New York City will likely elect a socialist as its next mayor despite his unapologetic stance on his positions and policies. Elected progressive Democrats and fellow activists see the probable election of Zohran Mamdani as proof that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s (D-NY) playbook is alive and well.
Progressive Democrats have watched as the Republican Party under President Donald Trump has turned from a free-market party to one that embraces policies unheard of before 2015. From Trump pushing tariffs to taking stakes in private companies, a significant portion of the Democratic Party believes it needs to capitalize on the pro-populist movement by staking its claim to win back some of the voters who gravitated toward the GOP.
The messaging around economic issues — including housing, healthcare costs, economic inequality, job insecurity, trade protectionism, distrust of the democratic process, and distrust of institutions — resonates with many voters, possibly giving Democrats an opportunity to reclaim some voters or attract new supporters.
Some in Democratic circles think the better way to go is to embrace the so-called “abundance agenda,” coined from the book Abundance by New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and former writer from the Atlantic Derek Thompson. The idea is a supposed reorientation of progressive politics away from scarcity and knee-jerk defensive regulation and toward building, growth, and scale. They argue that many of the pathologies afflicting politics, including the housing shortage, environmental inaction, stalled infrastructure, and underutilized innovation, stem from burdensome regulation, an overemphasis on process, and an aversion to scale.
It’s almost a rebirth of Al From’s “New Democrat” movement, which sought to move the party away from the left and more toward the center, that proved successful with the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, after three straight defeats at the hands of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Still, it is the populist message that appears to be winning at the moment, and a win by Mamdani in New York City, despite it being a deep-blue city, will only accelerate that trend.
However, no matter what strategic path Democrats take, the party has a glaring weakness that costs it more credibility than any policy proposal or idea, and that is the influence of the hard-left progressive Democrats in the party and the insistence on embracing a range of social and policy issues that fall far outside the mainstream of most Americans’ views. These are not minor disagreements at the margins. They’re positions on cultural and policy issues that alienate voters Democrats need to win in places far removed from deep-blue cities.
“Defund the police” may have been a slogan, but in much of the country, it landed like a declaration. The same goes for sweeping rhetoric on immigration, gender identity, and foreign policy. All issues that play well on social media, podcasts, and MSNBC but fall flat with voters Democrats need to win. The result is a party that often looks more defined by its loudest voices than by its most pragmatic ones.
Nowhere is this disconnect more evident than on gender identity. A movement that progressive activists frame as a moral imperative is seen by most people as an attempt to reengineer cultural norms overnight. Whether it’s debates over gender ideology in schools, pronoun mandates, or medical interventions for minors, these issues alienate far more voters than they attract, and Republicans know it.
One of Trump’s most effective campaign ads featured a 6-year-old video of former Vice President Kamala Harris saying that “every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access” to taxpayer-funded sex-change operations. The ad closed by saying, “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
States and the federal government have introduced legislation to ban biological men from competing in women’s sports. While some efforts have been successful, others have failed, including a Senate effort that Democrats unanimously voted to block from reaching the floor for a vote. Members did not oppose the legislation because it’s untrue that biological men are competing in women’s sports in high schools and colleges. Their opposition was based on the idea that it was unnecessary because it didn’t happen often. Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), following his vote to block the legislation, said, “It’s an infinitesimally small group of people that are really trying to find their ways.”
The issue is a political gimme, which makes the Democratic position all the more baffling. A January New York Times-Ipsos poll asked more than 2,000 adults, “Thinking about transgender female athletes — meaning athletes who were male at birth but who currently identify as female — do you think they should or should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports?”
Nearly 80% of those polled said they should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports, including 67% of Democrats. Only 18% think they should. Democrats continue to dig in, supporting “gender affirming care” when most people know it means puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and sex reassignment surgeries. It’s a political loser, but Democrats are so afraid of angering their activist base that they’ll keep defending it anyway.
Gender identity and trans “rights” aren’t the only cultural minefield Democrats keep stepping on. Immigration has become another glaring example of how the party’s loudest members are out of step with the country. While progressive activists denounce border security measures as “cruel” or “xenophobic,” a majority of Americans, including a significant number of Democratic voters, say the border isn’t secure and want stricter enforcement. The gap between the rhetoric and reality is enormous.
Following Joe Biden’s election in 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, illegal immigration, particularly at the southern border, soared. Democrats and the administration pretended it wasn’t happening and conducted the usual tactic of saying Republicans were attacking “immigrants” to deflect from the issue of illegal immigration. That strategy might have worked when the problem was primarily theoretical, but voters now saw the crisis firsthand. Cities far from the border, including Chicago, New York, and Denver, had to declare states of emergency as they struggled to deal with the surge of migrants. And yet the party’s progressive wing still insists the real problem isn’t the border itself but “Republican fearmongering.”
However, the polling does not align with their rhetoric. The previously mentioned New York Times poll also asked about illegal immigration. One question asked about support or opposition to the following: “deporting immigrants in the country illegally who arrived during the recent wave of migration to the southern border over the last four years.”
Sixty-four percent of people, including 44% of Democrats, supported deporting them. When asked if they supported deporting all immigrants in the country illegally, 56% supported it, with the highest level coming from Republicans. Still, 32% of Democrats support such a policy.
Trump’s immigration crackdown involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids has had mixed results, with the press focusing heavily on mistakes, protesters getting attacked, and overly hyperbolic messaging about ICE officers wearing masks. Still, it is difficult to argue with Trump’s success overall when it comes to tackling illegal immigration. During Trump’s time in office, there has been a precipitous drop in border encounters, according to data from Customs and Border Protection. In August this year, CBP had 9,740 encounters at the border. In August 2024, that figure was 101,790. In 2023, the number was 269,735, and in 2022, it was 227,547. That is a jarring difference, and one that Republicans will use to show Trump’s effectiveness on the issue.
If gender identity and immigration reveal how far Democrats have drifted from the mainstream, their continued fixation on race and “equity” shows how deeply that disconnect runs. What began as a conversation about fairness has, in the hands of the activist Left, turned into a rigid ideological framework that ends up dividing, instead of uniting, which they claim is their goal. Instead of emphasizing equality of opportunity, Democrats increasingly talk in the language of systemic guilt, privilege, and redistribution. It is language that alienates voters who might otherwise be persuadable.
The issue has faced significant backlash over the last several years, with some universities scaling back their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in response to state laws and federal directives. Corporations such as Amazon, Google, AT&T, and McDonald’s have eliminated or rolled back their programs.
Democrats, rather than examining whether or not such programs and initiatives offer any real value or acknowledging voter concerns, have retreated to their usual position of crying foul and calling those opposed racists, bigots, and misogynists.
MAMDANI SAYS PROGRESSIVE WING WON BATTLE FOR ‘SOUL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’
Most people may support fairness, but they don’t want lectures. And when every issue is filtered through a lens of race and oppression, Democrats stop sounding like problem-solvers and sound more like their activist base.
All of these issues — gender identity, immigration, and race — have one thing in common: They’ve become litmus tests for the party’s loudest voices, not the voters it needs to win. If Democrats can’t figure out how to square their economic populism with cultural reality, they’ll be handing Republicans an easy playbook for years to come.
Jay Caruso is a writer residing in West Virginia.
