At the Faith & Freedom Coalition gathering in Washington last week, President Donald Trump warned that many Democratic Socialist candidates “are not social democrats. These are hardcore, godless Communists. . . . This is the most serious threat to our country since its existence.” Trump’s remarks sparked a wave of condemnations, including from CNN chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, who said that “socialism, much less democratic socialism, is not communism.”
Statements like Collins’ highlight how little attention the press has given to the Democratic Socialists of America and its national leadership. The majority of the DSA’s governing board, the National Political Committee (NPC), openly identifies with Communist ideology.
Self-avowed Communists were not always so well represented in DSA’s leadership, but the DSA’s leftward shift has helped turn it into a vehicle for a wide range of organizing beyond electoral politics, attracting Marxist-Leninist tendencies in particular. To dismiss the DSA as simply “not communism,” as Collins does, is wrong. Members with Communist political tendencies now significantly shape the DSA’s leadership, and the organization is an increasingly attractive vehicle for bringing together a wide range of left-wing movements, many of which profess to be Communist.
