Obama’s warning has become the Democratic nightmare in New York City

When Barack Obama commented in 2016 that Democrats were seen as “coastal, liberal, latte-sipping, politically correct, out-of-touch folks,” it was a wink to the party’s reputation — cultured, ironic, and comfortably detached. He meant it as a warning. But nine years later, the call about paying attention to Middle America has become prophecy about the edges. The latte-sippers have soured and radicalized on the coasts.

In New York City, the same college-educated progressives who once debated justice over cold brew now chant “Globalize the Intifada.” State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, leads the charge. What began as a movement which could generously be described as advocating inclusion and equity has evolved into a campaign to dismantle the American order itself. Mamdani and his allies call for the end of “empire” — by which they mean capitalism, policing, private property, and even the current structure of education and governance.

Obama’s gentle caricature of the latte class — earnest but insulated — has given way to something angrier and openly revolutionary. The Democratic Socialists’ worldview is not about reforming the system; it’s about replacing it. They seek a complete redistribution of wealth and power — not by persuasion, but by restructuring society’s foundations. Police are rebranded as “colonial enforcers.” Public schools become “sites of decolonization.” Private ownership itself is treated as moral corruption. It demands a “new economic order,” “new international solidarity,” “new moral vision,” “new global governance,” “new global organizations,” and a “new political era.”

This is not the politics of compassion, but of confrontation. The privileged class that once signaled virtue with hashtags and slogans now preaches a theology of resentment. They speak of liberation but demand obedience; they denounce power while pursuing it ruthlessly through intimidation and ideology. In the name of justice, they aim to burn down the very structures that made justice possible.

Nowhere is this more visible than in the 2025 New York City mayoral race, where Mamdani and the DSA have moved from campus protests to the ballot box. Their platform is sweeping: defund and “reimagine” the police, end merit-based education, socialize housing, and impose vast new public ownership schemes. It is a manifesto for the redistribution not just of wealth, but of control — from elected institutions to activist networks.

The symbolism is staggering. The city that once embodied liberal ambition — the energy of Wall Street, the art of Broadway, the immigrant striving that defined America — now flirts with an ideology that condemns its own success. From Columbia’s lecture halls to Brooklyn’s activist collectives, the heirs of Obama’s “latte-sipping liberals” now view the American dream as a capitalist fraud.

If Mamdani’s movement captures City Hall, it won’t just transform New York’s politics; it will mark the moment when the Democratic Party’s indulgence of its radical wing becomes surrender. The centrism of Obama and Clinton — built on pragmatism and incremental reform — is being replaced by the revolutionary certainties of those who see compromise as corruption.

Obama once teased his party for sipping lattes on the coasts, detached from ordinary life. Today, those same hands are clenched into fists. The mugs are gone, replaced by megaphones and manifestos. The “latte-sippers” have become the street revolutionaries — no longer content to mock the system, but determined to overthrow it.

As New York teeters between order and upheaval, the rest of the country would do well to take heed — and look right.

ACTION ITEMS

1. Register as a Democrat – regardless of your politics – in deeply blue cities and towns
2. Vote – and get out the vote – in the Democratic primaries for moderate candidates. Do not let the DSA take over your town
3. Vote Republican in the general November election. Keep your city and town from one party rule
4. Enlist popular moderate politicians to run who will keep the race between two individuals – extremists win in elections with numerous candidates
5. Local grassroots organization is key. It starts now, not weeks before elections