Darializa Avila Chevalier is the Democratic candidate for New York’s 13th congressional district. This debate is flip-side of our Future of Conservatism discussion. Email your COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line.
By Todd Lassa
Conventional wisdom is that a president’s opposition party has a built-in advantage going into the midterms, as in this November’s elections. This reliable trend goes back at least as far as the Clinton administration, when Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) led a Republican takeover of the House after the 1994 midterms.
This year, the Democratic Party, infamous for grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory, are dealing with a very public internal struggle in which progressives and socialists are pushing for a radical answer to President Trump’s singular form of MAGA right-wing populism.
Last June, three democratic socialists endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani won their primaries against more mainstream centrist Democrats: Darializa Avila Chevalier for New York’s 13th congressional district, Brad Lander for New York’s 10th and state Rep. Claire Valdez for New York’s 7th. There’s also concern that Maine Democrats have thrown away an easy win against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins when they chose
Compounding mainstream Democrats’ anxiety is Trump’s open attack on election laws normally under the purview of the 50 states. The president is working hard to push his pet Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act through Congress, even though it would take Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) killing the Senate filibuster.
The theory is that if the Senate passes SAVE with but 51 votes, Republicans won’t have to worry about Democrats being in charge with a minimum 51-seat majority for the remainder of Trump’s current term. Trump told his audience at an Independence Day speech at Mount Rushmore that if Congress passes the SAVE Act Republicans won’t lose another election for 100 years (Mediaite).
Ben Wikler, former head of Wisconsin’s Democratic Party, agrees with Trump that the Senate filibuster must go. The author of the book, This Is the Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy told Jon Stewart on Monday’s The Daily Show he believes killing the Senate filibuster would be good for small-d American democracy as well as for Democrats.
Wikler believes his party should embrace its tradition of Big Tent politics and welcome progressives as well as centrists in fighting for Democratic majorities in the House and Senate – progressives can win a seat in a progressive district or city and work together with moderates from centrist districts, he says.
If Wikler’s right about all this, the Democratic Party ought to have a future after November 3. If he is wrong, Republicans could maintain a loss-free future for the next several election cycles, if not for 100 years.
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