2026-08-19T23:29:05.357Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/19/politics/democratic-socialists-platform-disagreement
州众议员安吉·尼克松周二在佛罗里达州参议院初选中获胜，这是民主社会主义者越来越多的胜利中的最新一例——这些人是民主党左翼反抗运动的重要组成部分。
但在民主社会主义运动以及更广泛的进步主义运动内部，对于该群体的优先事项存在分歧，一些候选人也不愿完全接受这一标签。
尼克松并未刻意强调自己是美国民主社会主义者组织（DSA）的成员，但在选举前被问及此事时，她告诉CNN记者劳拉·科茨，该组织与“我的信念一致：勤劳的普通民众应该能够塑造自己的社区和经济形态。”
“我们可以整天讨论标签，人们的标签，”她说，“我关心的是民众的需求。”
DSA的纲领涵盖一系列议题，在民主党主流阵营中接受程度各不相同。
一些政策主张几乎得到所有自称民主社会主义者的候选人以及更广泛进步运动的许多成员的广泛支持。
这些主张包括支持政府资助的“全民医保”、反对向以色列提供军事援助以回应其在加沙的行动，以及支持提高税收——尤其是对富人征税——以扩大医疗、住房和儿童保育等领域的政府资助社会安全网项目。
例如在纽约市，市长扎赫兰·曼达尼推出了免费儿童保育试点项目，对部分受租金管制的公寓实施租金冻结，并启动了开设5家市营杂货店的计划，旨在为主食提供30%的折扣。
尼克松的竞选纲领涵盖了其中多项主张，包括全民医保、经济适用房以及对亿万富翁征收年度财富税。她周二击败了资金雄厚得多的温和派候选人、退休陆军中校亚历克斯·温德曼，这一胜利也提醒人们，包括尼克松在内的民主社会主义者普遍持有的一个立场——对2023年10月7日哈马斯袭击后以色列在加沙战争的强烈不满——也得到了许多民主党选民的认同。
但DSA题为“劳动者应得更多！”的纲领中一些更具争议的内容需要大幅调整。
“美国民主社会主义者组织正在打造一个以建立工人阶级民主社会为目标的政党。我们的敌人不仅是个别老板，而是整个全球资本主义体系；不仅是这个或那个警察、法官或总统，而是我们社会中整个反民主的结构。我们是为变革社会而战的劳动者：赢得民主之战、起草新宪法、建立民主社会主义共和国，”纲领中写道。
该纲领呼吁废除美国参议院并扩大众议院规模——这一观点反映了一些进步人士的信念，即比例代表制比旨在保护人口较少州利益的选举制度更可取——同时呼吁将大型企业国有化、公开为选举提供资金、结束两党制、停止移民拘留和驱逐。纲领还寻求“使警察部门非军事化、削弱警察工会的权力，并将资金重新分配给公共服务，以此作为彻底废除保护富人、监禁穷人的警察和监狱系统的步骤。”
一些候选人已经采纳了部分更左翼的主张。6月在纽约市初选中击败众议员阿德里亚诺·埃斯帕利尔的民主社会主义者达里亚利萨·阿维拉-谢瓦利埃告诉Vox新闻，她认为“所有驱逐都是错误的”；而上周在威斯康星州民主党初选中失利的弗朗西斯卡·洪此前曾呼吁削减警察预算并废除警察部门。
但并非所有DSA成员或与DSA结盟的进步人士都在这些纲领条款上立场一致。不过，共和党人急于将整个民主党一概而论，在电视广告中突出这些主张中最具争议的部分，不仅针对民主社会主义者候选人，还针对所有以民主党旗号参选的人。
“阿卜杜勒·埃尔赛义德和社会主义者已经接管了密歇根州民主党，”共和党州长协会上周在一则广告中如此表示，该广告针对该州州长竞选的民主党候选人乔斯琳·本森，将她与支持削减警察预算的组织联系起来。
“这不再是格蕾琴·惠特默的民主党，”广告中说道，惠特默是受欢迎的两届民主党州长。“这个党更加自由和极端，乔斯琳·本森正追随他们的激进步调。”
随着中期选举竞选格局趋于稳固，唐纳德·特朗普总统也发起了自己的攻击。
近几个月来，他声称民主党已经被“无神论的共产主义者”掌控。
“在我看来，这是我国建国250年以来面临的最严重威胁，”他6月在信仰与自由联盟会议上说道。“这对我国构成重大威胁。”
包括纽约州众议员亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科特兹和曼达尼在内的知名民主社会主义者试图与一些更具争议的立场保持距离，收回了此前对削减警察预算的支持。
奥卡西奥-科特兹更广泛地暗示，左翼在疫情期间的一些言论过于极端。
“我有一位市议员同事有句话：‘觉醒一代1.0太疯狂了’，”这位纽约州女议员最近在ABC新闻《本周》节目中说道。
“我认为我们都认同尽可能降低犯罪率的目标。你知道，在封锁期间，当时使用的言论当然不是我们今天会用的言论，”她说。
美国最知名的民主社会主义者、佛蒙特州参议员伯尼·桑德斯从未支持过削减警察预算。
另一位民主社会主义者梅拉特·基罗斯在科罗拉多州击败了长期任职的众议员戴安娜·德盖特，她告诉PBS新闻，她同意DSA关于全民医保、普及儿童保育、排名选择投票和32小时工作周的呼吁，但不支持废除参议院、退出北大西洋公约组织、削减警察预算或除公用事业外将大型企业国有化。
“我们真正将‘民主’融入了民主社会主义，”基罗斯说道，她解释说DSA的纲领由其成员投票决定，“几乎可以肯定，并非每个成员都完全同意整个纲领。”
一些不认为自己是民主社会主义者的进步人士，如赢得密歇根州参议院民主党提名的前公职人员阿卜杜勒·埃尔赛义德，表示关键区别在于他们相信资本主义。
“我不是社会主义者。我相信资本主义。我只是认为资本主义必须受到监管，”埃尔赛义德上个月在接受CNN采访时说道。
一些候选人在寻求当选公职期间也退出了DSA。
在密歇根州第七国会选区，进步主义组织“日出运动”的联合创始人威廉·劳伦斯正试图翻转该国竞争最激烈的众议院选区之一，挑战任职仅一届的共和党众议员汤姆·巴雷特。
他曾是民主社会主义者，但表示他最近已不再保留美国民主社会主义者组织的会员资格。
“我非常尊重DSA以及他们在全国范围内开展的工作，但我觉得有必要非常明确地表明，我们在这里竞选的纲领是基于我们在第七选区各地开展的对话形成的，”劳伦斯本月早些时候告诉CNN。“这只是因为我想向我的选民表明，我在这里是为了代表他们。”
