When the Democratic Socialists of America aren’t praising Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Mao Zedong, agitating on behalf of communist policies, and resurfacing the forgotten wisdom imparted by self-described communists, they and their allies pretend to be deeply offended by the charge that they are, in fact, communists. Even if the rank-and-file DSA aren’t strict Marxist-Leninists, they and their fellow travelers festoon themselves with the aesthetic trappings of Marxian movements and ape their shibboleths. At the very least, they seem to enjoy participating in a nostalgic reenactment of the kind of political activism that was relevant when the hammer and ...