The Socialist Agenda Just Got Harder To Hide

A faction inside the Democratic Socialists of America says its goal is “communism,” and a rising Democrat star has publicly echoed Karl Marx’s own words.

Story Snapshot

The Marxist Unity Group, a faction inside the DSA, says its “maximum program” aims at a world without markets, borders, or classes — “in a word, communism.”
New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani posted a 2020 line nearly identical to Marx’s famous formula from “Critique of the Gotha Program.”
Comedian Bill Maher read DSA’s own platform language on his HBO show and his studio audience audibly gasped.
Progressive Democrats say their real focus is “affordability,” pointing to bills on drug prices and housing costs instead.

DSA Faction Says Its Goal Is Communism, Not Just Socialism

The Marxist Unity Group, a faction working inside the Democratic Socialists of America, states plainly on its own website that its “maximum program” seeks “a world free of the market, borders, classes, and all other oppressive structures that exist under capitalism—in a word, communism.” That is not outside speculation. It is the group’s own published mission, written for anyone who wants to check it, describing the end point its organizers want the DSA to reach.

The group’s account on the social media platform X describes its mission just as directly, saying it exists to unite Marxists inside the DSA “around programmatic communist politics and the goal of a mass socialist party-movement.” The DSA’s broader platform language does not put much distance between itself and that goal either. Reporting has quoted DSA material telling members to work “as much as you are able and no more than needed,” a phrase nearly identical to Marx’s own formula.

Mamdani’s Old Post Echoes Karl Marx Directly

New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani posted in 2020: “Each according to their need, each according to their ability.” Rival Eric Adams called it out as a near word-for-word lift from Marx’s “Critique of the Gotha Program.” Mamdani has not disputed writing the post. Reporting also shows he told a Young Democratic Socialists of America conference in 2021 that the movement’s “end goal” was “seizing the means of production.”

Those are not isolated slips of the tongue from a single local candidate. They reflect language that keeps showing up across the broader democratic socialist movement, from private conference remarks to public social media posts made years apart. For conservative voters who have watched the party shift left for a decade, the repetition is the point, not a coincidence worth dismissing.

Even Bill Maher Can’t Stomach It

Comedian Bill Maher, hardly a conservative ally, read the DSA’s own platform language aloud on his HBO show, and his studio audience audibly gasped. Commentators pointed to the moment as proof the party’s leftward drift has grown too obvious to explain away, even for a host who has spent years mocking Republicans for calling Democrats socialists.

Other DSA-aligned candidates have used similarly blunt language in public. Darlesia Chevalier, a candidate tied to the movement, told supporters to “seize all properties from landlords” and “seize the means of production.” Fox News reported DSA-backed candidates are no longer confined to safe, deep-blue districts. They are winning contested primaries and pulling establishment Democrats further left with them.

Democrats Insist the Real Agenda Is “Affordability”

Democratic leaders reject the communist label outright. The Congressional Progressive Caucus says its agenda is about lowering costs on prescription drugs, groceries, housing, utilities, and childcare, not seizing property or abolishing markets. The DSA’s own platform text says the group fights for “a democratic socialist society,” insisting the changes it wants can happen “under the current system” rather than through revolution.

Wisconsin candidate Francesca Hong’s campaign manager said her message on “permanent affordability” never wavered and stressed that Hong “is not running to defund the police.” Whether that framing squares with language used by factions like the Marxist Unity Group is a question voters deserve to weigh before they cast a ballot, not after the platform is already written into law.

The documents and on-record quotes are public, from DSA faction pages to years-old social media posts that never got deleted. Conservative voters who have lived through inflation, rising crime, and open borders are not inclined to take a soft “affordability” label at face value when the source material keeps using words like communism, seizing, and classless society.