Darializa Avila Chevalier, a New York City socialist, won her primary this week in the latest sign of the DSA’s rising influence. Charlie, on today’s edition of The Editors, says that while he doesn’t “believe that these people should be treated differently under the law . . . they are so far outside our normal politics, and they represent such a threat to that politics that we must not treat their views as foibles, as curiosities.”
“If the aim expressed by Chevalier to end Western civilization were to be fulfilled,” says Charlie, “the United States would no longer exist.”
“Again, that’s not hyperbole,” say Charlie. “That is quite literally what she wishes to achieve. She’s not asking for tweaks. She’s not even asking for what the old-school socialists would have asked for, which is the shift of ownership of, say, the health-care sector or the steel industry. She is a revolutionary. And she should be regarded as a revolutionary.”
Charlie says that some people are “convinced that this is limited to New York and therefore shouldn’t be taken seriously. But I believe in ideas. I believe that one can’t just sit back and say, ‘Ha, look at New York.’ Or even, ‘Well, this is great for us because now we have a contrast point.’ I think it is imperative that people of all views push back against this.”
“My aim with these people is to persuade the average voter who is not particularly ideological and rationally not paying attention in the way that we do, that this is different and that it doesn’t have a place within our system.”
The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.