Mamdani vs. Spanberger: A Lesson in Leadership for the Dems
New York’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani and centrist Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger were elected at the same time. He’s picking his battles and winning them, while she... isn't.
It is clear today that the Republican Party has long been planning to abolish American democracy, with a plan centered around the Supreme Court. First Republicans on the court stole the 2000 election for George W. Bush, then in 2010 they legalized nearly unlimited corporate and oligarch election spending. When Republicans won the 2010 midterms, they seized the opportunity to rig district boundaries as aggressively as they could – which helped in 2012, when Democrats won more votes for the House of Representatives, but Republicans got more seats.
Then in 2013 the court repealed the toughest parts of the Voting Rights Act, opening the door for aggressive disenfranchisement of Black Americans, which Republican states immediately seized. In 2019, the Supreme Court legalized partisan gerrymandering. In 2020, Donald Trump attempted an outright putsch, and when he was eventually prosecuted for that, the court bailed him out. When Colorado, following the plain language of the 14th Amendment, attempted to take his name off the 2024 ballot, the court put him back on.
Until very recently, the Democratic Party has been patently unwilling to fight fire with fire. They had two main chances to confront Republicans’ anti-democratic attacks this century, and both times they punted. In 2009-10, they had huge majorities in Congress, but did not even get rid of the Senate filibuster, much less confront the corrupt Supreme Court majority. The same thing happened in 2021-22, though with much smaller majorities. And thanks largely to pathetic dithering on the part of former Attorney General Merrick Garland, Trump escaped prosecution for Jan. 6 long enough to become the Republican nominee for president, at which point the court declared him a king in all but name.
It’s reasonably likely that Democrats will get one more chance in 2029, so long as they can defeat another probable coup attempt. It will be critical, therefore, that the Democratic Party nominate candidates at all levels, particularly for president, who will mount an all-out attack on Republican power, above the reactionary majority on court. The choice is illustrated by some fresh party leaders: On the one hand there is New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani; on the other is Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger.