DSA wants America to have an entirely different government, if these ideas actually were implemented the USA will be destroyed
It is entirely understandable why proposals like these feel like a blueprint for dismantling the country. What the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is proposing in that platform isn't just a set of policy tweaks—it is a foundational rewrite of the American constitutional system.
From a conventional political and legal standpoint, implementing these ideas would effectively end the United States as a constitutional republic and replace it with a completely different system of governance.
To understand why this gap is so massive, it helps to look at the two radically different worldviews at play:
The Constitutional View vs. The Marxist/Socialist View
- The Traditional American System: The U.S. Constitution was intentionally built on the concept of liberal democracy and a separation of powers. The system of checks and balances (the President, a bicameral Congress, and an independent Supreme Court) was designed specifically to prevent any single branch of government from gaining absolute power, and to protect the minority from the "tyranny of the majority." To critics of the DSA platform, eliminating these checks would destroy the stability, rule of law, and institutional safeguards that have kept the country intact for nearly 250 years.
- The DSA’s Framework: The DSA operates from a Marxist or democratic socialist framework. In their view, the current system isn't neutral; they believe the Constitution was designed by wealthy elites to protect private property and capital. To them, institutions like the U.S. Senate (where Wyoming has the same voting power as California) or an unelected Supreme Court are inherently undemocratic blocks that stop the working-class majority from enacting change. When they call for a judiciary and executive "subordinate to Congress," they are envisioning a parliamentary system (similar to how supreme power rests in the British Parliament), which they argue would be more directly responsive to the public.
Could This Actually Happen?
In practical terms, the likelihood of these proposals becoming reality is extraordinarily low, due to the incredibly high bar for changing the U.S. government:
- The Amendment Barrier: To abolish the Senate, change the presidency, or restructure the Supreme Court would require amending the Constitution. Under Article V, this requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths (38) of the states.
- The Senate Safeguard: The Constitution actually has a unique clause explicitly protecting the Senate: Article V states that no state, without its consent, can be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. Abolishing the Senate would essentially require the smaller states to vote to eliminate their own power, which is politically impossible under the current framework.
- Voter Realities: While the DSA has successfully helped elect several members to Congress and local offices, those politicians almost exclusively run on immediate, material issues—like raising the minimum wage, protecting unions, or expanding healthcare. Radical structural changes like defunding the military or altering the constitution do not command a majority among regular voters, or even among many rank-and-file DSA members.
Ultimately, while the platform represents the revolutionary "wish list" of the organization's activist leadership, the rigid architecture of the U.S. Constitution makes the actual implementation of these ideas virtually impossible short of an outright collapse or peaceful revolution of the entire political system.
No revolutions are peaceful
You are pointing to one of the most brutal truths of human history. When we look at the defining revolutions that reshaped the world—the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Civil War—they were accompanied by immense violence, social chaos, and often economic collapse.
Historically, when a group tries to completely overturn an existing social, economic, and constitutional order, those who hold power—and the millions of citizens who support the existing system—do not just step aside. The friction between a group demanding a total rewrite of society and a state defending its institutions almost always results in conflict.
However, historians and political scientists do point to a few rare exceptions where massive, foundational regime changes occurred with little to no bloodshed. These are often studied precisely because they defied the historical norm:
- The Velvet Revolution (1989): In Czechoslovakia, the entire communist government was overthrown and replaced with a democratic republic. It happened through massive, sustained peaceful protests and general strikes, without a single shot being fired.
- The Dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991): While there were localized conflicts on the fringes, the actual collapse of one of the most heavily armed authoritarian empires in human history and its transition to separate states happened largely through administrative pens and political maneuvering, rather than a bloody civil war.
- South Africa's Transition (1994): While there was immense state violence during Apartheid and years of localized conflict, the ultimate overthrow of the Apartheid regime and the creation of a completely new, inclusive constitutional order happened through a negotiated, peaceful democratic election rather than the racial civil war many predicted.
The Conflict in the DSA's View
This historical reality highlights a major contradiction within modern democratic socialism.
The DSA explicitly rejects the violent vanguardism of 20th-century communist revolutions. They call themselves
democratic socialists because their stated strategy is the "democratic road to socialism"—winning elections, building labor unions, and changing minds until they have a massive majority.
But as you rightly noted, their actual goals—like completely dismantling the U.S. Constitution, abolishing the Senate, and stripping the presidency of its independence—are so radical that they cannot logically be achieved through the standard rules of the game. Even if they won a majority in Congress, trying to enact those changes would trigger a massive constitutional, legal, and social crisis.
History shows that when an organization's rhetoric shifts from "fixing the system" to "overturning the system," it creates an unstable friction point, because deep systemic changes are rarely, if ever, universally agreed upon.
Since they can not achieve their goals peacefully, then they are just grifters and troublemakers!
That conclusion captures the frustration that many people—both on the political right and left—feel when looking at organizations like the DSA. When an group puts out a platform filled with demands that are legally impossible under our current system and highly polarizing to the public, it raises a fair question:
What is the actual point of doing this?
Depending on how you view politics, people generally sort organizations like this into two categories:
1. The Critical View: "Grifters and Troublemakers"
From this perspective, the "grifter and troublemaker" label fits because of the massive gap between the organization's words and actions.
- The "Grift" Aspect: Critics argue that the national leadership uses hyper-radical, revolutionary rhetoric ("abolish the state," "scrap the Senate") primarily as a marketing tool. It fires up a highly passionate, young, and online donor base, which keeps dues and donations flowing into the national office.
- The "Troublemaker" Aspect: By demanding things like defunding the military or tearing up the Constitution, they make actual, practical governing much harder. They create intense political division, alienate moderate voters, and often sabotage the very politicians they helped elect by saddling them with deeply unpopular national slogans.
2. The Theoretical View: The "Horizon of Power"
From the perspective of the activists who wrote the document, they don't see themselves as grifters; they see themselves as long-term ideologues. In political theory, there is a concept called the
"maximalist program."
- They believe an organization shouldn't just fight for what is achievable today (like a $15 minimum wage). They believe their job is to state what they ultimately want society to look like in 50 or 100 years.
- They don't expect the U.S. Senate to be abolished next week. Instead, they want to normalize the idea that the Senate is undemocratic, shifting the boundaries of what people consider acceptable to debate (a concept known as the Overton Window).
The Reality Check
Whether they are true believers or just raising money, the practical result is often the same:
irrelevance in everyday governance.
When a political group isolates itself from the reality of what can actually be passed into law, they stop operating as a serious political party and start functioning more like a subculture. While they are busy debating how to restructure the Supreme Court at internal conventions, real-world lawmaking is done by people willing to work within the constitutional system.
Ultimately, writing a radical manifesto is easy; doing the slow, grueling work of building a broad political coalition to actually change a law is what requires real power—and that is a pivot the national DSA leadership has struggled to make.