Tag Archives: elections

New York Became a One-Party State. What Did New Yorkers Get in Return?

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New York voters went to the polls on November 3, 2026, and delivered another sweeping victory to the Democratic Party.

Governor Kathy Hochul won reelection. Democrats retained control of both houses of the state legislature, while candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America won additional seats in Congress and Albany.

The Democratic dominance extends to local government. In White Plains, the capital of Westchester County, the mayor and all six Common Council members are Democrats. In the rest of Westchester, Democrats hold 15 of 17 county legislative seats and the county executive’s office. Statewide, Democrats run the largest ten cities, control the governorship, both legislative chambers, both U.S. Senate seats and most of the congressional delegation.

Twenty years ago, New York had competitive two-party government. Today, Democrats dominate virtually every level of government, while democratic socialists increasingly challenge the party establishment.

What has this political transformation delivered, and where will the 2026 election take the state next?

Twenty Years of Political Transformation

In 2006, Republican George Pataki was governor of New York. Republicans controlled the State Senate, Democrats controlled the Assembly, and Michael Bloomberg, elected mayor of New York City as a Republican, was serving his second term.

Divided government required negotiation and compromise. Republicans offered an alternative to Democratic leadership. No longer.

That year, Democrat Eliot Spitzer won the governorship, ending 12 years of Republican control. In 2018, Democrats captured the State Senate, giving the party unified control of state government beginning in 2019.

Another transformation was already underway.

In 2018, democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Congressman Joe Crowley, one of the most powerful establishment Democrats in Congress. Her victory demonstrated that socialists could defeat entrenched Democrats in districts where winning the party primary effectively guaranteed election.

In 2025, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary and went on to win the general election.

The 2026 elections extended that transformation. DSA-backed Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier won congressional seats after defeating establishment Democrats in their primaries. Socialist-backed candidates also won additional seats in the State Assembly and Senate.

Political Transformation Became Public Policy

New York’s changing political leadership was accompanied by a substantial shift in government policy.

In 2006, the state’s minimum wage was $6.75 an hour. By 2026, it had reached $17 in New York City, Westchester and Long Island. The state’s highest marginal personal income-tax rate rose from 6.85% to 10.9%, excluding additional New York City income taxes.

New York expanded abortion rights, allowing abortions after 24 weeks to the moment of birth. The state legalized recreational marijuana, eliminated cash bail for many criminal offenses, strengthened tenant protections, expanded paid family leave and adopted ambitious climate mandates which contributed to rising electricity prices. It also imposed additional regulations on employers, landlords and businesses.

These changes were largely enacted by establishment Democrats, not democratic socialists. Yet the DSA’s growing influence suggests that the party’s internal opposition considers two decades of progressive legislation insufficient and wants to expand government’s role further.

Spending More, Learning Less

Public education provides one of the clearest measures of government performance.

New York public schools2005–06Latest
Students enrolled2.82 million2.53 million
Annual spending per student$15,240$31,130
Fourth-grade mathematics score238234
Eighth-grade mathematics score280271
Spending figures compare fiscal 2006 with fiscal 2024 in nominal dollars. Enrollment and academic assessment years differ slightly. Mathematics scores are from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

New York more than doubled annual spending per student, an increase substantially exceeding inflation, while enrollment fell approximately 10% and mathematics performance declined. The state now spends more per student than any other without producing superior academic outcomes.

Higher Costs and Greater Dependence

New York collects more state and local taxes per resident than any other state. Housing remains extraordinarily expensive, and homeownership is increasingly difficult for families facing high property prices, property taxes and living expenses.

The strain is visible in migration statistics.

In 2024, approximately 415,000 New Yorkers moved to other states, while roughly 285,000 Americans moved into New York from elsewhere in the country. The result was a net domestic loss of approximately 130,000 residents.

New York also relies heavily on high-income taxpayers, many of whom have the financial means to relocate. Their departures could place increasing pressure on the state’s ability to finance its commitments.

Those commitments are substantial. In February 2025, approximately 6.9 million New Yorkers, or 35% of the state’s population, were enrolled in Medicaid. Total Medicaid spending reached approximately $115.6 billion in state fiscal year 2025, including federal funding.

