The party is trying to get born again. This is a fight worth having.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a primary-night watch party for NYC Congressional candidate Claire Valdez at 99 Scott Studio on June 23, 2026 in the East Williamsburg neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough in New York City.
(Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Corbin Trent
Jun 25, 2026
Common Dreams
The Democratic Party is trying to get born again.
For forty years it didn’t want to be. Since Reagan, the Democrats stopped fighting the world he built and started managing it. Bill Clinton signed NAFTA and sent the factories south. He signed the crime bill Joe Biden wrote and helped fill the prisons. He ended welfare and called it reform. He tore down the wall between the banks and your money, and a few years later the banks lost your money and got bailed out for it. Obama bailed them out, let the houses go, deported people by the millions, and kept the drone war and the surveillance state running without missing a step. On the things that decide who holds power, money and war and the police and the spying, our party and theirs were one party. That was never where they fought.
What they fought over was the rest of it, and even there they did the least they could get away with, because anything real would have cost their donors. They told us things were getting better and better. They told us they were on our side. They put out a statement for women and Black people and immigrants and Latinos every time one was due, and then they went back to managing the decline. And every couple of years they came back and told us this was the most important election of our lifetimes, so hold your nose and vote, and we did, and the rent went up anyway.
The left is connecting now because it tells the same truth and points it the right way. America is falling apart, and it didn’t fall by accident, and the people who broke it are not the busboy or the kid at the border.
Then Trump stood up and said the whole thing was a fraud and the country was a wreck. Media talking heads were appalled. They laughed at him. But he connected, because it rang true. We’d been told for thirty years that we’d never had it so good while the ground gave out under us, and here was a man saying out loud that it was a lie. The trouble was where he pointed. Trump took the truth of our condition and aimed it straight down, at the immigrant and the poor and the weak and the despised, the people with the least power in the whole arrangement. He found the real anger and fed it to the worst part of us.
The left is connecting now because it tells the same truth and points it the right way. America is falling apart, and it didn’t fall by accident, and the people who broke it are not the busboy or the kid at the border. We’ve been unjust. We’ve been immoral, paying for a genocide in Gaza with our own tax money while we couldn’t house our own people. We are failing, and we need to be redeemed. Trump never offers that last part, because his whole act runs on it being someone else’s fault. The left says it plain. We did this, and we can undo it, and we can make this country great, the real kind, not the red hat version.
So this is a fight about which future we get. One is the future the war party keeps selling, a trillion-dollar arsenal standing guard over a pile of money while the killing goes on. The other one has to be built, and it starts by telling the truth about where we’re standing. The whole question is which one we choose.
On Tuesday we got our first real look in a while at people choosing the hard one. Zohran Mamdani is the mayor of New York, and he spent his own standing to back primary challengers against sitting Democrats. Three of the House candidates he backed won, two of them democratic socialists. They ran against the party that signed the checks for Gaza, and they won anyway. Krystal Ball put it as plain as anybody, that the real radicals are the politicians who back the killing of children. Jaime Harrison, who used to run the party machine, told people like Mamdani that if they hate the Democratic Party they should stop using its name and go build their own. We’re not going anywhere. The party was never Harrison’s to hand out, and the people who actually built it just voted for the truth.
It’ll be loud and it’ll be ugly, and men like Jaime Harrison will keep telling us to leave. We’re staying, because the country is worth saving and we’re the ones who’ll do it.
We’ve been here before, and the last time we got it right. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, Democrats and socialists fought over the future and then they built one. They passed Social Security and the right to a union into law. They strung electric lines out to farms that had never seen a light bulb. They sent a generation to college on the GI Bill and gave the old and the poor a doctor with Medicare and Medicaid. They put us on the road to the moon. They built the biggest middle class the world had ever seen and pulled millions out of poverty doing it. They argued the whole way, and the country came out stronger for the fight.
But we forgot the other half of the job, which was the building. A roof you can afford. A doctor you can see. A job that holds a family together. We handed all of it to the market, and the market handed us back rent we can’t pay and care we can’t afford and kids who don’t believe they’ll ever own a home. The rights we won, for Black people and women and immigrants and gay and trans people, were real and worth every fight, but they don’t pay the rent, and the party that told us to clap never wanted to talk about the rent.
The Democratic Party needs a rebirth not a rebrand.
