New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani emerged as something of a kingmaker last week, when the Democratic primary candidates he endorsed swept their races in the Empire State.
The problem for Democrats is that what sounds electrifying in Brooklyn coffee shops sounds wildly out of touch with the rest of the country. Republicans have now received a new generation of candidates they can feature in campaign ads from Bangor to Bakersfield, turning what would otherwise be local urban politics into a national cautionary tale, just in time for the midterm elections.
Leading the parade of renegades is Darializa Ávila Chevalier, the 32-year-old daughter of Dominican immigrants who is now the Democratic candidate in New York's 13th Congressional District. His resume includes helping lead pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and participating in a radical campus environment that later produced calls for “Death to America,” something that, as campaign slogans say, lacks broad appeal.
Chevalier's biggest hits, compiled from now-deleted social media posts, include criticizing minority men for their relationships with white people (i.e., “fetishizing ugly colonizing women”); talking about wiping your hands on the American flag; attacking Joe Biden as a “rapist”; declaring “F— Kamala Harris”; wanting to abolish police, borders and prisons; and calling U.S. service members “child killers,” just to name a few of his past controversial comments.
Normally, none of this would matter much outside the district. But politics is no longer local. What happens today in New York becomes a 30-second television commercial in Ohio tomorrow.
The other problem is this: it's not entirely wrong to suggest that this is, in fact, a national trend. What happened in New York is not an isolated incident. It is simply the latest data.
In Maine, for example, Democrats recently nominated oysterman (and veteran) Graham Platner, despite a history of controversial online statements and questions surrounding a tattoo associated with a Nazi symbol.
In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive and former public health official who (like Platner) is backed by Bernie Sanders, is leading in primary polls against two other traditional Democratic candidates seeking a Senate seat.
Although two older candidates (President Trump and Sanders) first defined these extremes in modern American politics, their disciples tend to be younger.
Speaking of which, there's at least a good chance this trend will transcend Congress, if Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 36, decides to run for president in 2028.
Progressives seem to have concluded that the strategy of nominating cautious, competent and moderate Democrats to counter Trump's policies was a losing bet that simultaneously deprived them of fun and enthusiasm and produced no electoral benefits.
It's hard to blame them. They look at Trump and see a man who broke every known rule of modern politics and won two presidential elections. His conclusion is simple: if energy trumps experience, authenticity trumps caution, and enthusiasm trumps respectability, then it's time to stop nominating establishment politicians and start nominating revolutionaries.
None of this means that the Democratic Party is universally racing left in 2026. Many states continue to nominate and elect pragmatic, conventional candidates. North Carolina Democrats, for example, seem perfectly happy with a moderate like former Gov. Roy Cooper. And that election will most likely give Democrats a seat in the U.S. Senate.
But reading the tea leaves, the future increasingly appears to belong to democratic socialists and progressive activists who not long ago would have been considered fringe figures.
In this sense, the vibe in today's Democratic Party is a bit like that of the Republican Party during the Tea Party and early MAGA eras.
As someone with center-right instincts (who resisted Trump's hostile takeover of the Republican Party a decade ago), I find this development troubling. Not only because I disagree ideologically, but also because it increasingly appears that the United States is heading toward a politics in which both parties become hostages to their most passionate and least restrained factions.
The danger is not that the United States will perfectly recreate the Weimar Republic. History rarely repeats itself with such precision. But when moderation is seen as a weakness, compromise as a surrender, and liberal democracy as an obstacle rather than a miraculous achievement, things tend to go awry.
History and common sense suggest that when an extreme faction (such as fascists) begins to gain power, moderate or apolitical people suddenly become more willing to embrace rival extreme factions (such as communists).
Once again, it is perfectly understandable for Democrats to look at Trump and the Republicans and conclude that it is time to fight fire with fire. That policing your own side of the aisle is foolish. And that, as the saying goes, “if you can't beat them, join them.”
But this is a race to the bottom that will undoubtedly end in a disaster of epic proportions. The children are not well.
Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy rich politicians” and “Too dumb to fail.”
