The Democrat Party has a socialism problem it can no longer paper over.
Senator Adam Schiff went on CNN and essentially told the radical Left: you’re welcome here, no questions asked.
And what Schiff said next should have every freedom-loving American paying very close attention to where this party is headed.
Schiff Rolls Out the Welcome Mat
A new CNN poll dropped recently showing that just over one-third of Democrats now identify as democratic socialists, with roughly 60 percent of that group under the age of 45.
CNN anchor Erin Burnett put the numbers directly to Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) on her program OutFront and asked him flat out: “Are you on board with this? Do you see this as — accept this, that this is where your party’s going, and are you good with it?”
Schiff’s answer was something.
“Look, I think we’re a big tent party,” he said. “I think we should be a big tent party. And I would rather be in that big tent in the majority than be a smaller party that is stuck forever in the minority.”
So there it is. Power first, principles later. Or never.
Schiff acknowledged that the DSA’s actual bylaws are, in his word, “pretty extreme.” But then he immediately pivoted to explain why that doesn’t really matter. His argument: most Democrats who call themselves democratic socialists aren’t actually buying into what the DSA stands for. They just like certain candidates.
“I think they like Mamdani,” Schiff said. “I think they like some of the other people who are running under that banner. They think they’re changemakers, they’re attacking the status quo, they’re charismatic figures. I think that’s what’s attracting their interest.”
Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who shocked the political world by defeating Andrew Cuomo in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, has become the face of this movement. He has repeatedly refused to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada” — a rallying cry associated with violent Palestinian uprisings against Israel. That’s who Schiff is pointing to as an example of what the Democrat Party should welcome.
Schiff’s comments are also a boon to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s potential 2028 Presidential campaign.
And Schiff’s actual litmus test for whether a socialist belongs in his party? It has nothing to do with the Constitution, free markets, or individual liberty.
“For me, the most important thing is, are they willing to challenge a system which is not working for a majority of Americans?” Schiff said. “Are they willing to do bold things to make the economy work and bring down costs? If they are, they can call themselves whatever they like, as far as I’m concerned, they have a place in the Democratic Party.”
Call themselves whatever they like. That’s the standard now.
What the DSA Actually Believes
Schiff wants voters to believe there’s a firewall between the DSA’s charismatic candidates and its actual platform. But DSA National Co-Chair Megan Romer went on Fox News Sunday recently and closed that gap herself, in real time, on national television.
Fox News anchor Shannon Bream walked Romer through a list of DSA platform positions in a true-or-false format. Romer confirmed nearly all of them without flinching.
Abolish the Senate? “True,” Romer replied.
Defund the Pentagon? “Absolutely!” she said, apparently amused by the question.
When Bream asked about abolishing borders and granting amnesty to every illegal alien currently in the country, Romer said: “As a long-term plan, yep.”
The DSA platform also calls for replacing the presidency and the Supreme Court “as we now know them,” shifting most large corporations to government or public ownership, and phasing out prisons. The group’s recently updated “Workers Deserve More” platform lays out a sweeping remake of the country’s political institutions from the ground up.
That is not a policy disagreement. That is a blueprint for dismantling the American republic.
Speaker Mike Johnson put it plainly on X: “Far-left Democrats confirm their agenda is to shred the U.S. Constitution, seize private property, and make Americans vulnerable to violent attacks at home and abroad.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz kept it shorter. His response to Romer’s interview: “These people are insane.”
And Schiff’s answer to all of this is that most Democrats who identify with the DSA probably aren’t signing on to the bylaws. They just like the vibe. They like the charisma. That’s supposed to be reassuring.
The Longer Game Here
Schiff’s calculation is nakedly electoral. He wants a majority. He doesn’t much care what the majority believes, as long as it votes Democrat.
But there’s a longer game being played inside the Democrat Party right now that goes well beyond one senator’s interview on cable news. The DSA has spent the past year knocking off establishment Democrats in primaries across the country. Mamdani’s win over Cuomo was the biggest splash, but it wasn’t the only one. DSA-backed candidates have been picking off incumbents in congressional districts and state races, building a bench that will be around long after this election cycle.
The historical record on socialist governance isn’t subtle. Every time a country has handed its economy and its institutions over to the kind of centralized control the DSA is openly calling for — government ownership of corporations, abolition of constitutional limits, amnesty as a default policy — the results have followed a predictable pattern: economic decline, destruction of the middle class, and an authoritarian drift that never quite reverses itself.
Schiff isn’t unaware of this. He’s a smart man. He knows what the DSA’s bylaws say. He called them “pretty extreme” with his own mouth. But he’s decided that winning matters more than warning his own party about where this road leads.
The DSA’s amnesty push, by the way, isn’t just a policy position. Mass amnesty for illegal aliens would permanently tilt the electoral map in the Democrat Party’s favor for a generation. Every serious analyst understands this. The DSA is not shy about it. Schiff is not shy about welcoming the people who want it.
And the plan to abolish the Senate and replace the Supreme Court? Strip away the rhetoric about “anachronistic institutions” and what you’re left with is a scheme to eliminate every constitutional check that currently prevents a single political faction from seizing permanent control of the government. That’s not a reform agenda. That’s an endgame.
Schiff told CNN he’d rather be in a big tent majority than a principled minority. But the tent he’s describing doesn’t have room for the Constitution, the free market, or the ordinary American who just wants to be left alone to build a life without the government deciding how his business should be run or what his money is worth.
And the voters who sent Donald Trump back to Washington in 2024 understood exactly what was at stake. They saw this coming.
Sources: Breitbart, CNN OutFront, Fox News Sunday, RedState, The Daily Caller, Denver Gazette, Washington Times, Legal Insurrection, DSA Constitution & Bylaws (dsausa.org)