← Next Up with Mark Halperin
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Why Socialists Are Rising Within the Democratic Party
00:20:37
In this special bonus episode, Mark Halperin's reported monologue takes a deeper look at one of the biggest stories reshaping American politics: the rise of Democratic Socialists inside the Democratic Party. Mark explores why this movement is gaining momentum, what it wants, and why the party establishment is struggling to respond. Is this simply a New York story—or the beginning of a much larger transformation that could redefine the future of the party? Follow Next Up with Mark Halperin on all social platforms: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nextuphalperin TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nextuphalperin X (Twitter): https://x.com/NextUpHalperin Connect with Mark Halperin on social media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markevanhalperin X (Twitter): https://x.com/markhalperin Find the full audio show wherever you get your podcasts: Apple — https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-up-with-mark-halperin/id1810218232 Spotify — https://open.spotify.com/show/2f0n8G4...
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Mark Halpern (Host/Commentator)
everybody, welcome.
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Mark Halpern here. Thank you for joining me. Next up, special bonus edition to talk about this extraordinary story that we've been covering all week. And, and I, I really, I don't think people have gotten their, their arms around, their heads around what's going on between the socialist faction, the Social Democratic Socialists of America and the Democratic Party. It's just an incredible story and I've compared it to what's happened with Donald Trump in 2016 when an outsider took over the Republican Party. And there's some similarities there. We've talked about this, the motivation, people wanting a change in the status quo, not trusting the political party, not trusting business as usual, Washington, D.C. wanting an outsider, all that's the same. But this is extraordinary. What's happening with the socialists. The Socialists won two House primaries. They beat two Democratic incumbent House members. The Socialists have risen in strength. And some people say, well, it's just
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New York and it's just two who are socialists.
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And Graham Platner is not a socialist in Maine. And ladies and gentlemen, the rise of the socialists is a massive story. Now some of you are going to say, oh, this is the worst thing that could happen. We're not a socialist nation. This is horrible. But some of you are going to say, well, that's great because the two major parties, definitely the Republicans and even the Democrats don't represent the socialist point of view, which is extremely popular with tens of millions of Americans. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic Socialist, joined the Democratic Party because he saw that that was the vehicle to try to become President of the United States. And had the Democrats not stolen the nomination with away from him in 2016 and 2020, the Democratic Party would have been running a socialist for president and would have been interesting to see how he did. The socialists say, we are popular, we will win general elections across the country if you give us a chance. And they've decided that the best way to put on offer their socialist views is to become part of the Democratic Party to run for Democratic nominations. Our system is biased against other parties. If you go to any other industrialized democracy, you'll find in the parliamentary system a range of parties, far left, far right, more moderate, centrist, green.
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And these parties can win elections, can win individual seats. If you go the last 50 years and you just look at federal and governor, Senate, House and Governor, a handful of independents have won. And typically the independents who have won are basically Republicans or Democrats. These Socialists are different. They are on the far left and they are determined, determined to take over the Democratic Party because they know that if they try to make the Socialist party competitive on its own, because the bias in our system for Democrats and Republicans, it won't work. So these two socialists who won in New York City are getting a ton of attention, rightly so. And the President and the speaker of the House are calling them communists.
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And Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House is trying to avoid talking about them. He gets asked about them every interview he does and he's done a lot. And he just says, well, first he says ham and Hamanahamina. But then what he says is we've got a lot of people running. This is just two races and we're all united about stopping Donald Trump. And then he starts talking about the more moderate people who've won nominations, right? Does not want to talk about them, does not want to be forced to repudiate their views. Because, and this is the key to me you could say, well, it's just the two New York races.
