The left-wing firebrands about to make trouble for Trump (and the Democrats)

At a bar in Harlem on Tuesday night, Democrats celebrated what some called not just a victory, but a revolution. The 32 year-old Darializa Avila Chevalier, also known as DAC, made her victory speech entirely in Spanish, draped in a keffiyeh. A New York City Journal reporter spotted stickers and pins with slogans like “Abolish Ice”, “babies not bombs” and “my landlord is so mad right now”. Posters on the walls promised to Free Palestine and tax the rich. “Tonight Chevalier wins, and tomorrow we get rid of [Democrat minority leader] Hakeem Jeffries,” one attendee boasted. Chevalier was on her way to the House with 88 per cent of the vote in her district, one of five new progressive, socialist Democrats who are likely to prove a thorn in the side of not only the Trump administration, but also their own party. Shorts New members who have flipped seats in deeply red states, moderates who appealed to voters tired of the politics of division, will find themselves sitting next to young activists, allies of New York mayor Zohran Mamdani and acolytes of progressive diehard senator Bernie Sanders, who want radical change. ‘Tired of status quo politics’ Chevalier is the first the first Afro-Latina and Dominican woman to represent her district – indeed, the first woman. She told Politico that many blue districts had chosen Democratic Socialist candidates, rather than establishment Democrats, “because we’re actually presenting a vision.” “We’re here to prove that the left can actually deliver,” she said. “It’s no longer just ‘oh, the Republicans are bad’. Yes, the Republicans are bad… We need Democrats who are actually going to stand up to them, who are going to present a vision for how do we move forward, a vision for how we address healthcare in this country, for how we address childcare, how we address housing, all of the crises that people across this country are facing.” Establishment politics was too often just “a lot of word salad”, she said. Chevalier is fervently anti-war – she once complained online that the US was “bullying Russia” by supporting Ukraine. She is unashamedly pro-Palestine and wants the US to stop arming Israel. ‘Fundamental and immediate reform’ The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a growing force in the Democratic Party. DSA candidates celebrating victories on Tuesday include a new Los Angeles mayor, Nithya Raman. Eight of their candidates will be in Congress next year, with five new members including Chevalier, Melat Koros in Colorado, Claire Valdez in New York and Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania joining firebrand Trump foe Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Rabb, like Chevalier, speaks in revolutionary terms, impatient with his party’s moderates. After his victory on Tuesday night he rejected “insitutionalism and incrementalism”. “This is a really important moment in time, where there are people who are leading with things that previously were considered non-viable, whether it’s Medicare for all, or universal childcare social housing, or federal job guarantees,” he said “All of these things now are in the mainstream.” After his primary victory earlier this year he told supporters: “We demand systemic change. And I have been critiqued along this campaign for being too radical, being too bold. “They ain’t seen nothing yet.” The DSA was founded more than four decades ago, but remained small and obscure until Bernie Sanders ignited the Democrat left as he briefly threatened Hillary Clinton’s march to the 2016 presidential nomination. Though Sanders is not formerly affiliated with DSA, he calls himself a democratic socialist and says it “means that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy”. He has long argued for broad-based reforms, not just “making modest changes around the edge”. Democratic US Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed campaigned with US Senator Bernie Sanders (Photo by REUTERS/Rebecca Cook) Sanders endorsed many progressive candidates in this week’s election, and dozens prevailed, including incoming Michigan senator Abdul El-Sayed, who says many of his own policies were part of the political conversation “because Bernie put them in our collective consciousness”. Before the vote Sanders said if Democrats take back Congress then “the Democratic Party must undergo fundamental and immediate reform”. “With a return to power, [Democrats] can no longer continue to ignore the major economic and political crises facing the majority of our people… or that return to power will be short-lived.” He, and the other progressives, want a wealth tax on billionaires to fund affordable housing, universal and free childcare, and free public education. “On major issue after major issue the positions that we have been fighting for over the years are now supported by a significant majority of Americans.” ‘Living hell’ Sanders, and many others on the party’s left, also want to aggressively go after Trump. “I hope, and I expect, that the U.S. House of Representatives will begin impeachment proceedings as soon as possible,” he told a rally in New Hampshire. Impeaching the president, or other members of the Trump administration, will be a hot topic when the Democratic caucus convenes next week. From January, the Democrats will have a majority in the House to impeach, but not the two-thirds majority in the Senate required for conviction and removal from office. However, Republicans burnt by losses they blame on Trump may waver if the process gains momentum. Trump predicted on Wednesday that “it would destroy the Democrat Party” if they tried. Hakeem Jeffries, the likely next House speaker, claimed after the election that “I haven’t had a single member of the House Democratic caucus talk to me about impeachment”. “We’ve been relentlessly focused on affordability and on accountability,” he said. Chuck Schumer, leader of the Democrats in the Senate, claimed it was a “big tent party” and that progressive candidates had been “saying the same things” before the election as moderates. “Look, there was such rampant corruption, there has to be some investigations, but we’re not going to take our eye off the ball,” he said. Virginia congressman Suha Subramaniam told the BBC impeachment would “probably be bad politics, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have accountability”. “In our majority, we’re gonna start by doing the investigations into the illegal things that were happening,” he said. Mamdani ally and another House newcomer, Bradford Lander, also said there needed to be “accountability” for lives taken by ICE agents “in the name of the state”. “But we also want to show that we’re helping advance just the real daily needs of people, and we’re going to stay focused on that too,” he said. Chevalier is open to impeaching Donald Trump and others in his administration – if it works. “We are going to have to think about what is actually going to hold their feet to the fire,” she said. “it’s deeply important that we engage in accountability that actually has some teeth to it.” Other Republicans are alive to the risk, and keen to paint it as a political mistake. “They’re going to want to impeach Trump on day one, day, two, day, three, day, four, day, five, day, 100,” Steve Scheffler, the Republican National Committeeman in Iowa, told the BBC. “They’re going to try to make his life a living political hell.” But he predicted that “radical, horrible” Democrats elected on Tuesday would “overextend their welcome”. “When they want to push this radical agenda on America, I think at that point in time voters are going to say, I didn’t bargain for this stuff.” Grassroots Democrats are divided on their priorities, too. At an election watch party in Iowa, where the party snatched a Senate seat from the Republicans, one member was asked on television what they should do with their newfound power. “I do think that corruption needs to end, but I think if we spend two years doing impeachments, then we’re just gonna be spinning our heels,” she said. Then she added, unprompted: “But maybe Hegseth? Maybe he does need to go right away.”