Democratic Socialism. Hope or Hopeless?
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Who was Michael Harrington and why is he called “the man who discovered poverty”?
Some groups have been sounding the alarm about AI safety for years. But in the last few months, something changed.
The conversation has just shifted so quickly. Um, away from we don't even know if this is real to okay, what are we gonna do about this? AI hacks, rogue agents, calls for regulation, we unpack it all on shortwave. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Georgetown University, November nineteenth, twenty fifteen. Hundreds of eager students wait under umbrellas as rain comes pouring down. Some have been there for hours already. All of them are hoping for a spot inside the auditorium. Finally, the doors open. The room quickly fills up. And those who don't get in stand outside the room, a line stretching down the hall, just for a chance to hear the muffled voice of a presidential candidate from Vermont.
Thank you all for being out on this beautiful day.
Bernie Sanders stands at the wooden lectern for more than an hour. He talks about things we've now reflexively come to associate with him: income inequality, campaign finance reform, single-payer health care. And he sums up his vision for the future of the Democratic Party with two words: democratic socialism.
So let me take this opportunity. to define for you what democratic socialism means to me. It means building on what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said when he fought for guaranteed economic rights for all Americans.
It's a safe bet to say most Americans listening to Sanders speak had never heard the term before. If you just type in Google, like democratic socialism in America, DSA's gonna come up. DSA, a political advocacy group. It's short for the Democratic Socialists of America. When Sanders gave that speech, the DSA only had six thousand members. The average age was my generation, it was sixty something. Берні Сандерс, байвон and isn't now a member of the DSA. But some of those people Googling start to join, even more join after Donald Trump wins in twenty sixteen. For a lot of people, especially just getting into political scene. They don't think the Quote unquote mainstream democrats are that oppositional, and they think DSA offers a better way to do that.
It provides a vehicle into which all of these doom, eager, young recruits are drawn. This bill is a deal with the devil. Алеxandro Ocasio Cortez, President Trump. You're either being lied to Or you are lying to the American people,
my friends. We have toppled a political dynasty.
The organization expanded dramatically and recently topped a hundred and twenty thousand members, which makes it numerically the largest socialist organization in the history of the American left ever.
Democratic socialists are celebrating another win in a key US congressional primary ahead of the midterm. The barbarians are in the gate.
We will defeat the communists. This is all part of an internal fight within the Democratic Party. This is political suicide times ten. The DSA has made headlines a lot in the decades since Bernie Sanders uttered those two words. But the organization is not new. It's been around since the early nineteen eighties, founded by a guy named Michael Harrington several years before he died. In his lifetime, Harrington was considered probably the most well known socialist in the United States. He was mister Socialism. Then and now, being labeled socialist in America comes with a lot of strings attached. You start where you can start. F if I had designed American society I think I
would have designed it much more left wing than it is. Бо афта діл ви соціалі ази.
Harrington spent years trying to figure out how to market socialist ideas to an American audience and move the Democratic Party closer to that vision. I'm Rand Abdelfatta, and on this episode of Through Line from NPR, we're diving into the story of Michael Harrington, his complicated evolution from devout Catholic to revolutionary socialist to Democratic Party loyalist. And we'll ask the question that followed him throughout his life: Is compromise necessary to change the world?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who was Michael Harrington and why is he called “the man who discovered poverty”?
0:00–7:09
2
How did Harrington’s Catholic upbringing and early education shape his turn toward socialism?
7:09–14:18
3
What role did the Catholic Worker movement play in Harrington’s early activism?
14:18–21:27
4
Why did Harrington choose to support Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” instead of a more radical candidate?
21:27–28:13
5
How did Harrington’s strategy of working inside the Democratic Party influence the formation of the DSA?
28:13–35:03
6
What were the major points of conflict between Harrington and the New Left/anti‑war activists in the 1960s‑70s?
35:03–40:57
7
Did Harrington’s compromises ultimately help or hinder the modern democratic‑socialist movement?
40:57–47:35
8
How might Harrington view today’s DSA stance on Israel‑Palestine and its younger leaders?
47:35–55:06