Furthermore, it won’t help much if the DSA is united when a schism occurs with the old Democrats: On its own, the DSA certainly doesn’t have enough supporters to win the election.

This is something DSA has long thought about, and the dominant position in the org is what’s called the “Dirty Break” strategy. Essentially, DSA parasitizes the Democratic ballot line, such that DSA supercedes the Democratic party itself.

Even if Trump is as unpopular as can be (though 40% still remain loyal to him—but that’s just an aside), there will still be enough Democratic voters who were politically shaped during the Cold War and would never vote for anything with “socialism” in its name.

Plenty of Trump voters also voted for Mamdani. The fact of the matter is that, of you give people things that benefit them, and can demonstrate good governance, then you can override that cold war programming without a ton of friction. Especially when the institutions of American liberal democracy are decaying before our eyes