Michigan state legislator Donovan McKinney, a Democrat and member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), is campaigning for a seat in the US House of Representatives in the 13th congressional district of northern Detroit. He entered the race after defeating incumbent Representative Shri Thanedar in this summer's primary, a result that drew national attention. Göteborgs-Posten reports that McKinney and other DSA-backed candidates are riding a wave of momentum into the midterm elections.
The district, home to nearly 800,000 people, is among the poorest in the United States. McKinney attributes his primary win to speaking plainly about poverty and about working people struggling with the cost of food, fuel and childcare. He told the newspaper that the median income in the area is around $14,000 a year, which he described as nearly impossible to live on.
Why it matters
The left wing of the Democratic Party is generating both enthusiasm and Republican anger, according to Göteborgs-Posten. DSA members already hold seats in Congress, most prominently Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, but this year an unusually large number of members have won primaries. The newspaper notes that commentators have described the trend as a "tsunami," with the wider Democratic Party shifting leftward.
The movement's platform promises free childcare, universal healthcare and affordable rents. For Swedish readers, Göteborgs-Posten observes, those arguments are relatively easy to grasp. But the DSA's national platform also takes positions that are contentious within both major parties.
A platform that draws fire
Among other things, the DSA platform calls for a Palestinian state, the abolition of the US Department of War (the Department of Defense) and the replacement of the Senate with a single-chamber Congress. It also advocates dismantling ICE, the immigration enforcement agency, and granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants.
Lila Bickner, one of two chairs of the DSA's Detroit chapter, told Göteborgs-Posten that people do not want to see their neighbours thrown into modern forms of concentration camps. She said arrests take place in Detroit while people are sitting in their cars, with children left alone in the back seats, and called the situation inhumane. She also claimed that ICE has wrongly detained several US citizens. Bickner said she believes there should be a path to citizenship for undocumented people.
Arresting and deporting people living in the US illegally was one of President Donald Trump's most prominent campaign pledges. Göteborgs-Posten reports that ICE raids, brutal in some cases, have divided the country and sparked large protests.
Trump has repeatedly attacked DSA candidates, arguing they are not socialists but communists and "crazy" people, and has warned that communism is the greatest threat the US has ever faced, according to the newspaper.
At the Republican Party's local headquarters in Oakland County, north of Detroit, most volunteers share that view. Larry Mareinkowski, a retired car worker and former marine, told Göteborgs-Posten that for him socialism and communism are the same thing. His colleague Cara McAlister, a retiree distributing campaign material for local candidates, said during a break that the DSA wave is dangerous, asserting that its supporters want open prisons and open borders and that the country would go bankrupt if they took power.
McKinney dismissed those claims. He has worked in corrections administration in Michigan and holds strong views on prison policy. The DSA platform states that police forces should be "demilitarised" and eventually disbanded, and that prisons should be closed and replaced with community service and care.
McKinney reasoned that most people sent to prison eventually come out, and that the question is how tax money is used to ensure they become productive citizens. He favours community service, treatment and job training with the aim of preventing reoffending. He added that courts must handle such cases, and claimed that states already allow mass murderers to work in kitchens in places such as Mississippi and Kentucky.
Seeking a different kind of politician
Bickner, who works for a tech company in her day job, said the plans for policing and the Senate lie far in the future. The current focus, she said, is improving daily life in a country where food and fuel prices are painfully high.
She attributed the DSA's success to voters fighting for their survival. In her view, that means they are looking for a different kind of politician, one with clear messages and clear policies. Speaking at the DSA's new headquarters, a former shop premises in south-west Detroit filled with brochures, campaign posters and foil balloons shaped like the movement's red rose symbol, she said the organisation has never received as much attention as it is getting now. Asked to sum up the DSA's message, she said the group believes in redistributing resources to programmes that genuinely help people and communities, and that she wants an America where the working class can live in dignity.
Bickner also addressed Republican efforts to stir up fears of a "red danger," saying that when she knocks on doors she mostly receives a positive response.
McKinney, campaigning at a combined laundrette and café called Commons, holds a lead in the polls and drew plenty of greetings from people on the street. Over a glass of juice he grew serious, saying people there consider politicians and the system corrupt and feel let down by both Republicans and Democrats. He said big corporations' influence over politics must be removed, and that Trump must be held accountable for what is happening in the country.
The midterm elections will show how far the DSA's gains translate into votes, and whether the party's leftward pull holds beyond Detroit.