Medicaid and school aid have gone from 38.3% of the state’s budget to 50% over the past twenty years. It is going to continue to grow because of the leftward movemovement of government, squeezing out economic development, infrastructure and public safety.

The continued departures of residents and businesses will accelerate the pain.

A Change in Direction or an Acceleration?

The 2026 election did not produce a change in direction. It strengthened a political movement seeking to accelerate the state’s existing left-wing policies.

Higher spending requires greater revenues. Higher taxes and living costs may encourage more residents and businesses with the means to relocate to leave. Those remaining may become increasingly dependent on public assistance, requiring still more government spending.

The political cycle could reinforce the economic one. As the electorate changes, candidates promising expanded public programs may become more influential, while those advocating lower spending and taxes struggle to gain traction.

New York may be entering a political and economic cycle in which disappointing results produce demands for more of the same policies, while the residents most capable of financing them increasingly choose to live elsewhere.

The Devil Has a Winning Smile

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The devil does not wear horns, a red cape and carry a pitchfork. That would make him far too easy to recognize.

In his 1942 book The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis imagined a senior demon, Screwtape, instructing his nephew Wormwood on how to corrupt an ordinary man. The secret was not some spectacular act of evil, but a succession of seemingly harmless compromises.

“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

Lewis was particularly perceptive about politics. Screwtape advised Wormwood to encourage either extreme patriotism or extreme pacifism. The ideology was unimportant. What mattered was making political allegiance more important than moral conviction.

“Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man.”

Lewis wasn’t warning that people would choose the wrong political ideology. He was warning that they would make their ideology the measure of right and wrong.

In 2026, Screwtape might find his work considerably easier.

Consider Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed. The winning smiles, easy confidence and appealing promises of affordable housing, healthcare and social justice. Their supporters feel they are participating in something noble, standing up for the poor and vulnerable, making the world a better place.

A diverse group of protesters holding banners that read 'Socialism Beats Fascism' and 'New York City Democratic Socialists' during a demonstration in an urban setting.

But what happens when the people delivering that appealing message embrace allies who traffic in antisemitism and use such language themselves?

In Michigan, El-Sayed campaigned with Hasan Piker, whose statements about Jews have drawn widespread condemnation. Cenk Uygur’s Rebellion PAC subsequently promoted an advertisement blaming American support for Israel for rising grocery prices and other economic hardships. Democratic Congresswoman Haley Stevens called the advertisement antisemitic and demanded that El-Sayed condemn it.

El-Sayed said the advertisement was produced independently of his campaign and that he disagreed with its contents. But when Stevens continued pressing the issue, she was told to stay away from campaign events. She ultimately endorsed Republican Mike Rogers.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called her decision a ““despicable betrayal,” and other Democrats joined the denunciations. The political establishment was more interested in punishing Stevens for breaking party ranks than confronting antisemitism.

That is precisely the danger Lewis identified.

First, supporters overlook objectionable rhetoric because they believe in the larger cause. Then they defend the politicians who tolerate it. Eventually, they attack the people who refuse to make the same exceptions.

Each compromise makes the next one easier.

This is not simply the familiar horseshoe theory, in which the far left and far right meet at the extremes. Tucker Carlson and Hasan Piker occupy different political worlds, yet both have promoted troubling rhetoric about Jews and become mouthpieces for El-Sayed. Lewis understood the deeper problem: political allegiance can corrupt moral judgment from either direction.

And here is where his story takes on a new dimension in 2026.

In The Screwtape Letters, Wormwood was assigned to corrupt one man. Today, political movements and social media can turn individual moral compromise into the mass propagation of moral compromise. Supporters rationalize objectionable rhetoric, persuade others to accept it and reward those who join them. Each newly persuaded follower can recruit thousands more.

Evil no longer advances one conscience at a time. It multiplies.

Lewis’s Patient ultimately escaped the demons. But in today’s politics, the danger is that the Patient never realizes he has become Wormwood himself.

When you support a Nazi, you are not clean when leaving the polling station. “Allegiance to party” has a ring of Nazi Germany for a reason.

