From Stoller:

Last night, something happened that I’ve never seen in my time in politics – a bunch of Democratic incumbent politicians in New York and Maryland lost to left-wing challengers. New York in particular has an intensely wired Democratic machine, with advocacy groups, unions, and identity rights groups cemented together with big money. This machine rarely loses, and never loses en masse. Yesterday, they did, as voters said no to the entire political establishment.

The winners mostly ran on a platform of opposition to the U.S. alliance with Israel, as well as subordinate themes like opposition to corporate greed. For instance, Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president and a well-respected establishment figure with virtually every endorsement possible from both liberal groups and real estate interests, lost to Democratic Socialist Claire Valdez by more than 25 percentage points. Adriano Espaillat, the head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, was unseated by fellow DSA member Darializa Avila Chevalier. State assembly incumbents lost, and both the state and Federal delegation are now far more progressive.

The New York machine, in other words, got wrecked.

I came out of the netroots: the blogosphere. We had a motto “more and better democrats” but every time we tried to primary some shitheel Democrat, we got wrecked.

We didn’t have the juice.

And in American politics the most important thing is whether you can win primaries. In a duopoly, even if your candidate loses the general this time, they’ll eventually back into power if the district is competitive. If it’s not competitive, and the party you can win elections in is the shoe in, well, it’s the same as winning the election.

The reason the populist right has been pandered to by Republicans on many issues (but not corporate governance) is that they can win primaries.

The reason Kathy Hochui kept her implicit deal with Mamdani and has given him money for New York and other help is that Mamdani is a powerhouse and a bellweather. Opposing him would mean he and the movement he is the standard bearer for would have come for her next.

This is localized so far, but if it spreads the Democratic party will change. And unlike the Republican right, which can be bought off with culture war bullshit, this a left wing populist movement which is explicitly anti-oligarchy. Mamdani has been very successful so far, coming thru on many of his promises. I recently saw someone earning six figures say that Mamdani’s childcare plan had saved him 30K. That’s not chump change and it dwarfs anything the well off, but not rich, will lose from Mamdani’s other changes. In other words the 80% to 95% benefit, as does everyone under 80%.

That is one one hell of a big coalition.

Democrats and Republicans, since Reagan, have largely refused to compete on doing things for ordinary Americans: at least anything pocket book related. The competition has all been kabuki, symbolic gestures or cultural red meat. Some of it has really hurt people, to be sure (abortion bans for example) but overall the idea has been that money should be given to the rich and programs which help ordinary people’s finances are a no go.

Since the US is a duopoly and you only get to vote for two options, neither of which intend to help, the only solution was to change the nature of one of the parties.

That has now begun. How far it will go and whether it will succeed, I do not know.

I do know that if it does, the Democrats will rule for another 50 years, like the did from 32 to 80. Republicans will get in sometimes, but they will be like Eisenhower: ruling in a populist left fashion. The mirror of Clinton or Obama, who in most respects might as well have been Republicans. They were certainly arch-neoliberals.

This is your moment of actual hope. Not the fake Obama stuff, the real thing. It’s not certain, of course, there is a ton of power opposing it, but it is real hope.

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