Bernie Sanders

Exactly 10 years ago, the Democrats gathered in Philadelphia to anoint Hillary Clinton as their candidate for the 2016 presidential election. Finally, eventually, bitterly, she had seen off the challenge of Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed Democratic socialist senator from Vermont.

Before he ran, he was little known outside of his own state. He was a bit of a maverick. He didn’t speak so much as bark. He was decidedly grumpy. His politics were way to the left of the Democratic Party establishment. On paper he should have been a quixotic no-hoper. But he ran Clinton very close, and there was a good deal of bad blood about the efforts made to disgrace him.

In Philadelphia that week I met delegates who said they’d rather vote for Donald Trump than for Hillary Clinton. Such is the horseshoe of politics – on a lot of policies, like tariffs, protecting US jobs and economic nationalism Trump and Sanders were not that far apart.

The phenomenon was real. Sanders toured the country attracting huge crowds of mainly young people to his rallies. But then Sanders was pretty much a lone voice. There was no progressive democratic socialist movement, as such. It was Sanders, and no one else.

As Trump has taken the Republicans to the populist right, so Sanders has taken the Democrats to the populist left; to the land of blue Maga. One woman I met in Philly had a banner proclaiming that Hillary had her vote, but Bernie had her heart.

Fast forward to today and it feels increasingly that the Bernie brand of progressive politics has captured the hearts of millions more. And while Bernie Sanders is not the force he was – he’s now 84 years old – there is a cadre of superstar politicians in prominent positions now advocating for this more left-wing worldview.

None more so than the mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, whose victory electrified the progressive wing of the party. Most recently, he has demanded that Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested for war crimes if he sets foot in New York in September for the United Nations General Assembly – something Donald Trump has dismissed out of hand.

What is striking in the Democratic Party is the way that support for Israel has declined following the traumatic events of 7 October. There are calls from some to ban arms sales to the Jewish state. It is a profound shift.

Some of the other policy prescriptions might not seem that radical to a European audience. Free healthcare at the point of delivery has been the cornerstone of British healthcare since 1948, but in the US it is often seen as akin to communism. Rent freezes – which Mamdani advocates – are seen on the right as a massive interference with the operation of the free market. But he has made it popular.

The problem is that while the sort of policies that Mamdani is advocating in New York might go down well with a more liberal, college-educated voter – how will these policies go down in those swing states where elections are decided like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona?

There’s also been a drive to find candidates who do not conform to the stereotypical, cookie-cutter, square-jawed, smartly turned out, Ivy League alums.

In Maine – one of the Democratic Party’s prime targets for the Senate – Dems selected a progressive former oyster fisherman called Graham Platner. He was a rough diamond. He was endorsed by Mamdani and Sanders, seeing off the establishment favourites for the Democratic nomination.

Except it turns out that he has a past more chequered than a gingham tablecloth. There was a sexual assault allegation – one that he says is “false” – there was a tattoo from when he served in the Marines that looked distinctly like the “totenkopf” marking that SS officers had in Nazi Germany – he subsequently apologised for it and removed it, saying that he was unaware of the resemblance at the time. And on and on went the allegations of questionable behaviour.

He was forced to throw in the towel, leaving the Dems scrambling to find a new candidate. But how was it possible that he was ever considered a fit and suitable candidate?

He is not alone. For a New York Congressional seat, the party has chosen a woman called Darializa Avila Chevalier. She has previously called Joe Biden a “rapist” and “war criminal”. She has since said she “regretted” the tweets. She attended a rally in New York on the day after the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians, which celebrated the killings.

There is a Democratic primary race going on in Michigan – the state with the largest Arab population in the US, that pitches the old Democratic establishment candidate, Haley Stevens, against the progressive insurgent, Abdul El Sayed. The pro-Israel lobbying organisation, AIPAC, has poured millions of dollars into stopping El Sayed. El Sayed’s supporters are framing this as the grassroots versus big lobbying money.

All of which has led to a sharpening of knives in the White House where the effort is now in full swing to paint not just these individuals – but the Democratic Party as a whole – as radical, swivel-eyed communist lunatics. Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief propagandist, has it that they will abolish the Constitution, ban judges and kill the firstborn. OK, I made up the last bit. But here is a flavour of what he says America would look like:

“The Democrat party has embraced not only socialism, but they have also embraced communism. Straight-up, outright, full-throated communism. They are now electing candidates who want to take private industry over, give it to the government, suspend the Constitution, abolish the Senate, abolish prisons, abolish jails, abolish the jury system, abolish our entire way of life.”

Over the top? Sure. But there are plenty of old-school Democrats who are terrified that this slate of ultra-progressive candidates could be costly come the midterm elections in November. Then again, the old establishment Republicans 10 years ago were saying their party could never win with someone like Trump at the top of the ticket. A battle for the centre-ground these midterms will not be.