Smiling Democratic politicians rally behind Abdul El-Sayed after fellow Democrat Haley Stevens endorses Republican opponent for Senate because El-Sayed’s campaign was awash in public antisemitism

Don’t Be Angry at Chuck Schumer for Being a Political Hack

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Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called Congresswoman Haley Stevens’ endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan’s Senate race a “despicable betrayal.” Stevens refused to support Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed after he campaigned with Hasan Piker, a streamer who has spread antisemitic rhetoric, including comparing a heavily Jewish Michigan suburb to a KKK neighborhood.

Antisemitic influencer Hasan Piker campaigning with Abdul El Sayed

Stevens also condemned an antisemitic advertisement produced by Cenk Uygur’s Rebellion PAC that blamed Americans’ grocery bills on Israel and falsely suggested that American taxpayers finance Israeli health care. El-Sayed’s campaign disclaimed responsibility for the ad without condemning its message.

Schumer supported Stevens in the Democratic primary but rallied behind El-Sayed after his victory. Now he attacks Stevens for putting her principles ahead of party loyalty.

Don’t be angry at Schumer. He’s just doing his job – the real job that is not discussed in polite company.

Schumer’s business is electing Democrats, protecting Democratic seats and building a Democratic majority. He tells Jewish voters that he stands with them and New Yorkers that he fights for their interests. But when those interests collide with those of the Democratic Party, his priorities become clear. His loyalty is to his party. Voters are the means by which he keeps it in power.

NY Senator Chuck Schumer

By way of comparison, consider Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Weingarten speaks constantly about children and education. But she doesn’t run a children’s advocacy organization but an enormous and powerful teachers union. Her job is to protect teachers, increase their compensation and defend their working conditions. When the interests of teachers and students align, everyone benefits. When they conflict, nobody should be surprised which side she takes.

The problem isn’t that Weingarten advocates for teachers. It’s that she presents their interests as though they are necessarily the interests of children. They are not.

New York City public schools spend roughly $34,700 per student annually, yet only about half of students in grades three through eight demonstrate proficiency in reading and 57% in mathematics. A recent New York Post investigation revealed that 99.6% of students were promoted in the 2024–25 school year, despite enormous gaps in academic achievement.

Teachers find it easier to promote students rather than educate them. Parents receive reassuring report cards while children are denied the skills they need to succeed. Teachers get little pushback and the union protects their failures.

Don’t be angry at Weingarten for protecting incompetent teachers; that’s part of her job. Be angry at her for failing to educate millions of kids and denying them skills for the future.

The same applies to Schumer.

The Democratic Party has increasingly accommodated the Democratic Socialists of America and politicians aligned with its ideology, even as their positions clash with those of traditional Democrats. Schumer’s embrace of El-Sayed illustrates a party establishment willing to tolerate troubling political associations to preserve its coalition.

The handling of President Joe Biden’s decline exposed another failure. Democratic leaders defended his fitness for office while concerns mounted, prioritizing their political interests over a candid accounting of the president’s condition. Only his disastrous 2024 debate made the issue impossible to avoid.

Protecting the party has taken precedence over the nation’s leadership, diminishing public trust and leaving America more vulnerable. Joe Biden, Abdul El Sayed, teachers unions. They are all part of the rot of power and party loyalty over principles and patriotism.

Whatever Haley Stevens other political calculations, she refused to place party loyalty above her objections to El-Sayed’s antisemitic campaign. Schumer called that a betrayal because, from his perspective, it was. A betrayal of HIS job as a political hack.

But betrayal of a political party is not necessarily betrayal of the public.

Schumer’s success in electing Democrats is not the same as making Americans safer and more prosperous. Weingarten’s success in winning better contracts for teachers is not the same as educating children.

There is no question that America becomes weaker when its leaders protect political power rather than confront failure, and when voters reward loyalty instead of demanding results that you care about.

Schumer knows whom he serves. Weingarten knows whom she serves.

The question is whether voters and parents understand that they are not necessarily the ones being served despite the smooth talk and lies they are fed.

Related:

DSA Goes Full Antisemite (July 2024)

Breaking Israel’s Endless Election Cycle

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Israel held five national elections between April 2019 and November 2022, an exhausting cycle that cost billions of shekels, distracted the country from pressing challenges and produced a succession of short-lived governments.

