tv. journal"ngton continues. host: maria svart joins us. she is the director of the democratic socialists of america. to start this conversation, what does it mean to be a democratic socialist? guest: we believe we should all live a life of dignity and comfort and that in the richest country in the history of the world it is possible. we know that working people are the ones that make this economy work and make society work. the current economic system and the political system we have in place because of our economic system are not working for the 99%. we believe we need a society that we run democratically for human needs, not private profit. it is our believe there is an elite minority of people who have rigged the economy and therefore rigged the political system for their own benefit.

when he do work together as working and poor people to take back our economy and our politics and create a transformed society. we are an organization with chapters in all 50 states working towards that with everything from direct access to legislative work to electing democratic socialist candidates and more. host: how did you become a democratic socialist? guest: i come out of a union family. and my dad were union members. a lot of my extended family. i am biracial. i'm a woman. i know the world is not fair. i was an activist. i went to college and i was an activist around feminism and then one day there was an event about socialist feminism and that appealed to me because i felt the mainstream feminist movement was not speaking to the ,eeds of people like my mother who people discriminated against because she is latina and people

like my grandmother who was a poor housewife and struggle to make ends meet. i had a moment where i heard there is an economic system that is structured deliberately by people that currently have power to keep their power and that is when i had an epiphany and realized i was a socialist myself. host: how did you become the national director? guest: i became active when i was a student and that speaks to the need to have organizations. i became active in our young democratic socialists of america chapter at my school and then after college i wanted organizing and became a union organizer for a number of years. i organized hospital workers and realized the bosses do not listen unless working people stand together across our differences. i learned that in order to win better working conditions and wages people have to demand it and we have to not let ourselves be divided. i was a member during that.

-- during that period and learn to pressure the decision-maker and when the prior director retired i thought it was time to step up so i applied for the position and here we are. svart is with you, a special line for those who identify as democratic socialists. otherwise, republicans (202) 748-8001, democrats (202) 748-8000, independents, (202) 748-8002. i want to focus on your relationship with the democratic party establishment. the democratic socialists of america not a political party but an activist organization. explain the difference. guest: we are not a political party but we are trying to intervene in politics. understanding of the world is that politicians and the government have a huge impact on our lives but at the same time

the reason they are enacting policies that benefit the very wealthy is because the very wealthy owner them. -- the very wealthy own them. we do not want to become a political party. we want to maine kaine -- we want to maintain our connection with four people. we go to door to door listening about issues that are important to people organizing a mass organization with many members so we can maintain our independence from the politicians. whosep elect folks politics we like but we want to maintain enough distance that we can hold them accountable. we try to support them when they do the right thing and we also want to be independent so we can push them when they do not. host: you mentioned the democratic socialists of america have chapters in all 50 states. is the idea to eventually become the majority of the democratic party? the democratic party has

millions of members. parties in the united states are not the same as other parties. someday we would love to be a movement that is strong enough to actually become another party. we are so far from that now because of the way the two parties have worked together to set the system up, it is difficult for any other parties to become one of the main parties. there are many other parties, but the main parties maintain their power. there are structural battery or's -- there are structural barriers they set up to make it difficult to vote or for other parties to gain influence. it is mores is strategic to be independent and popularize this idea of democratic socialism and that there is an alternative to capitalism and we hope we grow big enough to become another party that becomes one of the dominant parties or totally change the political system itself. host: as you go about your work

in 2018, what is your relationship like with the dnc? we are pretty frustrated with the dnc. we do not spend a lot of time conflicts interparty because we believe the way to change political possibility is to organize people at the grassroots. conflictty because we believe that the way to change political possibility is to organize people at the grassroots. last presidential election, 46% of people did not vote. partly, there were racist partlys put the place, was because there were barriers put into all poor people voting, and partly because people do not like their alternatives. they do not like the wall street

democrats and what we have seen is that the dnc will consistently elevate and put there some on the scale to support wall street democrats and prevent the rise of more left wing democrats. our believe is our best use of our time is organize communities in all 50 states to build a base of organized politically aware people ready to fight back. you mentioned bernie sanders, do you think you will run in 2020? guest: i hope he does. i do not know where our members will be in 2020, but i think he has completely transformed the political system in this country. he recognized after the financial crash and occupy wall , the country was ready and articulated

