In the aftermath of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) winning 9 of 10 races in New York, this chart from CNN’s Harry Enten has been making the rounds. It shows DSA with a higher net favorability among Democrats than the party’s members of Congress:
Mark Twain popularized the saying that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
As a lame centrist, I decided to actually look at the MU Law poll in the source note.
Here are the favorables for DSA:
For those who are more visually inclined, here is a chart showing it broken out by intensity: just 5% of Americans are “Very Favorable” towards DSA.
The image is from a crowd of honky yuppies at a DSA election night party chanting “You’re Next” at Hakeem Jeffries.
The economist Ronald Coase said “If you torture the data enough, it will confess to anything.” It is technically true that “among Democrats, the net favorability of DSA is higher than the net favorability of Democrats in Congress. But that torturous.
Socialism remains toxic to American voters. DSA remains toxic to the Democratic Party’s path to durable majorities. This is a worthy topic of attention.
Jeff Maurer’s recent Why I Write About the DSA Left So Much is that “I think they are wackos of import”:
I take the question of whether we need to change course as a given. I’m much more interested in how to change course, and to where. And that’s why I focus on the fight between normie Democrats and DSA Democrats: I think that’s currently the most relevant ideological rift in the country. If sane, solution-oriented Democrats win this factional fight, then I think we can turn the tide against MAGA and elect a competent government. But if we lose, then I think that will be good for MAGA and very bad for sanity, generally.
Last night was good for MAGA and the DSA. Expect to see that chart more from both, and be ready to fight back.
I mean, it doesn't take away from the fact that DSA was unfavorable to 48% of respondents, while the Democratic Party was unfavorable to 62% of respondents. DSA and the Democratic Party were considered nearly equally as very unfavorable (35%/34%). Far be it to suggest basing too much on a single poll, and this is mostly influenced by DSA still being an unknown to most Americans, but there's not really much indication (at least inside this poll) to suggest the DSA brand is any more toxic than the Democratic party writ large.
Amen.