The problem lies partly in Israel’s parliamentary system. Parties must win at least 3.25% of the national vote to enter the 120-seat Knesset. Forming a stable government generally requires a coalition of at least 61 members, giving smaller parties considerable leverage over larger ones.

When coalition negotiations fail, Israel can return to the polls under essentially the same rules, often producing another fragmented parliament and another round of political paralysis.

What if Israel changed the rules to make political deadlock increasingly costly for the politicians responsible?

Here is a proposal:

  1. the first election would retain the existing 3.25% threshold. If no government could be formed, a second election would raise the threshold to 5%, encouraging smaller parties to merge, form alliances or consolidate around larger political blocs.
  2. Each major party or bloc would designate both a primary and an alternate candidate for prime minister before the second election.
    The primary candidates would have a defined period to assemble a governing coalition. If they failed, their designated alternates would receive a fresh negotiating period, while the original candidates would lose their opportunity to become prime minister during that government-formation process.

This could be particularly consequential in Israel, where political deadlock has frequently centered on personalities as well as policy. During the 2019–2022 elections, opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu personally contributed to repeated deadlock, even among parties sharing substantial policy positions.

Under the proposed system, Likud could retain its electoral strength while another leader attempted to assemble a government. Rival blocs would face the same pressure to compromise. Negotiators could also agree to rotate the premiership after two years, sharing leadership over a four-year term.

If both leadership rounds failed, a third election would raise the threshold to 7%. Smaller parties would face even greater pressure to consolidate, while larger parties would have to reconsider whether their leadership disputes justified another election.

The rising threshold carries a cost: smaller political constituencies could lose direct representation. Joint electoral lists would offer a way to preserve their voices while encouraging broader political alliances.

Infographic illustrating proposed reforms to Israel's parliamentary system across three elections, detailing thresholds and government formation processes for each election.

Israel’s electoral system currently allows political leaders to return to voters without fundamentally changing the conditions that produced the deadlock. A rising electoral threshold, combined with leadership succession, would make each failure more consequential.

Voters should choose the country’s political direction. Politicians should be responsible for forming a government. When negotiations fail, the burden of compromise should fall on those seeking power, rather than repeatedly on the citizens who elected them.

An Election for a Failed State

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Palestinian Arabs are scheduled to vote on November 28 in their first legislative election in twenty years. International observers will naturally ask whether the election is free and fair. But there is a more fundamental question:

Will Palestinians actually be electing a government capable of governing?

The problem begins with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The PLO was established in 1964, decades before there was a Palestinian Authority. In 1993, it was the PLO—not the Palestinian Authority—that entered the Oslo process with Israel. Those agreements established the framework for Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and Gaza and contemplated an elected Palestinian Council. The Palestinian Authority and the executive institutions emerged from that process as the interim governing apparatus.

The PLO is the institutional skeleton on which the Palestinian political system was built.

And that makes the coming election peculiar.

Electing People Who Reject the System

The August modification to the election law requires candidates to commit to recognition of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, as well as its political and national program and relevant international resolutions.

Yet Palestinians overwhelmingly reject that requirement.

According to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, two-thirds oppose requiring candidates to accept the PLO’s commitments, including its agreements with Israel. Only 27% support the requirement.

That is not an opinion related to dissatisfaction with Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah or the incumbent government. That is an outright rejection of the entire government structure and institutions. Palestinians want to elect the government while leaving unsettled whether the people elected to run it accept the foundations of the system they are entering.

It is a election whose foundation is anarchy.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas

If insufficient, the Arabs want to vote for terrorism.

Ballots Without Giving Up the Guns

Democratic government requires more than elections. Ultimately, the elected government must possess political authority and a monopoly on legitimate force. Yet Palestinian politics continues to blur the distinction between a political party and an armed organization.

Hamas is the clearest example.

The devastation of the Gaza war appears to have changed Palestinian calculations. Only 20% now say Hamas won the war, compared with 39% ten months earlier. Support for “armed struggle” (terrorism) as the most effective means of achieving Palestinian statehood has fallen from 41% to 27%, which was around two-thirds immediately after October 7, 2023. Meanwhile, support for negotiations has risen from 36% to 44%, its highest level in four years.

