DSA co-chair Megan Romer told The New Yorker's David Remnick that the October 7th Hamas massacre was "in many ways, inevitable" — and that she "probably would have" attended a pro-Hamas rally the day after it happened. Joe Scarborough played the clip on Monday's "Morning Joe" and looked like a man watching his house burn down.
The party he's spent years defending just introduced him to his new roommates.
Scarborough's segment was prompted by the Wisconsin and Minnesota Democratic primaries, where DSA-endorsed candidates have surged into serious contention. Wisconsin state assemblywoman Francesca Hong, a card-carrying DSA member who has previously called for abolishing the police and canceling Thanksgiving. The DSA's official platform includes eliminating the U.S. Senate, defunding the Pentagon, and abolishing prisons. These aren't fringe blog posts. These are the stated policy goals of an organization whose candidates are winning Democratic primaries.
Romer's interview with Remnick was the part that visibly rattled Scarborough. When asked about October 7th, the DSA co-chair called it "inevitable" and said that any "defense or economic support for Israel" is a "solid red line" within the organization. She characterized Gaza as an "open concentration camp." Scarborough's response was immediate: "The co-chair of the DSA supported going to a pro-Hamas rally the day after Hamas gleefully slaughtered more Jews on October 7th than any day the Jews were slaughtered since the Holocaust."
Then he made the comparison that every honest person has been thinking for three years. "This would be like going to a pro-al-Qaeda rally on September 12th."
Scarborough went on to plead with Democratic leadership to draw a line. "If somebody says a woman being raped doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, it's okay to call that person out," he said, referencing the DSA's refusal to condemn the sexual violence committed during the October 7th attack. He accused the party of "being too woke to call out the obvious" and added, "I swear to God, it's really crazy that we're even having this conversation."
The party's response has been to change the subject. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer offered only that "being a big-tent party is a strength, not a weakness" — a line that does roughly zero work when the tent now includes people who think the American empire needs to be dismantled "from within," which is an actual DSA talking point from their own members.
Even Hillary Clinton seems to understand the problem better than current leadership. On a podcast last week, she warned that "the Republican messaging is: 'communist, socialist.' It's gonna be a VERY effective attack." She's right, and the reason it's effective is that it happens to be true. When your party's rising stars campaign alongside self-described Marxist Hasan Piker and DSA-backed candidates like Darializa Avila Chevalier — who rallied against Israel on October 8, 2023, one day after the massacre — the "communist" label isn't a smear. It's a description.
Scarborough called all of this "fumbling the football on the two-yard line," comparing the current trajectory to the conditions that handed the 2024 election to Donald Trump. He's been making sports metaphors about Democratic self-destruction for years now. At some point the metaphor stops being about fumbling and starts being about playing for the other team.
The DSA doesn't hide what it wants. Eliminate the Senate. Defund the Pentagon. Abolish prisons. Blame Israel for its own citizens being slaughtered. These positions are public, published, and endorsed by their candidates.
Scarborough spent a Monday morning segment begging his own party to say something about it. The party spent a Monday morning saying nothing.
