Blue and orange hair. Facial piercings. Ink enough to qualify as cartography. Political buttons, tote bags, and protest signs everywhere.
It was the sort of gathering where the certainty of the attendees seemed inversely proportional to their experience with the consequences of their ideas.
No, this was not the premiere of a Japanese manga film; this was Chicago, where the Democratic Socialists of America gathered for its 2026 Democratic Socialists Summit and National Organizing Conference. The organization invited members to spend four days on political education, organizer development, skills training, and social activities. There were five principal tracks: Palestine Solidarity and Anti-War, Abolish ICE, Electoral, Labor, and General Organizing.
Welcome to Commie-Con, where the agenda was magnificent.
The DSA's national program, Workers Deserve More, calls for public ownership of major corporations and essential industries, abolition of the Electoral College and Senate, a multiparty political system, major changes to the executive and judicial branches, abolition of ICE, and, ultimately, the replacement of capitalism. That is a remarkable amount of civilization to redesign over a weekend, and one almost expects a vendor's booth selling commemorative hammers.
To be fair, the DSA does not hide the basic proposition. Its political language has been polished for contemporary ears, but the underlying idea remains recognizable: capitalism concentrates power in private hands, workers should control the economy, and the political system must be transformed accordingly.
It is, in short, Marxism with better branding.
There is nothing particularly mysterious about that. If you want socialism, say 'socialism.' If you want to abolish the Senate, say 'abolish the Senate.' If ICE must disappear, explain why. If major industries belong under public ownership, tell the voters what you intend to do with them. Political honesty has one enormous advantage: nobody has to guess.
Then the revolutionary becomes a candidate, and the candidate discovers the focus group.
Francesca Hong was one of the DSA's more prominent electoral experiments. In November 2020, shortly after winning election to the state Assembly, the Wisconsin state representative posted on social media, "Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621," and went on to describe the holiday as a celebration of colonialism. The post sat forgotten for six years.
Hong entered this year's Democratic gubernatorial primary with considerable momentum, reportedly leading the field by roughly twenty points. Then the old post resurfaced, and the resulting media circus treated it as what it was: an extraordinary political statement with an extraordinarily easy punchline. Her lead evaporated. Hong lost to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley by 3,200 votes, 39.8 percent to 39.4 percent, not exactly the socialist tsunami.
There is nothing wrong with changing one's mind. People do it. Sometimes they should. But there is a difference between intellectual growth and discovering, shortly before an election, that Wisconsin has a sentimental attachment to turkey. One can almost imagine the campaign meeting.
"We have a problem."
"What problem?"
"Wisconsin likes Thanksgiving."
"How much?"
"Very much."
"Then I have always loved Thanksgiving."
And so the revolutionary apparatus begins its metamorphosis. Yesterday's radical proposition becomes today's unfortunate misunderstanding. Abolition becomes reform. Socialism becomes affordability. Anti-capitalism becomes economic justice. The candidate evolves; the organization does not.
It would be easy to leave it there.
Another strange weekend in American politics. Another convention full of young revolutionaries who have discovered that the existing system is fundamentally defective and have arrived to discuss how best to replace it. But I cannot quite leave it there, because I have seen what happens when cultural cancellation stops being a joke.
I was six months old when the Granma landed. I did not watch the revolution arrive; I inherited its consequences.
The Granma was not a warship. It was an old American pleasure yacht, a vessel meant for leisure rather than revolution. Castro and 81 other men nevertheless crammed aboard it in Mexico in 1956 and sailed for Cuba. They arrived late, badly equipped, and exhausted, yet they eventually took the country.
That is the part of the story that ought to trouble anyone who believes political movements can be dismissed simply because their ambitions appear ridiculous. The revolution looked ridiculous; the consequences were not.
Fidel Castro entered Havana on Jan. 1, 1959.
The transformation of Cuba did not happen in one cinematic stroke.
Power accumulated. Institutions were neutralized. Property was confiscated. Political opponents were executed, imprisoned, or driven into exile. Schools, newspapers, professional organizations, and churches that had existed independently of the state were progressively brought under revolutionary authority.
The assault on the Church accelerated in 1960 and 1961. Private and religious schools were nationalized. Religious leaders were expelled. Religious processions were restricted. The government increasingly treated independent religious institutions as competitors to revolutionary authority.
By 1962, Cuba had formally embraced atheism.
Then came the calendar: In 1969, Christmas disappeared as an official holiday. The explanation was practical enough: the coming sugar harvest required the labor. For nearly three decades, Dec. 25 was simply another working day in Cuba. Christmas returned as an official holiday in 1997, ahead of Pope John Paul II's visit.
Think about that.
Hong's Thanksgiving remark was funny because it was powerless. It was a politician with a social-media account proposing to cancel a holiday she did not possess the authority to cancel. Castro's government had the authority, and that is the difference between cultural politics as theater and cultural politics backed by the machinery of the state.
Nobody had to agree with the revolution's decision. Nobody had to believe Christmas was actually a threat to the sugar harvest. The government possessed the power to make the argument unnecessary. And that is where the joke ends.
Let me be clear about what I am not saying. I am not saying the DSA is Fidel Castro. It isn't. I am not saying America is Cuba. It isn't, either.
America has a Constitution, federalism, courts, elections, private property, a free press, and a civil society vastly more resilient than anything Castro inherited. Those institutions have survived presidents, wars, depressions, riots, and political movements considerably more powerful than the DSA. Thank God.
But none of that makes political intentions irrelevant. The question is not whether the DSA can abolish the Senate next Tuesday. It cannot. The question is whether we should listen when an organization tells us that it wants to abolish the Senate, replace capitalism, restructure the political system, and put major portions of the economy under public control. Of course we should.
We should also listen when its candidates tell us they no longer believe what they once said they believed. Perhaps they have genuinely changed their minds. If so, fine. Tell us plainly. Political conversion is not a crime.
But voters should not be expected to forget the political movement that produced the candidate simply because the candidate has discovered that some of its ideas are less popular outside the convention hall.
That is the serious question hiding inside Commie-Con. It is not whether these people look ridiculous, though they do, or whether their ambitions are improbable, though some of them certainly are. The question is what happens when an improbable political movement acquires organization, candidates, money, institutions, and eventually power. I know what happened once.
I was six months old when that old pleasure yacht came ashore. I did not see the men climb out of it, but I grew up in the country they built.
So yes, let us laugh at Commie-Con. Laugh at the hair. Laugh at the piercings. Laugh at the revolutionary tote bags and the candidate who discovered her affection for Thanksgiving just in time for the Wisconsin primary. But do not confuse ridicule with dismissal.
The people aboard the Granma looked ridiculous, too; they were not.
The mistake is not believing that America is Cuba.
The mistake is believing that Cuba became Cuba overnight.