That all sounds encouraging. But look more closely at what changed.

Palestinians only moved toward negotiations as violence has proven devastating and unsuccessful. Yet even after that experience, 72% oppose Hamas disarming before Israel completely withdraws from Gaza. And 53% believe that even if Hamas gives up its weapons, it will remain both an armed resistance movement and a political movement. Only 36% expect it to become solely political. So 89% (basically everyone) thinks the group that most of the Global North has labeled a terrorist organization, will be part of the Palestinian government.

That holds true for the various Palestinian terrorist groups. A society established in which various militias will be free to operate their own foreign affairs and military engagements.

An Elected Government That May Not Govern

If not appalling enough, there is another revealing number.

If elections are held and a new Palestinian government is formed, only 28% of Palestinians say they would prefer that elected government to administer Gaza. Thirty-two percent prefer the separate National Committee, while 34% prefer neither.

Consider these three facts:

  • Palestinians are preparing to elect a legislature for a political system whose foundational commitments most do not want imposed on candidates.
  • They may elect factions that retain independent armed power outside the government’s control.
  • They do not want the resulting elected government to govern Gaza.

Combined, this is not merely an imperfect election in the shadow of war of a fledgling state.

It is a vote for anarchy with a veneer of cohesion.

Related:

Israel Is Surrounded by Failed States – and Failed States in Waiting (July 2026)

Before Palestinians Can Hold an Election, They Must Decide Who Is Palestinian (June 2026)

The Beginning of the End for the Establishment-led Democratic National Committee

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For a decade, Democratic leaders have sought to preserve control of their party. Each decision made sense in the moment. Together, they have steadily eroded the confidence of both the activist base and, increasingly, the donor class.

The first crack appeared in 2016.

Bernie Sanders inspired millions of Democrats with a vision that challenged the party’s Clinton-era consensus. Yet the Democratic establishment rallied behind Hillary Clinton. Leaked DNC emails and the resignation of Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz convinced many progressives that party insiders—not Democratic voters—were choosing the nominee.

And maybe the DNC’s action could have been excused had Hillary won. But she lost to Donald Trump.

Rather than disappear, the Sanders movement organized.

In 2017, former Sanders organizers founded Justice Democrats with a simple mission: elect a new generation of progressive Democrats and replace incumbents they believed had become too close to corporate donors. The movement was no longer asking for influence. It was organizing for control.

A year later, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Joe Crowley, one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress and a presumed future Speaker of the House. At the same time, the Democratic Socialists of America expanded from a fringe organization into a national political force.

For years, party leaders dismissed these victories as isolated upsets. They can win in Brooklyn. They can win in Berkeley. But they cannot win statewide.

So the Democratic establishment continue to abuse its base. It lied to the country that President Joe Biden was fit for office long after it was clear he was not. The party leaders then coronated Vice President Kamala Harris to be the party nominee for president without a vote, in what many viewed as an act of treachery.

And now, Michigan has proven that the local alt-left phenomenon is much larger than the DNC pretended.

Representative Haley Stevens was exactly the kind of pragmatic, mainstream Democrat the party once expected to lead its next generation. Her defeat by Abdul El-Sayed, backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, suggests the insurgency has moved beyond city councils and safe House districts. It is now capturing statewide nominations in one of America’s most important swing states, predominantly with the support of young people who are turning out to vote in record figures.

Now even the donors are beginning to revolt.

According to a recent Politico report, major Democratic donors are openly questioning the direction and competence of the Democratic National Committee. Fundraising has weakened. Confidence has faded. One longtime donor summarized the mood in four words: “It’s beyond embarrassing.”

At the same time, the party’s ideological center has moved toward jihadists.

For generations, military support for Israel during wartime against those seeking its destruction was a bipartisan assumption. During Israel’s current multi-front war against Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran itself, most congressional Democrats voted to block or condition additional military assistance. A position that would have been unimaginable when Barack Obama entered office has become increasingly mainstream within today’s Democratic coalition.

Trashing Israel has even become a primary tool to get out young voters on social media.

The struggle inside the Democratic Party is no longer about one primary, one chairman, or one election cycle.

