Democratic left's momentum not irreversible

The rise of the far left in the Democratic Party has been one of this year’s major political developments. The primary victories of Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez — members of the Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, who unseated more moderate Democrats in congressional districts in New York — have caused both excitement and anxiety. The victory of another DSA-affiliated candidate, Melat Kiros, against an incumbent in Colorado has been cited as a sign that the socialist sweep is not limited to progressive East Coast enclaves.

And until his downfall over an accusation of sexual assault, left-wing Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who is not a DSA member, was regarded by many as the party’s future.

For more mainstream Democrats — and for centrists, including moderate Republicans, who hope that the Democratic Party will be an effective check on the chaos and abuses of the Trump administration — this trend is a scary development. But is it a real trend, and should we be worried?

So far, the victories of the left are too few to add up to a national sweep. But given the left’s momentum around the country — and numerous DSA activists running for state and local offices — this movement needs to be taken seriously.

Some of the alarmism is over the top — such as the accusations of communism flung at New York’s democratic socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani over a recommendation not to set air conditioning temperatures too low. Similar guidelines were issued by quite a few Republicans.

But many leftist candidates have a history of reckless statements on controversial social issues like defunding the police. In posts from 2019, Chevalier explicitly stated that she wanted to see the police completely abolished. While she has apologized for some of her divisive old posts, it’s not clear whether that includes her stance on police abolition.

The left-wing candidates also tend to share an obsessive animus against Israel, which vastly oversimplifies that conflict — while generally ignoring other foreign policy issues that involve human rights, such as the war in Ukraine.

Even more worrying, however, is the leftists’ hostility to the Democratic “establishment” — which often seems to be far more passionate than their opposition to Donald Trump.

During his now-defunct campaign, for instance, Platner recycled the falsehood, frequently promoted by Trump, that the Democratic Party “rigged” the 2016 primaries to steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders.

At a time when defending free and fair elections is vitally important to the preservation of the constitutional order, a candidate who peddles a stolen-election hoax is working against that goal.

Other critics argue that the DSA — which itself underwent a drastic radicalization in the last decade due to an influx of often pro-communist members — is not helping the Democratic Party so much as hijacking it.

The collapse of Platner, who was dropping in the polls even before the sexual assault scandal, may cool the enthusiasm for anti-establishment rebels. Some new polls in Michigan show centrist Democrat Haley Stevens beating left-wing progressive Abdul El-Sayed, who comes with a lot of anti-police baggage.

After the recent progressive victories, there are predictions casting the left-wing takeover of the Democratic Party as virtually inevitable — comparing it to the Trumpist takeover of the GOP. But so far, there’s nothing irreversible about the far left’s momentum.

It needs to be stopped, less for the sake of the Democrats than for America. One political party, at least, needs to remain sane.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.