DSA’s Problem Isn’t ‘Media Training’

American socialists are convinced that they have a media-training problem.

In the past year, members of the Democratic Socialists of America, the country’s largest leftist organization, have won electoral victories in places such as New York City and Michigan, drawing a spotlight that the group has struggled to handle.

Last month, the DSA’s co-chairs, Megan Romer and Ashik Siddique, gave several high-profile interviews that even many of their most fervent supporters agree were disastrous.

The two leaders struggled to give straight answers to simple questions, and they defended outlandish policies, such as abolishing prisons and police.

They seemed to present socialists exactly the way their opponents caricature them: as extremist, unserious, and unprepared.

In damage-control mode, many of DSA’s defenders on social media are repeating the phrase media training as though it were a mantra .

If only the group’s leaders had been better prepared to deal with media outlets , the thinking goes, they would have avoided this train wreck .

The DSA’s communications director, Priscilla Yeverino, recently told Axios , “Our leaders aren’t politicians.

They’re working-class people and new to doing media.” The idea that the DSA’s troubles on prime-time television are a technical matter solvable by the right training is surely comforting, but it is also wrong.

The group has a bigger problem: It is led by unpractical extremists whose views are a far cry from those that its electorally successful figures, such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, espouse. [ Read: Why do rich kids love socialism? ] This disconnect is partly explained by a sharp division within the DSA.

One wing engages in mass politics and includes AOC, Mamdani, and other socialists committed to democratic principles.

The other wing is sectarian and extremist: It evinces little commitment to democracy and includes open admirers of Hamas, the Iranian regime, and historical dictators such as Mao Zedong.

If the interviews with the DSA’s co-chairs were embarrassing, that’s a result not of a lackluster media performance but of the actual positions the group has embraced.

A closer look at the interviews confirms this.