Earlier this year, Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders launched their Fighting Oligarchy Tour, to “take on the Oligarchs and corporate interests who have so much power and influence in this country.”Angelina Katsanis/Reuters
U.S. Air Force B2 bombers had barely left Iranian airspace last week before Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Donald Trump’s impeachment for “impulsively” risking “a war that may ensnare us for generations.”
Setting aside the question of whether the U.S. President’s move to authorize attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities could be construed as an impeachable offence – former president Barack Obama did not seek congressional approval before bombing Libya in 2011 either, and nobody tried to impeach him for it – Republican majorities in both houses of Congress would block any attempt to launch impeachment proceedings in the first place.
So would many of AOC’s fellow Democrats, who, unlike her, represent competitive districts.
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Indeed, that is exactly what happened on Tuesday, when Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green sought to bring forward a motion to impeach Mr. Trump for “unconstitutionally usurping Congress’s power to declare war.” More than half of the Democrats in the House of Representatives – 128 in all – joined Republicans to block the proposal. They knew that another impeachment sideshow is the last thing most voters are looking for right now.
Unfortunately for them, most of their party’s leading public figures continue to push a left-wing populist agenda that appeals to the activist base, but which alienates average voters in the very states and districts Democrats need to win to regain control of Congress in 2026 and the White House in 2028.
Earlier this year, AOC and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders launched their Fighting Oligarchy Tour, to “take on the Oligarchs and corporate interests who have so much power and influence in this country.” But Democrats are heading for serial defeat if they embrace the AOC-Sanders message in future election campaigns.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-CortezDavid Zalubowski/The Associated Press
Corporations and billionaires may wield too much power. But the solutions pitched by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Sanders – more government, more taxes, more regulation, more redistribution – are downright scary to most Americans. They have seen the dystopia that formula has created in one-party Democrat states such as California and New York.
“In much of San Francisco, you can’t walk 20 feet without seeing a multicoloured sign declaring that Black Lives Matter, Kindness is Everything and No Human Being is Illegal,” write Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their book, Abundance. “Those signs sit in yards zoned for single families, in communities that organize against efforts to add new homes that would bring those values closer to reality. San Francisco’s Black population has fallen in every Census count since 1970. Poorer families – disproportionately non-white and immigrant – are pushed into long commutes, overcrowded housing and street homelessness.”
Mr. Klein and Mr. Thompson argue that affordability crises facing Californians and New Yorkers – which are the worst in the country – are not the result of excessive corporate power or insufficient taxation but rather the high-tax, high-regulation policies of Democratic state and city governments.
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In a recent New York Times column, Mr. Klein noted that it costs four times more per square-foot to build subsidized housing in California than it does to build non-subsidized housing in Texas, mainly due to the “avalanche” of environmental and social requirements faced by California developers, all imposed in the name of liberal progressivism.
The book by Mr. Klein and Mr. Thompson has generated a backlash among the progressive Democratic left. And its critique of the California model will not help the state’s Democratic Governor, Gavin Newsom, as he seeks to woo voters nationally and launch a 2028 presidential bid.
Mr. Klein argues that “anti-corporate populism” is not helping the Democratic Party win over mainstream American voters. Democrats are “struggling,” he insists, because “they fail to solve problems.”
Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran MamdaniHeather Khalifa/The Associated Press
Yet, the Democratic base continues to move further to the left by the day. The winner of Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral primary in New York City, 33-year-old state assemblyman and democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, is promising free bus rides, rent freezes and government-owned grocery stores, paid for with a US$10-billion tax increase on businesses and wealthy New Yorkers. He handily beat former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who had been endorsed by former president Bill Clinton and ex-mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Granted, Mr. Cuomo – who resigned as governor in 2021 amid an onslaught of sexual harassment allegations – had more baggage than an Airbus 350. But what really sank his mayoral bid was the online war waged against him by left-wing activists backing Mr. Mamdani.
The Democratic nominee will now face off in November against incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who might be vulnerable (he faced corruption charges until the Trump administration intervened to have them dropped) were it not for Mr. Mamdani’s strident anti-Israel views and high-tax platform. New York City counts more Jews than any other urban centre except Tel Aviv, and the most millionaires of any U.S. city.
For now, Mr. Mamdani is a political asset – for Mr. Trump and other Republicans.