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You go into any congressional district in the country, anyone in the reddest district, the bluest district, the purplest district, they're socialists there. And in some places they're organizing. And in all places they're at their food co ops and their hacky sack tournaments. And they say Democrats and Republicans, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, not much more use for
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the Democrats than Republicans. And in some ways the Democrats make
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them, make them more angry. I remember one of the searing moments. I should write more about this than I have one of the searing Moments for me in 2016 was at an event in New Hampshire talking to a bunch of Sanders supporters, men and women, young men, young women their anger about Hillary Clinton who represented to them the establishment, too many foreign wars, too, too conservative on economics. Their anger at Hillary Clinton was so much more intense than their anger at the Republicans because their view was that the Republicans are going to Republican but the Democratic nominee of our party,
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Commercial Announcer
the
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Mark Halpern (Host/Commentator)
party that's more to the left in America should not be someone as conservative in their view as Hillary Clinton. Someone who's not for single payer health care, someone who's not for the green dune deal, someone who's been open to free trade agreements, someone who supported foreign wars, someone who has supported criminal justice measures that in their view are too extreme. This intense feeling about the Democratic Party on the part of the Democratic socialists is quite something and I'm going to show you three socialists, three Democratic socialists who have spoken out this week in reaction to what they feel is the hostility from the right calling them communists and from the Democrats saying we don't want you in the party. Jamie Harrison spend a guest here, former chairman of the Democratic Party said look, don't run as a Democrat if you're not a Democrat. If you're a socialist, a Democratic socialist, start your own party. Don't run to take jobs away from Democratic candidates and ask for financial and other help from the Democratic Party. That's the other big thing that the socialists critical of Hillary Clinton about. Don't take money, don't take big corporate money. Don't give paid speeches for Goldman Sachs. So Jamie Harrison saying find your own money, find your own infrastructure, your own volunteers. So I want you to listen to three, three sound bites from this week from Democratic socialists responding to what they feel is hostility towards them. The first is one of the two people who won't beat a Democratic House incumbent in a Democratic primary in New York City. She's probably the one who's gotten the most attention. Dara Lisa Chevalier she, she is, she is extremely confident about her place in the world about what she's going to do because she'll, she'll be a member of the House because it's New York City. She's not going to lose in the general election. Here she is talking to ali vous on Ms. Now about allegations that she a communist s3 please delegation and you're
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going to appear in all sorts of people's ads, all sorts of Republicans ads to say this is what you're going to get if you vote for the Democrats, a communist.
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Dara Lisa Chevalier (Democratic Socialist Candidate)
You know, I think that is, that framing is one that I've been very proud to be able to say. I don't respond to, one in which I have been very intentional to say. I won't be reactive. We are presenting a vision of what we're fighting for. And I think for far too long we have had politics that is reactive to what Republicans are doing. What we need is Democrats who are actually going to present a positive vision, one that sets the tone for what we should be talking about, which is the issue of affordability, which is the issue of how our budgets are moral documents. If we say that we want to invest in working people in this country, then we need to do that and our budgets need to reflect that. If we say that we value immigration and immigration justice, we need to make sure that that is also reflective in our policy. And so I'm very proud of a campaign that we built that centers those ideals, that centers those values and that vision for what we need as a community. And that's how I'll continue to move forward in Congress. And I think that for far too long, this reactive conversation of what we should be afraid of has prevented us from being able to have a politics of hope and a politics of life that Democrats can actually identify with when the majority of the Democratic base has been seeking for the Democratic Party to act.
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Mark Halpern (Host/Commentator)
Now this lady, she's known as DAC already, she's already got an AOC type thing. I gotta take my hat off to her. And again, listen to me and don't just dismiss my saying anything positive about her because she's, she's a socialist, not a communist, at least as she suggested, number one, like Bernie Sanders, she cares about ideas. Now you may think her ideas are wrong, maybe you think they're right, but, but I used to watch with great sympathy for Senator Sanders when reporters would want to talk to him about process. Are you going to win this primary? Will you drop out of the race? When he was running for president and in Congress, when they ask him personality questions, he didn't want to answer personality questions. He doesn't want to answer questions about process or polls. He wants to answer questions about substance, how to make the real lives of real people better. And he's serious about that, and so is she. My hat is off to her. She's saying working people aren't doing well enough in this country, and they're not. Now again, her solutions may not work, but like Mayor Mandami, single minded focus on affordability, on making the real lives of real people better. Like Bernie Sanders, same thing.
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And I have no doubt that that's why she won.
