AdvertisementDSOC emerged from a split in the old Socialist Party of America. The goal was realignment: pushing the party leftwards on economic issues while upholding basic liberal democratic norms such as free speech, competitive elections, and opposition to authoritarian communism. AdvertisementWhat emerges is an organization that retains the name “Democratic Socialists” but has substantively departed from the liberal democratic commitments of its founding. This radicalization reflects deeper tensions between social democracy’s reformist aspirations and the revolutionary impulses that have long coexisted uneasily on the American left. The personal trajectories of DSA-aligned victors underscore this subversion.