The DNC establishment that repeatedly tried to manage its succession is undergoing a hostile takeover by the far-left. The donor class got the message and is leaving. Only older lifelong Democrats seem blind to the transformation of the party, or unable or unwilling to vote Republican to turn the tide.

Related:

Hamas and the DSA: Ideology + Grassroots Mobilization to Power + Destruction (January 2026)

Racism In The Old and Antisemitism In The Youth (February 2024)

New York’s Supermajority: The Real Election Is the Legislature

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Worried about New York City Mayor Mamdani’s politics going statewide and national? You need to do a lot more than show up to a protest with placards.

New York is not simply a Democratic state. It is a Democratic supermajority state.

The governor, Governor Kathy Hochul is a Democrat. Democrats hold 41 of the State Senate’s 63 seats and 103 of the Assembly’s 150 seats—more than enough for a veto-proof supermajority in the Assembly and just one seat shy of one in the Senate. The practical result is that currently, Republicans have little ability to force negotiation or compromise. The state’s most important political debates now occur almost entirely within the Democratic Party.

That is critical at a moment like this.

When organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) succeed in electing candidates or moving Democratic primaries to the far-left, the effects are no longer confined to activist circles. Ideas that gain traction within the Democratic caucus can become state policy without needing bipartisan support. Whether the issue is criminal justice, taxation, housing, energy, education, labor regulation, or Israel policy, the decisive battle is often the Democratic primary, not the general election.

This does not mean every progressive proposal becomes law. Democratic legislators disagree on many issues. But a supermajority means there are fewer institutional checks when one faction gains influence.

For New Yorkers who want a different direction than being advanced by the DSA and NYC Mayor Mamdani, the answer is not simply to oppose legislation after it is introduced. It is to change the composition of the Legislature itself.

That is why a relatively small number of competitive districts carry outsized importance this year.

Competitive legislative races do more than elect a senator or assemblymember. They build volunteer networks, raise money, increase turnout, and strengthen candidates throughout the ticket.

Congressman Mike Lawler’s race in the Hudson Valley is a prime example. His campaign in New York’s 17th Congressional District is again expected to be one of the nation’s most competitive House races. A strong Republican legislative effort in the region can reinforce his campaign, just as a strong Lawler campaign can help Republican candidates for the State Senate and Assembly. The same dynamic applies across Long Island, Staten Island, and other competitive suburban districts.

Congressman Mike Lawler (R-NY17)

Among the key legislative opportunities Republicans will target are suburban Senate districts on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, along with competitive Assembly districts in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, Staten Island, Monroe County, Onondaga County, and the Capital Region.

Every election cycle, voters are told that one legislative seat cannot make much difference. In New York, the opposite is true.

A handful of seats in New York’s election can determine whether the Legislature remains a near-unchecked trifecta supermajority allowing radical far-left motions to become law or becomes a body where broader consensus is once again required. Those races will shape not only who governs in Albany, but how New York is governed.

How New York City Was Lost

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There was a time when many New Yorkers dismissed the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as a fringe movement. Their rallies were loud. Their rhetoric was provocative. But surely the city that built Wall Street, welcomed millions of immigrants, and was attacked on September 11 would never hand real political power to a movement whose rhetoric after October 7 shocked so many Americans.

Rally in Times Square the day after the massacre of 1,200 people in Israel and abduction of 251.

Yet here we are.

The new mayor is part of the DSA. DSA-backed candidates continue to win elections across New York City.

This is not merely a debate over tax rates or rent control. After Hamas murdered more than 1,200 Israelis on October 7, the New York City chapter of DSA helped organize demonstrations almost immediately afterward. Slogans and statements in Times Square celebrated the attack as “resistance” and chanted for it to continue “long live the Intifada!” DSA-NYC had long argued that Israeli civilians should not be viewed as innocent because they were participants in a “settler-colonial” society.

One might have expected that such rhetoric would permanently marginalize it. Instead, it grew. How?

Because its opponents fought the wrong war.

Organizations such as AIPAC concentrated enormous resources on defeating individual candidates where the ground game already indicated it could win. Sometimes they succeeded spectacularly. Millions of dollars were spent. Headlines proclaimed another victory over the anti-Israel Left.

But every expensive primary also reinforced the story DSA wanted to tell.

