Written by Axyl C.
Online and real-world political discourse has coalesced into a unified strategy: combat Leftist political gain through appeals to moderation. Cable TV news has turned into a circus of demanding progressive political candidates disavow apparently radical elements of our coalition. Partially in consequence, internal to the Left, we face the effects—if not the active perpetration of—simple sabotage. In combating these efforts, the last thing we should do is back down at the insistence of our opposition. Granting them their point delegitimizes the position of Democratic Socialists of America in specific and the Left in general, even if you personally find the stances or people referenced unpalatable.
I. The Conservative Strategy
Ever since the Left has been ascendant in American politics, the Conservative reaction has demanded its policing through some common strategies. Primarily, the state or right-wing provocateurs will aim to discredit the Left as violent or radical. Historically, this manifested as the Red Scares, the Palmer Raids, McCarthyism, and COINTELPRO. Under J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO initially targeted the Communist Party USA, but its scope was expanded to cover civil rights, Black liberation, feminists, and other socialist groups. Hoover’s own memo stated the purpose was to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” these groups.
Akin to the Red Scares of old, there is a joint effort by the government and the media to discredit and disrupt the Left. The Trump administration has issued Executive Order 46317, “Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization” and National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” Faiza Patel with the Brennan Center for Justice wrote that the underlying premises for the issuing of the order and the memo—that America was seeing an ascendant and violent Left-wing backlash, that it constituted a national security threat, and that several unconnected incidents constituted evidence of the problem—are on their face not credible.1 Jonathan Cowan, president of centrist think-tank Third Way, has martialed $15 million in support of what he calls “the next war that is coming.” In an interview with the New York Times, Cowan states that DSA is a “mortal danger” for the Democratic Party.2 The Right-wing media apparatus is chopping and screwing years-old streams of Twitch streamer Hasan Piker’s,3 digging up old joke tweets from Francesca Hong’s account in an effort to smear her as un-American,4 and overall has generated a media environment primarily constructed of phantoms and irrelevant fodder, all in the name of discrediting the Left.
Left-wing terrorism, it should go without saying, is not a major national security issue; Right-wing terrorism remains the dominant expression of political violence in the United States.5 (Under the second Trump administration, certain tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have even taken a Right-wing, terroristic tenor.) Ideologically, however, such misdirection is to be expected. Antonio Gramsci wrote of the class position of the media in 1916 and it holds true today: “the bourgeois newspapers tell even the simplest of facts in a way that favors the bourgeois class and damns the working class and its politics.”6 When the media levels its immense weight in pursuit of a goal, it can kill a man.7 And the way the media covers a story directly influences how the world at large perceives events, especially when it comes to radical politics. In a study of news coverage following anarchist protests in Minneapolis in the 1980s, McLeod and Hertog wrote what became the definitive treatment of the press’ laundering of public opinion against radical movements.
Mainstream media’s rather consistent use of informal representations of public opinion to marginalize the anarchists may have powerful effects. In the process, the protestors are isolated from the ‘general public’ even though they may share some views and concerns with significant portions of the population. In essence, the media coverage may discourage interest and participation in such protest activities and thereby inhibit the growth of critical social movements.8
The far-Right aims to take advantage of this almost autonomic reflex in the media. In Germany, the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany (AfD)’s strategy highlights a line of attack: make their party “acceptable in polite society” by inflaming polarization between the far-left and centrist bourgeois elements of society.9 In America, news coverage of progressive politicians echoes this strategy. In the midst of his contentious Democratic primary, Mayor Zohran Mamdani was asked again and again to police the language and behavior of his fellow-Leftists.10 The same is now being generalized to all candidates of the Left, whether through demanding they distance themselves from our political platform or insisting they condemn any number of actions by Hasan Piker.