We’ve done it before, so we know it’s not a dream. We need a politics and an economy and a democracy and a country that works for all of us, and not for the shrinking few who bought up the last one. We can build that. And the thing they have left to stop us with is fear.
Jesse Watters went on television and said the New York socialists aren’t even socialists, they’re communists, and you can’t reason with them, you have to crush them. That’s the same move Trump makes, the powerful turning your fear on someone weaker than you. Be scared of your neighbor, and keep trusting the people who paid for a genocide and couldn’t fix a thing here at home. We’re done taking that.
So the party is trying to get born again. It’ll be loud and it’ll be ugly, and men like Jaime Harrison will keep telling us to leave. We’re staying, because the country is worth saving and we’re the ones who’ll do it. We tell the truth about how far we’ve fallen, and then we build our way back up. We make it great for real, or we don’t get it.
The Democratic Party is trying to get born again.
For forty years it didn’t want to be. Since Reagan, the Democrats stopped fighting the world he built and started managing it. Bill Clinton signed NAFTA and sent the factories south. He signed the crime bill Joe Biden wrote and helped fill the prisons. He ended welfare and called it reform. He tore down the wall between the banks and your money, and a few years later the banks lost your money and got bailed out for it. Obama bailed them out, let the houses go, deported people by the millions, and kept the drone war and the surveillance state running without missing a step. On the things that decide who holds power, money and war and the police and the spying, our party and theirs were one party. That was never where they fought.
What they fought over was the rest of it, and even there they did the least they could get away with, because anything real would have cost their donors. They told us things were getting better and better. They told us they were on our side. They put out a statement for women and Black people and immigrants and Latinos every time one was due, and then they went back to managing the decline. And every couple of years they came back and told us this was the most important election of our lifetimes, so hold your nose and vote, and we did, and the rent went up anyway.
The left is connecting now because it tells the same truth and points it the right way. America is falling apart, and it didn’t fall by accident, and the people who broke it are not the busboy or the kid at the border.
Then Trump stood up and said the whole thing was a fraud and the country was a wreck. Media talking heads were appalled. They laughed at him. But he connected, because it rang true. We’d been told for thirty years that we’d never had it so good while the ground gave out under us, and here was a man saying out loud that it was a lie. The trouble was where he pointed. Trump took the truth of our condition and aimed it straight down, at the immigrant and the poor and the weak and the despised, the people with the least power in the whole arrangement. He found the real anger and fed it to the worst part of us.
The left is connecting now because it tells the same truth and points it the right way. America is falling apart, and it didn’t fall by accident, and the people who broke it are not the busboy or the kid at the border. We’ve been unjust. We’ve been immoral, paying for a genocide in Gaza with our own tax money while we couldn’t house our own people. We are failing, and we need to be redeemed. Trump never offers that last part, because his whole act runs on it being someone else’s fault. The left says it plain. We did this, and we can undo it, and we can make this country great, the real kind, not the red hat version.
So this is a fight about which future we get. One is the future the war party keeps selling, a trillion-dollar arsenal standing guard over a pile of money while the killing goes on. The other one has to be built, and it starts by telling the truth about where we’re standing. The whole question is which one we choose.
On Tuesday we got our first real look in a while at people choosing the hard one. Zohran Mamdani is the mayor of New York, and he spent his own standing to back primary challengers against sitting Democrats. Three of the House candidates he backed won, two of them democratic socialists. They ran against the party that signed the checks for Gaza, and they won anyway. Krystal Ball put it as plain as anybody, that the real radicals are the politicians who back the killing of children. Jaime Harrison, who used to run the party machine, told people like Mamdani that if they hate the Democratic Party they should stop using its name and go build their own. We’re not going anywhere. The party was never Harrison’s to hand out, and the people who actually built it just voted for the truth.
It’ll be loud and it’ll be ugly, and men like Jaime Harrison will keep telling us to leave. We’re staying, because the country is worth saving and we’re the ones who’ll do it.
We’ve been here before, and the last time we got it right. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, Democrats and socialists fought over the future and then they built one. They passed Social Security and the right to a union into law. They strung electric lines out to farms that had never seen a light bulb. They sent a generation to college on the GI Bill and gave the old and the poor a doctor with Medicare and Medicaid. They put us on the road to the moon. They built the biggest middle class the world had ever seen and pulled millions out of poverty doing it. They argued the whole way, and the country came out stronger for the fight.
