A Dose of Reality for the DSA: Socialism’s Broken Promises, From Stalin to NYC

In a recent column for American Thinker, Christopher Chantrill delivers a blistering critique of modern leftist movements, particularly the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and its New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Drawing on historical examples and contemporary cases, Chantrill contends that socialism, the administrative state, and feminism—as practiced by the left—are failed experiments that have only served to demolish the very institutions their proponents claim to reform.

The Ghost of Zinoviev and the DSA’s Fantasy

Chantrill invokes the words of Grigory Zinoviev, a top Bolshevik leader, who in 1920 proclaimed to German socialists that the revolution was moving toward the “complete elimination of money,” promising free meals, rent, lighting, and public schools. But as Chantrill notes, the reality was so disastrous that Lenin was forced to reintroduce capitalism in 1921 with his New Economic Policy. The parallel to today’s DSA, he argues, is stark.

“Bless his heart,” Chantrill writes sarcastically before noting how Mamdani’s campaign echoes such utopian promises. But Chantrill doesn’t stop at policy prescriptions; he speculates on the psychological motivations of leftists, citing a book by Björn Merker, Perishing Promise, which suggests Marx became a socialist because he resented having to work after his father died and his mother cut off his allowance. “Hey, Katie Wilson and Zohran Mamdani: this you?” Chantrill quips, implying that today’s leftist leaders are similarly privileged rich kids who resent the idea of earning a living.

The Long March Through the Institutions—and Its Collateral Damage

The column then turns to Antonio Gramsci’s famous “Long March Through the Institutions,” the strategy of infiltrating cultural and governmental bodies to effect revolutionary change. Chantrill argues that the left’s century-long march has not been a success but a demolition project. He points to universities, the criminal justice system, and even the tragic case of Lindsay Clancy—a Massachusetts mother accused of killing her children—as examples of institutions wrecked by leftist ideology.

“Human institutions are not meant to be vehicles of lefty politics,” Chantrill asserts. “They are best understood as imperfect ways of negotiating the needs and hopes and failures—and above all, conflicts—of humans, short of the dead-end political domination of Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Islamist Iran.” By politicizing everything, the left has created chaos, and the election of Donald Trump is the predictable backlash.

The Fantasists of Overthrow

Chantrill takes issue with Merker’s phrase “partisans of overthrow,” preferring his own coinage: “fantasists of overthrow.” He argues that the left has been chasing an unfinished revolution since 1789, with catastrophic results. “If you think, after the French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Nazi Revolution, the Mao Revolution, and all the minor league contributions from Castro and Chavez and Uncle Tom Lefty, that ‘revolution’ or ‘overthrow’ or ‘march through the institutions’ can ever end in anything other than bloody Armageddon, then it’s time for you to seek serious mental health assistance,” he writes.

Economic Progress Without Political Chaos

Drawing on Perishing Promise, Chantrill highlights a key historical irony: during the Victorian era in Britain (1819–1901), population doubled and real per-capita income tripled, despite massive social disruption. This was achieved without revolutionary political upheaval. Chantrill challenges leftist activists to explain why they reject this evidence. “Oh, we know why,” he writes. “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.”

Suffering, Demon Mode, and the Choice Ahead

The column closes with a personal reflection on suffering. Chantrill notes that even Elon Musk has admitted to spending years in a state of continuous emergency, feeling that everything was about to collapse. He suggests there are two ways to deal with suffering: either wave “the magic wand of free stuff” and spill blood, or switch into what Grimes called Musk’s “demon mode” and solve the problem. It’s a stark choice—ideological fantasy or pragmatic problem-solving—that Chantrill believes defines the current political moment.

Ultimately, “A Dose of Reality for You DSA Kiddies” is a provocation aimed at forcing the left to confront its own history and the consequences of its ideology. Whether one agrees with Chantrill’s conclusions or finds them reductive, his column is a reminder that the stakes of political ideology are never merely theoretical.

Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/09/a-dose-of-reality-for-you-dsa-kiddies/