One of the features of the current election cycle is the way that the Democratic Socialists of America and other candidates who are not DSA members but share many of its socialist values have been winning elections and shifting the center of gravity of the Democratic Party to the left.

Nathan J. Robinson thinks that a socialist moment has arrived in the US and says that this is because what the DSA and socialists stand for has become more clearly defined at this difficult time and is thus better distinguished from the moribund neoliberal centrists that have dominated the Democratic party.

The DSA program is called “Workers Deserve More!” Socialists lead by saying that all people have certain fundamental rights: we have a right to a decent job that pays well, where we are not exploited or abused; we have the right to good, healthy food, to a quality public education, to basic healthcare. We have the right to good roads, good public transit, and fair elections that aren’t bought by billionaires. We have the right to have our tax money spent to build parks and libraries, not to fight wars that the majority of Americans are against. For socialists, these rights are non-negotiable. If a society is not fulfilling them, for each and every individual, then it is failing. And since everyone can see that these rights are not being fulfilled for everyone, the 21st century U.S. is failing in its basic obligations, and therefore there need to be major political and economic changes.
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Socialists are the ones who think: Okay, we have a bunch of problems that people are facing, what can we do about them? Look at Zohran Mamdani in New York City. His campaign was laser-focused on the things that mattered most to people: the exorbitant costs of rent, childcare and groceries, and the speed of buses. In office he has focused first and foremost on delivering things people will see and feel immediately, whether that’s removing unsightly scaffolding, filling potholes quickly, or expanding free childcare. As Kyle Kulinski says, “what Zohran is doing is reminding people that the government has the ability to improve your life.”

Now you might say: Well, but Democrats have always said that there should be affordable healthcare and good government and the climate crisis should be addressed. If socialists are just saying “we should formulate policies to address major social problems,” how do they differ from mainstream Democrats? Here’s where it’s important to recognize the degree to which mainstream Democratic politicians have been utterly and completely full of shit. Take, for instance, healthcare. Barack Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment was something called the “Affordable Care Act.” In case you hadn’t noticed, it did not make healthcare affordable. This is not to say that it did nothing. It helped many people get health insurance who otherwise wouldn’t have had it. But it did not fix the fundamental problems with the system. Medicare For All is an effort to actually fix what is wrong, by eliminating private for-profit health insurance altogether, and along with it premiums, co-pays, and deductibles, saving the average family thousands on healthcare every year.
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This is also why the two major parties’ establishments have been incapable of blunting the rise of the socialists. The two parties are either, in the case of Republicans, committed fully to corrupt crony capitalism, or in the case of Democrats, committed to neoliberalism and incrementalism that never makes fundamental changes—in other words, it’s the choice between the problems continuing to get worse, or getting better extremely slowly in ways you barely notice.
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What those who fearmonger about socialism do not understand is that the U.S. socialist movement is filled with some of the best among us. The young people who came out for Mamdani are the very thing conservatives say they want: they are hardworking, they care about their communities. The socialists I have met through this work are people who are not content to live selfish lives where they spend all of their spare time mindlessly doomscrolling or gambling on prediction markets or isolating themselves from their communities. Instead, they work their asses off trying to get other people healthcare or to protect their immigrant neighbors.
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The socialist moment is here, and the reason it’s here is that more and more people understand that socialists make sense, that we are not scary fringe lunatics, but that we are the only political faction in the country that has a clear and compelling vision for the human future. We have seen the grotesque endpoint of capitalist thinking: Donald Trump, a vile, selfish sociopath who would destroy the earth to make a buck. And we counter with something different and better: Mamdani, Sanders, and the millions of their supporters who want a world of solidarity and joy.

Robinson also says that the time has come when leftists must show solidarity and support other leftists even if we do not think they are the perfect candidate. And he says that on this score, Bernie Sanders and AOC made a mistake in not supporting Francesca Hong in the Democratic primary for governor in Wisconsin. But despite that lack of support, she almost won her race. Others think that not backing Hong was a good move and that we need not just progressive candidates but good progressive candidates and that people like Hong and Graham Platner in Maine should not be standard bearers for the left. But Hong was quite different from Platner. She had a strong personal story that did not have the serious abuse allegations and other personal baggage that sank Platner’s candidacy. The only thing in common was the perception by some on the left that she could not win the general election.

