Transcript

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. American socialists are having their best year since 1912. In last week's midterms, six socialists were elected to Congress, and three were elected mayor, which means New York, LA, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Ann Arbor and Providence, Rhode Island, are now led by socialists. But socialism means different things to different people. Even among American socialists, then and now, different factions have serious disagreements over what the agenda should be.

My guest, Jill Lepore, has written about the history of American socialism from the founding of the Socialist Party of America in 1901 to today's DSA, Democratic Socialists of America.…