Democratic Party. And if you talk to them, you know, people involved in DSA will be very frank about the fact that they have a sort of, you know, opportunistic or convenience-based relationship with the Democratic Party. This is an organization that's actually been around since 1982, but for all intents and purposes, it really became an electorally meaningful organization in 2017 after Bernie's run, Bernie Sanders's run for president in 2016, when a lot of people who came out of that moment, which was this really transformative moment for the left, went into DSA, which had been this very sort of small, essentially kind of an intellectual group that wasn't really a presence or a factor at all in electoral politics and made it a vehicle to pursue socialist politics within the two-party system, which was a really transformative idea.

I often joke that the 2016 Democratic primary was the most important event in human history and we will never move past it. So how did the organization get from there to where we are now, where you have mayors around Mamdani of New York being a member? and like more members being more active and winning elections. I think you could argue that DSA has really advanced by one of two means. One is sort of these moments that are perceived on the left in this country as a real crisis. So, you know, their membership has grown enormously in moments like the aftermath of the 2016 election, 2020 during the pandemic. And at the same time, they've advanced politically by virtue of having some genuinely very talented politicians. You know, AOC is a great example of that.

Mamdani has also given this like real boost, I think, to not only the profile, but the membership of DSA. You know, they've been drawing, you know, a whole kind of new wave of members ever since he won. And by those two means, they've really sort of evolved from, as you say, I think they were kind of considered a curiosity in the Democratic coalition. And this year, I think, starting last year with Mamdani's election, really kind of, I think, gave them a legitimacy within the Democratic coalition to the extent. that they can be categorized as part of that.

We'll get back to my conversation with Charles Homan's in a moment. If you want to hear about more genuinely talented politicians, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. What a day is brought to you by Zbiotics. Let's face it, after a night with drinks,

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from your favorite crooked pods, packing as much analysis, funny moments, and 100% correct opinions into 40 minutes as humanly possible. Crooked on MS now airs every Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern, P.M. Pacific. Let's get back to my conversation with Charles Homan's. It's interesting also because you're starting to see mainline, mainstream democratic voters supporting DSA candidates. But with that kind of growth, there's going to be disagreements over vision or even what makes a DSA candidate. And you wrote about some of the splits within the organization. Where did you find some tension in DSA over the course of your reporting? What are people mad about? I mean, it's interesting. One of the biggest tensions is really over, you know, to what degree they should be participating in these

democratic primaries at all. I mean, as the organization has become more successful, this has become a more kind of acute, concrete question. You know, the DSA is its own sort of big tent, and it has factions in it that are just a couple clicks to the left of what you would consider kind of a normal progressive Democrat. And then other people who are outright, you know, Marxist, Leninist, and are really committed in many cases to an idea of politics that, you doesn't involve or isn't limited to running in democratic primaries, you know, there's tension around whether they would even support AOC if she were to run for president in 2028. For instance, the two chairs of the national DSA, and this gives you some sense of the organization,

actually disagree very sharply on that question. And there's also a lot of tension around foreign policy. I mean, I think there's sort of, even though directionally everybody in DSA basically is pro-Palestine, And there are kind of divisions, I think, around the question of just sort of what that means in the organization. You know, what do you think of October 7th, for instance? There's varying views on that within DSA right now. So there's really a pretty wide spectrum, I think, of arguments kind of from everything from process to policy happening right now and inside of the organization. But DSA seems uniformly focused on putting pressure on the Democratic establishment.

In your view, is DSA trying to move the Democratic Party? to the left, or is it trying to replace the Democratic Party? I think the answer is sort of both, depending on the time frame you're talking about. And this is another thing, as with many things, that is very actively debated inside of DSA. But I think the kind of median position in DSA is sort of that it is good to work with it. You know, it's working for them to work inside the Democratic Party right now. You know, Bernie really showed the opportunity to kind of level up left-wing politics by simply participating in the process. And it's hard to, you know, remember what a revolutionary idea that was in 2016, you know, for decades before this, you know, leftist candidates had basically been sort of unhappy third party candidates and had spent a lot of time sort of railing against the system.

