When President Trump called the Democratic Socialist candidates who swept New York City's recent primaries "hardcore Godless communists," CNN's Kaitlan Collins pushed back immediately. "Socialism, much less democratic socialism, is not communism," she told viewers. But a review of the Democratic Socialists of America's own internal caucus platforms, social media posts, and party records tells a different story, one the organization itself declined to comment on.
Just the News reported that 10 of the 25 members on the DSA's National Political Council, the body that governs the organization, belong to caucuses that explicitly espouse communism or have publicly endorsed the ideology in their own statements. That is not a fringe faction. That is 40 percent of the DSA's national leadership.
The DSA did not respond to a request for comment.
The evidence does not require interpretation or inference. It sits on the caucuses' own websites, in their own words, available to anyone willing to read them.
The Red Star caucus, whose members include DSA co-chair Megan Romer and at least two other NPC members, states its position plainly in its "Points of Unity":
"Red Star is a Marxist-Leninist caucus in DSA. Our primary goal, the goal which informs all of our organizing work, is to abolish capitalism and, ultimately, to achieve communism. We do not believe that capitalism can be reformed into socialism, it must be overthrown and replaced."
That is not a paraphrase. That is not an opponent's characterization. That is the caucus's own published mission. Red Star also states its intent to "cohere a vanguard party", a direct reference to Leninist revolutionary theory, which holds that an organized party must guide the masses toward the overthrow of the existing order.
The Marxist Unity Group, which counts three NPC members including Chris Connolly, describes itself as "an organization committed to political struggle within the Democratic Socialists of America." Its stated aspiration: "we hope to rally the thousands of Marxists in DSA around a shared vision for our movement's future."
Then there is the Libertarian Socialist caucus, home to NPC member David Jenkins. The caucus describes itself as "a political home within the Democratic Socialists of America for all socialists who are opposed to the state," listing its constituency as "libertarian socialists, libertarian Marxists, anarchists, left communists."
Jenkins himself removed any remaining ambiguity in a public statement: "Our goal is liberation. Our goal is communism."
The fourth caucus with NPC representation, Bread & Roses, holds three seats on the council. Its platform does not use the word "communism" explicitly, but its language leaves little room for a moderate reading. The caucus website declares:
"And since no ruling class has ever peacefully ceded power, in a transitional period, a socialist government backed by popular mobilizations will have to do everything necessary to defend the mandate they have won to carry out a program of redistribution, expropriation, and democratic reform of state institutions."
"Everything necessary" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. So is "expropriation", the seizure of private property by the state. These are not the words of a Scandinavian-style social democracy. They describe a revolutionary program.
The caucus platforms alone would be damning enough. But DSA leaders have gone further on their personal accounts, promoting the intellectual architects of some of the 20th century's bloodiest regimes.
In July 2025, Romer posted on Bluesky urging followers to read the works of Vladimir Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara, and Marta Harnecker. Lenin, of course, was the founder of the Soviet Union who overthrew Russia's monarchy and built the one-party state that would kill millions. Ho Chi Minh led communist Vietnam. Guevara played a central role in the Cuban Revolution. Romer was not posting these as historical curiosities. She framed them as guides for organizing:
"Come read Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara, and (of course, I picked the readings myself) Marta Harnecker and talk about the theoretical basis for mass protagonism and collective member/cadre/organizer development."
Romer's engagement with communist parties extends beyond social media. In April, she met with representatives of the French Communist Party and spoke at the European Left conference in Belgium, activities documented on the DSA's own official X account and the European Left's account.
Meanwhile, NPC member Connolly marked May Day by retweeting a post commemorating "comrades" killed in the Spanish Civil War, described as "anarchists and communists both", along with Bolsheviks killed in the Russian Civil War, veterans of Mao Zedong's Long March, and revolutionaries who seized power in Cuba. This is not a man wrestling with difficult history. This is a man celebrating it.
The open aggression of the DSA movement toward even mainstream Democrats makes these ideological commitments more than academic. They represent a political force with growing electoral muscle.
All of this matters because DSA-backed candidates just scored a string of primary victories in New York City, results that rattled both parties. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a DSA member, has supported proposals including abolishing prisons, ending deportations, implementing Medicare for all, and creating federal job guarantees.
One of the nominees, Darializa Avila Chevalier, reportedly maintained a Twitter account for years that expressed support for communism and Marxist ideology, including sympathy for Soviet figures.
These are not candidates running on better bus service and lower rents. They are advancing a program rooted in the same ideological tradition their own national leadership openly champions, the tradition of Lenin, Mao, and Guevara.
That Mamdani himself has acknowledged that anti-Israel sentiment helped fuel his candidates' sweep only adds another layer to the radicalism driving these victories.
The DSA's march through Democratic primaries is not confined to one city. Across the country, democratic socialist candidates have been toppling longtime Democratic incumbents, replacing establishment figures with candidates drawn from an organization whose governing council is shot through with self-described Marxists and communists.
Trump has not been alone in sounding the alarm. Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat who has increasingly broken with his party's progressive wing, has warned publicly of a "small Communist takeover" within Democratic politics, a remarkable statement from a sitting Democratic senator.
The president himself has applied the communist label directly to other rising left-wing politicians as well, a rhetorical choice that draws predictable media pushback every time.
And that is the core problem exposed by this review. When Trump called DSA candidates communists, the immediate media response, Collins's response, was to treat the claim as a definitional error. Socialism is not communism, she said. The framing suggested Trump was being imprecise, inflammatory, or both.
But the DSA's own caucus platforms do not make that distinction. Red Star calls itself Marxist-Leninist and says its goal is communism. The Marxist Unity Group seeks to rally "thousands of Marxists." The Libertarian Socialist caucus welcomes "left communists." David Jenkins says the goal is communism. Megan Romer promotes Lenin.
These are not opponents' accusations. These are the organization's own published positions and its leaders' own public statements. The DSA's governing council includes members of caucuses that explicitly call for the overthrow of capitalism and the achievement of communism, and those members hold 10 of 25 seats.
Collins told CNN viewers that democratic socialism is not communism. The DSA's own co-chair promotes Lenin and meets with the French Communist Party. One of those statements is backed by the record. The other is not.
Perhaps the most revealing detail in all of this is the simplest one: the DSA was asked for comment and said nothing. An organization falsely accused of harboring communists would presumably want to correct the record. An organization whose leaders openly call for communism on their own social media accounts and caucus platforms has no correction to offer.
The Red Star caucus did not hide its "Points of Unity" behind a password. The Marxist Unity Group did not scrub its website. David Jenkins did not delete his statement. These positions are published proudly, in plain English, for anyone to find.
The only people insisting that democratic socialism has nothing to do with communism, it turns out, are the media commentators, not the democratic socialists themselves.
When people tell you who they are, in their own words, on their own websites, the polite thing to do is believe them.