Democratic socialists like AOC and Zoran Mamdani are making inroads in some cities. Republicans call them communists, but their ideologies are different.
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Ahead of difficult midterm elections, Republicans are seizing the opportunity to denounce their opponents as extremists following Democratic Socialists’ recent victories in the Democratic congressional primaries in New York and Colorado.
Republican leaders have raised the specter of radical left authoritarianism by calling progressive Democrats “communists,” an echo of Cold War-era messages from prominent Republicans such as Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and former President Richard Nixon.
“President Ronald Reagan once warned about communism,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said recently on “Fox News Sunday,” referring to the late Republican president who clashed with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
“There’s a barbarian at the gate right now,” Johnson said on July 5. “So this election is for all the marbles.”
President Donald Trump also stepped up his attacks.
“These are hard-core godless communists,” President Trump said at the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition conference on June 26. “This is the most serious threat to our nation since our founding.”
President Trump devoted part of his speech on the 250th anniversary of American independence on July 4th to attacking communism.
Democratic socialists and academic experts argue that this ideology is not communism, but rather a belief that the economy should be run in the interests of the people through democratic decision-making. They argue that governments should play an active role in expanding public services that address specific basic needs, such as housing and health care.
“The information is all in the title,” Susan Kang, an associate professor of political science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America of New York, told USA TODAY. “We want to challenge the way capitalism distributes things. It’s never done by force. It’s never done by violence. It’s never done by tricks. It’s always done because it has the support of the majority.”
Democratic socialists have recently scored victories in very liberal cities. In 2025, Zoran Mamdani wins the New York City mayoral election and Katie Wilson is elected Mayor of Seattle. In June, Claire Valdez and Dalializa Avila Chevalier won New York City’s congressional primary, Melat Quiroz won Denver, and Janice Ruiz-George won the Democratic primary for mayor of Washington, D.C. In these dark blue areas, winning the Democratic primary equals winning the election.
All policies were focused on addressing affordability through measures such as “Medicare for All,” a national program that is supposed to guarantee health insurance to all Americans. They also call for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the abandonment of U.S. aid to Israel amidst heavy civilian casualties in the wars in Gaza and Iran.
“We want to push these ideas into the existing political system in the United States,” Kang said.
democratic socialism vs. communism
DSA’s national website said it believed capitalism needed to be replaced with “a system in which ordinary people have a real voice in their workplaces, communities and societies.” The group said its vision rejects “an authoritarian vision of socialism.”
Liberals, progressives, and democratic socialists often point out that the United States has its own popular socialist policies. This includes social safety net programs such as Medicare and Social Security, but also basic services such as public schools and municipal water. Most recently, the Trump administration opened Freedom Fuel gas stations offering gasoline for $3.47 a gallon, providing government market intervention in the midst of a hugely unpopular war in the Middle East with rising energy costs.
Communism, advocated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the Communist Manifesto, envisions a classless, stateless society ruled by a single party and ruled by the working class. When Americans think of communism, they think of the totalitarian and undemocratic governments of the former Soviet Union and North Korea.
Ideologues and elections
Some branches of the DSA, such as the DSA’s Red Star Caucus, have Marxist-Leninist and Maoist members, but they are fringe groups who have run for office with little success, said Max Sowicki, a Virginia-based economist, author, and DSA member.
Still, left-wing ideologues have some influence. The national DSA opposed U.S. military aid to Ukraine after the Russian invasion, and the delegation hosted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is now imprisoned and widely seen as having set up a dictatorship under a socialist government before being arrested by U.S. authorities.
But Sawicki, who is not speaking on behalf of DSA, said successful DSA chapters include effective campaign management, with organizers winning several victories in city, state and federal offices in places like New York City. According to DSA’s own figures, it has grown from 5,000 members in 2017 to more than 100,000 by 2026.
He noted that Mamdani’s proposals, such as fast and free buses, a freeze on rent increases for rent-stabilized apartments and public grocery stores, are popular with New York City voters.
Younger generations are more likely to support socialism than older voters elected during the Cold War, and socialism may conjure images of poor, unfree societies like the former communist blocs of Eastern Europe. Democratic socialists instead often point to countries in Scandinavia and Western Europe that have enacted socialist policies of universal health care, housing, and high wages within democratic institutions.
A July 4 survey by Morning Consult and the liberal think tank Cato Institute found that 53% of Gen Z respondents had a favorable view of socialism, compared to just 27% of boomers. At the same time, a 2025 Gallup poll found that 54% of Americans view capitalism favorably, down from 60% in 2021.
Kang said Americans are now able to focus on challenges in their lives, like buying groceries and housing, compared to previous generations, when the cost of necessities like housing and higher education was much lower.
Rather than a fully defined political ideology in the United States, democratic socialism can be understood as a reaction to establishment politics that embraces slightly left-leaning principles such as universal health care, creating more affordable housing, and redirecting U.S. policy in the Middle East, all of which are popular among Democrats, said Nick Beauchamp, an associate professor of political science at Northeastern University.
“These are the things that candidates are running for, and these are the things that people care about,” he told USA TODAY. “These are not necessarily about democracy or socialism, but as part of the sort of bundle of left-wing policies that people now associate with these words.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) is considered the godfather of modern American democratic socialism, and his vision nearly won him the Democratic presidential ticket in 2016. Two years later, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) defeated House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley and provided a blueprint for overturning the system.
Ocasio-Cortez was joined by Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, former Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York and former Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, the latter two of whom lost their seats to moderates in the 2024 Democratic primary.
Democratic socialists have recently won a number of victories in parliamentary elections. In addition to Mamdani’s election in New York City, Chris Love also won the vacant seat in Philadelphia. In late June, Melat Quiroz unseated Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), who had held the seat in Denver for nearly 30 years.
Still, at the federal level, there will only be a handful of Democratic Socialists in the 435-member House of Representatives in the next Congress. Democratic socialists have not yet achieved success in the battlegrounds.
Do establishment Democrats support democratic socialism?
Some moderate and centrist Democrats worry that the rise of far-left candidates, even if limited to safe Democratic districts, could give the party’s candidates relevance in key battleground states and districts.
“If they become the face of the Democratic Party, we’re going to get crushed in the presidential election,” said Jim Kessler, co-founder and executive vice president of policy at the moderate think tank Third Way.
Kessler said “a large portion of the country” believes ideas such as abolishing ICE are “insane.”
Republicans clearly agree with Kessler that it’s Democrats’ responsibility.
“President Trump will continue to criticize their extremism and draw a sharp contrast to common-sense America First policies,” White House press secretary Olivia Wales said in a statement.
After winning the primary, some mainstream Democrats began to actively embrace democratic socialists.
Following the Democratic Socialists’ recent victory, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who is seeking to help his party take control of Congress while retaining legislative leadership, told NPR that his party’s caucus includes a variety of viewpoints, from centrists to progressives.
“The overwhelming majority of people in the caucus will be focused on stopping MAGA extremism on the one hand,” he said, “but also, most importantly, doing everything we can to make life better for the everyday Americans we are privileged to represent.”
Republicans typically fail to recognize this ideological diversity in the Democratic caucus when they label their opponents as socialists or communists. However, it remains to be seen whether this condition will have the effect it once had among floating voters.
“They really use the word socialism too much to describe things they don’t like,” economist Sowicki said, adding: “If everything is socialist, nothing is socialist.”
Contributed by Phillip Bailey and Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY
Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Contact us via email (emcuevas1@usatoday.com) or Signal (emcuevas.01).