that in a language that was accessible to people and changed olitics. p we wanted to and building that and chapters everywhere help everyone go to the experience that i went through where eyes saw an event about andalis feminism then i realized, there were decisions being made by the very wealthy. we want to create an organization in communities across the country so we can create political change but also, support change in between elections. in the labore work movement and the political system and in communities working on issues like tenants rights, affordable housing, health care, medicare for all,

and other issues that working people care about. host: we want to hear what the viewers care about in his conversation with the democratic socialist of america, the national director with us until the bottom of the hour. a special line for democratic comelists, (202) 748-8003 otherwise republicans, (202) (202)01, democrats, 748-8000. oscar is up first for a democrat, go ahead. all blaming the i am a former social security claims specialist and i've seen how government has helped not just but, healthy retirees, disabled people, and i wonder as a socialist, what is your take on government itself? do you find government is to help yourol

feminist movement or your when weive thoughts consider all of the programs that you would like to do, government always be there. yet, we always have this antigovernment feeling when we see a democratic socialist speaking. can you comment? host: thanks for the call. guest: absolutely. government is incredibly important because of the scale that we are talking about, a country with millions of people, were is no way that if do not have the control of the government, we cannot improve the lives of millions of people. i understand the impulse for folks on occupy wall street to be against government. born in then -- first year of the millennial generation and i understand the

hasle of my age and younger never seen the government respond when people of butsroots demand things, social security, these are programs that ensure that nobody has to die in the street and people can retire with dignity, or somebody disabled can have access to care through medicaid. government programs are incredibly important because if we do not have programs like that, just imagine how corporate america would treat people. we see it of how they had tried to cut programs for the homeless, affordable housing stock is being cut, we see a and the fact that one in four children go hungry, so in the richest country in the world, we cannot rely on the very wealthy, the capitalist class, the people who own all of the companies that we work for every day and labor for, and get a small rely onback, we cannot

these corporations to take care of us. and we to come together talked about a grassroots movement because it is going to take all of us standing together and demand it -- demanding change. why we fight both inside government and in the political system to elect politicians, but we are also independent so we can push them between elections. we are also organizing against corporations whether it is our abolish ice campaign, or whether it is our tenant organizing for medicare for all where we are targeting the profiteers that are making money off of working people. ernment plays an important role in foreseeing a just society and a democratic backlists, we want to take the government and use it to have a truly democratic society.

host: do you think your abolish ice campaign is working? ofst: if you look at some the things that have happened recently, we have helped to move the debate. when we first started our campaign, our national immigrant committee decided we needed to launch this campaign because they were seeing horrific images from the border . we thought that this was barbaric, but we also knew as part of a larger economic system. fact thatssing is the u.s. foreign-policy both military and economic has created conditions where people need to migrate to survive so they come to the united states. it is also as a generation where corporations can send jobs overseas and move money and factories across borders, but working people cannot cross borders.

democrats andreet republicans that helped pass free trade agreements that devastated the economies in other countries. people are being restricted and the reason is because the bosses, the capitalist class of benefits when i have a workforce that is afraid. in the united states, american citizen workers lose out when their undocumented coworkers are living in fear of an ice raid and we know that employers like to divide people. part of their workforce is afraid, and makes it easier to exploit all of the workers. -- we believe that to -- ourigned abolish ice campaign is really meant to get at the root of the problem and really point out the larger forces at play because the children being ripped from

the arms of their parents and in inhumane conditions at the border is just the tip of the iceberg and there is a much bigger reason that this is happening and we need to highlight that because nobody else's. an independent in indianapolis. good morning. i find it interesting, everybody is a victim. that is the cornerstone of your thought. take a step back and look at the soviet union -- you think you know economics. but you know nothing but false degreesur in feminism, it is not so much -- you are not trying to do good, you just do not understand. up working when you end up with a dictator like stalin, your system of economic

development is built on venezuela. maybe you will think of your success one rerun -- when we run out of toilet paper. guest: our vision of democratic socialism is profoundly different. i would like to quote the famous socialist and union organizer, eugene v debs who said, "i would not be a moses to lead you into the promised land because then someone else would lead you back out." we profoundly believe that working people know how to run society because we not to do the work. our vision of socialism is bottom-up and democratic. what we do know is capitalism is not working. are drinkinglint