But we forgot the other half of the job, which was the building. A roof you can afford. A doctor you can see. A job that holds a family together. We handed all of it to the market, and the market handed us back rent we can’t pay and care we can’t afford and kids who don’t believe they’ll ever own a home. The rights we won, for Black people and women and immigrants and gay and trans people, were real and worth every fight, but they don’t pay the rent, and the party that told us to clap never wanted to talk about the rent.
The Democratic Party needs a rebirth not a rebrand.
We’ve done it before, so we know it’s not a dream. We need a politics and an economy and a democracy and a country that works for all of us, and not for the shrinking few who bought up the last one. We can build that. And the thing they have left to stop us with is fear.
Jesse Watters went on television and said the New York socialists aren’t even socialists, they’re communists, and you can’t reason with them, you have to crush them. That’s the same move Trump makes, the powerful turning your fear on someone weaker than you. Be scared of your neighbor, and keep trusting the people who paid for a genocide and couldn’t fix a thing here at home. We’re done taking that.
So the party is trying to get born again. It’ll be loud and it’ll be ugly, and men like Jaime Harrison will keep telling us to leave. We’re staying, because the country is worth saving and we’re the ones who’ll do it. We tell the truth about how far we’ve fallen, and then we build our way back up. We make it great for real, or we don’t get it.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Corbin Trent
Corbin Trent is an Appalachian-born general contractor and political organizer. He co-founded Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats, helped recruit AOC, and served as her first communications director. He publishes AmericasUndoing.com, a project exposing America’s economic decline and calling for bold, public-led rebuilding. Find morework on his TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook channels.
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‘The Message Is Pretty Clear,’ Says Sanders After Progressive Wins in NY
“The American people—in New York and all across this country—are sick and tired of status quo politics... of a rigged economy... of billionaires and their super PACs buying elections.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani hosted a get out the vote rally at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn on June 18, 2026.
Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
Jessica Corbett
Jun 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
Democratic socialist firebrand US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday welcomed a wave of progressive primary victories in New York as proof that Americans “are sick and tired of status quo politics” and “want to end the corrupt campaign finance system, which enables billionaires to spend huge amounts of money to elect candidates who will represent their interests and go to war against working-class people.”
Sanders (I-Vt.) said so in a video posted on social media, as New York voters and progressives around the world celebrated Tuesday wins by Claire Valdez in New York’s 7th Congressional District, Brad Lander in the 10th District, and Darializa Avila Chevalier in the 13th District.
As Common Dreams reported earlier Wednesday, the trio campaigned on affordable housing, Medicare for All, stronger union protections, and an end to US military support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians—and all three were backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist supported and even sworn in by Sanders.
“What we saw last night in New York City and what we’ve been seeing for the last few months all across this country—the message is pretty clear,” said the Brooklyn-born senator, who last year launched his Fighting Oligarchy Tour and this year has backed progressive candidates at various levels of government in the lead-up to the November midterm elections.
“People want change,” asserted Sanders, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. “Our job is to grow that movement. Volunteer. Run for office. Stand up and fight. We can win this thing if we stand together.”
While establishment Democrats in Washington, DC “downplayed the results, denying they reflected any major leftward shift nationally,” according to NOTUS, other congressional progressives joined Sanders in cheering the results in New York.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said that “last night in New York, we saw progressives win. And win big. Voters are making their voices heard—they’re done with the status quo, and they’re ready for a progressive majority. Happy to see our movement rising and to see the power of true grassroots organizing. Congratulations.”
Another Massachusetts Democrat, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, declared: “That’s right, a little louder for the folks in the back NY! The people demand and deserve elected officials who fight for working families, stand against genocide, reject corporate greed, and reject anti-Blackness. A more just America is possible, we’re building it together.”
Congratulating the trio along with Micah Lasher, the Democratic primary winner in New York’s 12th District, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Emerita Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said that “something powerful happened in New York last night. Four bold, people-powered candidates took on the Democratic establishment and won.”
“They ran on Medicare for All. On a public option for housing. On a foreign policy that centers human dignity over political convenience. And they won,” she continued. “This is what happens when movements build power. People-powered movements win.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat who has become a leading progressive voice in Congress since her 2018 primary upset and overwhelmingly won in the 14th District on Tuesday, congratulated those four, plus Cait Conley in the 17th District, “on their impressive primary victories.”
“I look forward to working together as a delegation as we fight for working families across New York,” she said.
