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"Capitalism is a system created by the ruling class to exploit the rest of the population for their own benefit. We need to replace it with democratic socialism, a system in which ordinary people have a voice in their workplaces, neighborhoods and society."
This is what the Democratic Socialists of the United States (DSA) advocates on its website, a left-wing movement that has been gaining importance and political influence since 2018 in the USA, a country considered the center of global capitalism.
Founded in the 1970s from the union of small left-wing organizations, the DSA remained largely on the sidelines of American politics until 2016, when independent candidate Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign changed many Americans' perceptions of socialism.
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Since then, the movement has gained more and more prominence. In 2018, two of its members, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, won seats in the Chamber of Representatives, equivalent to the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies.
In 2025, the DSA once again demonstrated its electoral strength with the victory of one of its candidates, Zohran Mamdani, in the race for the coveted Mayor of New York.
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In the mid-term elections this Tuesday (3/11), in which all seats in the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate will be renewed, DSA members want to take advantage of the momentum of Mamdani's victory to expand their influence over the decisions and legislative proposals of the Democratic Party, especially in defining how to face the last two years of Donald Trump (Republican Party) in the Presidency.
"We are living in a very scary time in many ways in the US. Many people are deeply concerned about the direction of the country," said Ashik Siddique, co-president of the DSA, in an interview with BBC News Mundo, the BBC's Spanish-language service.
"We hope that the general elections will bring a broader change in the country, especially with the strengthening of democratic socialism as its own political alternative and a response to the crises faced by the population. It is not enough to just oppose Trump and the advance of the far right, as many Americans do."
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But this growth also causes concern and even panic in some sectors, who see in the DSA a movement capable of leading the Democratic Party to adopt radical left positions, which could result in electoral defeats precisely at a time when the scenario seems favorable to the Democrats.
“Some Democrats reacted with panic to the nomination of candidates supported by the DSA,” stated a report from Brookings, a think tank (research and debate center) that analyzed the movement’s victories in the 2026 party caucuses.
The document also says that Democrats appear to have a chance of winning control of the House of Representatives and the Senate due to the economic situation and Trump's low popularity. "However, many members of the party's centrist wing fear that choosing candidates whose trajectories are not aligned with the preferences of the majority of voters could cost Democrats control of the House and, above all, the Senate."
For others, the DSA's influence is being overestimated due to the popularity of some of its candidates. According to this assessment, despite the electoral victories, the movement will continue to have little expression in American politics.
But how radical are the DSA's ideas? And how “extremist” are the candidates supported by the movement? What could be its influence on the Democratic Party and the US political and electoral scenario? And will the DSA be an ally or will it pose a risk to Democrats in the last two years of the Trump administration?
The idea of adopting democratic socialism in the US is not new. Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs ran for President in 1904, 1908, 1912 and in 1920, when he received nearly 1 million votes.
But, with the rise of the Soviet Union (1922-1991) on the world stage and, later, the Cold War (1947-1991) between Americans and Soviets, a strong rejection of everything that could be associated with communism and socialism emerged in the USA. This resistance largely persisted until 2008.
"Many Americans feel that capitalism is not working as well as we were led to believe for a long time," the DSA co-president told BBC News Mundo. "There was the idea, the expectation, that if you worked hard, got a good job or opened a business, for example, you could have a better life than your parents. But this promise has not come true, especially since the economic crisis of 2008."
Siddique, from DSA, is part of the generation that reached adulthood during that period. He says that it was at that time that he realized that, despite having a good education, he would face more difficulties in getting a good job than previous generations.
"When we saw the banks being bailed out by the government and at the same time all the wars that started during the George W. Bush administration just continued, there was a change."
"That's why, when Bernie Sanders ran for President [in 2016] and drew attention to many of these problems, space was opened to show that there was, in fact, an alternative. Many of the justifications we were given to explain why politics works the way it does simply stopped making sense," says Siddique.
Although he was never officially affiliated with the DSA, Sanders defines himself as a democratic socialist, and many of his proposals ended up influencing the movement's political program.
The program criticizes the influence of big companies and billionaires in politics and defends several of the proposals presented by Sanders in the Senate.
The DSA program states that the main sectors of the economy that influence our lives, such as energy production and transportation, must be controlled collectively. “We want a working class made up of people of different racial backgrounds, united by solidarity rather than divided by fear,” the program says.
The DSA also advocates for "radical" reforms, such as the creation of a government-funded universal healthcare system, known as Medicare for All, the reduction of resources allocated to the police to invest in communities and the Green New Deal, "in addition to other measures that are part of the transition to a freer and fairer society".
Among the most controversial proposals are the reduction of the Defense Department's budget, the extinction of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE), the end of economic sanctions against countries that are not aligned with US interests and the extinction of the Senate.
Furthermore, the DSA has embraced the Palestinian cause and accuses Israel of committing "genocide" in the Gaza Strip. The movement also accuses the US of complicity, due to financial aid and the supply of weapons to the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu. These positions provoked rejection of the movement among Jewish communities.
It is controversial proposals like these that worry many moderate voters and that have been explored in the campaigns of Republican candidates and President Trump himself, according to Elaine Kamarck, a researcher at Brookings, in an interview with BBC News Mundo.
"The problem, and the reason why Democrats are angry with them, is that Republicans are very skilled at associating the rest of the party, their vast majority, with the DSA proposals. And these proposals are fatal [in elections]."
