The deepening economic, social and political crisis in the United States, combined with the polarisation produced by Donald Trump’s rule, is fuelling a revival of the Democrats.
Growing numbers are no longer satisfied with simply removing Trump and replacing him with a slightly more liberal version of corporate and imperialist rule.
Increasingly, Democratic Party establishment candidates are being challenged by those with more radical policies.
In early August, Abdul El-Sayed won the bitterly contested Democratic Senate primary in Michigan. Although he does not identify as a socialist, his platform included demands associated with the left: abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), extending Medicare to all, pausing the expansion of AI data centres, raising wages, taxing billionaires and cutting US military assistance to Israel.
He faced enormous opposition from Democratic Party-aligned forces, wealthy donors and the pro-Israel lobby. His moderate opponent, Haley Stevens, spent roughly $70 million during the campaign, outspending El-Sayed by more than 12 to one. Yet El-Sayed won.
Just two weeks later, Angie Nixon, a union organiser, outspoken critic of Israel’s war in Gaza and member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), won the Democratic Senate primary in Florida.
The DSA describes itself as a political and activist organisation committed to a society in which working people democratically control the economy and society. But it is not an independent electoral party. Most of its candidates run in Democratic primaries.
The organisation has grown from about 6000 members in 2015 to more than 120,000 today. Among its most prominent elected figures are New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and House of Representatives members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Greg Casar.
Other left candidates are also making gains. Katie Wilson, who describes herself as a “democratic socialist” and was endorsed by the University of Washington’s Young DSA chapter, was elected mayor of Seattle in June. In Washington DC, self-described democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George won the Democratic mayoral primary with DSA backing and is heavily favoured in November.
Positive opinion of socialism
In the primary cycle leading up to November’s midterm elections, the DSA has endorsed 174 candidates. Sixty-four have won, 57 have lost and 53 contests remain undecided. Polling shows that 39 per cent of Americans have a positive opinion of socialism; among young people, the figure rises to more than half.
The electoral success of DSA and other progressive candidates has provoked a backlash from the right and panic within the Democratic establishment. Republicans are using the DSA’s growth to whip up a red-scare campaign against the Democrats. House Speaker Mike Johnson declared that “the barbarians are inside the gate”, while Trump claimed “communists” wanted to blow up Mount Rushmore.
But the Democrats are a thoroughly capitalist party. Even before the election, El-Sayed removed some YouTube videos in which he had urged government officials to consider defunding the police.
Ocasio-Cortez previously lost the DSA’s national endorsement over her support for “defensive” weapons for Israel, although she has since changed her position and rejoined the organisation. Mamdani has also distanced himself from his previous support to “defund the police”.
This backsliding by left Democrats has opened an important debate on the US left about the relationship between electoral politics and mass movements.
If socialists want to pose a serious alternative to Trump and the right, building mass movements must be at the centre of their politics. Time and again, movements have been channelled into support for the Democrats and demobilised.
Michigan provides an important example. The state became the site of a sustained grassroots campaign against ICE and its proposed 500-bed detention centre near Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Weekly protests, economic boycotts and local government legal action eventually forced ICE to abandon the plans.
El-Sayed made “Abolish ICE” central to his campaign and repeatedly highlighted the fact that his opponent had voted to fund the agency in Congress. But it was the movement that had already mobilised thousands of people to drive ICE out of Minneapolis.
It was this experience of collective struggle—people organising, protesting and winning—that inspired similar action across the United States.
It will not be Democratic victories that provide the radical alternative to Trump that is needed. That approach has failed US workers miserably.
If the left is to challenge both Trump and the Democratic establishment, it needs to offer a clear fighting alternative independent of the Democrats, and build mass movements to fight for Palestine, oppose ICE and the system of rule by the billionaires.
By Mark Gillespie
