The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has an unusual plan for the highest office in the land.
It is preparing for a possible presidential campaign in 2028 even though its own program calls for replacing the presidency as Americans know it.
In its revised national political program, “Workers Deserve More,” formally launched on July 14, the DSA says America needs “a new political system.”
Among its demands is one that has received less attention than its economic planks: “Replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.”
In other words, the DSA would replace a president ordinarily selected independently of Congress with an executive chosen by, and explicitly subordinate to, Congress.
The program goes further, calling for abolition of the Electoral College and Senate, expansion of the House, proportional representation and ranked-choice voting.
TRENDING ARTICLES
In an appearance on Fox News on July 26, DSA co-chair Megan Romer affirmed that the organization supports replacing the presidency and Supreme Court “as we now know them” and endorsed an expanded, unicameral legislature.
Yet at its 2025 national convention, delegates approved Resolution 33, calling for a labor-Left coalition to recruit a socialist candidate for the 2028 Democratic presidential primary.
So why seek an office you want to replace?
Whatever the DSA’s strategy for 2028, the contradiction is revealing. The organization is prepared to seek control of an office that its own political program ultimately wants to undermine.
And that proposed transformation is far more consequential than it might sound. An executive chosen by and subordinate to Congress would overturn one of the central features of the constitutional system: the independence of the executive from the legislature.
More than two centuries ago, the Framers wrestled with that very issue when they designed the presidency.
They created an executive independent of Congress after considering–and then rejecting–something much closer to what the DSA proposes today.
The Virginia Plan, drafted largely under James Madison’s influence and presented by Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph to the Constitutional Convention in May 1787, initially called for the national executive to be chosen by the legislature.
Madison himself later came to oppose that method of selection. During the Convention debate on July 19, 1787, he warned that choosing the executive through the legislature would create an “improper connection” between the two branches.
When the issue came up again six days later, Madison argued that an executive chosen by Congress could become beholden to its dominant faction and make his administration “subservient to its views.” The Convention ultimately made electors the ordinary means of choosing the president rather than leaving the choice to Congress.
Alexander Hamilton later made a similar point in Federalist No. 71. He distinguished between an executive who is “subordinate to the laws” and one who is “dependent on the legislative body.”
That is precisely the distinction the DSA would erase.
So, when the time comes, there are two questions that should be put directly to any DSA-backed presidential candidate:
Do you believe the president should continue to be elected independently of Congress?
And if you won under the Constitution as it stands, would you use the presidency to try to end the independent executive?
Given the DSA’s official program, neither is an unfair question.
The answers matter more than whether the candidate favors Medicare for All, rent control, free college, or other policies associated with democratic socialism. Those are policy disputes Americans have in every election.
This is about something more fundamental: the very structure of our government.
If the DSA enters the presidential arena in 2028, voters should understand what is really at stake.
The question will not simply be who should occupy the White House. It will be whether the independent presidency, one of the pillars of our Republic, will continue to exist.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.
Read the first chapter of The Woketopus right now for FREE
Today, even with President Trump’s victory, leftist elites have their tentacles in every aspect of our government.
The Daily Signal’s own Tyler O’Neil exposes this leftist cabal in his new book, The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.
In this book, O’Neil reveals how the Left’s NGO apparatus pursues its woke agenda, maneuvering like an octopus by circumventing Congress and entrenching its interests in the federal government.
You can read the first chapter of this new book for FREE in this eBook, The Woketopus: Chapter One using the secure link below.
TRENDING ARTICLES
The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you.
RELATED ARTICLES
Don’t miss the
Don’t miss the signal
