On Friday's PBS News Hour, pundit David Brooks struck a true centrist pose, denouncing Trump's "authoritarian power grabs," and then turning around and trashing the ascendant "authoritarian wing" of the Democratic Socialists of America, insisting the Democrats need to reject the left-wing authoritarians. In reply, Jonathan Capehart claimed this trend of DSA victories is not yet "a thing," and that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is doing just fine.
They began with the end of the Supreme Court term, where Brooks celebrated the court taking steps to curb the so-called Trump authoritarianism. Brooks claimed the DSA victories in Democrat primaries are like the Tea Party wins in 2010, as if Rep. Dave Brat could somehow be compared to a pro-Hamas Marxist.
ON PBS @NewsHour, David Brooks sounded like a centrist and underlined that the DSA "has been hijacked and taken over by an authoritarian wing, which supported Hamas in October 7, who supports Cuba, who supports China, who supports Maduro's Venezuela, who supports pretty much… pic.twitter.com/67ci6Ha1k9
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) July 5, 2026
DAVID BROOKS: It's been compared, I think, accurately, to when Dave Brat beat Eric Cantor in the Republican primary, and you saw a bunch of people said, these -- my party, screw them. We're going to tear it all down. And in that case, and I think, in this case, Democrats are -- they're just looking around through the most furious candidate because they're furious at what's happened. And so they're doing that. And I understand the fury.
My problem is, the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, should not be where you go. The Democratic Socialist Party was started in the 1980s by Michael Harrington, a very wonderful guy, a serious intellectual, and he wanted the DSA to move us toward Denmark, a perfectly good political position.
Over the last five years, that party has been hijacked and taken over by an authoritarian wing, which supported Hamas in October 7, who supports Cuba, who supports China, who supports Maduro's Venezuela, who supports pretty much every left-wing authoritarian regime in the country.
So I understand wanting to register a protest against Washington. But are the Democrats really going to take a position that we're going to become left-wing authoritarians, just as the Republicans become right-wing authoritarians?
And the final thing to be said is, the Democratic Party became great not by fighting the right, but by fighting the left. It was Hubert Humphrey in 1946 who pushed the communists out of the Democratic Farmer -- the DFL, the Democratic Farmer Labor Party [in Minnesota]. It was [AFL-CIO leader] George Meany who pushed the communists out of the labor movement, basically.
And they defined who they were by pushing against the right, but also by pushing against the left. And we're going to see if the Democratic mainstream has the guts, the conviction, or even the clarity of thought to push against what's happening. And we will see.
Capehart was opposed to pushing a panic button on the DSA, and admitted the defeated Democrats were not moderates, although he tried to claim Brad Lander is a "mainstream Democrat."
Jonathan Capehart won't panic about the DSA wins: "I'm not going to fall into the Democratic trap of, oh, my God, the Democratic Socialists are taking over the country when we're talking about, one, wins in deep blue seats in congressional districts, two, when we're talking about… pic.twitter.com/hXcPs4Kjcx
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) July 5, 2026
JONATHAN CAPEHART: I'm not going to fall into the Democratic trap of, oh, my God, the Democratic socialists are taking over the country when we're talking about, one, wins in deep-blue seats in congressional districts, two, when we're talking about what really to me is the big trend here is that the establishment, the incumbents are being thrown out.
And folks are angry. They're angry because of affordability. They're angry because the president is robbing the nation blind. They're angry because it doesn't seem like it any of these elected officials are doing anything to hold the president accountable for what's happened.
I mean, Diana DeGette is no conservative. She was a progressive. Congressman Dan Goldman, not big capital-P progressive, but he was left of center. Brad Lander, who -- another person who beat Dan Goldman, he's no socialist. He's basically like a mainstream Democrat in New York City.
And so, to my mind, I think we need to pay attention to what voters are saying. If they're choosing the Democratic Socialist candidate, then Democrats need to pay attention to, well, why did they choose the DSA candidate and not someone who's a little closer to the center?
Could it be that their message on the economy, their message on what they're going to do is resonating? And, quite honestly Mayor Mamdani, who has put his weight behind a lot of these candidates, the thing he has going for him is, New York City is doing fine.
A lot of people predicted that, oh, you put you elect a Socialist, and then the city will go to pot. And instead, it's -- I'm not going to say it's the opposite, but the dire predictions haven't proven true. And so I think it there's still time to look at other races to see whether the DSA is actually a thing, and a thing in the way that the Tea Party had become for Republicans in the way-back.
Notice Capehart isn't denying the DSA favors dictators and terrorists, he's just saying hey, that's not "actually a thing" that they're taking over the party.