poison water, one in four children are in poverty in the richest country of the world -- it is clearly not working for everyone and we are channeling millions of people every day who go through the day was sore teeth because they do not have dental care, the millions of people who have the wes to bed hungry, so believe working people know how to run our society and we need to realize we have the power. host: willie is from michigan on the line for republicans. good morning. caller: yes, i am calling because i have been hearing a lot of stuff about the misplaced kids from different countries, but the government in the united states misplaced a lot of kids that they have taken out of their houses and trying to figure out what is going on with

that as far as getting them reunited with their family and changing some of the laws. host: do you want to take that up? guest: absolutely. i want to reiterate that the capitalist system as we have it now and the government that is run by capitalists is profoundly dangerous and violent towards american citizens, not just people who are not american citizens. uniteoblem is we need to with working people from other countries, we need to unite across our differences herein united states, people from different backgrounds and genders -- we need to unite together because i agree. mistreats ourtes own citizens and that is not going to change until we stand up and make a change. organizer, the

question i ask you boys who is benefiting from the situation we have now -- the question i ask people is to is benefiting from the situation we have now? that is how we are building a movement. host: robert is a democrat in new york. caller: good morning. , i just want to let you know that i am on your side and i have an idea that i want to run through you in order to make your point valid. i want you to make a video that shows two tables, one table has $50,000 on its which is what the average of what americans make, and i want you to put out 22% federal and 5% local taxes and show what a great percentage of that pay is. why do you want to do that? caller: i wanted to add on but she is speaking. she is not speaking yet.

on the second table, i want you to put a billion dollars down and i want you to show at the highest rates was an 5% and to show what a small amount of money that is and that the a l can pay a hell of theore in order to make idea that america is a place that people should not be living in. guest: thank you. i completely agree. the very wealthiest of this country, the .01% have set up workplaces in the economic system and to they can make out like bandits. the tax reform of the in decemberpassed had a really small tax cut for americans and a huge tax cut for the wealthy and the tax cut for the average americans expires

and the tax cut for the very wealthy does not expire. we know that trump is trying to pass a potentially illegal tax cut on capital gains that would put almost $100 billion back into the pockets of mostly of the very wealthy, and this is money that they make off of our backs. working people go to work every day, we work hard, then we get a little bit back for what we have contributed with our labor. boss gets most of the profits. when they accumulate that and then they reinvest in the casino economy, they accrue a billion dollars so they not only have a lot more money but they can paying the higher rates but they have made that money by taking it out of our pockets. we can decide where our tax dollars go and it should not go to subsidize their expensive lifestyle. host: tom is a republican in

l.a.. caller: good morning. i was listening to your program, but i have a quote from abraham lincoln. i will be brief. "therecertain truths, are certain truths that are true no matter how much the world may question or denied them. , youe economic world cannot legislate the port to freedom by legislating though wealthy out of it. peopleents cannot get to -- give to people what they do not first take away from people. and that which one man receives without working for another man must work for without receiving it. nothing can kill the initiative of a people quicker than having to give the idea that they need not work because the

other will feed them. ideather half to get the it does no good to work, does not see the rewards to your labors. maria? myst: my response to that is response to many things which is just think about who is benefiting from the system we have now. do you think employers want everybody to have a job? what happens of everybody has a job? people can say, actually, i do not want to keep only 25% of the wealth that i produce for you, i want to keep 50% or 75% to because i am doing the labor. the only thing you own is the workplace or the factory. employers benefit when there are a lot of people that do not have work. peopley benefit to the or inraid of each other,

competition with each other, so not only did they want a large reserve army of labor -- the people who cannot find work because the people who are working car easily exploited, but they also want to be able to pit people against each other. that the people is more lazy or they do not work as hard as you do. pit us against each other because it makes it easier to exploit all of us. i disagree that people do not want to work. most people want to live in dignity, they want jobs, and it tothe employer that wants benefits. they do not want us all to have jobs. host: about 20 minutes left with maria. special line for democratic ,ocialists, (202) 748-8003

before we get to some other calls, i wanted to ask you about the story from earlier. the incident at the mexican restaurant in washington dc where it homeland security chief christian nilsson -- kristjen neilsen were shouting at her during card dinner. there are members of the democratic socialists of america . is that the kind of tactic you support? guest: absolutely. doingur government is at the border is barbaric. what the government is doing to the children of flint is barbaric, and if we do not stand up, it is going to get worse. we believe that people have resorted to this kind of tactic because the institutions that middle-class people have been told will protect us like the supreme court, congress, the white house come are very

