A tectonic shift has occurred in American politics over the last month, beginning with Chris Rabb’s victory in Pennsylvania and now culminating in New York. The Democratic party has been hit by a leftward tidal wave.

Rabb’s win was a warning shot – a socialist winning in a seat that had been an establishment stronghold. Two weeks later, the left won across Los Angeles. Two weeks after that, the left swept the elections in the District of Columbia. And on Tuesday night, the left dominated New York City in an overwhelming display of force: progressive Brad Lander took out incumbent centrist Dan Goldman, socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier shocked incumbent Adriano Espaillat, and socialist Claire Valdez easily dispatched Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso.

The Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) down-ballot slate also swept across the board, taking out four incumbent state legislators. The Democratic electorate has moved radically to the left over the past four years, and this will shape politics this year and for decades to come.

There are a number of factors at play here, many of them long-term, but the magnitude of this shift shows a rapid movement among Democratic primary voters. This is spurred first by the second Trump administration.

The first Trump administration could be sold to liberal Democratic voters as an aberration, a fluke which could be replaced and forgotten about by the most moderate, electable Democrat. A decade into Trump’s wild ride, it’s clear that the Republican party is permanently radicalized, and that the political norms of American democracy, once broken, cannot easily be remade.

The result is a Democratic base that is far more receptive to challenging Donald Trump aggressively and to policies that represent a rupture from the pre-Trump consensus.

This first became clear with the crowds at Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Fight Oligarchy Tour: not the youthful radicals who voted for Sanders overwhelmingly in 2016 and 2020, but the older resistance........

© The Guardian