The 37-year-old democratic socialist, a single mom and former restaurant worker, was leading in polls, and running on a platform of universal childcare, a data center moratorium, and raising the minimum wage. If elected, Hong would have been the first member of the Democratic Socialists of America to become a governor, an extraordinary step forward for the socialist movement. Hong had an impressive background and supporters were “inspired by her atypical journey into politics, her authentic vibe and an organic approach to campaigning.” As a legislator she has been involved in efforts to introduce paid family leave, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and establish an Economic Bill of Rights.

And yet something strange happened as Hong’s campaign picked up momentum: key political figures on the left decided not to support her. Politico noted that while, in Wisconsin, “progressives are on the cusp of a huge win,” “their biggest stars are staying away.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders both refused to endorse Hong. “I don’t think so,” Sanders said, when asked if he would endorse, which led to an increase in criticism of Hong. AOC, unmoved by Hong’s shared background as a bartending democratic socialist, said the race was “local,” and made the entirely noncommittal statement “Francesca Hong has made clear her presence in her election.” Sanders, too, implied he didn’t endorse because likes to stay out of governors’ races—even though he had endorsed the gubernatorial campaign of Troy Jackson in Maine.

Then Hong lost by the thinnest of margins: less than a single percentage point, and only a few thousand votes. Since AOC and Bernie Sanders have immense power to motivate left voters, it is reasonable to think that their decision not to endorse or campaign for Hong is what made the difference.
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Personally, I think this was an egregious failure of solidarity that set back the socialist movement, and I think Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez should be heavily criticized for their decision. DSA had its first opportunity to win a governor’s race, and it was essentially sabotaged by our leading left politicians.

The discussion around the decision not to support Hong has centered on Hong’s supposed weakness as a candidate. The idea is that Hong was simply not strong enough to run a general election, and so it would have been unwise to support her, because it would have meant winning the primary but then handing the governorship to a Republican.

Robinson says that Hong’s loss enabled the media to portray it as a stunning defest for the left when it was anything but.

Meanwhile, as mayor of New York City, Democratic Socialist Mamdani continues to push other socialist issues in addition to the ones listed above. A key battle is his helping Amazon workers unionize by supporting a NYC bill called the Delivery Protection Act.

The bill, sponsored by Council Member Tiffany Caban (D-Queens), would require last-mile delivery facilities to be licensed by the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection and force operators like Amazon to directly employ delivery and warehouse workers rather than route them through third-party Delivery Service Partners. Amazon does not directly employ its 200,000+ U.S. drivers; DSPs do, while workers wear Amazon-branded uniforms and drive Amazon-branded vans. If passed, New York would be the first U.S. city to regulate last-mile delivery this way.

This practice by Amazon enables them to avoid paying decent wages to its delivery drivers and force them to work under appalling conditions. Of course Amazon, the disgusting union-busting company of oligarch Jeff Bezos, is fighting hard to prevent the law being enacted. “Amazon (AMZN) secretly funneled $5 million into a front group, supplying 97% of its funding, to kill a NYC bill requiring it to directly employ drivers.”

Amazon made five payments totaling $5,001,377 to the Five Borough Jobs Campaign between February and mid-May 2026, according to state disclosures reported by New York Focus on July 23, 2026. That group financed ads under a separate front, “New York Delivers,” presented as a coalition of small businesses and workers. Amazon supplied roughly 97% of the group’s funding this year; FedEx, Prologis and the Trucking Association of New York combined for about $173,000, roughly 3%.
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“Corporations like Amazon build billion-dollar business models by insulating themselves from accountability through a system of exploitative subcontracting,” Mamdani said, adding in a video: “If Amazon is delivering your packages, they should follow the same rules as any other delivery company.” Rutgers labor studies professor Eric Blanc called it “a great fight for the administration to pick” because it pits “young Black and brown working-class New Yorkers against Jeff Bezos.”

This shows how we need concerted action at every level of government, national, state, and local, to achieve socialist gains both small and big.