They were no longer simply neighborhood activists. They became the underdogs standing up to a wealthy political establishment. Every television advertisement became another fundraising email. Every outside dollar became another recruiting tool. Every victory over one candidate left the movement itself intact and often stronger.

AIPAC won campaigns but DSA built a movement.

Politics is ultimately about culture before it is about elections. Elections simply reveal where the culture already stands.

While establishment organizations measured success by defeating a particular candidate, DSA measured success by opening another neighborhood chapter, training another organizer, recruiting another volunteer, and persuading another generation that its worldview represented justice.

The results are now visible. A virtual sweep of DSA candidates in New York this week.

New York did not suddenly become socialist. It was organized into becoming more receptive to socialist candidates over many years. One neighborhood at a time. One group at a time.

J Street spent considerable time and effort over the past few years bashing AIPAC to build better alliances with the far-left. Now that multiple anti-Israel extremists have entered office while effectively echoing J Street’s smears of AIPAC, the left-wing “pro-Israel” group stayed mum and didn’t print a single press release.

That should be the lesson – not only for those who support Israel, but for anyone concerned about the city’s future.

Money can influence an election. It cannot substitute for a movement.

If New York is to change course, it will not happen because one organization writes larger checks. It will happen because people who believe in liberal democracy, civic responsibility, pluralism, and the moral distinction between murdering civilians and defending them begin organizing with the same patience and persistence that their opponents have displayed for years.

Jacobin lead is that Socialists defeated “AIPAC, racism” before anything else

Cities are not lost in a single election. They are lost one neighborhood at a time.

Related:

Overwinning (Sept 2025)

The Richest Campaign in Congress Still Wants Your Money

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A text message arrived from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asking for money.

The appeal struck her familiar tone of class warfare.

“I don’t spend hours every day calling wealthy people to ask them for money,” she wrote. “No call time with wealthy donors or billionaires.” Instead, she said, her campaign is powered by “regular people giving what they can.”

The imagery is deliberate: a grassroots insurgent taking on powerful interests.

The reality is that that Ocasio-Cortez is so 2018. Today, she has become one of the most powerful fundraising forces in American politics.

According to campaign finance disclosures, she has raised roughly $27.5 million this election cycle—more than the two largest Republican House fundraisers combined. Nearly 88% of that money came from outside New York. Even the portion of her fundraising that comes from larger individual donors totals roughly $8.4 million, a figure that by itself would rank among the strongest fundraising efforts in New York politics.

Those are not the numbers of a beleaguered local fighter. They are the numbers of the richest campaign in the nation.

The irony becomes even sharper later in the appeal. Ocasio-Cortez warns supporters that one of her primary opponent is “a former Wall Street banker.”

The phrase is meant to tell readers everything they need to know: Wall Street. Banker. Establishment.

But AOC is the money. She’s the power in politics. She’s the institutional heavyweight.

That is what makes the fundraising appeal so jarring. Millions of Americans are struggling with rent, mortgages, groceries, tuition, insurance bills, and credit-card debt. Yet the wealthiest campaign in Congress continues to ask ordinary people for another $5, pretending that it’s the underdog.

Before Palestinians Can Hold an Election, They Must Decide Who Is Palestinian

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On November 1, 2026, Palestinians are scheduled to elect a new Palestinian National Council (PNC), the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Before they can choose their leaders, however, they must answer a more fundamental question: Who gets to vote?

The PNC claims to represent Palestinians everywhere, not merely those living in the West Bank and Gaza. Its members help determine the leadership and direction of the Palestinian national movement itself. The question of voter eligibility is therefore inseparable from the question of who is represented.

The new electoral framework approved by President Mahmoud Abbas reserves 200 seats for Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem, and 150 seats for the diaspora.

The allocation itself reveals a dilemma.

The Palestinian national movement claims to represent over fourteen million people worldwide. Yet more than nine million live outside the territories. A fully proportional system could allow voters in Jordan, Europe, North America, and elsewhere to dominate institutions that claim to represent Palestinians living in Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus, and Gaza. The 200-150 split appears to give preference to those who live with the consequences of Palestinian political decisions over the larger voices from around the world.

That raises a more difficult question.

Who qualifies as Palestinian?

