DSA’s New Plan: Abolish Senate, Amnesty for Illegals — Deliver Madison’s “Tyranny”

Are the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) trying to visit tyranny on the United States? Evaluating their new platform, you’d have to say yes if heeding a warning from James Madison, “father of the Constitution.” He famously said in The Federalist, No. 47:

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

This, too, is essentially what the DSA’s new platform would establish. As Fox News reported Friday:

According to a source familiar with the DSA’s planning, the organization plans to roll out an update next week to its long-term vision for a U.S. policy platform. The update includes eliminating the U.S. Senate and replacing the president and the Supreme Court with an executive branch and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.

So to be clear, the DSA’s platform would undermine the Constitution’s prescribed balance of powers. It would enable a one-chamber Congress (no Senate) to appoint a president and judges who are rubber stamps for its agenda.

Under our current system, the president is, of course, chosen by the people. He then can nominate judges, who subsequently must be confirmed by citizen-elected senators before taking the bench. Moreover, Congress is already the most powerful branch, as the House can impeach the president and judges. The Senate can then vote to convict, giving the legislature capacity to remove such officials from office. The other two branches have no such power over Congress.

But the DSA would expand this power precipitously. Its plan would, in a de facto sense, place “all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary” in Congress’ hands. And it’s irrelevant that those “hands” are “elective” (as Congress is), as Madison stressed.

Many would point out that this moves us closer to a parliamentary system, as exists in Britain and Canada. Others would take an even darker view. As a top Yahoo!news commenter writes, responding to the Fox article:

Once you get this enacted, and the socialists are in power, they will NEVER relinquish it. Ever.

A single chamber “congress” will be, by definition, a one party body that will rubber stamp policies of the party.

The model for this is the Soviet Union.

The respondent is alluding to the USSR’s Politburo (Political Bureau), the fallen communist empire’s top decision-making body.

There’s More in This Sausage, Too

Moreover, the DSA is just warming up with the above. As Fox tells us about the group’s other big plans for its brave new world:

Additionally, the updated platform would include amnesty for all immigrants and defunding the Department of War.

This would be in addition to the DSA’s current policy platform, which calls for an “immediate end to all deportations,” free migration between countries without restrictive immigration controls, and “extending full voting rights to people with criminal convictions and noncitizens.”

…In addition to radically altering the country’s three-branch form of government, the DSA’s existing platform also advocates establishing a 32-hour work week “with no reduction in pay or benefits,” the passage of Medicare for All, canceling all student loan debt, the elimination of cash bail and universal rent control.

In its program for 2025–2026, the DSA calls for a “new democratic constitution” that it says would establish civil, political, and democratic rights for all based on proportional representation in a “single federal legislature.”

Gee, a neutered (defunded) military and “free migration between countries without restrictive immigration controls.” What could possibly go wrong?

This is much as how we have free migration among U.S. states, mind you. But if this sounds like movement toward a United States of the World, let not your heart be troubled. Because it also sounds like “destabilization,” the second stage of communist subversion. (The first and last two are, respectively, demoralization, crisis, normalization.) And once power-hungry socialists have the control they crave, destabilization no longer serves their ends. You don’t want the apple cart overturned once it’s your apple cart.

This means in practice that an in-control DSA wouldn’t allow open borders and illegal migration because they yield destabilization. It also means the party would heavily fund the military (and police) because it helps effect stabilization. It further means the DSA would transition to the SA (hey, it’s easier than transitioning from male to female). Being “democratic,” you see, is also destabilizing — to already-realized establishment power.

Is the Popular Always Prudent?

One motivation for systemic change is frustration with “gridlock.” (This is when one branch or faction in government blocks a policy proposal of another branch or faction in government.) Just consider a complaint by Cliff Connolly, a member of the DSA’s Marxist Unity Group caucus. As City Journal related last month:

“[W]e’re never going to have democracy or socialism in the United States as long as the president and the Supreme Court exist in their current form. The whole point of having the Senate, the president, and the Supreme Court is so that, if popular legislation passes through the House of Representatives, the ruling class has these other levels they can pull to stop it from happening.” Connolly pointed to the Supreme Court’s blocking President Biden’s student debt relief as a recent example of this dynamic.

Now, first note that “popular” isn’t always synonymous with “prudent.” Executing famed ancient Greek philosopher Socrates was a popular idea when the Athenians voted for it. But popular a short while afterwards was to erect a statue in his honor, as they’d realized their mistake. “Democracy,” in the sense of governance by provisional popularity, is just glorified mob rule.

Second, Connolly’s student-debt-relief example actually undermines his argument. Yes, it’s true that when presented simplistically, a slim to healthy majority of Americans supported Biden’s relief plan. This flipped to majority opposition, however, once pollsters mentioned the cost or taxpayer funding.

This raises some questions: What speaks better of a governmental system?

When it delivers what voters want when informed — or when they’re uninformed?

Under Connolly’s example, the DSA’s plan would deliver the latter. Is this a selling point?

Gridlock on the Road Is Bad; Gridlock in Government Is Good

What, though, of gridlock generally? Many over the years have complained of a “do-nothing Congress.” But before deciding if that’s actually a bad thing, you must know what the doers would do. Having do-nothing police, for example, is probably a bad thing.

Having do-nothing criminals is wonderful.

Now, which of the above is Congress more like? Consider: When a company does “do” a lot, you get more cars, TVs, computers, appliances, food, etc.

When Congress does a lot, you get more wasteful, unconstitutional programs; taxes that further fleece taxpayers; and freedom-squelching laws, regulations, and mandates.

So the divide here is simple. Many accept the credo, “That government is best which governs least,” as Henry David Thoreau put it. They understand that an unconstrained government is a dangerous government. But if you want a state that can make radical changes quickly, you’ll like the DSA’s platform.

That is, until you actually experience it in action. By that time, though, good luck, because restoring the Republic will be impossible. For the radical change ends the moment the radicals have achieved their ends.