The Democratic Socialists of America believe what??
What if the federal government took over Chevron and the state of Georgia got Delta Air Lines? And let’s say Chick-fil-A became the property of Fulton County, but instead of the military precision you’re used to in the drive-thru, you wait for your lunch in a line operated by the Department of Motor Vehicles. You’ll get those nuggets someday, kids!
Chick-fil-A-USA sounds like a joke, but government ownership of major corporations is a platform plank of the Democratic Socialists of America, the far-left activist group that is catching fire among young voters.
The changes to American society that the DSA wants to see range from common sense (raising the minimum wage) to dangerous (abolishing the police) to completely nutty (letting Congress elect the president? Have they met Congress?)
So it’s worth your time to more fully understand why the DSA is on the rise and what they would do if they ever got everything they want. Maybe you’ll agree with them. Maybe not. But you should at least know what the increasingly powerful bloc on the left stands for.
The DSA in Georgia has had small, but important, victories in the last two years as voters elected state Rep. Gabriel Sanchez and Atlanta City Council member Kelsea Bond. Mathewos Samson will likely join Sanchez in the state House next year. The membership of the Atlanta chapter of the DSA has more than doubled since 2024, and the group now has six chapters across Georgia, including one that covers Perry and Bonaire.
The DSA’s elected leaders are having successes in Georgia, too. Far from being the wild-eyed lunatics Republicans portray Democratic Socialists as, Sanchez has been a soft-spoken and thoughtful member at the General Assembly, reliably standing up during debates to advocate for renters, wage workers and the generally disenfranchised.
Bond was one of the few council members to speak out when Council President Marci Collier Overstreet had the terrible idea to request a city-financed car and driver for her new job, even though the previous council president managed to ride his bike to most meetings.
But democratic socialists are the first to tell you they’re not Democrats. A deeper dive into the 2026 platform of the national DSA helps you see why.
The biggest goals of the DSA are rooted in the concepts of Marxist socialism, with policies like government ownership of large corporations, a 32-hour work week, federal jobs guarantee and abolishing capitalism.
The DSA platform also calls for abolishing the police, prisons, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Senate. The president and U.S. Supreme Court would be replaced by an executive and judiciary “chosen by and subordinate to Congress.” (Again, have they met Congress?). And the United States would close all overseas military bases, end all overseas conflicts, and prosecute American and Israeli leaders “responsible for the genocide in Gaza.”
The preamble to the DSA platform asks people to envision, “a socialist day off” without stress, debt, or bills. And speaking of bills, it says, you “don’t really have them anymore” since the government will provide free healthcare, free college, free pre-K, and government-owned hospitals and housing.
To pay for all of the free things, the DSA plan says the rich and corporations would pay an “aggressive wealth tax,” which would go toward the public good.
To find out more about all of this, we spoke to Brayan Ramirez, the chair of the Atlanta DSA, for a recent episode of the “Politically Georgia” podcast. He said a 90% tax rate might make sense for the wealthiest Americans.
“You do not need millions to live here in Georgia, billions,” he said. “There’s no need for that kind of wealth to exist … to be able to own so much land, be able to own so many properties, it just doesn’t make sense.”
On government ownership of corporations, he said, “that looks scary, because a lot of people have issues trusting the government, but the goal is to have government be representative of the people.”
Talk of taking over businesses, abolishing the police, and 90% tax rates, along with some of the DSA’s high-profile wins lately, has Republicans thinking they may have finally found something they can use against Democrats in an otherwise bleak, anti-Trump election year.
“When the (Democratic) party apparatus seems to have been captured by a very extreme outlier, then people have to ask, ‘Do I really want to lend power to these guys for two years if they’re this irresponsible and out to lunch?’” Georgia GOP Chair Josh McKoon told me. “I think there is a huge opportunity for us in all of this.”
The only problem for Republicans is that the DSA chair said neither U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff nor former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Democrats’ top two nominees in 2026, are one of them.
“We only endorse socialists, and they’re not socialists,” Ramirez said. But he added that while the DSA is not working for the Democrats in 2026, they’re not working against them, either.
“We recognize that the Republican Party is racist, misogynist, xenophobic and anti-worker, and we want the Republicans to lose in Georgia,” he said.
They’re not with them, but they’re not against them. Are you confused yet? That’s enough for Republicans, who just want voters to believe Democrats and democratic socialists are all the same.
Charlie Bailey, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said he thinks voters are responding to DSA candidates who are fighting for working families, just like Democrats, not the whole DSA package.
As for him, “I’m not a member of the DSA. I’m a Democrat,” Bailey said.
With DSA proposals to abolish huge parts of American society that large majorities of Americans want to keep, Democrats would be wise to help voters understand the difference between the two parties before they’re all out of their jobs and working at a Chick-fil-A that may or may not be owned by the government.
Please pass the nuggets.