‘Democratic Party’ and ‘DSA’ Are Now Officially Synonymous

A dark art of the scriveners’ circle is “word variety”: livening up prose by avoiding repeated use of the same word or terminology.

Accordingly, this digital ink-stained wretch has always been grateful for the acronymic alternative for “Republican Party” – “GOP.” And equally frustrated that a counterpart did not exist for its opposite number.

Until now.

The Democrats’ leftward drift – actually, now a full-out sprint – has provided a neat and increasingly useful abbreviation.

DSA.

But wait, you protest. Isn’t that the name of a separate, radical party that has infiltrated the ranks of Democratic candidates for various offices ranging from city councils to the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body?

As if. “DSA” has been interchangeable for “Democratic Party” in reality, if not in name, for years now.

Doubt that for a micro-millisecond? Accompany your correspondent on a tour through time to the madcap 2020 presidential primary cycle.

In a singularly prescient warning – headlined “Don’t Buy the Myth of the ‘Moderate’ Democrat” – this scribe demonstrated that “even the most ‘moderate’ contender” on a 2019 debate stage was “far to the left of” George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. And “selling an agenda more radical than any political platform in our history.”

Alleged middle-of-the-roaders variously favored “a universal healthcare system to give everyone basic healthcare for free,” dramatically expanding Medicare, or the then-popular “public option” for insurance, which one contender artfully acknowledged would lead to “Medicare for All without us having to kick anybody off their insurance.”  

On immigration, the most rightward candidates “agreed with the radicals on the essentials of ‘comprehensive immigration reform’: opening the door wide to Dreamers, expanding legal immigration, and of course, the proverbial ‘pathway to citizenship’ for illegals.”

And on climate, the so-called “realist” opposing the once pie-in-the-sky Green New Deal nonetheless insisted he would “get us to net zero by 2050.” 

But one needn’t go back seven years or even one to discover just how synonymous the “DSA” and “Democratic Party” labels are. Consider the two signature issues for the socialist partisans now disembarking the Trojan Horse they have joy-ridden right through the wide opening in the party’s “big (circus) tent.”

Numero Uno: Medicare for All. Supposedly, it’s occasioning “a growing divide within the Democratic Party over how aggressively to pursue universal health coverage,” with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries having just declared his opposition (despite his previous cosponsorship) and thereby “distanced himself from the agenda of the Democratic Socialists of America.” 

Uh huh. The esteemed New Yorker, whose hometown is governed by an Islamist, tax-base-ravaging, free-everything-to-everybody DSA torchbearer whom he endorsed, might want to take a peek over his shoulder to his backbenchers – and several frontbenchers.

Turns out a majority of his caucus has cosponsored the flagship free-healthcare-for-every-body legislation … along with 40% of Senate Dems. 

But surely that doesn’t include any of his Democratic leadership. Other than, say, the chairperson of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee. The dean of the largest state delegation. The senior Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee. Ranking members of the Health Subcommittees of both Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means, and of the Science, Homeland Security and Financial Services Committees. 

Not to mention that a paltry eight in 10 party-identifiers favor the potentially massive Medicare metastasization. Some “growing divide.”

And what’s the minority leader’s position, blasted across his website, that so “distances” him from the DSA agenda? That “healthcare shouldn’t simply be a privilege, it should be a right to every single American.” Oh, you mean a service that government must ensure everyone and everyone must finance. What was the definition of “socialism” again?

Moving on to DSA signature issue No. 2: the “billionaire tax.” According to the New York Times, the version headed to California’s ballot, characterized as “a one-time tax on state residents with assets worth at least $1 billion,” has once again created a “conflict” that “echoes larger divides in the Democratic Party.”

Yeah, right. The Gray Lady acknowledges that “Democrats broadly support raising taxes on wealthy people.” And gets to the heart of this purported – there’s that word again – “divide”: a tiff among labor unions, of whom the Democratic Party is virtually a wholly owned subsidiary. The billionaire tax was “sponsored” – a strange choice of words – by a “single labor union.” While a phalanx of “other labor unions and healthcare organizations” doesn’t object “because they are ideologically opposed to taxing billionaires,” but rather supports making permanent a temporary tax hike on high earners.

Oh.

The same sort of “divide” exists, once again, among Democrats on Capitol Hill. Leapin’ Lizzie Warren and Squad charter member Pramila Jayapal have their own version of the “billionaire tax”—more accurately, a wealth tax extracting 2% annually from household net worths starting at just $50 million and an additional 1% annual surtax (3% total annual tax) for those above $1 billion. So controversial is it in the party that it has attracted only a piddly 49 of 212 caucus members on the House side as cosponsors, and 11 in the Senate.

But don’t be disappointed. As it turns out, a rival gouge-the-rich proposal – the “Billionaire Income Tax Act” – would, according to Thomson-Reuters, force high-income taxpayers “to pay tax each year on the appreciation of their tradable assets … as if the assets were sold at fair market value” and subject nontradable assets to “a deferred recapture tax … upon sale or transfer.”

In other words, a differently structured “billionaire” wealth tax. One that’s lassoed 23 Senate Democratic cosponsors – a whisker short of a majority of the caucus.

With its chief sponsor being none other than the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, the most powerful minority member on tax policy. In addition to the ranking members of the Banking and Appropriations Committees, cosponsors also include … wait for it … the hoodie-sporting everyman and conservatives’ favorite “moderate,” John Fetterman.

In short (literally): Republicans are the GOP. And when it comes to word variety and far more, Democrats are now officially what they have long been in practice: the DSA.

Bob Maistros, a regular contributor to Issues & Insights, is a messaging and communications strategist, crisis specialist, and former political speechwriter. He can be reached at bob@rpmexecutive.com.

Views expressed by guest contributors to Issues & Insights are their own and don’t necessarily reflect the views of the I&I Editorial Board.

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