Democratic socialists are having a moment. They’re not all in agreement on what it means to be one
2026-08-19T23:29:05.357Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/19/politics/democratic-socialists-platform-disagreement
State Rep. Angie Nixon’s win in the Florida Senate primary on Tuesday was the latest in a growing list of victories by democratic socialists who are a prominent part of the Democratic Party’s left-wing insurgency.
But within the democratic socialist movement, and the broader progressive movement, there are disagreements over what the group’s priorities should be — and some candidates have been hesitant to fully embrace the label.
Nixon hasn’t sought to highlight her membership in the Democratic Socialists of America, but when pressed ahead of the election, she told CNN’s Laura Coates that the group aligns with “my beliefs that people — hardworking, everyday people — should get to shape what their communities look like and what their economies look like.”
“We can talk about labels all day long, people’s labels,” she said. “I am concerned about the needs of people.”
DSA’s platform covers a range of issues with varying levels of acceptability within the Democratic mainstream.
Some policy priorities are widely embraced by virtually all candidates who associate themselves with democratic socialism and many members of the broader progressive movement.
Among those positions are support for government-funded Medicare for All, opposition to military aid for Israel over its actions in Gaza, and support for higher taxes — particularly on the wealthy — to pay for an expansion of government-funded social safety net programs in areas like health care, housing and child care.
In New York City, for example, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has launched a free child care pilot program, enacted rent freezes across some rent-stabilized apartments, and launched an effort to open five city-backed grocery stores intended to offer 30% discounts on staple food items.
Nixon ran on several of those issues, including universal healthcare, affordable housing, and an annual wealth tax on billionaires. Her win Tuesday over a much better-funded moderate candidate, retired Army Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, was also a reminder that one position widely embraced by democratic socialists, including Nixon — furor over Israel’s war in Gaza after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack — is also held by many Democratic voters, as well.
