Dear Democrats, Embrace Progressives or Keep Losing

Trump and SCOTUS each dealt a blow to voting rights this week, as a bipartisan bill to prevent government censorship moves forward

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Democratic Socialists won big in New York this week, and it should be a wake up call for the DNC. Let’s talk about it.

The Left Is Winning. Democrats Should Join Them.

If the Democratic establishment were a sports team, this week would’ve gotten the coach fired.

The progressive slate backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani swept three congressional primaries on Tuesday night. Brad Lander nearly doubled Dan Goldman in NY-10. Darializa Avila Chevalier knocked off five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat in NY-13. Claire Valdez beat Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso in NY-7.

All three ran on Medicare for All, housing as a human right, and refusing AIPAC money. All three won decisively.

The Democratic establishment threw everything it had at stopping this from happening. Hakeem Jeffries endorsed Espaillat. Governor Kathy Hochul backed Goldman. Nydia Velázquez and the Working Families Party lined up behind Reynoso. Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, poured his own wealth into the race and collected hundreds of thousands in AIPAC-aligned donations.

None of it mattered.

Voters in three of the most diverse, working-class districts in the country looked at the establishment’s preferred candidates, and made their choice in overwhelming numbers. This should be a wake-up call.

Mamdani, speaking at Valdez’s victory party in Brooklyn, framed it plainly. The mayoral race last year wasn’t the end of a political movement. It was the beginning. “Let’s hear it for a politics that will never forget working people,” he said. “For a politics that realizes the old politics that got us to this crisis is not gonna get us out of this crisis.”

The numbers back him up. Lander raised a fraction of what Goldman raised and still demolished him, powered by over 11,000 small-dollar donors. Chevalier beat the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus with a grassroots operation and a Justice Democrats endorsement. Valdez won an open seat against a borough president with backing from the Brooklyn political machine.

The usual response from the consultant class is already forming: these are deep-blue seats, the general election is a different animal. But the deepest blue districts should provide the clearest reflection of the Democratic Party’s base.

This response also conveniently ignores the affordability crisis, the housing emergency, and the universal support for universal health care. These issues are not unique to Brooklyn and Upper Manhattan.

Neither is the shift on Palestine. All three winning candidates ran as open critics of U.S. military aid to Israel and as vocal supporters of Palestinian rights. Lander called the war in Gaza a genocide. Chevalier participated in the Columbia protests and featured Mahmoud Khalil in a campaign ad. The incumbents who stood with Netanyahu’s government lost.

The NRCC was quick to call Democrats the party of socialists. Let them. Republicans spent $38 million through AIPAC’s super PAC this cycle, splitting with their own voters. They lost, too.

Democrats have a choice heading into November. They can embrace the energy that keeps delivering blowout primary wins, or they can keep siding with the Goldmans and Espaillats of the world and wonder why turnout is soft. Jeffries, Hochul, and every other party leader who lined up against these candidates owe progressives more than a polite congratulations.

They owe them a seat at the table.

The Supreme Court and Trump Tag-Team Voting Rights

The right to vote had a rough week. The right to housing had a worse one. Somehow they’re the same story.

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear an Arkansas case challenging an 8th Circuit ruling that strips private citizens and advocacy groups of the right to sue under Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act. That’s the provision that lets voters with disabilities or who can’t read get help at the polls.

In seven Midwestern states, that right can now only be enforced by the attorney general. The attorney general works for Donald Trump. You can do the math.

The court didn’t write an opinion. It didn’t explain itself. It just let the ruling stand. This is the same court that gutted Section 2 in April, ending federal protections against racial gerrymandering. Republican officials in half a dozen states started redrawing maps before the ink was dry.

Then on Wednesday, Trump canceled the signing ceremony for a bipartisan housing bill that passed both chambers with veto-proof majorities. His reason: the Senate hasn’t passed the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship and photo ID to vote in federal elections.

Noncitizen voting is already illegal. It virtually never happens. The bill exists to make voting harder, and Trump is holding affordable housing hostage until he gets it.

He called the SAVE Act a “national emergency.” He called the housing bill “of minor importance.” If you’re wondering which one affects your life, it’s the one he doesn’t care about.

For Once, We Agree with Ted Cruz

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

On June 11, Senators Ted Cruz and Ron Wyden introduced the Justice Against Weaponized Bureaucratic Overreach to Networked Expression Act. It would let Americans sue federal agencies or employees who pressure private companies — social media platforms, broadcasters, AI providers — into suppressing protected speech.

It passed out of committee with bipartisan support. The ACLU endorsed it. So did the Knight First Amendment Institute. That should tell you how bad things have gotten.

Jawboning is the practice of government officials leaning on private companies to censor speech they don’t like. Not by passing a law, which would be subject to judicial review, but by making a phone call.

The Trump administration threatened ABC’s broadcast license after Jimmy Kimmel made jokes about Charlie Kirk. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told networks to pull Kimmel’s show or face regulatory consequences. Ted Cruz, one of the bill’s own sponsors, called Carr’s threat “dangerous as hell” and compared it to “a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it.’”

The bill would also require agencies to publicly log their communications with tech companies and broadcasters, because right now, most of this happens in private. You might never know the government got your post deleted. Under current law, even if you find out, you probably can’t sue.

This is not a story about a bipartisan bill. It is a story about a government that has been quietly outsourcing censorship to the private sector for over a decade, and senators finally admitting it needs to stop.

AlterNet America exists because the outlets that should be covering government censorship are the same outlets that caved to it. We don’t take calls from the FCC. We don’t run stories past billionaire owners. We answer to readers, and readers don’t ask us to soften the story.

If you’ve been reading AlterNet America for free, this is a good week to reconsider that. Become a paid subscriber today.

Nice speech you have there. Be a shame if something happened to it.

—Ryan Rose, Co-Founder & Managing Editor, AlterNet America