DSA’s platform for LA

 The race for LA mayor has two candidates from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), including City Council member Nithya Raman. 

It is worth a look at the DSA’s political platform.

The first item to note is that the DSA “aims to definitively distinguish ourselves from the Democratic Party.” While many DSA members run as Democrats, they only intend to use that party, then destroy it, like a parasite.

In fact, the DSA defines Democrats as the real enemy: “The power of the winning faction or coalition of capital interests at any time [in Los Angeles] is legitimized through the Democratic Party that wins nearly every election and then uses seats and policies to maximize profits for electoral donors at great cost to us, the working class.”

City Councilwomen Nithya Raman and Eunisses Hernandez speaking to attendees at an election night party.Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The DSA also rejects philanthropy, claiming charitable organizations “serve as tax havens for wealthy individuals with particular agendas.” (The only acceptable charity, evidently, is from the state.)

The DSA claims to be a “mass socialist organization achieving political power for the working class” rather that what it is: a small, elitist militant organization bankrolled by wealthy radicals (even the DSA’s own rosy estimates say its membership is 3,500).

There are a few sensible points: the DSA observes, for example, that “elected officials have a political and economic incentive to use their positions to barter for their own career interests.”

But the DSA suffers the same delusions as the Democratic establishment it decries. It says that “climate change” is “[p]erhaps the most existential threat facing Los Angeles.” It cites the recent Palisades and Eaton fires — both of which were started by human beings and were exacerbated by poor government planning and policy.

The DSA also rejects America’s national boundaries — not just the idea of defending them, but the fact that the border exists at all. “Arbitrary lines written on a map do not take away from our collective, shared struggle from [sic] liberation,” it says. The DSA also wants to cut funding to police and jails.

As for traffic, that chronic LA problem — what the DSA appears to refer to as “car violence” — the organization proposes to move to a “carbon-free energy system,”with “efficient and robust public transportation systems” powered by “anti-imperialism locally and abroad.” 

Part of “anti-imperialism,” evidently, is rejecting the Olympics, which — among other things — might cause homeless people to be removed from the streets, which the DSA thinks is bad. 

The DSA’s plan for education is to use socialist indoctrination, not “a pro-capitalist pedagogy that reinforces oppressive socio-economic relationships.” 

That means, in part, limiting the charter schools that minority families actually want for their children.

The DSA’s answer to the housing crisis is to eliminate the profit motive in construction, somehow, and to “decommodify” housing — using the (paltry) funds from Measure ULA (the so-called “mansion tax”) for public housing purposes.

The DSA’s policies would fix what isn’t broken about LA, and make what is already broken even worse.

Voters need to know — before they cast a self-destructive protest vote.

https://nypost.com/2026/02/09/opinion/the-dsas-radical-platform-for-la/