Here’s the thing about political slogans: Eventually, somebody is going to ask what they actually mean.
And that is exactly where Democratic Socialists of America co-chair Megan Romer ran into trouble during an interview with New Yorker editor David Remnick.
The subject was the DSA’s desire to “tax the hell out of millionaires.”
All right. Big statement. Clear target. Plenty of attitude.
So Remnick asked the most predictable follow-up imaginable.
“Well, what does ‘taxing the hell out of them’ mean?” he asked during Friday’s episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour.
And suddenly, things got uncomfortable.
“Uhhhh, yeah, you know, again, I don’t have like a solid [answer], but—” Romer responded, chuckling as she tried to explain.
Remnick immediately jumped in.
“But shouldn’t you?”
Ouch.
“Um, that’s a good question,” Romer replied.
Yes. Yes, it was.
And Remnick wasn’t interested in letting the matter float away into the political mist.
“If you’re the co-chair of the DSA, shouldn’t you be more specific than ‘taxing the hell’ out of something?” he asked.
Now, to Romer’s credit, she did attempt to explain the philosophy behind the position. Her answer was that the appropriate tax burden would depend on what government needs to spend and what sort of tax base would be required to pay for it.
“So again, it’s democracy, right?” Romer said. “And we have to look at what we have to spend and what we need.”
She also argued that the long-term goal shouldn’t involve depending upon millionaires as a permanent source of government revenue because, in her view, their wealth reflects exploitation.
“We don’t want to depend on the existence of millionaires because that means people are still getting exploited,” she said.
Romer continued: “So yeah, we need to look at what we need to pay for in the interim, what sort of tax base we need for that to happen, and build from there.”
Okay, but notice what just happened.
The DSA has a memorable demand — “tax the hell out of millionaires” — while its co-chair couldn’t give Remnick a concrete definition of what that means when asked.
What tax rate?
Which taxes?
At what income or wealth threshold?
How much revenue is supposed to be raised?
Those aren’t tiny footnotes buried on page 800 of an appropriations bill. They’re fairly basic questions once you’re advocating a major change in taxation.
And the timing makes Romer’s stumble particularly interesting because the DSA is not sitting in some obscure political corner shouting slogans into the wind.
Its candidates are winning elections.
Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez recently won Democratic primaries in New York. Both are DSA members, as is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who backed their campaigns.
So the organization is acquiring something every political movement eventually has to deal with: power.
And power brings questions.
It’s one thing to say wealthy Americans should pay dramatically more in taxes. It’s another thing to start explaining the rates, revenue, enforcement and economic assumptions behind the proposal.
The DSA’s agenda also extends well beyond taxation. The organization opposes President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, which it describes as “racist,” and opposes the U.S. alliance with Israel, accusing Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza.
Trump, naturally, has been watching all of this and responding with the rhetorical delicacy of a wrecking ball.
After the recent primary victories, he sarcastically congratulated Mamdani for helping elect “solid Communists.”
A few days later, Trump declared that communists were finally making “their move” in America.
“The game is on,” he said.
During his Fourth of July address, Trump called communism a “cancer.” Then, during a July speech in Georgia, he distilled his opposition into a considerably less academic formulation:
“With communism, everything turns to sh*t!”
Now, the DSA identifies itself with democratic socialism, not Trump’s characterization of its members as communists. Those distinctions matter when describing what people actually advocate.
But none of that rescues Romer from Remnick’s question.
Forget Trump. Forget Republicans. Forget the ideological labels for a moment.
If you run an organization demanding that government “tax the hell out of millionaires,” somebody is eventually going to lean across a microphone and ask how much.
Romer didn’t have a solid answer.
And Remnick’s response still hangs over the entire exchange:
“But shouldn’t you?”
