As its candidates win races nationwide, the Democratic Socialists of America is honing its message. The DSA’s new platform, released July 14, offers Marxist nostrums that would destroy American prosperity and liberty.
This is especially true on foreign policy, an often-overlooked aspect of the DSA agenda. The DSA wants a weak United States unable to defend itself or fellow democracies to the benefit of the world’s tyrannies. Such extremism cannot be overstated.
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The platform’s four foreign policy principles are worth examining in turn. The first is “end the U.S. war machine.” The steps are spelled out: defund the Pentagon, close overseas bases, and prosecute American “war criminals” through the International Criminal Court. In other words, unilateral disarmament. This is the opposite of what the U.S. should be doing while China, Russia, Iran, and other adversaries increasingly threaten our security. Yet in the DSA’s eyes, American militarism is the problem.
The second principle is free Palestine. This is code for “eliminate Israel,” one of America’s strongest allies. Rather than support the Jewish state, the DSA recognizes Palestinians’ “right to resist military occupation.” That’s an implicit endorsement of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacres and other acts of terrorism. The DSA won’t be content until there’s a Palestinian state and Americans and Israelis responsible for the Gaza “genocide” are prosecuted. How this all redounds to the U.S.’s advantage is left unsaid.
“End blockades, embargoes, and sanctions” is the third principle. The platform demands a cessation to “economic warfare” against “governments [that] act independently of the United States.” Examples are Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran. It’s hard to think of regimes with worse human rights records. Cuba and Venezuela are Bolivarian dictatorships that torture, imprison, and kill dissidents, while Iran is a theocratic empire sowing terror at home and abroad. The three share a hostility to Western interests and values, but that’s the point. The DSA’s goal is to empower regimes that actively undermine the United States. The more anti-American, the better.
The fourth and last foreign policy principle is “abolish ICE.” That is, no more deportations and no more borders. All will be free to come to the United States and stay here in perpetuity. It will be the end of American sovereignty as we know it. If the country has no borders, how will it conduct foreign policy?
DSA foreign policy should scare anyone sane. The DSA envisions a world in which the U.S. gives up the military power that has secured free nations for decades. Israel will be no more. U.S. adversaries will be enriched. And the U.S. will be a borderless rump rendered impotent on the global stage.
MAMDANI’S SOCIALISTS WROTE A NEW PLATFORM. I’VE READ IT BEFORE — IN RUSSIAN
This platform coheres with the positions of DSA politicians. Perhaps the most powerful DSA officeholder in the U.S., New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is a committed anti-Zionist and urges the federal government to arrest the “war criminal” Benjamin Netanyahu. Darializa Avila Chevalier, poised to represent New York’s 13th District in the House next year, has blamed the U.S. for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and denounced “America’s war machine.” Denver’s likely next congresswoman, Melat Kiros, claimed 9/11 was an “inevitable” response to U.S. foreign policy. As these people gain more power, they’ll have more opportunities to achieve their international aims.
The DSA hardly conceals its agenda. It foments a socialist revolution that will topple the American system. Foreign policy is a means to this end. A vote for the DSA is a vote for American surrender.
Daniel J. Samet is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
