On election night I stood in a crowd at Harlem Tavern, a restaurant in New York City, at the electoral party for Darializa Avila Chevalier, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member and congresswoman-elect from New York’s 13th congressional district.
asserted
I → stand → district
The crowd cheered as what came to be called the “blunami” rolled in: Iowa blue, Kansas blue, Talarico in Texas, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, House, Senate, gubernatorial races overwhelmingly going for the Democratic party.
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Kansas → cheer → party
The victories were a clear rebuke of Trump’s politics, but also a referendum on the Democratic party’s own centrism that is complicit in the violence of masked men hunting immigrants, the funding of a genocide and the denial of healthcare to citizens of the world’s wealthiest country.
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that → hunt → country
Constants do not produce change.
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Constants → produce → change
It was a Democratic party committed to “centrism” that lost the House in 2022.
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that → commit → 2022
A promise to maintain the status quo did not win Kamala Harris the 2024 presidency.
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promise → maintain → presidency
And while some want to point to centrist victories in this blue wave, what is newsworthy is how Democratic politics have, in the last two years, shifted towards progressives and socialists, in campaigns powered by people and their small donations rather than big corporations and their money.
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politics → want → people
Take the wins of eight card-carrying democratic socialists who are entering the House of Representatives, three of whom – Avila Chevalier, Melat Kiros and Donavan McKinney – are unseating establishment candidates to do so.
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three → take → candidates
Avila Chevalier, who was an immigration organizer and part of the student encampment, ran because her opponent, Adriano Espaillat, refused to meet with Mahmoud Khalil’s family when he was abducted by ICE and also refused to call for the agency’s abolition.
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he → run → abolition
Their victories were facilitated by Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win in New York last year.
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victories → facilitate → York
But what paved the way for him, and them, I have argued, was the pro-Palestine movement that put their bodies on the line and that made it so that most Democrats are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
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Democrats → pave → cause
It is a shift that the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) itself recognized when it declared that it will no longer endorse candidates or give campaign contributions; that its money was now toxic and served as a flag to Democratic voters not to support their candidates.
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money → recognize → candidates
Senators-elect Troy Jackson and El-Sayed – who are progressive, but not DSA members – have called what’s happening in Palestine a “genocide” and won contentious competitions doing so in Maine and Michigan respectively.
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what → call → Maine
James Talarico in Texas said “God is screaming at all of us in Gaza as we speak”.
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we → say → Gaza
A similar thing happened with regards to other social movements.
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thing → happen → movements
Today 77% of Democrats (and half of all Americans) support abolishing Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE), a position incredibly unpopular in the last two decades that activists have been organizing for it.
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activists → support → it
Democrats, who have long been in bed with tech, ran against AI datacenters, pushed by organizers who emphasized their destruction of the environment, water supply and social effects on everything from student learning, theft of intellectual property, to the creation of nonconsensual porn.
But these problems, while shaping candidate platforms, were secondary to economic issues for most voters.
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problems → run → voters
Gallup polling just before the election showed healthcare (68%) as the number one issue that registered Democrats found “extremely important”.
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that → show → issue
An earlier poll from You-Gov indicates what they want: a staggering 85% of Democrats support Medicare for All.
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% → indicate → All
The same Gallup poll showed that for Democratic voters it’s not just the economy that’s the top concern for their vote, but specifically “income and wealth distribution” (65%) over and above gas prices (53%).
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that → show → prices
Said in a different way it’s not just “affordability” that people want, it’s affordability through justice and social programming – it’s redistribution ie socialist policy.
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it → say → justice
The blue wave is cause for celebration – the Democratic party is in a two party system, the only alternative we currently have to a Republican party that has gotten unfathomably brutal, that wears white supremacy like a crown.
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that → have → crown
However, the Democratic party too is a part of the same political machinery that has funded ICE administration after administration.
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that → fund → administration
That has funded the genocide in Gaza.
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That → fund → Gaza
That did not succeed in enshrining healthcare for all, or cancelling student debt.
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That → succeed → debt
That has not brought us the progressive, socialist policy that Americans crave.
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Americans → bring → that
And it is unclear, despite this pressure from voters, that the party is going to do differently this time.
uncertain
party → go → voters
Hakeem Jeffries, who is running for speaker of the House, will not commit to holding a vote on abolishing ICE.
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who → run → ICE
He opposes Medicare for All.
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He → oppose → All
He has said he will not hold Trump accountable for the human rights violations committed, portraying it as a question of “getting even” rather than achieving justice where it was denied.
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it → say → justice
Chuck Schumer, who holds similar positions, has an extraordinarily low approval rating – yet plans to run for majority leader in the Senate.
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who → hold → Senate
Electeds are questioning whether these men should hold these roles.
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men → question → roles
But the dissent must also come from us, as it has been.
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it → come → us
We need to demand an end to the fast violence of guns on our streets trained on our neighbors, bombs dropped from the sky and the slow violence of people dying because their healthcare was denied or their food stamps were cut.
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stamps → need → people
We need to organize, and mobilize, to demand the multi-racial democracy we were promised – not a playground for the rich to get richer on the time and labor and lives of the poor.
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rich → need → poor
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Heba Gowayed is an associate professor of sociology at CUNY Hunter College and Graduate Center and author of the book Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential.
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State → shape → Potential
The Aporia
