Last night, two of the most prominent Democrats in the House of Representatives were defeated in their primaries by two members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Another DSA member eked out a primary win over a candidate backed by the Democratic House Leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
All those candidates were backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his “machine.” Mamdani might object to that characterization of his organization, but it mirrors the old Boss Tweed political machine that ruled New York City and the state of New York and exerted an outsized influence on the country. It has real organizing power, and it has energy and money behind it.
“The Democratic Party is being hijacked by the DSA via Zohran Mamdani,” Joseph Hernandez, the Republican nominee for New York state comptroller, said. “I think these people could not be more anti-American.”
Indeed, “Leftists who want to abolish prisons, billionaires, and U.S. aid to Israel are spearheading a nationwide ‘hostile takeover,’ as their critics put it, of the Democratic Party,” writes Olivia Reingold and Peter Savodnik in The Free Press.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, a community organizer, has refused to condemn Hamas. She defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), the Hispanic Caucus chair. Another candidate—Claire Valdez, a state assembly member— won the race to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.). She “featured anti-Israel demonstrator Mahmoud Khalil, whom the Trump administration has tried to deport, at her campaign launch party; ‘Free Palestine’ appears on Valdez’s campaign signs,” Reingold and Savodnik write.
And pro-Israel Democrat Dan Goldman got slaughtered by New York City comptroller Brad Lander 64% to 34%. Goldman was no “moderate.” He was a leader of the Progressive Caucus and a liberal icon.
“People who do not support the DSA wring their hands at cocktail parties, while the DSA is organizing,” Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), the co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, told Axios.
Suozzi said it is time for the Democrats’ moderate wing to “wake up” to the threat posed to them by the democratic socialists.
“Economic insecurity, climate change and immigrant injustice are all real problems, and alternative solutions must be offered. It’s time for a great deal of hard work to out organize the extremists on the right and the left!”
The centrist House Democrat who spoke anonymously said the results show that “appeasement doesn’t work. You have to be tough. Nancy Pelosi brought a machine gun to a knife fight. You can’t win with these guys by playing patty cake.”
A senior House Democrat, asked if their colleagues were worried about the results, said: “Yes they are.”
Politics is a full-contact sport. I disagree that the Democrats have been “soft” in any way, shape, or form, but the rank and file wants a more Trumpian approach to politics: gloves off, knives out, and no quarter asked or given.
More name-calling; fewer calls for bipartisanship.
Related: Why the Radical Left’s War on Democratic Incumbents Is Suddenly Trump’s Fault
I am not as hysterical about the DSA “takeover” of the Democratic Party. First of all, they have a very long way to go. Secondly, Zohran Mamdani has yet to show that his influence extends beyond the shores of the Hudson River. Most importantly, the rise of the DSA is directly connected to the rise of anti-semitism in the Democratic Party. Hate may have its occasional day in the sun in America, but it’s not a platform that endures.
And New York City is not America. In fact, the Big Apple is a lot like an octopus.
Some crazy researchers believe the octopus is not of this Earth, that its DNA fell out of the sky into a primeval ocean attached to a meteor or comet. They possess hundreds of millions of neurons, but about two-thirds of them are located directly in their arms. This distributed intelligence means each arm can taste, touch, and make decisions independently.
The octopus genome is staggeringly complex. The California two-spot octopus, for example, has roughly 33,000 protein-coding genes—about 10,000 more than humans. Despite these fascinating attributes that suggest an alien origin, the mainstream scientific community widely rejects the idea that octopuses actually came from outer space. Biologists attribute these unusual traits to millions of years of rigorous, independent Earth-bound evolution, where the pressures of deep-sea survival and the lack of a protective shell favored highly complex camouflage and advanced problem-solving skills.
Consider New York City. It’s the only city that ever seriously looked at seceding from the Union. On the eve of the Civil War, New York City Mayor Fernando Wood formally proposed to the Common Council that the city secede from both New York State and the United States. The goal was to become an independent, sovereign city-state called Tri-Insula (encompassing Manhattan, Staten Island, and Long Island).
NYC’s economy was deeply tied to Southern cotton and the slave trade. Wood wanted to maintain free trade with the South. The proposal died a few months later when the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter, sparking a wave of Union patriotism in the city. But the Big Apple was a hotbed of Southern sympathy for the entire war.
There were several other attempts to drum up support for secession. In 1919, a resolution was introduced in the state legislature to split New York into two states due to disagreements over prohibition and tax distribution. In 1959, City Councilman Trevor Barkley introduced a resolution calling for secession from the state, arguing that NYC sent far more tax revenue to Albany than it ever received in return—a recurring grievance known as the “upstate-downstate divide.”
The most unusual secession effort came from writer Norman Mailer and legendary columnist Jimmy Breslin. Mailer ran for mayor, and Breslin ran for City Council president, on a serious yet colorful platform centered entirely on cityhood. The goal was to make New York City the 51st state of the Union.
Other efforts to detach the city from the state included an effort in 2003, in the wake of post-9/11 fiscal strain, when City Council Speaker Peter Vallone introduced a bill to explore seceding from the state to form the 51st state. Vallone famously noted that secession was the only way to stop Albany from treating NYC like an “ATM.”
Zohran Mamdani is serious, but America is a big country, and socialism as a governing force is incompatible with our republic. I’d be a lot more worried if Mamdani and his socialist allies began calling for a constitutional convention.
Editor’s Note: President Trump is leading America into the “Golden Age” as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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