Bernie's Revolution

Don’t take it from me, take it from Fox News: "Socialists are winning everywhere!"

This week, three Congressional candidates backed by democratic socialist New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani won “stunning” victories in their primary elections. It is even being called the “Mamdani tsunami.” The successes of Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Brad Lander confirmed that Mamdani’s own election was not a fluke for the city’s left, in what even the Bezos Post acknowledged was “a signal of strength for Mamdani’s political brand and the democratic socialist movement that powered his rise to City Hall.”

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This is an important moment, and not just because it establishes Mamdani himself as a “kingmaker” who can get his chosen candidates into office. (“The Mamdani name was magic across the city,” the Times concluded.)

It also demonstrates, as the Guardian’s analysis says, “some wider trends in US politics: socialism is no longer a dirty word, criticism of Israel is no longer taboo, and dissatisfaction with Democratic leaders in the Donald Trump era runs deep. Voters are thirsty for energy, fight and fresh ideas.”

Speaking on CNN, Van Jones said “the roof is collapsing on the Democratic Party establishment tonight,” and “this is a new era in Democratic Party politics.”

A pair of progressive Democrats unveiled a bill on Tuesday that would raise the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour, considered the bare minimum a single adult needs to meet the cost of living in much of the US. The Living Wage For All Act is the first bill to be introduced by the newly sworn-in Rep. Analilia Mejía (D-NJ), who won a special election earlier this month after helping to lead the fight for a $15 minimum wage in her home state of New Jersey. Citing data from MIT's Living Wage Calculator, the Living Wage For All campaign backing the legislation argues that $25/hour is needed for a single adult in most parts of the country to afford basic necessities like housing, food, and healthcare. As the cost of living has skyrocketed over the past decade and a half, the federal minimum wage has remained frozen at $7.25 and hour since 2009.

Democrats continued their domination of special elections Thursday, when New Jersey voters overwhelmingly elected progressive organizer Analilia Mejia to Congress [in a previous republican stronghold]

Mejia, a former top Bernie Sanders presidential campaign staffer who once helmed the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, led Republican Joe Hathaway by almost 20 points Friday with 94 percent of the vote counted, despite being called a “radical socialist” by Republicans.

Her convincing victory shows that the “radical” label had limited political consequence in such a polarized and charged environment, with anger at President Donald Trump fueling Democratic turnout. That could signal bigger electoral problems for Republicans in the midterms.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger just signed House Bill 167, stripping the United Daughters of the Confederacy — and other Confederate heritage organizations — of their state property and recordation tax exemptions.

A separate bill also kills Virginia’s Robert E. Lee specialty license plates. The UDC has spent over a century erecting Confederate monuments across the country, promoting the “Lost Cause” myth that romanticizes the slaveholding Confederacy. And Virginia taxpayers were subsidizing it.

Bill sponsor Del. Alex Askew was direct: “Why is the commonwealth supporting groups that rewrite history to obscure the true cause of the Civil War? A war fought to uphold the institution of slavery, America’s original sin?” The UDC called it “viewpoint discrimination.” The Sons of Confederate Veterans called ending the Lee license plate “terrible.”

Apparently, losing a taxpayer subsidy feels like oppression when you’ve had it long enough. Askew said it plainly: “A tax exemption is a privilege and not a right.” Virginia was the capital of the Confederacy. Now it’s making clear whose side it’s on.

Mayor Mamdani and Governor Hochul have secured New York state’s first tax on luxury second homes, calling it a major win for taxing the rich.

"If you can afford a $5 million second home that sits empty most of the year, you can afford to contribute like every other New Yorker,” - Hochul