Although many Democratic candidates have publicly rejected the ideas of democratic socialists, most of them have been called "extremists" and "socialists" in Republican election advertisements.
Journalist Jonathan Chait, from The Atlantic magazine, studied the DSA in depth and explains that the growth in the movement's popularity is linked to the dissatisfaction of Democratic voters with the current situation in the USA.
"Democratic voters see Trump acting without limits, disrespecting their values, the Constitution and the laws. They blame Trump, but they also blame the Democrats, who are without power, for not being able to exert any influence."
"The DSA has taken advantage of this dissatisfaction in many electoral disputes. Basically, the movement argues that the leadership of the Democratic Party is not doing anything and, therefore, asks for votes for its candidates. It promises to act, and this speech has worked in some of these disputes."
According to DSA's Siddique, in conversations he often has with ordinary people, socialism is rarely a cause for concern. "The most common thing is not the fear of socialism, but the question: 'Okay, but how are you going to pay for it?'"
"Our answer is simple: We can finance these measures by taxing the richest, who receive billions of dollars in tax benefits. We can also reduce the military budget. We don't need to spend as much on it. This spending doesn't make us safer."
Division among Democrats
While some members of the Democratic Party view the movement with concern, others believe that DSA candidates may adopt more moderate positions as their proposals gain visibility.
Furthermore, they consider that the movement's ability to mobilize young voters is something that the Democratic Party currently needs.
One example is the campaign of Darializa Ávila Chevalier, a political organizer of Dominican and American origins, candidate for the House of Representatives for the 13th electoral district of New York, which covers northern Manhattan and parts of the Bronx.
"During my campaign, we knocked on the doors of more than 155,000 homes, and all the work was done by volunteers," Ávila Chevalier told BBC News Mundo.
With young candidates and a strong presence on social media, DSA has a base of young voters who do not just vote: they participate in the political debate and work to help their candidates win elections. This mobilization was essential for Ávila Chevalier to defeat Adriano Espaillat, a veteran Democratic deputy who represented his district.
But, just as happened with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she launched her campaign, Ávila Chevalier became the target of attacks from the Republican Party, the right-wing press and President Trump himself for positions she defended in the past.
In the case of Ávila Chevalier, publications made on social media when she worked as a political activist in New York, and which were deleted after the closure of her account on the social network X, formerly Twitter, in 2022, have been used against her during the campaign.
Some of the messages contained insults to Democratic leaders, such as former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, conspiracy theories about the origin of Covid-19 and proposals to abolish the police and prison system.
Ávila Chevalier told BBC News Mundo that, in conversations on the subject, her voters demonstrated that they understood that the messages were written when she was younger.
"They also understand that, deep down, what I was trying to say, even if I said it badly or immaturely or whatever, was in line with the idea that every human being deserves to be treated with dignity. And that has always been the fundamental principle of my political vision."
For Chait, from The Atlantic magazine, statements like those by Ávila Chevalier are interesting because they do not necessarily mean that she has changed her convictions.
"They are not going to give up on these ideas. They simply say: 'This is not what I am defending in my campaign. It is an attempt to divert attention. They want to discuss this issue instead of others'. This way, they are able to maintain their convictions and some of their most radical alliances without harming their own political future", says Chait.
"It is possible that, over time, they will abandon these positions. But it is also easy to interpret this speech as a common strategy among radicals from both ends of the political spectrum: entering traditional politics hiding their most radical positions, without actually abandoning them, while they wait for the opportune moment to put them into practice", he adds.
The electoral scenario
In this Tuesday's elections, the Democratic Socialists of the United States hope to increase the number of deputies supported by the organization to seven, including the re-election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, who is running in the metropolitan region of Detroit.
The movement also considers the victories of Chris Rabb, in Philadelphia, Melat Kiros, in Denver, Donavan McKinney, in Detroit, and Claire Valdez and Darializa Ávila Chevalier, in New York, practically certain. This is because candidates contest elections in districts that traditionally vote for the Democratic Party.
According to Kamarck, from Brookings, this number of representatives would not be enough to influence the decisions of a chamber. This is because DSA members have not yet won seats on Congressional committees.
Kamarck also doubts that the movement's proposals will gain support in Congress, "even if their candidates win."
However, Democratic analysts, such as James Carville, former advisor to Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, warn that the group of socialist deputies could leave the Democratic majority "hostage" to their interests if the difference in seats between the parties is very small.
"If the Democrats win the Chamber by a smaller margin than the number of deputies aligned with the DSA, this group could have enough strength to hold the Democratic majority hostage to their demands," explained Chait, from The Atlantic magazine, to BBC News Mundo.
"They could say, 'We're not going to vote for your presidential candidate unless you accept this list of demands.' That could cause a split in the Democratic caucus."
"If the Democrats win a majority greater than the number of DSA members, they will not need their support to control the House of Representatives. In that case, the movement's influence would be much less during the term."
Chait also explained that DSA's objectives are not necessarily limited to the short term. They can be part of a long-term strategy, whose results appear over time.
This does not mean that the movement will stop trying to expand its influence in the coming years, including the possibility of launching a candidacy for President.
Ávila Chevalier told BBC News Mundo what would be, for her, the ideal scenario in Congress in the coming years: "If we manage to end the genocide [in Gaza], guarantee decent housing for residents of public housing here in New York, reduce the percentage of children living in poverty in this district, abolish ICE [Immigration and Customs Control Service] and elect a socialist president, I will consider this a great achievement."
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