California Gov. Gavin Newsom was caught on video by an undercover reporter once again acknowledging that the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have a strong future inside the Democratic Party. The exchange took place while the governor was in New Hampshire campaigning for congressional candidate Stefany Shaheen.
The reporter, posing as a “younger voter” who wants the party to “move forward,” told Newsom they wanted “more, I guess, democratic socialist policies” and asked where he sees the Democratic Party going. “No one is arguing to manage the status quo and fail more efficiently,” Newsom replied.
Newsom went on to say that the DSA’s energy and its demand for “bold change, not incremental change,” is “very much going to be dominant,” adding, “that’s going to be a mainstream democratic movement. Absolutely. No question about that.” He continued, “You can’t play in the margins anymore,” saying the system is “broken” and “completely unbalanced,” and that “we have to completely reimagine.”
The comments echo what Newsom said in September during an interview with PBS’s Amna Nawaz. Asked whether ideas animating the DSA base should be worked into the broader Democratic platform, he answered, “I think they are.” When Nawaz pointed to some distance between party leadership and DSA candidates, Newsom replied, “But not the ideas.”
In that interview, Newsom listed getting money out of politics, Medicare for All, lowering costs and moving off fossil fuels as shared goals, saying, “That’s a DSA position. That’s a mainstream position within the Democratic Party.” He suggested that “in many ways, it’s just a label.”
Newsom also pulled back slightly, noting that the party has always included people with different views. He compared today’s DSA candidates to the progressives and Green Party candidates he ran against 20 years ago on the “exact same platform,” and called the debate “a healthy dialectic within the party.”
Critics see that as the Democrats’ familiar “big tent” pitch, a strategy DNC Chairman Ken Martin pushed two weeks ago. In their view, the party’s embrace of socialism is a sign that Democrats have given up, driven by their opposition to President Donald Trump and non-leftists.
