For now, whether the party likes it or not, the Democratic party baton has been passed to another generation
Does this split screen signal that the Democratic party is passing the baton to the next — more radically left — generation, or is the New York election an outlier?
In other words, is this just a local Mamdani moment, or a new direction for Democrats nationally?
The Democrats’ slide to socialism started in a 1981 mayoral election in the small town of Burlington, Vermont. Three candidates were running in the progressive city, one as a socialist. The socialist candidate knew it would be a low-turnout election and outworked his opponents, winning the election by only ten votes. His name was Bernie Sanders. Mayor Sanders became Congressman Sanders and then Senator Sanders. When I met him for the first time, he was Congressman Sanders, and he identified politically as an “Independent,” yet he caucused with the Democratic party. How could the Democratic party accept the reality that an avowed socialist would also identify with them? These are two different political philosophies. The answer was simple: They needed his vote. When the Democratic party conveniently needed his vote, he was a member of the caucus, and when inconvenient they could dismiss the rest of his policies as unaffiliated with the party. This was the political definition of having one’s cake and eating it too. But eating cake daily isn’t healthy. It’s a bad habit. A tiny bad habit will often grow into a full-blown addiction, and the party had its first reckoning with what it had wrought in 2016. That year, Hillary Clinton was the presumptive nominee until Bernie Sanders decided to spoil the party by showing up. Sanders’ campaign pulled in socialists, but also young Democrats who didn’t really know or see the difference between the two political philosophies. The Democratic establishment rightfully lost their minds. Who was this socialist to take their presidential nomination? The powers that be worked hard to stop him and he was defeated. But the addiction grew. In 2018, desperate to show success after their 2016 drubbing, the Democratic party accepted another socialist into their caucus, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). This young Queens bartender had been inspired by Bernie Sanders, and with a 4,000-vote primary margin she galvanized enough of her socialists to win election. The Democratic party liked AOC’s “star status,” which came with a massive social media following and new voters. At this point, the addiction of the Democratic party to the socialist movement was fully realized. Cholesterol had reached dangerous levels from all that cake. AOC recruited and helped elect fellow socialists all over the country. Like the grandfather of their movement, once elected these new socialists caucused with… the Democratic party.
Until Mamdani’s election, no socialist had risen to such an important and high-profile political position. Sanders and AOC may be irritating at times for the Democratic party, but they are legislators among many others. They can’t do much to pass their socialist policies. For example, AOC’s “Green New Deal” never advanced because she didn’t have the power to advance it. Mamdani is a different story. As mayor, Mamdani is now an executive and the leader of what is one of the top ten most important elected offices in America.
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