clearly not doing that and clearly being weaponized to b e used against poor people. the whole debate about civility misses the point which is that when they uncivil feel that their voices are not being heard. what sort of boundaries do you put on that when you talk about using it among the different groups? guest: we are nonviolent organization. we believe in civil disobedience and public pressure campaigns as one of the tools we use in addition to things like mass strikes. we really supported the strikes and west virginia because it was working people, public employees, and teachers withholding labor and saying we are going to stop right now until you give us what we need. welobby elected officials, do public education events, and

one of the things we do our going door to door and talking to people about their health care. we support medicare for all and when you knock on people's doors , our experience is that they are either not calm or the rare "healthts because our care system" is so dysfunctional and does not serve anyone's needs. we are nonviolent organization that we do not put all of our eggs in one basket. host: william is a democrat in knoxville, tennessee. caller: good morning. thank you very much for this program and thank you for all of your comments. i am a member of the democratic national committee. 50 years ago, i was saying the same things your guest was saying this morning. it is the same arguments.

i happen to disagree on the democratic national committee is not addressing some of these problems, we are addressing it. the country and the entire world would be much have hillary clinton be elected had folks gone out and voted for them. i wish they had have. the democratic party platform calls for medicare for all. we are calling for a $15 minimum wage, $15 an hour. the democratic party platform was the most liberal platform in the history of any major political party, soap only, i iink -- so personally, think the democratic party is the vehicle that we hope people to and help us win

some of these elections in this midterm and change the course of america. i would appreciate your comments. host: thanks for the call. guest: i want to say that many are democrats, the majority are registered democrats. vast majoritye would have preferred hillary clinton presidency and many voted, especially in swing states. that hillarys clinton was not able to inspire the kind of people and turn out that that we needed in that election and we have to ask ourselves why. many people in this country have not been listened to, have been by peopleidiculed inside the beltway including clinton and everyone who was running her campaign. that is what we are fighting against. the democratic party might have a better platform now but we also see right now, bernie

sanders is introducing a medicare for all bill in the senate and there is a medicare for all bill in congress for lots of sponsors. we also see other democrats half measures and claiming it is medicare for all and muddying the water. and saying that medicare extra is the same thing is medicare for all. that is simply not true. policy,rganizing around we want everybody and for health care system and we want nobody out. we have seen what happened with obamacare when some people got coverage and others did not. people still get care rationed based on their ability to pay, it means the trump administration is able to undermine access, it means the private industry and pharma is able to make money off of

denying people care, and the only alternative is real medicare for all. many of our members are in the democratic party. many of our members want to push the democratic party to the and many do not trust the party at all. we have one foot in and one foot out. we do not trust the institution. host: who are some of the specific members of the democratic party that you do not trust and that you think are introducing half measures and claiming victory? guest: i think there are multiple bills floating around now. i just heard the representative from new mexico talking about is medicare buy-in plan and he called it medicare for all. that is in a deliberate attempt to muddy the waters. we saw paul krugman wrote times"for the "new york

writing this idea that the medicare for all means expanded care and that is not true. universal program that everybody is in, we need a program weather is not an insurance executive between you and your doctor, and we need a program that takes health care out of the private marketplace. the problem is this is 20% of the economy and we take it away, there's going to be a huge fights and all of the democrats that are getting money from the insurance industry are big pharma are not going to support us. that is why we have to build a movement. we are building a grassroots army of people. we are building the grassroots politicized base that bernie sanders talked about in the last election. we are talking to people who have not been voting. we are talking to poor people, working-class people, who feel the system is completely ignoring them.

toare organizing tenants stand up to their landlords, we are out in communities talking to folks and people are really ready for a change and they are not organized. when we talk to people on their doors, even people who have health insurance now are the satisfied because it is really expensive, there are lots of gs thatand gotcha thin the insurance companies do to you to make it difficult, and if we had a medicare for all system that was truly universal, it would be simple, efficient, high quality, and everybody would get the care that they need. are totallyterests poisoning our political system and that is why part of our job aboutialists is to talk the difference between fake medicare for all and real medicare for all. host: one of those members of your movement is tim, in

