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By Nicole Lampert
Writer and columnist
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For the British, there is something familiar about the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). We’ve seen the moral righteousness, purity demands, apparent sympathy for terrorists and the fervent belief in something we in the UK call "the magic money tree"—also known as "someone else will pay."
We know how this story will end for the Democratic Party if nothing is done about it. It happened here too, between 2015 and 2019 when Labour, one of our two parties of government, was almost destroyed from within.
Back in 2015, after repeated failures at the ballot box, Labour put a lifelong socialist Member of Parliament named Jeremy Corbyn on the leadership ballot.
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No one in 2015 thought that Corbyn would win. They assumed Marxist politics were dead. They could not have been more wrong.
As with the DSA, Corbyn’s far-left caucus—the Socialist Campaign Group—wanted to use democracy to bring about a revolution with the same types of ideas floating around the DSA today: anti-Israel; anti-NATO; sympathy for Russia, ambivalence toward Iran and its terrorist proxies; a hard line on gender ideology; suspicion of the police; pro-union and anti-big business.
Just as Corbyn was supported by openly Marxist-Leninist organizations outside of Labour, a substantial share of the DSA’s National Political Committee aligns with openly hard-left caucuses. They aren’t shy about it: in her keynote DSA convention speech last year Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib pronounced: "The working masses are hungry for change." Back in 2021, now New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani was heard at a socialist youth gathering talking about "the end goal of seizing the means of production."
Central to Corbyn’s version of the Labour Party was anti-Zionism—long before October 7 turned this into a worldwide obsession. I remember the Jewish community in the UK originally thinking Corbyn could be reasoned with, how our community leaders had meetings with him just as New York’s Jewish leaders met with Mamdani. They will learn, as we had to learn, that these views won’t change.
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In July this year, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she would not attend the Democratic Party’s nominating convention because she did not feel safe from antisemitism. "I don’t want to get chased around," she said. "I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me."
And then there is the attachment to Russia. When former KGB double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with Novichok in the small city of Salisbury in 2018, an attack which also killed a British woman, it was clear who was to blame.
Yet Corbyn suggested that samples of the chemical nerve agent should be shared with Moscow so that Vladimir Putin could "say categorically one way or the other" if it was responsible. It made him a laughing stock.
That's similar in tone to the DSA co-chair Megan Romer, who suggested the United States should stop sending money to Ukraine and asked in an interview: "Why aren’t we doing any actual diplomacy?"—as if Putin is simply waiting to end his war if only someone would talk to him nicely.
Like the DSA, Corbyn’s Labour was a breath of fresh air for many voters disillusioned with the mainstream or with the dominance of the right. Corbyn didn’t have the charm or the looks of a Mamdani or an AOC, but his grandfatherly demeanor meant that his new supporters trusted him. Thousands even sang "Oh Jeremy Corbyn!" as he went on the stage at the Glastonbury Music Festival.
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The vibes of Britain in 2017 and the U.S. in 2026 are strikingly similar. This is a movement on the up, surging even. There is just one big problem: The longer the public are exposed to the ideology of the far left the less they like it.
After the high watermark of 2017, things started to go wrong. The promise to spend, spend, spend and to hell with the consequences began to sound more reckless than idealistic. The left’s inability to sound patriotic or positive about the nation’s traditions and institutions began to cause alarm. The repeated public disputes over trans ideology, Russia and Israel got under the skin of independents and voters on the center ground. In the two years between 2017 and 2019 Labour went from "almost" winning (they got close but not as close as they claimed) to being defeated comprehensively in 2019.
The promised "youthquake" never materialized either. In the UK, as in the U.S., the 18-24 group has the lowest voter turnout of any age bracket. And when confronted with politicians who promise the world but can’t say how to pay for it, reputations and credibility start to fall apart. It turns out that, in general, people quite like democracy and capitalism: for all of their failures they are still better than Marxism.
Now it looks as if the DSA are in the ascendant. They are polling well in the primaries for the midterms as that desire for change gives them a sense of momentum. However, figures such as state representative Francesca Hong, who narrowly lost out in the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary, are typical of those whose opinions will, eventually, cost the DSA: she once called for Thanksgiving to be canceled, the police to be defunded, prisons to be closed and mused on her and her son’s "proximity to whiteness" (he has a white father).
At some point the thrill of "change" candidates smashes into off-putting extremism. Cranks are gonna crank. Perhaps AOC's walkback from "woke" suggests she is the smart one in the room.
Mainstream Democrats need to know that if they want to beat President Donald Trump’s successor, they must challenge the DSA, and ideally keep them away from open elections.
To do that, they need to look at the lessons the British center-left learned the hard way. The first is: never underestimate the ideological propulsion of the far left. The other is: the center needs to be muscular to beat it off because this is a fight for survival.
Nicole Lampert is a London-based writer and commentator for publications including The Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Independent and The Jewish Chronicle.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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