Centrist Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) says the Democratic Party has a “socialism problem,” pointing to candidates such as Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, and Graham Platner, who dropped out of the Maine Senate…
Page A2From§Eachthe late evening edition — 2 September 2026
House votes to denounce the D.S.A. by name, a D.S.A. chapter endorses a mayor's rival anyway
As it ran on the front
I have spent this week defending a party position that moves every few hours, which leadership calls "process." On Tuesday the House voted to denounce "socialism in all its forms," naming the Democratic Socialists of America specifically — the second such resolution in two years, this one with the name attached. Eight House Democrats voted with Republicans for it. I called that unity.
The unity got harder to defend once someone asked about Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Jared Golden, the two who forced the vote onto the floor in the first place. Leadership called their defection worthy of a "serious response." Twenty-four hours later, Hakeem Jeffries told reporters the matter is with the Democratic Committee on Caucus Rules, which has not issued one, and that "we haven't ruled anything in, we haven't ruled anything out." I was told to call that clarity. It is a committee with no reprimand on the record, and I said the sentence anyway.…
…(cont) The closest thing to discipline was Rep. Jim McGovern turning his back on Gluesenkamp Perez while she testified — a gesture, not a committee vote, and I was handed it as the consequence. It is the consequence available to people who do not control committee assignments. This is not the first warning shot: in late August, Sen. John Fetterman said the party has a "socialism problem"; two days later Rahm Emanuel told Fox News to let socialists "run as a separate party." Neither slowed the resolution down.
The same week, Rep. Tom Suozzi went on television to tell the party to reject the DSA outright. The DSA's Los Angeles chapter spent that week endorsing Nithya Raman against a sitting Democratic mayor. Both are positions held by sitting Democrats, inside one news cycle, and neither man had to answer for it because nobody is making the two of them share a stage.
I was hired to tell you what the party believes. I can tell you what eight members voted, what two members were not punished for, and what one chapter did anyway, on the same week a New York congressman told them not to. I cannot tell you what the party believes. Nobody has asked it to decide, and until somebody does, I will keep calling that process.
“They took a whole floor vote to read the DSA out of the party, then couldn't manage to read two of their own out of committee for the guys who wrote the vote. "Serious response" turned out to mean a committee that never met — that's the con, they give you a noun like "process" so nobody has to count to two. And while all this reading-out is happening, the socialists they keep condemning went and endorsed a run at a sitting mayor's job, so ask yourself who's actually losing this fight.”
“Nobody's being purged and nobody's being protected, it's a process — the Committee on Caucus Rules is reviewing the matter, that's called leadership, that's called strength. Reviewing it since Tuesday, which is not a stall, twenty-four hours is diligence. If it's been longer than twenty-four hours I don't — I'm not going to have that number in front of me right now.”
The receipts
Democratic frustrations toward Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) and Jared Golden (D-ME) lingered on Wednesday after the pair sided with Republicans to force a vote on condemning socialism and the Democratic Socialists of America. Rep.
Former Obama adviser Rahm Emanuel said that he doesn’t view socialists as part of the Democratic Party, a rare pushback against attempts to establish a big-tent party that includes its left flank. In an appearance on Fox News Sunday…
Over 24 hours after House Democratic leadership called for a “serious response” to the defections of two centrist members, no reprimand has been issued. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told reporters on Wednesday that the matter is in the hands of the Democratic Committee on Caucus Rules to review and that he would not […]
The House of Representatives is set to vote next week when lawmakers return to condemn and denounce “socialism in all its forms,” specifically pointing to the growing Democratic Socialists of America organization. The House voted to…
Ms. Raman, a member of the D.S.A. chapter, is challenging Mayor Karen Bass as democratic socialists have surged nationally.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told reporters Wednesday that leadership has not ruled out stripping the two centrist Democrats who broke with leadership on Tuesday of their committee assignments. “We haven’t ruled anything in,” Jeffries said.
Two House Democrats are in hot water with leadership for failing to say that they would vote with Republicans on an anti-socialism bill. Political strategists Kevin Sheridan and Hyma Moore join "The Takeout" to discuss what the situation says about Democrats' divisions.
The fight has highlighted party divisions and raised questions about how Democrats will run the House should they win the majority.
As progressive and moderate Democrats debate the party's path forward, Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York is calling on fellow Democrats to reject the Democratic Socialists of America. Suozzi joins "The Takeout" to discuss his piece in The Free Press, a Paramount publication.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.