The country is debating whether the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the new face of the Democrat Party. There are two impediments, however, to accurately discussing what the DSA is all about.

The first is that Americans are learning about DSA through the lens of the dominant media — what Rush Limbaugh often called “the drive-by media.” Largely missing is a balanced media source despite the almost universal use of the term “mainstream media” to describe the current collection of highly partisan and slanted journalists from whom most Americans get their news. While “mainstream” implies balanced and informative, most of the dominant media of today are neither.

The second impediment is an assumption that advocates of the DSA are simply against a “capitalist” system they associate with greed, and instead favor of what they consider a benign, compassionate “socialist” economy where stuff is largely free. Who doesn’t like free stuff? Capitalism, however, is not the villain. Without capital (funding), there would be no economy, free or state-run. The alternative is to go back to a barter system: I’ll paint your apartment, you give me wood for heating my house.

The issue, therefore, is not between capitalism and socialism. It is between free enterprise and economic liberty on the one hand and a state-run, often totalitarian, market on the other.

What can we expect? Commentator Ryan Mauro notes that New York City’s DSA Mayor Zohran Mamdani and “chaos” funder George Soros both admire Slavoj Zizek, whose In Defence of Lost Causes calls for the return of the French Revolution’s guillotine and what he calls “emancipatory terror.” The goal, it seems, is the destruction of the West, to be replaced with Stalinist communism. Apart from their projected multiple trillions of dollars in new government spending that they cannot pay for, the DSA foreign policy agenda is also scary. The DSA seems to be pushing a global intifada, an embrace of Hamas terrorism, a wholesale rejection of Israel, and on top of all that, “defunding” the US Department of Defense.

The goals of the former Soviet Union are still being pursued — not by the KGB or the Red Army but by DSA hucksters who sadly are nothing but suckers promising a false utopia to be built on the ruins of America.