When a political figure is asked to approve or condemn a particular fraction of their movement in this way, the very premise of the media appearance becomes one of antagonism. Antagonistic framing works in contexts such as our justice system because it operates as a fact-finding mechanism. It does not work in the media because, by the nature of presenting two given stances as opposite to one another, the media is treating both stances as equal in form, value, and content for the purposes of debate. “By framing social and political issues in specific ways,” write Nelson et al., “news organizations declare the underlying causes and likely consequences of a problem and establish criteria for evaluating potential remedies for the problem.”11 Through this rhetorical levelling effect the media enables more fringe opinions to gain a foothold in the mainstream. In Network Propaganda, Benkler, Faris, and Roberts outline the route of news and framing from the fringe Right. Of particular interest to them is the strategy of notorious Twitter troll Mike Cernovich, explained by himself in a New Yorker profile as “’If there’s a story that can hurt Hillary, I want it in the news cycle,’ Cernovich said. ‘When I first started, that meant figuring out how news cycles work.’ One way to propel a story into the mainstream is to get it linked by the Drudge Report. ‘If it’s on Drudge, then it’s on ‘Hannity,’‘ Cernovich said.”12
From Cernovich’s example, Benker, Ferris, and Roberts conclude that
While the propaganda pipeline can, then, work to transmit narratives from the periphery to the core, [most political narratives do not follow this pattern. However,] The pipeline exists. The trolls, propagandists, and marginal figures know about it and want to leverage it. But it can only work with the active and willing complicity of outlets higher up the chain—Drudge, Hannity, and the rest of the more visible members of the media ecosystem.13
And these figures will be unrepentant. The Right-wing media environment encourages more and more extreme politics.14 The blogger who broke the Jason Arday plagiarism controversy, Nathan Cofnas, stated in an interview after Arday was found dead, “After the revolution, I’ll be the, you know, the head of the department of eugenics and race science at Harvard.”15 Regardless of the facts of Arday’s alleged plagiarism, Cofnas is a fascist who sparked a mass media psychosis in England because he believes that academics of color are only in their positions because of racial quotas and DEI programs. In the ensuing media storm, nearly 250 articles were published in 22 days (many after Arday had already resigned), with The Times leading the charge through 44 articles on their own.16
The entire goal of the strategy is to place the Left on the defensive. If we are always forced to defend, we never have the time or space to lay out a comprehensive, alternative vision of society. The New York Times, when writing about transgender issues, produced more transgender-related coverage than any other outlet studied by Assigned Media, but were the least likely to actually quote transgender people or transgender advocacy organizations—or to allow such people and organizations to present a position in their own words—in their coverage.17 This strategy functions as an institutionalized gish-gallop; but moreover, when we take into account the media’s material position in the political economy, demonstrates that there is an economic pressure to homogenize and flatten public opinion in order to more easily present an adversarial relationship between two given viewpoints.
Even as public opinion in the U.S. coalesces around the Democrats in the lead-up to the November 2026 election,18 and as some of the most popular political figures in America are now socialist in outlook,19 the media moves to make controversy of the newfound political power of the ascendant Left. And, to varying degrees, members of the political Left will—no matter how hard they try—remain susceptible to this media framing because of how saturated the political discourse is with its coverage and agenda-setting.
An excellent example of this is the postmortem written by Wisconsin gubernatorial hopeful Hong’s policy director Roman Fritz which explains plainly that the socialist vision wins hearts and minds, but the establishment has nevertheless saturated voters with the idea that the arbitrary value of “electability” should trump one’s own personal beliefs. “The moderate wing claimed Hong couldn’t break through in the general election, even though she was the highest-polling candidate and her opponents were plagued with controversy,” writes Fritz.20 “By actively organizing against Hong, electability advocates undermined her ability to win. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, one commonly utilized against leftists from marginalized backgrounds.” The cudgel of mainstream acceptance is a potent weapon, and the guardians of the status quo wield it well. But it must ultimately be remembered that public opinion is not static.
II. “Expose, Disrupt, Misdirect, Discredit, or Otherwise Neutralize.”
The weaponization of the media and of public opinion is nigh-impossible to counter on its own, but it also manifests in an equally malicious manner by influencing actions and intellectual framing within the Left. It is no coincidence that COINTELPRO's most effective weapon against the Left was exploiting sectarian differences and interpersonal disagreement.21 These tactics can trace their lineage all the way back to the Office of Strategic Services in World War II. The 1944 Simple Sabotage Field Manual outlines strategies for disrupting and increasing the inefficiencies of enemy supply lines, bureaucratic functions, and decreasing enemy morale through social methods. I bring this up as a means of demonstrating the destructive power of Left-punching and internecine conflict.
I do not mean this in any way which could be interpreted as labeling certain members as saboteurs or feds, but I will be plain in outlining how a pattern of oppositional behavior is not conducive to a cohesive Leftist movement, and in fact may be wholly detrimental. There is a difference between meaningful, constructive debate and raising settled questions or debating for the sake of debate itself. Mao Zedong describes this tendency as a form of liberalism (the fourth type), and writes, “Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this gives rise to ideological, political, and organizational liberalism. [...] It is negative and objectively has the effect of helping the enemy; that is why the enemy welcomes its preservation in our midst.”22
This is why I bring up the OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual. It is useful for identifying habits from fellow Leftists which, knowing or not, in effect constitute a form of sabotage. Consider section 11, point (a)(7), which reads:
Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.23
Members of the Left, nominally acting in good faith and who are concerned about the perception of our platform and organization as “too radical” ultimately miss the point of being a member of a socialist organization, and in effect waste our time debating our already democratically-accepted platform in order to placate bad faith concerns from outside our organization.