And Bernie really kind of changed the game on that. And I think there's a lot of people in DSA, especially in the chapters that actually now have almost a decades experience actually winning elections like New York, that would like to kind of keep on that path. They think it's succeeding. They think there is real opportunity there. But I think that everybody in DSA, you know, for the most part, has, you know, maybe not everybody, but certainly the majority who are interested in electoral work, you know, view this the Democratic Party as a means to an end. And like in their ideal future would love to be a standalone, you know, political organization,

a standalone party. Whether that's realistic, you know, there's a lot of debate about that. But that is sort of, you know, I think there's a sort of sense of the instrumental instrumentality of the Democratic Party for their purposes right now. I want to go back to something you said a little bit earlier. You referenced the Tea Party movement and the Tea Party movement for those who were in high school, I guess, in 2009, 2010 was a right-wing movement that was aimed in the beginning, kind of at shrinking the size of government but also yelling at Barack Obama, then-president.

Obviously, DSA is a standalone organization. It is not a movement of Democrats aimed at Democrats. But do you think that there's a chance the Democratic Party could try to use DSA in the same way as kind of a means by wish of refreshing its image of figuring out a new path forward in response to a presidential loss it didn't expect, kind of similar to how the GOP used the Tea Party after losing to Barack Obama once and then twice? There's certainly a very vigorous debate about what to do with and about DSA inside of the Democratic Party right now. And I think there is a strong strain of both kind of the self-identified reformers in the party and certainly progressives in the party that very much hold to that view. Look, this is good for us. The tent is growing. They're bringing in all this energy.

The other side of the argument within the Democratic Party is that DSA is something more like MAGA, which I think we're. Republicans similarly kind of laughed off at first and then tried to accommodate and eventually were, you know, wholly devoured by. And like the question is whether that actually works without a sort of Trump figure, you know, at the top of the organization. But so it's, I think that it's a question of what, you know, does the DSA actually have something to offer Democrats? I mean, and that's sort of the hard question that I think a lot of Democrats are kind of asking right now. You know, this is not a movement that is actually growing. the footprint of the party.

In the same way as the Tea Party did, you know, by turning safe Republican seats redder, you know, the DSA is turning safe Democratic seats, you know, more lefty. They've not demonstrated the ability to win in any sort of really contestable, contested district at this point. And so, and, you know, they are carrying with them ideas that are in some cases popular and in some cases very unpopular. And I think that is sort of the concern from, you know, the, like, DSA skeptical or, you know, or DSA alarmist wings of the Democratic Party, is that this is something that's going to really change the party for the worst, both in terms of the policy from their standpoint

and just the electoral viability of the Democratic Party. Charles, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. That was my conversation with Charles Homan's, political reporter for the New York Times and New York Times Magazine. We'll link to his piece in the show notes. Before we go, Longplay, Crooked's new limited series is a loss to listen.

in time for midterms. For both major parties, the path to winning America runs through the South, but to win it, we have to understand it. And that's where Longplay comes in. Across six southern states, Longplay examines the issues driving voters in a region that could shape the future of our politics and our country. In this week's episode, they're in South Carolina. Listen to Longplay on Amazon Music.

That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, wonder at Trump's new polling low, and tell your friends to live. listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how according to Reuters Ipsos, the president now has reached an approval rating of 33%. The lowest rating of Trump in the polls history, like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter? Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston, and I wonder what it could be. The unpopular war, increasingly high prices, or the fact that the president of the United States is a weird jerk.

What a day is a production of Crooked Media. Our show is produced by Caitlin Plummer, Emily Four, Erica Morrison, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Haley Jones, Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Joseph Dutra, Johanna Case, and Desmond Taylor. Our music is by Kyle Murdock and Jordan Canter. We had helped today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. If you miss some of your favorite crooked pods this week, don't worry, you can now catch up on the week's best moments on MS Now on Saturday nights.

MS Now is streaming an episode of highlights from your favorite crooked pods, packing as much analysis, funny moments, and 100% correct opinions into 40 minutes as humanly possible. Crooked on MS Now airs every Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.