Beyond Capitol Hill, Ben Davis—who worked on the data team for Sanders’ 2020 campaign and is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)—tied the developments in New York to Chris Rabb’s win in Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District last month, after which “the left won across Los Angeles” and “swept the elections in the District of Columbia.”
Noting that in New York on Tuesday, DSA’s “down-ballot slate also swept across the board, taking out four incumbent state legislators,” Davis wrote for The Guardian that “the Democratic electorate has moved radically to the left over the past four years, and this will shape politics this year and for decades to come. There are a number of factors at play here, many of them long-term, but the magnitude of this shift shows a rapid movement among Democratic primary voters. This is spurred first by the second Trump administration.”
“The second major factor that needs to be mentioned is the impact of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its mass exposure,” he continued. “Democratic voters have turned sharply against Israel—within the Democratic coalition, this is now an 80/20 issue, while the party establishment and elected officials trail, having completely missed the moral outrage felt by the Democratic base and across the political spectrum.”
“Democrats are also moving to the left because of a generational shift. Sanders won large margins with Democrats under 35 in 2016. The oldest of those voters are now 45, but still voting the same,” he added. “Lastly, the left surge is based on a return to mass politics, specifically, DSA as a democratically run, member-funded organization.”
He concluded that “after the last month, Democratic leadership should be seriously taking stock of their position. The energy is on their left. The people are on their left. Democrats want fighters, and they want a politics rooted in the collective struggles of the masses, not decided in smoke-filled rooms. We still need moderate Democrats to win those pesky median voters, for now. But the party’s leadership is deeply out of touch with its base. A leftist wave is cresting across the country.”
Current Affairs editor in chief Nathan Robinson wrote Wednesday that “I feel like I’ve been waiting for this moment for 10 years. Back in 2016, it was frustratingly obvious that Sanders-style leftism, which centered the material needs of working people, was the best way to fight back against the Trumpian right. But Sanders could not defeat the party establishment in 2016 or 2020.”
During Democratic former President Joe Biden’s sole term, he noted, “DSA membership declined. Mamdani’s victory was an exciting moment, and he’s showing how democratic socialist politicians can both win and govern effectively. But I’m almost more excited by the congressional victories, because they show that the movement is growing beyond Mamdani, albeit with his help.”
“There is little room for error here,” he warned. “Socialists in power must be hyper-competent, so that voters can immediately see a clear contrast between the feckless Democratic establishment, which does not care about them, and the movement that prioritizes their most urgent needs and embodies their aspirations for a livable country. These candidates get that. They know that winning elections is actually the easy part, even though it is very hard. The most difficult work comes after, when you have to demonstrate that socialism is not a bunch of impossible ‘pie in the sky’ promises, but a set of workable ideas that will achieve results.”
“We are facing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to test our politics in practice,” Robinson added. “At last, the left has a real shot at taking power in places around the country. It is an exciting, unprecedented, and uncertain moment. Hopefully this new generation of socialists is up for the challenge. But the signs, so far, are encouraging.”
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“The American people—in New York and all across this country—are sick and tired of status quo politics... of a rigged economy... of billionaires and their super PACs buying elections.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani hosted a get out the vote rally at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn on June 18, 2026.
Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
Jessica Corbett
Jun 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
Democratic socialist firebrand US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday welcomed a wave of progressive primary victories in New York as proof that Americans “are sick and tired of status quo politics” and “want to end the corrupt campaign finance system, which enables billionaires to spend huge amounts of money to elect candidates who will represent their interests and go to war against working-class people.”
Sanders (I-Vt.) said so in a video posted on social media, as New York voters and progressives around the world celebrated Tuesday wins by Claire Valdez in New York’s 7th Congressional District, Brad Lander in the 10th District, and Darializa Avila Chevalier in the 13th District.
As Common Dreams reported earlier Wednesday, the trio campaigned on affordable housing, Medicare for All, stronger union protections, and an end to US military support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians—and all three were backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist supported and even sworn in by Sanders.
“What we saw last night in New York City and what we’ve been seeing for the last few months all across this country—the message is pretty clear,” said the Brooklyn-born senator, who last year launched his Fighting Oligarchy Tour and this year has backed progressive candidates at various levels of government in the lead-up to the November midterm elections.
“People want change,” asserted Sanders, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. “Our job is to grow that movement. Volunteer. Run for office. Stand up and fight. We can win this thing if we stand together.”