The media even acknowledges that socialism is becoming more and more popular, that American pride is falling to lower and lower levels, and that public and private institutions face the lowest approval ratings in the history of public polling.24 The public as a whole is moving away from supposed “tried-and-true” American-style neoliberalism at a startling rate. While most Americans still do believe in the ideals of capitalism (that being innovation, competition, and opportunity) while being largely skeptical of socialism,25 Americans acknowledge and understand that politics-as-usual is not working. As such, it is nonsensical to suggest that we appeal to the public in language similar to “politics-as-usual.” In the public arena, Democratic Socialists of America are not garnering attention because we speak to the same policies as the historically unpopular Democratic Party, but because we promote new, radical ideas (relative to the American political consciousness).
The far-Right aims to present another alternative—that of corporatist fascism—and we must ensure this alternative remains plainly unacceptable to anyone with a good conscience. It is therefore our responsibility as socialists to be radical, and to proudly and loudly proclaim ourselves to be socialists rather than another clique of useless Democrats. Zohran Mamdani is not popular because he appeals to the middle, but because he is a socialist who enacts his policies and creates visible and accessible change to his constituents. We have nothing to fear by proclaiming what we believe. It’s what the people want.
Next consider section 11, point (a)(4), which reads:
Bring up irrelevant issues as often as possible.26
Constantly demanding acceptance of moderate language or begging socialists to stop using socialist language and symbols like “comrade” or the red banner in our messaging mistakes the role of the political agent as chasing the moderate voter rather than building up an ideological base which defends our own interests as socialists.
The media’s constant appeals to moderation enable the unintentional saboteur to continue to be a detriment to the Left, even if they truly believe they are doing the right thing. Asking questions for the sake of asking questions–”JAQing off”–constantly generates distraction. Political strategist Robert Creamer states, “great electoral campaigns tolerate no whining; zero tolerance. Whiners and handwringers don’t attract followers. Organizations that tolerate whining don’t, either.”27 Creamer defines “whiners” as those who constantly complain about problems without identifying solutions.
I argue that the constant drive to moderate—the constant drive to disavow our socialist label; the constant itch to refuse to stand for what we believe in because one is afraid of potential, imagined backlash—produces no concrete solutions, or at the very least only produces solutions advantageous to our political opposition. Why else would the press be so interested in how a political figure feels about the state of Israel, or in disparaging the mere idea of critically analyzing national symbols (like Thanksgiving in Francesca Hong’s case)? It’s not to further inform the populace but to, through framing, restrict the ‘acceptable’ answers a candidate can give.
Now-former candidate for Florida’s 25th congressional district Oliver Larkin, in a Fox News interview, once received the question “How many children can be raped and it’s fine, in relation to the immigration community?” to which Larkin responded, “If we’re talking about children being raped, then we need to hold this pedophile president, Donald Trump, accountable.”28 What the Fox News host was hoping to do was corner Larkin rhetorically. A lesser media-trained candidate would have felt hemmed in by the question, and granted the host’s point that there is a level of child rape that would be acceptable, which is patently absurd on its face. This is the bullshit that Republicans and the Right wing do constantly, and it’s the kind of bullshit that I see many of my comrades falling for constantly.
The popular refrain is always be on the attack; if you’re defending yourself, you’re losing. This is what the Left needs to learn to do. We have been so used to losing for so long that the defeatism becomes reflexive, that we must have to give up something in order to achieve victory. Creamer again: “great organizations never admit defeat before the end of the game anymore than great sports teams do. They keep looking for a way to win, they believe they can win, and sometimes they do. One thing is for sure, if you don’t believe you can win, you never will.”29
Let us finally consider the opening page of the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, which reads in part:
A second type of simple sabotage requires no destructive tools whatsoever and produces physical damage, if any, by highly indirect means. It is based on universal opportunities to make faulty decisions, to adopt a non-cooperative attitude, and to induce others to follow suit. Making a faulty decision may be simply a matter of placing tools in one spot instead of another. A non-cooperative attitude may involve nothing more than creating an unpleasant situation among one’s fellow workers, engaging in bickerings, or displaying surliness or stupidity.30
Our political platform is what we, as DSA, stand for. If we, as members, are unwilling to at least refuse to undermine our platform in public (even if we may disagree with it) then why did we publish it? It is not a matter of asking people to defend statements they don’t believe in but asking them to uphold the principle of the organization as one based on democratic currents. All members have a voice, and the membership has affirmed this platform as the best way forward. Argumentation and debate of the platform in public—where it is liable to be (mis)interpreted as disarray—can only serve to demonstrate a lack of discipline and a disregard for the political and strategic situation DSA and the Left in general is in at present.