But some more controversial parts of DSA’s platform, entitled “Workers Deserve More!”, would require significant overhaul.
“The Democratic Socialists of America is building a party whose goal is a democratic society of the working class. Our enemies are not just individual bosses, but the entire global system of capital; not just this or that cop, judge, or president, but the entire anti-democratic structure of our society. We are workers fighting to transform society: to win the battle for democracy, draft a new constitution, and create a democratic socialist republic,” the platform says.
The platform includes calls to abolish the US Senate and expand the House — a view that reflects some progressives’ belief that proportional representation is more favorable than a system designed to protect the interests of less populated states — nationalize large corporations, publicly finance elections, end the two-party system, and stop immigrant detentions and deportations. It also seeks to “demilitarize police departments, disempower police unions, and redirect funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system which protects the rich and jails the poor.”
Some candidates have leaned into some of the further left ideas. Darializa Avila-Chevalier, the democratic socialist who ousted Rep. Adriano Espaillat in a New York City primary in June, told Vox she believes that “all deportations are wrong” while Francesca Hong, who lost the Democratic primary in Wisconsin last week, has previously called for defunding and abolishing police departments.
But not all DSA members, or DSA-aligned progressives, are on the same page about these platform planks. Republicans, however, are eager to paint the entire Democratic Party with the same broad brush, highlighting the most controversial of those positions in television ads targeting not just democratic socialist candidates but all of those running under the Democratic banner.
“Abdul El-Sayed and the socialists have taken over Michigan’s Democratic Party,” the Republican Governors Association said in an ad last week targeting the Democratic nominee in the state’s governor’s race, Jocelyn Benson, as it linked her to groups that supported defunding police.
“This is not Gretchen Whitmer’s Democratic Party,” the ad said, referring to the popular two-term Democratic governor. “It’s far more liberal and extreme, and Jocelyn Benson is marching to their radical drumbeat.
President Donald Trump has made his own attacks as well as the midterm field solidifies.
In recent months, he’s claimed Democrats have been overtaken by “godless communists.”
“This is the most serious threat to our country since its existence, in my opinion, 250 years ago,” he said at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in June. “This is a major threat to our country.”
Notable democratic socialists, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani, have sought to distance themselves from some more controversial stances, walking back their previous support for defunding the police.
Ocasio-Cortez has more broadly suggested some of the left’s pandemic-era rhetoric went too far.
“I have a local city councilman that has this saying: ‘Woke 1 was crazy,’” the New York congresswoman said recently on ABC’s “This Week.”
“I think that we all share in the goals of having as low a crime rate as possible. I think that, you know, during lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today,” she said.
The nation’s most prominent democratic socialist, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, has never supported defunding the police.
Another democratic socialist, Melat Kiros, who defeated long-time Rep. Diana DeGette in Colorado, told PBS she agrees with the DSA’s calls for Medicare for All, universal child care, ranked-choice voting and a 32-hour work week, but does not support abolishing the Senate, withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, defunding the police or establishing public ownership of major corporations aside from utilities.
“We really put the ‘democracy’ into democratic socialism,” Kiros said, explaining that the DSA’s platform is voted on by its members and that it’s “almost certain that not every single member agrees with the entirety of the platform.”
Progressives who do not consider themselves democratic socialists, like Abdul El-Sayed, the former public health official who won the Democratic nomination in Michigan’s Senate race, say a key difference is that they believe in capitalism.
“I am not somebody who is a socialist. I believe in capitalism. I just believe that capitalism has to be regulated,” El-Sayed said in an interview with CNN last month.
Some candidates have also left the DSA as they seek elected office.
In Michigan’s 7th District, William Lawrence, a co-founder of the progressive Sunrise Movement, is trying to flip one of the most competitive House districts in the country as he takes on first-term Republican Rep. Tom Barrett.
He was a democratic socialist, but said he recently allowed his Democratic Socialists of America membership to lapse.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for DSA and the work that they’re doing around the country, but I felt a need to make it very clear that the platform we’re running on here is the one that has come up based on the conversations we’re having across the 7th District,” Lawrence told CNN earlier this month. “It’s just because I want to make clear to my constituents that I’m here to represent them.”
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