Should Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin – like Queen Rania – vote? What about Americans, Canadians, or Europeans whose grandparents left the region decades ago? How many generations removed from Palestine remain eligible?

Queen Rania of Jordan, also a Palestinian

The question may be most consequential in Jordan, where millions of people of Palestinian origin – estimated at 70% of the population – already participate in the political life of another state. Would Jordanian citizens vote in elections for a body that claims to represent Palestinians globally? If so, how many generations removed from Palestine remain eligible?

The question becomes even more complicated inside Israel.

Roughly two million Israeli Arabs vote in Israeli elections and participate in Israeli political life. Many also identify as Palestinian. Will they vote in elections for the Palestinian National Council?

Jerusalem creates an additional complication. Palestinian leaders seek participation from Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem, which they view as part of a future Palestinian state. Israel considers Jerusalem part of Israel, and many Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem hold Israeli citizenship.

If eastern Jerusalem residents vote while Arab citizens of Israel elsewhere do not, Palestinian leaders will be drawing distinctions that many people may find difficult to explain. Why should an Israeli citizen in eastern Jerusalem participate while an Israeli citizen in Haifa, Nazareth, Acre, or Jaffa cannot?

Arabs in the Old City of Jerusalem. Some are Israeli citizens while others only residents. Who will be invited to participate in Palestinian elections? (photo: First One Through)

The Jerusalem question raises another issue Palestinian leaders will eventually have to address.

If current residency in eastern Jerusalem or the West Bank is enough to qualify someone to participate in Palestinian national elections, what about the hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in those same areas?

Palestinian leaders consider eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank part of the territory of a future Palestinian state. More than 700,000 Israeli Jews live there today. Will any of them be eligible to vote for the Palestinian National Council?

The issue extends beyond contemporary residents. Before 1948, the term Palestinian was often used in a geographic sense. Jews living in Mandatory Palestine carried Palestinian passports and considered themselves Palestinian.

A descendant of an Arab family that left Jaffa, Haifa, or Jerusalem generations ago may be eligible to vote despite never having lived there. A descendant of a Jewish family that lived continuously in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, or Tiberias for centuries almost certainly will not be allowed to participate in PNC elections.

The distinction reveals that eligibility is not based solely on current residence, geography, or even historical presence in the land. The electorate is being defined through a more specific combination of ancestry, identity, and connection to a particular historical community.

For decades, Palestinian leaders have often left the boundaries of Palestinian identity deliberately broad. Political movements can operate with ambiguity. Elections cannot.

The voter rolls will reveal whether Palestinian nationhood is principally based on residence, citizenship, ancestry, ethnicity, geography, national affiliation, or some combination of all six. Ethnicity alone cannot fully explain the answer. Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, and many others share substantial linguistic, cultural, familial, and ethnic ties. The decisive factor appears to be a connection to a particular place and to people who lived there at a particular moment in history.

That is what makes the exercise so unusual. A Palestinian born in Chile, Canada, or the United States may qualify because a grandparent once lived in Jaffa or Jerusalem. A Jordanian or Syrian whose family never lived in Mandatory Palestine may not qualify despite sharing many of the same cultural and ethnic characteristics. A Jew – regardless of where he currently or historically lived – may be excluded.

Every eligibility rule will draw a line. Some people will be included while others will be excluded. Every decision will reveal how Palestinian leaders understand nationality, citizenship, ancestry, and belonging.

In many ways, Palestinians are attempting something few modern national movements have ever attempted: defining a political nation across multiple countries, generations, and citizenships while simultaneously deciding who belongs to it.

Imagine a movement claiming to represent all Black people whose families lived in North Carolina before 1948. Descendants living in California, London, or Johannesburg could vote even if they had never visited the state. Non-Black current residents of North Carolina could not. The electorate would be defined by ancestry tied to a place and a moment in history.

Whether one finds that model compelling or problematic, the Palestinian election will force its architects to explain where they draw those lines.

Whatever rules emerge, millions of people will discover whether they are considered part of the Palestinian political nation, observers of it, or something in between.

Most elections choose leaders. This election may do something far rarer: define the nation itself.

Before Palestinians can elect their leaders, they must first answer a more difficult question:

Who is a Palestinian?