III. Conclusion
The American Left is in a precarious position in national politics, but it has always lived on the edge. Ever since the destruction of the Socialist Party of America and the crackdowns of the American left in the 1910s and 1950s, the pace of progress has been driven by progressives, socialists, and radical civil rights leaders but stymied by moderating forces and impulsive infighting. We now, looking down the barrel of the 2026 midterms, have an advantageous position: Americans like what we have to offer. Our political platform is radical, and Americans are tired of neoliberal moderation.
But atop the threat posed by the incumbent Right-wing political establishment, we will now face an onslaught of opportunists co-opting the language of our radical tradition, and we will have the responsibility of calling it out. We cannot do this while we, ourselves, feel pressured to moderate our own positions. We cannot take ownership of our movement–cannot protect it from outside threats–if we also face internal divisions which threaten the very stability of the movement.
In the midst of the Chinese Civil War, General P’eng Teh-Huai explained, “Red partisans are not only warriors; they are at the same time political propagandists and organizers. Wherever they go they carry the message of the revolution, patiently explain to the mass of the peasantry the real missions of the Red Army, and make them understand that only through revolution can their needs be realized, and why the Communist Party is the only party which can lead them.” This, in the context of armed conflict, does not apply to our immediate situation—but the strategy does. Everything we, in DSA, do is for the advancement of socialism. Everywhere we go it is our responsibility to be loud and proud advocates, explaining the massive weight of exploitation and who is to blame for it, and to align the populace to one cause not for our own individual gain but for the gain of everyone. “Partisan warfare in China can only succeed under the revolutionary leadership of the Communist Party,” says Peng, “because only the Communist Party wants to and can satisfy the demands of the peasantry, understands the necessity for deep, broad, constant political and organizational work among the peasantry; and can fulfill its promises.”31
The Left is ascendant; we must support one another as we rise. Any individualist squabbling, opportunist cherrypicking, or moderate hesitation will be seized upon by the far-Right as a sign of weakness, as an indication that we will fail like all the previous movements which carried the hope of socialism in American history. Democratic Socialists of America is the movement with the ability to accomplish massive social change and mass class consciousness in the United States precisely because we believe in what we say. To limit ourselves to appeal to those who would see to our defeat is to tie both hands behind our backs.
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Footnotes
Faiza Patel. "Trump’s Orders Targeting Anti-Fascism Aim to Criminalize Opposition." Brennan Center for Justice. 9 October, 2025. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/trumps-orders-targeting-antifascism-aim-criminalize-opposition.
Shane Goldmacher. “Moderate Democrats Prepare for ‘War’ Against an Ascendant Left.” New York Times. 6 August, 2026. https://archive.is/20260809231721/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/06/us/politics/democratic-party-socialists-moderates.html.
Jordan Liles. “Video of Hasan Piker speaking about Black people is heavily edited, missing key context.” Snopes. 14 August, 2026. https://www.snopes.com/news/2026/08/14/hasan-piker-video-black-people/.
Phillip M. Bailey, Molly Beck, and Clara Strecker. “Cancel Thanksgiving? Old tweets haunt Democratic candidate.” USA Today. 10 August 2026. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/08/10/francesca-hong-thanksgiving-wisconsin-primary/91205362007/.
Daniel Byman and Riley McCabe. “Left-Wing Terrorism and Political Violence in the United States: What the Data Tells Us.” Center for Strategic and International Studies, September 25, 2025. https://www.csis.org/analysis/left-wing-terrorism-and-political-violence-united-states-what-data-tells-us.
Antonio Gramsci. “Newspapers and the Workers.” Avanti! 22 December, 1916. tr. Mitchell Abidor. Marxists Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/1916/12/newspapers.htm.
Milan Perera. “Leading Black Academic Laments ‘Lynching Mentality’ in Jason Arday Tragedy.” Bristol 24/7. 15 August, 2026. https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/leading-black-academic-laments-lynching-mentality-in-jason-arday-tragedy/.
