Dems' Fighting Words
There is a new binary emerging in the Democratic Party. No longer is the major intraparty conflict between moderates and progressives. It is now between those who are willing to fight hard against Pres. Donald Trump and, as Zohran Mamdani said in his victory speech Tuesday night, those “who have bowed at the altar of caution.” The NYC mayor-elect said, “Convention has held us back … and we have paid a mighty price.”
Mamdani may have been talking about political ideology, but I believe he was also talking about the spirit with which Democratic politicians conduct and express themselves. And across the political spectrum, I believe Democratic Party voters are beginning to align on this metric.
To wit: A union organizer based in Philadelphia who is passionate about trans rights, #defundthepolice, and anti-capitalism told me she’s really into JB Pritzker, citing the billionaire Illinois governor’s full-throated resistance to ICE raids in Chicago and his efforts to keep out the National Guard. And just last month, she delighted upon hearing that Pritzker told his state’s largest teachers union, “Donald Trump and his cronies can fuck all the way off.”
On the other side of the Democratic Party spectrum, a nonprofit consultant who is passionately pro-Israel and was a big Hillary Clinton supporter told me she was excited about Zohran Mamdani. This from a Jewish woman who resides on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, which overwhelmingly voted for Andrew Cuomo, and is a member of the Lexington Democratic Club, which issued a statement deriding Mamdani for “supporting antisemitic rhetoric and movements.” “I don’t care that we differ dramatically on a lot of policy issues,” she told me, “I just feel Mamdani’s energy, his fighting spirit, is what the Democratic Party needs right now.”
In the post-Obama years, the Democratic Party’s “big tent” has oftentimes been its downfall. A diversity of constituents and ideologies resulting in division. But some 10 months into Trump’s second administration, Democrats appear to be unifying around, if not a set of policy ideas, then around a fighting posture. It’s in this spirit that I watched the victory speeches of Mamdani and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (for passage of Prop 50, which will create more Democratic congressional seats ahead of next year’s midterm elections). Mamdani is a self-identified democratic socialist and Newsom a paragon of liberal centrism, but last night they appeared to be speaking from the same playbook.
“No crowns, no thrones, no kings; that’s what this victory represents,” Newsom said in a powerful victory speech that excoriated Trump for his authoritarianism. Likewise, Mamdani used a portion of his speech to deliver what could only be described as fighting words. “So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching,” said Mamdani straight to camera. “I have four words for you: Turn the volume up!” And after declaring New York a city of immigrants now led by an immigrant, he roared, “So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us!”
On the other side of the fighting binary, Democratic leaders like Hakeem Jeffries (whose endorsement of Mamdani was conspicuously late) and Chuck Schumer (who balked altogether at endorsing Mamdani), have been seen as a drag on the Democratic Party’s popularity, precisely because of their, at times, unwillingness and, at times, ineffectiveness when it comes to standing up to Trump. Likewise, according to the Democratic Party voters I spoke to, interest is waning for 2028 presidential aspirants who have either been relatively quiet on Trump, see (or don’t see?) Josh Shapiro and Amy Klobuchar, or who are seen as lacking the pugilistic posture required to effectively take down MAGA.
As the union organizer from Philadelphia told me, “I will vote in the Dem primaries for any candidate who promises to grind MAGA into the dirt. Extract every last trace of these motherfuckers from the government. That’s who I’ll be excited about. And if that happens to be a centrist Democrat to my right on policy, then so be it.”