Democrats have made their tent so big they’ve invited in people who openly talk about overthrowing the constitutional system that built the country.
Democratic Socialists of America Steering Committee member Cliff Connolly did not exactly leave us guessing during a Zoom discussion about DSA’s political program.
Here is what he said, in full:
“So the two things that we’re famous for is our commitment to a program and our hatred of the United States Constitution. And what the program does is it gives us a roadmap to revolution, and it gives us the obstacle that we finally will have to get over to have a revolution, which is the United States Constitution, the basis of the United States government. And what the minimum-maximum program specifically, what that format specifically gives us is that roadmap, it gives us the minimum circumstances under which we would be able to take power and govern. And it gives us the maximum program, which is the goals that we’re actually aiming for. It also clarifies democracy as both the end goal and as part of the process to get there ensures the internal party democracy that we want to see in DSA. So it really wraps up the revolutionary tradition of democracy that I think socialism and abolitionism in the United States have always been a part of, and aims at a future that we can live in as a human species, because I think absent a revolutionary Democratic Socialist republic in North America, we may not have a livable future.”
Hard to misread that.
He said “hatred of the United States Constitution.” He called it an obstacle. He talked about revolution, taking power and creating a revolutionary socialist republic.
This is not Bernie Sanders complaining about billionaires.
This is the ideology establishment Democrats welcomed into their coalition because they thought they could use the energy of the socialist left without eventually being consumed by it.
That may prove to be a spectacular miscalculation.
DSA does not sound interested in politely joining the Democratic establishment. It sounds increasingly interested in replacing it, and replacing a good deal more along the way.
And here is where the Founders got it exactly right.
The Constitution is supposed to be an obstacle to people who want to concentrate power and remake the country overnight. That is not a flaw. That is the safeguard.
What really concerns me is that roughly one-third of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters now identify as democratic socialists.
My guess is many of them have no idea this is where some of the movement’s leaders want to go.
Because if they do understand it, and they support it anyway, we have a much bigger problem than most Americans realize.