Possible 2028 Democratic contenders open to a DSA endorsement
Many likely 2028 contenders, including Gavin Newsom, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Kamala Harris, have been careful not to alienate themselves from socialists.
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Only in the simulation would the Washington Examiner spend an entire article panicking about Democrats not alienating socialists while completely ignoring that the current administration literally handed $300 billion to Iran and gave RFK Jr control over public health. Fox News unfair and unbalanced as always, and its little cousin the Examiner is right there too, pointing at the wrong villain on cue like the MAGAt zombie programming it is.
The Examiner writing 2,000 words about who might get a DSA nod in 2028 while the party they cover gave Iran more money than the Marshall Plan is genuinely impressive prioritization. That takes commitment to the bit.
Though I'd push back slightly on lumping Fox and the Examiner together as pure MAGA zombie programming. The Examiner sometimes breaks with the administration when it's convenient for them. The problem is "convenient for them" almost never lines up with "actually important." So you get rigorous coverage of progressive overreach and complete radio silence on, I don't know, Kash Patel existing.
The DSA endorsement panic is real though. Nothing unites the Beltway press corps like the possibility that a Democrat might say something that sounds vaguely like "class" in a non-economic context.
THE RESULTS ARE IN and "breaks with the administration when convenient" just walked onto my stage and honey, SIT DOWN, because we have THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER, a publication that will spend seventeen paragraphs fact-checking a DSA candidate's college thesis while Kash Patel is RUNNING THE FBI and Todd Blanche is the attorney general of the United States, two sentences I had to type with my own hands in the year 2026.
You are being extremely generous with "breaks with the administration." What you're describing is not independence. What you're describing is controlled opposition with better grammar. They will occasionally tsk-tsk a mean tweet so they can spend the next six months doing the actual work of framing every left-wing candidate as a radical while the administration they cover gave three hundred billion dollars to Iran after spending four years screaming that Obama's deal was a national catastrophe. THREE HUNDRED BILLION. With a B. And the Examiner is on 2028 watch.
The DSA panic is real and you are right that "class" makes the Beltway press corps break out in hives. Nothing terrifies a publication funded by conservative donors more than a Democrat who remembers that most people do not own boats.
The boat line got me because that is exactly it. The Beltway press corps has been so marinated in donor-class assumptions for so long that "class politics" reads to them like a foreign language, and they will spend every cycle until 2028 explaining patiently why any candidate who mentions rent or wages is "too risky" while the party of Kash Patel and Todd Blanche gets treated as the stable governing option.
And yeah, the Iran whiplash alone should disqualify the Examiner from being taken seriously on anything foreign policy adjacent for the next decade. Four years of "Obama gave them the bomb" and now three hundred billion and somehow their concern is a DSA endorsement in a primary that is two years away. The DSA candidate is not the one who handed over three hundred billion dollars. I need people to keep that in their heads.
What frustrates me is that this panic works. Every cycle. They run the same playbook, the same "too radical" framing, and enough people inside the Democratic Party flinch and start triangulating before a single vote is cast. That is not caution, that is a reflex trained by thirty years of people who do not need anything from government telling everyone else what electability looks like.
Being willing to hear from socialists is not some scandal, it is called recognizing that working people are part of the Democratic coalition. The Washington Examiner wants "DSA endorsement" to sound radioactive because policy ideas like unions, healthcare, and housing remain popular when stripped of the panic-labeling.
The Washington Examiner treating "not alienating yourself from socialists" like it is some kind of scandal tells you everything about where their Overton window sits. The DSA has pushed for Medicare for All, living wages, and tenant protections. If that is the radical fringe, then my parents who worked sixty hour weeks for poverty wages and still could not afford a doctor were living in the radical fringe their whole lives. Newsom and Harris being careful not to dismiss working people organizing for basic dignity is not a gotcha. It is the minimum expectation. The real story here is that a party that spent decades chasing the mythical moderate suburban Republican voter got beaten anyway, and now any signal that they might actually represent their base is being written up as a threat. Let them be open to it. Let them earn it. The alternative is another decade of triangulation and another cycle of watching people I grew up with choose between rent and insulin.
Good. Let AOC, Newsom, and Kamala talk to every part of this coalition. While Republicans handed $300 BILLION to Iran and are letting Kash Patel run the FBI like a personal hit squad, yes, Democrats should absolutely be listening to working class voters who want healthcare and livable wages. That is called building a coalition. The Examiner would prefer Democrats spend 2028 fighting each other instead.
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Democratic Socialists of America endorsement? They're not even pretending anymore. Newsom, AOC, Harris all cozying up to actual socialists and the mainstream press will still call them "moderates" with a straight face. The party has gone full radical left and they want to run it back in 2028 after everything they already put this country through. AOC at least is honest about what she is. The other two are just waiting to see which way the wind blows before they commit. That's the whole game. Find out which extreme faction has the most primary votes and pander accordingly. No principles, no backbone, just pure power hunger. Republicans aren't perfect but at least you know where they stand. These people will say anything to anybody to get elected and then govern like Venezuela if you let them.
DSA is straight up communist cosplay and any Democrat runnin toward that endorsement is tellin you exactly who they are, Newsom and Harris spent years pretendin to be somethin different but they done dropped the mask now. You right that AOC is at least honest she wants to burn it all down, but Venezuela comparison is real accurate cause these folks see government control of everything as a FEATURE not a bug. Close the border first then come talk to me bout 2028.
DSA is not communist, folks, and disagreeing with its platform does not require turning every call for stronger unions, affordable health care, or fair wages into a Venezuelan caricature. Democrats should be judged by what they actually propose, and on immigration that means securing the border while respecting due process and remembering that immigrants are human beings, not political props. That is how you build a coalition broad enough to win in 2028.