While establishment Democrats in Washington, DC “downplayed the results, denying they reflected any major leftward shift nationally,” according to NOTUS, other congressional progressives joined Sanders in cheering the results in New York.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said that “last night in New York, we saw progressives win. And win big. Voters are making their voices heard—they’re done with the status quo, and they’re ready for a progressive majority. Happy to see our movement rising and to see the power of true grassroots organizing. Congratulations.”
Another Massachusetts Democrat, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, declared: “That’s right, a little louder for the folks in the back NY! The people demand and deserve elected officials who fight for working families, stand against genocide, reject corporate greed, and reject anti-Blackness. A more just America is possible, we’re building it together.”
Congratulating the trio along with Micah Lasher, the Democratic primary winner in New York’s 12th District, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Emerita Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said that “something powerful happened in New York last night. Four bold, people-powered candidates took on the Democratic establishment and won.”
“They ran on Medicare for All. On a public option for housing. On a foreign policy that centers human dignity over political convenience. And they won,” she continued. “This is what happens when movements build power. People-powered movements win.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat who has become a leading progressive voice in Congress since her 2018 primary upset and overwhelmingly won in the 14th District on Tuesday, congratulated those four, plus Cait Conley in the 17th District, “on their impressive primary victories.”
“I look forward to working together as a delegation as we fight for working families across New York,” she said.
Beyond Capitol Hill, Ben Davis—who worked on the data team for Sanders’ 2020 campaign and is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)—tied the developments in New York to Chris Rabb’s win in Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District last month, after which “the left won across Los Angeles” and “swept the elections in the District of Columbia.”
Noting that in New York on Tuesday, DSA’s “down-ballot slate also swept across the board, taking out four incumbent state legislators,” Davis wrote for The Guardian that “the Democratic electorate has moved radically to the left over the past four years, and this will shape politics this year and for decades to come. There are a number of factors at play here, many of them long-term, but the magnitude of this shift shows a rapid movement among Democratic primary voters. This is spurred first by the second Trump administration.”
“The second major factor that needs to be mentioned is the impact of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its mass exposure,” he continued. “Democratic voters have turned sharply against Israel—within the Democratic coalition, this is now an 80/20 issue, while the party establishment and elected officials trail, having completely missed the moral outrage felt by the Democratic base and across the political spectrum.”
“Democrats are also moving to the left because of a generational shift. Sanders won large margins with Democrats under 35 in 2016. The oldest of those voters are now 45, but still voting the same,” he added. “Lastly, the left surge is based on a return to mass politics, specifically, DSA as a democratically run, member-funded organization.”
He concluded that “after the last month, Democratic leadership should be seriously taking stock of their position. The energy is on their left. The people are on their left. Democrats want fighters, and they want a politics rooted in the collective struggles of the masses, not decided in smoke-filled rooms. We still need moderate Democrats to win those pesky median voters, for now. But the party’s leadership is deeply out of touch with its base. A leftist wave is cresting across the country.”
Current Affairs editor in chief Nathan Robinson wrote Wednesday that “I feel like I’ve been waiting for this moment for 10 years. Back in 2016, it was frustratingly obvious that Sanders-style leftism, which centered the material needs of working people, was the best way to fight back against the Trumpian right. But Sanders could not defeat the party establishment in 2016 or 2020.”
During Democratic former President Joe Biden’s sole term, he noted, “DSA membership declined. Mamdani’s victory was an exciting moment, and he’s showing how democratic socialist politicians can both win and govern effectively. But I’m almost more excited by the congressional victories, because they show that the movement is growing beyond Mamdani, albeit with his help.”
“There is little room for error here,” he warned. “Socialists in power must be hyper-competent, so that voters can immediately see a clear contrast between the feckless Democratic establishment, which does not care about them, and the movement that prioritizes their most urgent needs and embodies their aspirations for a livable country. These candidates get that. They know that winning elections is actually the easy part, even though it is very hard. The most difficult work comes after, when you have to demonstrate that socialism is not a bunch of impossible ‘pie in the sky’ promises, but a set of workable ideas that will achieve results.”
“We are facing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to test our politics in practice,” Robinson added. “At last, the left has a real shot at taking power in places around the country. It is an exciting, unprecedented, and uncertain moment. Hopefully this new generation of socialists is up for the challenge. But the signs, so far, are encouraging.”
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