Douglas M. McLeod and James K. Hertog. “The manufacture of ‘public opinion’ by reporters: informal cues for public perceptions of protest groups.” Discourse & Society. Vol 3, No 3 (1992) pp. 259-275. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42887799. p. 273.
Mark Leonard. The New Right: Anatomy of a Global Political Revolution. European Council on Foreign Relations, 2026. https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep78364. Pg. 13.
Deirdre Heavey. “’Globalize the intifada’ phrase stirs tension on NYC campaign trail as Middle East conflict rages.” Fox News. 19 June, 2025. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/globalize-intifada-phrase-stirs-tensions-nyc-campaign-trail-middle-east-conflict-rages; Gabe Friedman and Shira Li Bartov. “What NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has actually said about Jews, Israel and antisemitism.” The Times of Israel. 5 November, 2025. https://www.timesofisrael.com/what-nyc-mayor-elect-zohran-mamdani-has-actually-said-about-jews-israel-and-antisemitism/.
Thomas E. Nelson, Rosalee A. Clawson, and Zoe M. Oxley. “Media Framing of a Civil Liberties Conflict and Its Effect on Tolerance.” The American Political Science Review. Vol 91, No. 3. September 1997. pp. 567-583. https://doi.org/10.2307/2952075. Pg. 567-568.
Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda. 2018. Oxford University Press. Pg. 227.
ibid. Pg. 233.
Benkler, Faris & Roberts. Network Propaganda. pg. 80.
Al-Jazeera. “Who is DEI critic and Jason Arday accuser, Nathan Cofnas?” 16 August, 2026. https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2026/8/16/who-is-dei-critic-and-jason-arday-accuser-nathan-cofnas.
Newscord. “Jason Arday told the press he was at the limits of what anyone should endure. It answered with 188 more articles. He is dead at 41.” 14 August, 2026, updated 16 August, 2026. https://newscord.org/editorials/jason-arday-pile-on.
Christopher Wiggins. “The New York Times helped turn trans rights into political controversy, analysis finds.” 23 June, 2026. The Advocate. https://www.advocate.com/politics/national/new-york-times-transgender-controversy.
Jennifer Aglesta and Ariel Edwards-Levy. “CNN Poll: Voters favor Democrats by an 8-point margin heading into the midterms.” 30 July, 2026. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/cnn-poll-midterm-generic-ballot-democrats-republicans-change.
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling. “Here Are the Politicians Americans Actually Like.” 29 June, 2026. The New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/post/212486/politicians-americans-like-obama-sanders-mamdani-democrats.
Roman Fritz. “Francesca Hong’s Loss Can Teach Socialists How To Win.” 19 August, 2026. Current Affairs. https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/francesca-hongs-loss-can-teach-socialists-how-to-win.
Max Elbaum. Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao, and Che. Verso. 2018. Pg. 66-67; Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. “Final Report, Book III: Supplemental Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans.” 1976. https://www.rightsanddissent.org/resource/church-committee-final-report-book-iii-1976/. Pg. 8-9.
Mao Zedong. “Combat Liberalism.” Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. September 7, 1937. Marxists Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_03.htm.
United States Office of Strategic Services. Simple Sabotage Field Manual. 1944. https://archive.org/details/simplesabotagefi26184gut. Pg. 31.
Jeffrey M. Jones. “Image of Capitalism Slips to 54% in U.S.” 8 September, 2025. Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/694835/image-capitalism-slips.aspx; Megan Brenan. “American Pride Falls to 25-Year Record Low.” 29 June, 2026. Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/711938/american-pride-falls-year-record-low.aspx; Jeffrey M. Jones. “Perceived Threat From Big Business Growing.” 15 January, 2026. Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/701054/perceived-threat-big-business-growing.aspx.
Lydia Saad. “How Americans View Capitalism, Socialism, and Free Enterprise.” 6 August, 2026. Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/713144/americans-view-capitalism-socialism-free-enterprise.aspx.
Simple Sabotage Field Manual. Pg. 31.
Robert Creamer. Nuts and Bolts: The Formula for Progressive Electoral Success. 2024. Washington, D.C. Strong Arm Press. Pg. 237.
Larkin, Oliver. “Talking About Immigration on Fox News.” YouTube. 2026.
Creamer, Nuts and Bolts. Pg 235-6.
Simple Sabotage Field Manual. Pg. 1.
Edgar Snow. Red Star Over China. 1938, repr. 1968. Grove Weidenfeld. New York. Pg. 273-4.