For years, Americans have debated the dangers of executive power. Many warned that President Trump’s use of executive orders revealed how quickly government authority can be stretched when a political movement believes the normal limits no longer apply.

That concern was not wrong.

But American Jews should understand something else: illiberal politics does not only arrive from the right. It does not always wear a red hat. Sometimes it arrives through city councils, school boards, state legislatures, mayoral races, and congressional primaries. Sometimes it arrives speaking the language of justice, equality, liberation, and democracy.

And sometimes, it wins.

The recent rise of Democratic Socialists of America-aligned candidates should not be dismissed as a fringe curiosity. In New York, DSA-backed and Mamdani-backed candidates have made serious headway. In Washington, D.C., democratic socialist politics has moved closer to executive power. In Los Angeles, the same movement is no longer merely protesting from the outside; it is competing for control of major offices.

This is not a small development. New York, Washington, and Los Angeles are not symbolic towns on the edge of American politics. They are cultural, political, and institutional centers. What happens there does not stay there.

For American Jews, and especially for Zionist Jews, the warning signs are flashing.

The danger is not that democratic socialists are winning elections. In a democracy, movements are allowed to organize, campaign, persuade, and win. The danger is that some of the movement’s most energized factions appear increasingly comfortable using democratic legitimacy to advance deeply illiberal ideas. They defend democracy loudly, but too often only when democracy delivers the outcome they prefer. When voters, donors, organizations, institutions, or even fellow Democrats stand in their way, those opponents are not treated as citizens with competing views. They are treated as corrupt, bought, dangerous, or morally disqualified.

That is not pluralism. That is ideological permission to exclude.

The slogan may be democracy, but the operating principle often looks very different: rights for me, but not for thee. You are entitled to your own opinion, so long as it eventually aligns with ours. You may organize, donate, advocate, and vote, unless your cause is Zionism. Then your civic participation is recast as dark money, foreign influence, or moral contamination.

That........

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