maryland. caller: good morning, how are you all doing today? host: doing well. guest: i love your energy and your passion. -- caller: i love your energy and your passion. point are talking about a to where abolish isa and how do you do that and how does the point is you want to win and you want to get your candidates to win, change around to reshape ice and then bring people into the movement to can then market and package that and change it around so that -- because you are trying to get at that root cause. you are trying to get at that cause to where the problem is not the people on the ground who away, itng to be taken is the people who are controlling that. it means to be reshaped and the needs to be done in a way that is more considerate and passionate because we do need to control our borders, but the way that we are doing it now, has to

be done in a different way. win, instead of abolish, reshape. host: thanks for the call. guest: will completely agree with you, the messaging is really important. many people in this country are concerned about jobs in the united states, but we are a democratic socialist calling out capitalisticof the system and ice and the whole immigration apparatus is the problem. if we're really talking about the root of the problem, and we are willing to say the capital system is totally indif ensible, we also need to say that about the immigrations and customs enforcement. it is really related to ions of ourand eros civil liberties, it is not just about ripping children from

their parents hands. theoke earlier about broader picture around the immigration system about how the global capitalist class benefits about having a system with borders open to money, but not people. we need to bring that message to more people because i believe pretty fundamentally that working people know that we have are fundamentally different from the owning class and we are taught to be afraid of each other, economic nationalism and anti-immigrant ideas are pretty american as apple pie. when it gets right down to it, we all know we are trying to get by and that is why you saw those images of children at the border, it's really resonated with what you saw with democratic politicians with ice. we have created a whole set of

systems to control people and if we are willing to challenge capitalism itself, we also need to a challenge -- to challenge the idea of ice. ice is just part of the whole prison industrial system. in jail andgrants the we have this whole segment of society that does not have jobs and the bosses benefit from that -- it is the same system. we have people who are locked away and if they do ever get out of jail, they are not allowed to vote. it is all a part of a system where the very wealthy want to keep us divided, afraid, and if neede willing and if we to challenge the economic system, when to talk about these bigger forces at play. i appreciate what you are saying

, but a chapter had a protest outside of a company that is toufacturing surveillance that is ane, and agency being used against immigrants but could be used against any of us in the future so we have a common interest and supporting them in solidarity. host: michael has been waiting, tennessee, republican. go ahead. caller: good morning. i want to know two things for clarification. i know during the democratic primary, there is lots of conflict between the burning supporters and hillary supporters in regards to the to social issues and economic issues. how much of them are determined by poverty and i was wondering if you could clarify that? , in regardsd thing to social benefits and open

borders, bernie sanders himself that openvox article borders would lead it to the press to wages are too much pressure on a generous welfare system. was wondering how you would address that and make sure that a generous welfare system would not be overloaded. guest: the first question is contrasting noneconomic systems of domination in our m,ciety, like sexism and racis and how it relates to economic exploitation where bosses can organize people in workplaces f your labor and you cannot control that. i believe they are directly

related to each other and employers divide people based on any category they can think of. ender, but ageor g and and anything else, and they go after the weakest people and break down the bonds of solidarity. i will point out that this country was founded on genocide,d and and then we build our economic system on the back of slave labor that forcibly were imported from africa. into the baked capitalist system and as a woman, sexism plays a huge part. i'mexpected to clean house, expected to bear children and take care of children and my parents when i get older, and those are all things that and a democratic socialist society, we could actually say that not only should women not to bear the burden of that, but we should not have to bear the burden of

taking care of our younger, elderly, and sick. france, theres in are social programs where the wealthy pay taxes, and then people get things like time off of work to take care of newborns, and a paid sick time, so we believe we need to take into account different kinds of oppression and how capitalism interacts with them and thinking about the public policy we are promoting. the question about open borders. that our analysis is the very wealthy, the people who own the means of production, they benefits when they can pit people against each other. the reason that we have very bad social services is because it has been systematically defunded by the right winged -- by the right

wing for the last 40 years. taxes for the very wealthy have been cut for the last 40 years. working people are working carter and harder, productivity is going up, but the employers are keeping all of the benefits. they are not taking that money they are taking in to create new jobs because they want there to be a lot of unemployed people and come position between unemployed people. they are not using that to pay for the kind of services we need as a society. they are not using it to pay for the kind of thing like more health care, better infrastructure, better roads, more teachers pay an adequate wage -- they are not investing money. another thing i heard bernie sanders say, he pointed out that it is not the immigrant workers that are deciding to move factories overseas, it is the