New York’s New Socialists Are a Danger to the World
By supporting an ideological movement that views American power as an inherent evil to be disassembled, America’s urban electorate is expanding the isolationist voting bloc in the federal legislature.
I watched the results of Tuesday’s primary elections from the country I grew up in, Latvia, where NATO aircraft occasionally fly over my mother’s house. And while Democratic Socialism is traditionally seen in terms of left-wing domestic policy, I found myself thinking of conversations the New York Editorial Board, of which I’m a member, had with two socialists who beat left-wing Democrats in their primaries — and how destabilizing their views on international security could be to this tense part of the world.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, who won over five-term Congressman Adriano Espaillat (NY-13), described the notion of nations having borders to us as a “militarized project” that is “deeply dehumanizing to so many people.” Out here, borders are a fragile guarantee against a bloody Russian invasion. When we asked her to apply her views to Russia and Ukraine, she expressed sympathy for the lives lost but said her real hostility is to “global systems where you have imperialist powers engaging in constant violence in a war machine.”
Democratic Socialists won big Tuesday, increasing their New York state and assembly numbers to at least 15, and adding two new members to the congressional Squad – Chevalier and Claire Valdez, who succeeded Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez (NY-07). Both were supported by New York’s celebrity Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and both replaced solidly progressive democrats.
The NYC DSA’s focus has vocally been on bread-and-butter populist issues, and most voters who sent Valdez and Avila Chevalier to Congress likely have little understanding of the implications of their broader radical views. The popular mayor campaigned for these candidates and his positions carried weight among voters.
But the broader stances of the National Democratic Socialists of America are extremely radical, and their platform essentially advocates for the dismantling of the post-World War II international order. Their foreign policy mandates include greatly reducing U.S. military budget, closing overseas military bases, bringing troops home, and ending all economic sanctions as part of their “Workers Deserve More” campaign, which my colleague Stu Smith reported on last week. NYC DSA’s own Anti-War Working Group is “dedicated to countering US imperialism and resisting US regime-change operations and interventions in foreign wars and conflicts.”
To someone who grew up in Latvia under Soviet occupation, concepts like “deterrence” and “sanctions” are not abstract terms. When you look at the current geopolitical landscape, Europe is experiencing the most serious security crisis since 1945. The only credible deterrent preventing a revanchist Russian state from expanding its borders into the Baltic region is the commitment of American military power and Article 5 of the NATO treaty. By supporting an ideological movement that views American power as an inherent evil to be disassembled, America’s urban electorate is expanding the isolationist voting bloc in the federal legislature.
Valdez and Avila Chevalier stick closely to the DSA talking points: they do not believe in borders, think the money spent on defense in far-off lands should be spent domestically on unrelated expenses, and that the USA should not engage in foreign conflicts. Asked about supporting Ukraine militarily, Avila Chevalier, whose past comments echo Vladimir Putin’s language, talked of diplomacy instead.
While the rhetoric differs wildly, the goals of the populist Right’s “America First” isolationism and the populist Left’s “Anti-Imperialism” would produce the same result: unilateral contraction of American global hegemony. It’s all too clear out here what would replace that: expansionist authoritarians.
America is not on the verge of adopting full-scale democratic socialism, but in an era of thin congressional majorities, a unified, ideologically rigid vanguard can hamstring the government and its foreign policy. Ignoring the very-left to far-left swing of a few congressional seats in deep blue districts is a mistake with potential consequences for the global order.