Think More: Monday, July 6, 2026
The DSA's high-water mark, Mamdani's base, the Butler files, the FBI's Twitter payments, Florida's terror designations, and more.
Lead · The Socialist High-Water Mark
On America’s 250th Birthday, the DSA Becomes the Largest Socialist Organization in Its History
Hudson Crozier | Washington Examiner
On the weekend America turned 250, the Democratic Socialists of America topped 120,000 members, surpassing the Socialist Party of America’s 1912 peak of 113,000 to become the largest socialist organization in American history. The surge trails Zohran Mamdani’s rise and three June DSA primary wins in New York. In his Independence Day speech, President Trump vowed to cut out the communist menace “just like a cancer.”
The Socialist High-Water Mark
Tablet Maps the Immigrant Neighborhoods That Made Mamdani Mayor
Tablet‘s Scroll examines an analysis of the returns behind Zohran Mamdani’s 2025 victory, one that credits the mayor’s margin less to Gen Z drift than to fast-growing South Asian immigrant neighborhoods; he carried “Little Bangladesh” by 41 points. The DSA supplied the coordination, the argument runs, while new immigrant communities supplied the votes.
The Doctrine of Destruction
Chris Bray: The Left’s Old Religion of Destruction Is Recruiting Again
Writing for Lyceum, Chris Bray traces the left’s revival of millenarianism, the old faith that destruction is the precondition of rebirth, from Pasternak’s Bolsheviks through the Weathermen to a Columbia group vowing “the total eradication of Western civilization.” One of that group’s co-founders just won a Democratic House nomination in upper Manhattan.
The Campaign Against Musk Aims Past Musk
Karol Markowicz | New York Post
Karol Markowicz reads the escalating campaign against Elon Musk, from Representative Ro Khanna’s claim that a 5% wealth tax would fund free college for every American (a community note put the yield at $60 billion) to accusations that DOGE cuts killed children, as an attack whose true target is America itself.
Opening the Bureau’s Books
The FBI Closed the Butler Case; Judicial Watch Keeps Prying It Open
Micah Morrison | Judicial Watch
The FBI closed its Butler investigation in November, but Judicial Watch’s FOIA litigation keeps prying records loose: 48 heavily redacted pages produced last month include a medic’s account that a SWAT officer found a gray remote device in Thomas Crooks’s pocket. The bureau holds roughly 75,000 pages and reviews only a few hundred a month.
Watchdogs Press to Unseal the FBI’s Twitter Payments and the Caputo Warrant
Greg Piper reports on two watchdog fronts in D.C. federal court: the New Civil Liberties Alliance is challenging the FBI’s blanket refusal to disclose its payments to Twitter and other platforms, while Michael Caputo asks Judge James Boasberg to unseal the 2024 warrant that swept up his entire Google account. Responses are due July 16 and August 14.
The Border’s Bill
Dallas Fed Economists Put Numbers on the Biden Migration Wave’s Housing Bill
A Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas working paper offers the first systematic estimate of what the 2021 to 2024 wave of seven million illegal immigrants did to local markets: roughly 30% of home-price growth and 20% of rent growth in the average metro area. The authors caution the draft is preliminary and circulated for comment.
DeSantis Designates CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Antifa Under Florida’s New Terror Law
Executive Office of the Governor | flgov.com
Governor Ron DeSantis announced Florida’s first designations under HB 1471, its new anti-terrorism statute: CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Antifa, plus more than 90 foreign terrorist organizations including the Sinaloa cartel and Tren de Aragua. Once the Cabinet confirms, designated groups lose public support and face dissolution, and material support becomes a state crime.
The Biden-era wave: Dallas Fed working paper, March 2021 to March 2024
7M
Illegal immigrants, 2021 to 2024
30%
Of home-price growth, avg. metro
20%
Of rent growth, avg. metro
After the Fireworks
The White House Remembers Chippawa, Where American Regulars Announced Themselves
The White House | whitehouse.gov
For the semiquincentennial, the White House marks the Battle of Chippawa, fought July 5, 1814, when Winfield Scott’s gray-coated Regulars, mistaken by the British for militia, broke a veteran army in open battle and drew General Riall’s cry, “Those are Regulars, by God!” The message credits that day with founding the Army’s tradition of professional excellence.
Voters Choose Good Jobs Without Degrees Over College for All
Scott Rasmussen | Napolitan News Service
A Napolitan News Service survey finds 68% of registered voters say creating good jobs for Americans without college degrees matters more than sending everyone to college; a 45% plurality would steer more graduates straight into the workforce. Sixty percent attribute skyrocketing tuition to federal subsidies; only 17% credit improved quality. The survey polled 1,000 voters June 22 to 23.
The Executives Who Built Influencer Marketing Confront the “Influencer Cliff”
The Verge‘s Decoder podcast sits down with Raina Penchansky of Digital Brand Architects and Ali Berman of UTA, two executives who built the modern influencer representation business, to weigh the “influencer cliff”: whether the creator economy that now anchors so much of brand marketing has reached saturation, and where the money goes next.
