Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan's Democrat Senate primary in August and handed the DSA its biggest political victory yet.
Now another Michigan Democrat is opening white powder in her office.
And the letter threatening her said the civil war starts right after Election Day.
FBI Investigates DSA White Powder Letters Sent to Congressional Offices Across 15 States
Democrat Rep. Hillary Scholten opened a letter at her Grand Rapids office on October 16 and found white powder and a warning.
The letter claimed to be from the Democratic Socialists of America – and warned of an "impending civil war" starting the moment the midterm results came in.
Grand Rapids Police and the FBI responded immediately – her office was one of dozens hit nationwide.
By mid-October, the House Sergeant at Arms was warning Congress that more letters were likely to follow "in the coming days," according to an internal memo obtained by Roll Call.
Suspicious letters bearing a return address tied to the DSA's old New York headquarters had already hit congressional offices and Secretary of State election offices in at least 15 states.
The FBI confirmed it was investigating "a series of suspicious mailings sent to various addresses nationwide, including Secretary of State offices and their related election offices."
Preliminary testing found the powder was not hazardous.
The DSA denied involvement – noting they vacated the return address on those envelopes back in 2013.
This was not the first time American elections were disrupted this way.
In 2023, white powder letters hit election offices in six states – several of them laced with fentanyl. Offices started stocking naloxone just to open their mail.
The DSA Socialist Insurgency Toppled Democrat Incumbents All Summer While the Party Did Nothing
Scholten went public and said she would "keep standing up to bullies on the right and the left."
That is a nice line – one that ignores the years her party spent legitimizing exactly this kind of bully.
The DSA is not a fringe movement crashing the party from the outside – it is the faction that has been winning from within all year.
DSA-backed candidates toppled sitting House Democrats in New York and Colorado this summer – Adriano Espaillat and Dan Goldman lost their New York seats to candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, while a 29-year-old DSA candidate knocked out a Denver incumbent who had held her seat for nearly three decades.
In Scholten's own state of Michigan, DSA-aligned Abdul El-Sayed won the Senate primary outright.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise called it exactly what it is back in July: "There's like this Bolshevik revolution that has taken over the Democrat Party."
Former DSA member Jake Altman went on Fox News to warn that the group had been "captured" by communists who are "perfectly willing to cohabitate with Maoists, with Trotskyists, with Leninists" – people Altman described as having a thrill for political violence.
The DSA acted on that thrill at its 2025 convention, creating the "Red Rabbits Security Commission" to train members in what it called "unarmed community defense," according to City Journal.
One of the commission's members – Maoist Christopher Winston – had already publicly declared that "burning a Waymo is not political violence" while threatening writers he disagreed with.
City Journal called it months ago: the mainstream party accommodates the radicals, the radicals take over the infrastructure, and eventually there is no establishment left to push back. Democrats spent years on step one. Step two just showed up in a Grand Rapids mailroom.
Hillary Scholten Demands the DSA Condemn Threats After Democrats Spent Years Protecting Them
Scholten demanded the DSA "condemn these threats done in its name" – and she is right to demand it.
But the DSA did not build 220 chapters and recruit 120,000 members by responding to demands from the Democrats it is replacing.
The party that spent 2026 watching Bernie Sanders campaign against sitting Democrat incumbents – backing DSA insurgents against black Democrats, against pro-Israel Democrats, against anyone standing between the socialist wing and power – never once called it what it was.
Now one of their own is getting white powder in the mail and a promise that the civil war begins after November.
Washington Examiner's Byron York said it in August: mainstream Democrats are "very concerned because DSA, and what you might call DSA-adjacent candidates, are really on a higher level now than they were just a few weeks ago."
Very concerned is the right phrase – the DSA did not send those letters from a position of weakness.
The monster the Democrat Party spent years feeding and refusing to name just mailed one of its own members white powder and told her a civil war is coming.
She should have thought about that before opening the tent.
Sources:
- "Security official warns of more suspicious letters to lawmakers," Roll Call, October 19, 2026.
- "FBI, postal service investigate suspicious letters sent to election offices with DSA return address," Fox News, October 2026.
- "Scalise warns 'Bolshevik revolution' taking over Dem Party after socialist primary wins," Fox News, July 27, 2026.
- "Former DSA member alleges communists have 'captured' socialist group, warns Democratic Party is next," Fox News, 2026.
- "Democrats' civil war is heating up. Byron York says socialists are winning," Washington Examiner, August 14, 2026.
- "The DSA's Extremism Goes Beyond Israel," National Review, October 2023.
- "Democratic Socialists of America's National Political Committee Goes Maoist," City Journal, 2026.
- "I Was There For DSA's Radicalization. The Democrats Are Next," Daily Wire, 2026.