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I have no doubt that although other
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issues like Israel played a role, I have no doubt that she could not have been elected beating an incumbent member of, of the House of Representatives if she did not appeal to where a lot of the voters are, which is they want someone who will shake up the status quo. They don't want someone who's been part of Washington. And when she says a majority of the Democrats want what she wants in, in her district, I think for sure she's right. And I don't think she's that wrong about the whole country. So that's, that's, that's someone who's saying they can call me a communist all they want. I'm going to talk to the voters and then when she gets to Congress, I'm going to talk to my colleagues about how to make the real lives of real people better. And I think when, when people dismiss the rise of the socialists, they're failing to realize that they're appealing to a strong desire for a change in the status quo to make the real lives of real people better. Now here's another socialist. This is Gustavo Cordilla. He is the co chair of the Democratic Socialists of America in New York. And he, he is well aware of this question of should they be running to be Democrats or should they separate themselves. And he knows how Democrats feel about this, at least more moderate ones. Here is the vice chair of the New York Democratic Socialists of America, Gustavo Cordilla. S2, please.
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Gustavo Cordilla (Democratic Socialists of America Co-chair)
Our candidates run as Democrats. We're on the Democratic Party ballot line. We contest the primaries and when they're in the legislature, they're part of the Democratic Party caucus. But we don't agree with the way the Democratic Party establishment organizes or runs its party apparatus. And so we try to build independence by focusing on volunteer led movement. We think that everyone should be able to be trained and to become someone who can participate in the political process. And we don't really think that Democratic Party campaigns in the establishment are run that way. And I think you really see that difference in the races like we're having tonight. And I think in terms of the agenda, there's a problem in the Democratic Party where they are funded by billionaire donors and at the same time they're trying to represent the working class. And in our opinion, you have to choose between the billionaire class and the working class. It's, it's just impossible to satisfy all of them.
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Mark Halpern (Host/Commentator)
Okay, again, don't send me email saying,
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oh, Mark, you're a socialist.
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You're saying such nice things about the socialists. I'm just trying to try to help explain to you, based on my reporting, why people find them appealing. And he highlighted too, the Democratic Party, like the Republican Party in many cases, is too closed to people. It's a club, it's for insiders. If you want to be a top level volunteer, if you want to run for office yourself. He's saying, yeah, we'll run as Democrats because that's what we need to do. But we want a party that's more open. We want a party that's more Democratic with a small D. We want a party that better reflects the aspirations of those who don't like the status quo. We don't want the party of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. We want the party of the people. And then the other thing he says about big money I mentioned earlier, the socialists believe what many people, including many Trump supporters and maga, belief too much big money that they see. If somebody's giving hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars to a politician or a political candidate, they're going to, they're going to call the shots. They're going to, they're going to, they paid the piper. They get to decide what gets played. And they don't want that. They see a direct correlation between how the working class is falling behind and has fallen behind the United States and the influence of big money in politics. And again, I don't think their analysis is wrong about what the problem is. And, and that's why they have so much, that's why so much leverage right now with, with the grassroots. And that's why it's so difficult for the establishment of the party to respond, just as it was difficult for the establishment of the Republican Party to respond to the rise of Donald Trump. They're wedded to the status quo for a reason. They get elected and reelected because they know how to raise big money. And they had to hire the consultants to spend the big money on negative ads to destroy anyone who might try to beat them, whether it's in a primary or whether it's in the general election. The Democratic socialists want to have more power to the people who can be against that. The Democratic socialists want to have an openness to the process where money does not decide policy, money does not decide elections. And you could tell from him, from that guy that he's got kind of an ambivalence about the Democrats, doesn't love the Democratic Party. But seems comfortable working inside of it and kind of reconciled himself, as AOC has, as Bernie has. AOC and Bernie, you know, they're in congressional committees. They're dealing with establishment folks all the time. They're comfortable with that. Not in every way. They're not taking corporate PAC money and other things, but they're comfortable within Democratic Party. That guy is, too.
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Here's someone who's not comfortable with the Democratic Party. And I want you to listen to this one really carefully.
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It's a.
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It's an influencer named Facts and Fire. And Miss Facts and Fire is fired up because she is correctly, you hear,
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she's correctly describing the way the Democratic
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Party is now treating the socialists, rather than welcoming them in, rather than trying to understand what they're about and why
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they've been able to do what they've done.
