If progressive Democrats prevail in determining the party’s direction, their agenda would pose the biggest threat to our nation’s future.
The Democratic Party is in the doldrums.
For the past decade, it’s been so obsessed with trying to take down Donald Trump that it’s overlooked what it stands for. Former Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris certainly couldn’t conjure a coherent platform. Party infighting and chaos have ensued.
“We’re like a solar system with no sun,” U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat from Michigan, recently said in a speech at the Center for American Progress. “We don’t act as a team, and when we don’t work as a team, we turn our guns on each other, and it’s so, so, so, fruitless.”
As the party looks to the future, I’m wondering what direction it plans to go and what “team” will win.
Some Democrats – like Slotkin – have encouraged the party to embrace a message that appeals to a broader range of Americans. Even far-left California Gov. Gavin Newsom has dipped his toes in the waters of moderation, at least on some issues. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman has no problem calling out the problematic progressives in his party.
Yet, there is another, more troubling, direction where it appears Democrats may go.
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New York City Democrats in June went all in for self-proclaimed democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, choosing the 33-year-old state legislator as their primary pick in the mayoral election this fall. They rejected the more “traditional” Democrat on the ballot, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The leading takeaway from Mamdani’s victory in the nation’s largest city seems to be that the party should take note and perhaps adopt some of the vision that spoke to Big Apple liberals.
Yet, that vision is alarming – or should be – to anyone who believes in capitalism and true democracy. Mamdani claims he wants to make the city “affordable,” but his proposals would do the opposite. He envisions a much more powerful government that controls the lives of New Yorkers.
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Mamdani proclaimed on X that he is “running for Mayor to freeze the rent, make buses fast + free, and deliver free universal childcare.”
Those straightforward-sounding goals carry a lot of baggage.
In an editorial ahead of the primary, the left-leaning New York Times warned against voting for Mamdani: “He is a democratic socialist who too often ignores the unavoidable trade-offs of governance. He favors rent freezes that could restrict housing supply and make it harder for younger New Yorkers and new arrivals to afford housing. He wants the government to operate grocery stores, as if customer service and retail sales were strengths of the public sector. He minimizes the importance of policing.”