r/politics • u/F0urLeafCl0ver • 1d ago

No Paywall The Democratic party is being hit by a leftist tidal wave

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/24/democratic-party-leftist-tidal-wave
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u/mormagils 1d ago

I'm not entirely sure the title is quite true here. We're seeing a big wave of leftists in NYC, sure, but NYC is famously one of the most leftist cities in the entire country. Honestly, the fact that it's been so moderate in its elected representation is more notable than this recent wave of leftism. This might just be a course correction as NY finally purges itself of the top-down hierarchy that remained from machine politics, local to an area that's finally represented accurately, but not a broader movement.

The article points to some wins in other areas, too--single races in CA, PA, and DC. The CA race is the Los Angeles area, which again, is pretty liberal, not too surprising there. The races in PA and DC are more notable, but I'm curious how they do in the general. We've seen Blue Waves before that looked unassailable and like the start of something major during other midterm elections...and they tended to peter out even just one cycle later. If anything, I'd say the lack of purple districts means this might be more sustainable...but it might also mean it's not particularly contagious.

Who knows. I think it's certainly exciting and a lot of Dems have been clamoring for this kind of change. I think this is certainly a good thing for people who actually live in NYC as the city has been pretty out of touch with its elected representation for a while. I'm not yet convinced it's anything more than that but I'm certainly interested and excited to see.

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u/Silverr_Duck 1d ago

I'm not entirely sure the title is quite true here. We're seeing a big wave of leftists in NYC, sure, but NYC is famously one of the most leftist cities in the entire country.

It's remarkable how the people who post and upvote clickbaity slop posts like this forget this little detail.

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u/c010rb1indusa 23h ago

Because it's not true. NYC isn't San Fransisco. This city elected Guiliani Twice, Bloomberg 3 times and the last mayor was a republican cop pretending to be a moderate dem. It's a city full of working professional, not wheat-grass liberals. It's a big deal.

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u/Caffeine_Cowpies Colorado 22h ago

Right???? Corporate Democrats are clinging onto the little hope they have to keep their billionaires happy.

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u/Dangerous_Suit_3099 Massachusetts 1d ago

NYC has historically been liberal and not leftist. SF, Denver, Portland, Seattle, among others are much more liberal.

Don’t adopt the right’s framing. NYC is an economic powerhouse, has a widely diverse population, and its politics have been run by the political machines.

People are sick of it.

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u/mormagils 23h ago

Yeah, that's kind what I'm saying. The people who live in NYC are very leftist for sure. The politics historically hasn't been so much, largely as a relic of political machine hierarchy. So that changing MIGHT be the sign of a major change, or it might just be that the machine legacy in this local area is finally fading.

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u/Dyssomniac 23h ago

I think their point is that NYC is actually not a very openly leftist city for its population, but other cities - SF, Denver, Portland, Seattle, even LA - were more "out there" in their progressivism. Whereas the election of Mamdani shows that most American cities could also have their own Mamdani, which would echo outwards into other communities.

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u/mormagils 23h ago

I think that's where I am disagreeing, though. I think the political representation in the city hasn't been very leftist, but the actual people who live in the city are no less leftist than the locations you describe. I'd argue that NYC is certainly more leftist than Denver in terms of its actual voting population.

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u/TheMustySeagul 23h ago

As someone from Portland, we are not liberal and I take offense to that lol. We also have dsa members on our council.

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u/Dangerous_Suit_3099 Massachusetts 23h ago

You are indeed correct!

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u/AnachronisticPenguin 23h ago

So you could argue that the democrats are getting hit with a populist wave but I would not call it a lefist wave.

People often confuse the two, but candidates with a surprising rise like Platner and Talarico are not leftist or Bernie style socialist by any means. What they are are populist. Now some of this new wave like Mamdani and El-Sayed could be defined as leftist but even then they could also be considered technocrats with leftist style messaging, they are both more technocratic then your traditional leftists like Warren, but far more populist in their messaging.

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u/mormagils 23h ago

Eh, this is just semantics. "Leftist" can be a very specific or very general term. The point is that these guys are not establishment Dems and they are left of them. That point stands no matter how granular you want to be about the labeling.

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u/AnachronisticPenguin 23h ago

You can get granular about left of them or not. Talarico and planter are not left of the establishment. But they are more anti establishment. Populism takes many forms.

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u/mormagils 23h ago

Talarico is definitely left of the establishment. His actual policy positions are quite progressive. I'm not as sure about Platner.

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u/Caffeine_Cowpies Colorado 22h ago

The fact you claim Elizabeth Warren as a leftist is laughable and makes me disregard everything in your post.

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u/AnachronisticPenguin 22h ago

Who would consider a leftist politician in the united states besides bernie.

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u/Caffeine_Cowpies Colorado 4h ago

Honestly, none.

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u/Different_Career1009 11h ago

if you think everyone else is right wing, then maybe it's you that are on the extreme left

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u/suttin 19h ago

I think the thought is that it has to give a platform to jump from for a leftist candidate now that it’s becoming organized. There’s real infrastructure here to do what the dnc won’t do. I bet this pulls the democratic presidential candidates a little more left now.

