“Since Trump won, Democrats have been unmoored.” Is anyone else tired of saying this yet? The same analysis of the Democratic party has been trod out over and over since November of last year. It follows a similar script every time — no one has a clear answer for the rhetoric of the Trump administration, and no one is “leading the party.” In a way, this is true. On the national level, it seems like Democrats are constantly caught on their back heel, with no strong voices in Congress that are able to command as much attention as Trump and his allies.
This rhetoric is favored among many activists and close observers of politics on campus. It seems like there’s been eleven and a half months of soul searching since November 2024, and left-leaning people seem no closer to an answer, but increasingly disturbed by Trump’s actions.
This analysis, however, is wrong. The idea that Democrats are unmoored has been weaponized by members of the party who are afraid of change, and who wish to dismiss clear rising stars that they see as “too different” from the same playbook that continues to fail.
Perhaps the person best known for representing this change right now is New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani is young, charismatic and unapologetic about what he believes in. Major non-ideological criticisms frame him as being too elite, and only attracting limousine liberal supporters from places like Park Slope. However, when one observes the numbers from the primary, this assertion is simply incorrect. Mamdani won the majority of middle-income voters, and he also won every single racial group other than Black people. Even with policies that many in his own party consider too radical or divisive, Mamdani upset his competitors to win the primary handily — his brand and policies are simply what people in New York want right now.
Yet, even despite Mamdani’s meteoric rise and success, establishment Democrats continue to worry about his popularity and potential to offend moderate voters. Hank Scheinkopf, a longtime Democratic operative in New York, represents this sect of chronic worriers, stating in Politico, “Mamdani is the greatest threat to Democrats probably since Ronald Reagan because he’s everything Democrats have been accused of being and in fact is — to the extreme. Republican ad makers will know what to do with this.”
Many of these establishment Democrats continue to criticize a clear rising star who’s supposed to be on their side. Ideologically, these attacks seem to be motivated by his “extremism” on issues like taking on big corporations and criticizing Israel’s continual attacks on Gaza. This is completely ridiculous. It stinks of moderates who refuse to see the exceptional nature of the moment we’re in right now. These critics of Mamdani ignore the fact that people might want something other than the same old pro-corporate, pro-foreign war talking points.
No, I am not suggesting Mamdani would be successful nationally. His critics are right when they say that his policies are too progressive for the entire country, at least for now. However, Mamdani has a promising stylistic counterpart running in a place that couldn’t be more different than New York city — Graham Platner, running for a senate seat in Maine. Platner, who stands on a very similar platform to Mamdani, has drawn similar criticism and nervous hand-wringing from Democrats to the mayoral candidate.
After graduating high school, Platner snuck his birth certificate out of his father’s office to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. He deployed to Iraq with the Marines and Afghanistan with the Maine National Guard. He now lives three doors down from where he grew up, and works as an oysterman and harbormaster in his hometown.
Platner has faced a couple challenges in his bid for Senate already — a couple of controversial posts online and a skull tattoo with potential ties to Nazism have both been uncovered. However, both of these situations are clarified by his background. Platner has explained that he made the posts online in a dark time while grappling with PTSD after coming back from deployment. He explained that he got the tattoo after a night drinking with fellow marines, and was not aware of its historical ties. He now says he regrets it, and has had the tattoo covered up. To put it plainly, Platner isn’t a normal politician. If Democrats want to appeal to working class voters, they must be willing to stomach a different kind of candidate that wasn’t groomed to run for office from a young age and perfectly polished.
Democrats, and especially ones at Dartmouth who continue to decry progressives like Mamdani, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is. If you’re looking for politicians who are able to appeal to a contingency of America that your party has lost touch with, you have to be able to stomach some controversy. You must acknowledge that the answer might not be someone as “politician-y” and polished as Pete Buttigieg, and as establishment centric as someone like House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
What Democrats have been trying hasn’t been working. It’s time to pivot, and stop complaining about popular candidates who are “too radical.”
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
Eli Moyse ’27 is an opinion editor and columnist for The Dartmouth. He studies government and creative writing. He publishes various personal work under a pen name on Substack (https://substack.com/@wesmercer), and you can find his other work in various publications.
