It is no secret that the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is completely disenchanted with capitalism. Recently, the group unveiled a program that included a number of prescriptions to address specified socioeconomic and political problems. The DSA says it is pushing for a socialist future aimed at “ending capitalist oligarchy and creating a real democracy.”
The content of the DSA program gives the impression that the group has little interest in simply reforming the current economic and political systems. Part of the program reads: “Some of [our] demands may be won under our current system, but we know complete victory will require building a new society from the ground up.” The DSA wants to abolish the U.S. Senate and replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy.
In a recent interview on C-SPAN, the co-chair of the DSA called the Senate “a very undemocratic institution.” The group proposes something akin to a parliamentary-style system. One of their suggestions is to “replace the President and the Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.”
By any objective measure, much of what the DSA program calls for is quite radical. Capitalism does have many ills that need to be addressed. But it is unhelpful when proposed solutions are deemed by most people as so unserious that they are promptly dismissed. Even Senator Bernie Sanders, himself a longtime democratic socialist, has rejectedthe call to abolish the Senate.
It would be hard to find anyone who disagrees that the current Republican-led Congress has been a disastrous failure. This Senate, in particular, hasn’t been fit for purpose. It has passively allowed the executive branch to wreak havoc on domestic institutions and shred patiently built alliances overseas. Some of the damage done at home could be repaired—if we have the will. But I’m afraid much of the harm caused by the destruction of relationships with longtime friends will be irreversible. No one is going to trust us anymore. We will have to live with the consequences of that.
All that notwithstanding, abolishing the Senate cannot be the solution. In his C-SPAN interview, the DSA co-chair took issue with the fact that small states have two senators each just like large states do. That is what makes the institution undemocratic in his eyes. He is perhaps thinking about states such as Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota that are deeply red. Vermont, Delaware and Rhode Island, which are perennially blue states, are tiny as well. That “unfair” imbalance cuts both ways.
The DSA members need a reminder that majoritarianism isn’t always benign. They should ask Muslims in India how they feel about the country’s Hindu majority and the oppression they often suffer at the hands of that dominant group. That pattern can be seen pretty much everywhere. Around the world, ethnic, racial and religious minorities are continuously subjected to all kinds of abuses.
As a Black man, I will almost always be a minority wherever I am. I wouldn’t want to find myself trapped under a tyrannical majority.
A parliamentary-style system would not be a panacea either. Perhaps the DSA hasn’t paid much attention to British politics. The political landscape in the U.K. has become so fractious that the country has cycled through seven prime ministers in the last decade. Many commentators have said in recent weeks that Britain has become ungovernable. Lately, Germany has suffered from the same political paralysis. Coalition governments are cobbled together, but they are so unstable that crafting any substantive policies is extremely difficult at best.
Societies function best when their populations patiently work together to obtain majority agreement on issues. Human nature is such that dominant groups tend to hurriedly impose their will on others. That is why it is necessary to slow down deliberative processes at times. Even the current Senate, for all its flaws, has managed to throw useful sand in the gears of the Trump administration in a few instances. Without that, our wrecking ball president and the rest of his administration would have gone much further than they have.
The DSA may want to be careful what it wishes for.