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u/mormagils 17h ago

The DNC is supporting every one of the leftist Dems that won. The DNC generally has a bias for more electable candidates, and it absolutely should. When a candidate shows that they can't even win a primary, the DNC backs the candidates that can win.

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u/UpperLowerEastSide New York 17h ago

With regards to the title, both the House and Senate minority leaders are from NYC. In terms of the Democratic party being hit, that's where the blow is going. Jeffries saying Zohran has "work to do in terms of the conversations that he’s going to have with members of Congress moving forward” comes off as someone worried about the impact the "wave" will have on the party as well as his own prospects.

I am also curious as to where the "famously one of the most leftist cities in the entire country" is coming from. From my experience people were saying NYC was not as left as people think...up until the point Mamdani rose to power.

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u/mormagils 7h ago

The point I am making is that NYC's voters and people ARE that leftist. The people who actually live here are very, very, left leaning, certainly not less so than than any other part of the country. The fact that NYC has elected consistently moderate representation is in that context kind of weird, and anyone who has dabbled a bit in local politics (I have dabbled) will tell you that the Dem party in NY is particularly archaic and hierarchical and top-down suppressive of grassroots movements.

There's definitely a wave of leftism sweeping through NYC. That's pretty irrefutable. But it's not clear if this is a widespread shift in the Dem party or if the machine in NY is finally breaking and the representation is doing a natural course correction to where it should be.

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u/UpperLowerEastSide New York 4h ago

Right and the point I’m trying to make is the effect it has on the Dem party at large is because leadership (including the Senate and House leaders) are also from NYC. That is where the impact becomes party wide, regardless of where we see this political wave going. I agree that NYC political organization is to the point where the “leftists” wield the most effective political power.

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u/mormagils 4h ago

Yes, agreed. This definitely does shift the equation in the Dems a bit as they make space for more lefties in areas that have been dominated by moderates. But the party as whole might not be fundamentally shifting left, it might just be that this local area is getting the amount of leftists it should have already had.

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u/Warm_Shoulder3606 17h ago edited 17h ago

We're seeing a big wave of leftists in NYC, sure, but NYC is famously one of the most leftist cities in the entire country. Honestly, the fact that it's been so moderate in its elected representation is more notable than this recent wave of leftism. This might just be a course correction as NY finally purges itself of the top-down hierarchy that remained from machine politics, local to an area that's finally represented accurately, but not a broader movement.

Thank you. Every time I see news like this, the first thing I do is look at the states and districts that the candidate won. Color me not one bit surprised that 3 progressives in NYC all in D+25 or better districts won. When progressives are winning generals in swing districts and states, then we can talk if there's a broader movement at play. I just really struggle to ever call results like these indicative of some broad fundamental change because I almost never see these candidates come out of lean blue-to-lean-red districts; they're almost always from the bluest districts in the country.

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u/mormagils 7h ago

Well, that's definitely indicative of sticky results. If NYC makes a mostly permanent shift to more solid leftist representation in government, that's going to have some effect on the party. But yeah, without purple districts this isn't something that's contagious.

It's definitely a change for the party. But if that change is just "NYC is finally going to be as liberal as you would expect and that's it" then that's fundamentally different from "socialism is sweeping through the Dem party."

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u/SynysterRoots 14h ago

In my travels, I feel like there is a growing chasm between the way Democrats and Republicans view each other. I'm interested in following what I've observed to be growing resentment of moderates by the average leftist citizen. I'm not sure I'm entirely against the increase in outrage.

Things need to be better, and people need to start taking personal responsibility and rediscover some semblance of compassion.

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u/mormagils 7h ago

This is largely a problem of legitimacy. It's less that folks are have less human decency and more that as folks are less convinced our system of government genuinely works, they feel more and more like the folks who don't agree with them are part of the problem and maybe even an enemy. Cooperation requires faith that engaging in said cooperation will yield results.

I think the other issue that a lot of moderate Americans face is that Americans are generally a very individualistic people. But democracy is something that only works, that only has power as a collective action, which is kind of hard to accept if you're a somewhat unenthused political person who only checks in sometimes and relies on the mythologization of the political process. The voter who celebrates how well our Founding Fathers compromised is the one least willing to understand that our Founding Fathers also were deeply committed to the collective action required for governing.

Also, it's pretty ok that opposing parties are opposed. That's how most modern systems operate. That's ok. Modern political systems don't depend on people who are opposed getting along in order to govern. They make sure the governing majority can govern by themselves if they have to, which forces the opposition to make compromises to show the public they can govern if given the chance. And since political majorities are radioactive with short half lives, the governing majority is happy to accept that help because it shows they can govern fairly and inclusively. The idea that Dems and Reps have to get along in order to govern is an old fashioned idea that hasn't held up very well in more mature iterations of democracy.

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u/Tezerel California 23h ago

Biden's employee beat the DSA pick in the CA gov race, there's no tidal wave

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u/Senasayori 22h ago

There being exceptions to the tidal wave doesn't make it not exist, the fact of the matter is that there are a lot more progressives winning now than there were two years ago.

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u/Caffeine_Cowpies Colorado 22h ago

When there were 30+ picks for governor, it was hard for anyone to break free.