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Elect a mayor of New York City, about to elect a mayor of Washington, D.C. elect a mayor of Seattle, have two of their members beat House Democratic incumbents. Rather than saying, let's work together, let's. Let's incorporate your ideas into our ideas, let's make you a valuable part of our coalition. Democratic Party is freaking out. Here's Facts and Fire.
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Facts and Fire (Influencer/Activist)
So you don't want leftists in your party, but you also don't want us to create our own party. You don't want to listen to us or listen to any of our policy suggestions, but you also want us to continue to vote for your candidates no matter what, whether we agree with them or not. You don't want us to organize and to do it the right way and to push the party that you said we can push. To the left. To the left. But you also don't want us to build our own, your own power, outside of your party institution. Which one is it? Because it's sounding like fascism. Regardless. Do you want democracy? Do you want expanded representation or don't you? Or do you want people to just agree with your political line? This is why we call y' all Blue maga. This is why we call y' all Blue maga. This is why we call y' all
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Mark Halpern (Host/Commentator)
Blue Mac Blue maga. This. Facts on Fire again. She's speaking a lot of sense. She's saying to the Democrats, you're, you're, you're embarrassed about us. You're worried that the Republicans are going to say you're Socialists. And so you're keeping us at arm's length, maybe five times arm's length. But you want our energy and you don't want to. You don't want to kick us out. She, she has, she has expressed an understanding of the dilemma that the establishment parts of the Democratic Party feel about the rise of the Democratic socialists and the infiltration inside the Democratic Party of the, of the socialists. She's expressed it so well now her point of view is stop the shenanigans, stop saying one thing on over here and another thing contradictory over here. I'm not sure I maybe will book facts and fire on the program because I want to ask her what is she, what does she really want? What's her preferred outcome? Does she want to be a part of the Democratic Party or is her preferred outcome to stay out of it and say a party that's a party of corporate interests, a party that's of the establishment is never going to be a good fit for facts on fire and other socialists. It's a dilemma for both sides. It's a dilemma for the establishment, it's a dilemma for the socialists and we always try to tell you what's coming next up. Where is this going to go? I'm going to keep reporting on it because I don't know where it's going to go exactly. I don't know how the Democratic leaders are going to handle it. I don't know how much the socialists will show discipline because when they talk about the things therefore that are popular and non controversial in some quarters they do better when they get caught up in some of their past controversial statements about 9, 11 or October 7, they are more of a problem. So I don't know where that's going to go exactly. But what I do know is that the Democratic Party now is flat footed, weak handed. They're unclear about how powerful the socialists are and I think they're understating it and they're unclear about how to deal with it. Because. Because whether you're talking about the two districts in New York where they beat incumbents or you're talking about districts in, in, in places all over the country where they need to, they need the socialists to turn out and vote for the Democratic nominee who isn't a socialist. Or whether you're talking about the 2028 presidential election or the party platform or the congressional agenda in the next Congress. Not every Democrats a socialist, not every Democrat stands for the issue positions that these socialists are for. But this is a big part of the energy in the party. It's a big part of the Democratic coalition and for now they're inside the tent. But man this is fragile. It's a fragile, fragile thing so we'll try to get facts and fire on here. Let's see if we can, we can rouse her and get her on here. But, but man, she, she speaks for tens of millions. Their, their distrust of the Democrats, their, their wariness about being part of the Democratic Party since Tuesday has been validated in their minds. They said, well, maybe we don't want to be part of the Democrats because
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they don't, they don't like us. And, and they're not celebrating their victories of the socialists. They're saying, well, let's talk about other stuff now.
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They're not denouncing them either. Hakeem Jeffries is too smart to do that. But they're not celebrating. They're not saying we should become a socialist party, let alone a communist party. Like I said, I'll keep reporting on it. But that's your special bonus content, your special bonus episode, mini episode here of NextUp Tuesday, back with an all new episode. So please join us for that. And as always, stay tuned here on
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whether you're watching us on YouTube or
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listening as a podcast, stay tuned for more content, more episodes, more mini episodes, more social media posts from me right here. So you always know what's happening. Next up,
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Mark Halpern (Host/Commentator)
kind of like him. Hey, did I hear there's a pill version of Ozempic?
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Dara Lisa Chevalier (Democratic Socialist Candidate)
Hershey's. It's your happy place.