Last month, Vice President JD Vance delivered a speech for the right-wing think tank the Claremont Institute about statesmanship: what it means to lead a country.
The speech was delivered on the heels of Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic mayoral primary win in New York City, an event that featured prominently in Vance’s speech. Mamdani is a Democratic Socialist whose victory – in Vance’s words – “was the product of a lot of young people who live reasonably comfortable lives but see that their elite degrees aren’t really delivering what they expected.”
Much of Mamdani’s campaign relied on the organizing of young, highly-educated people, who Vance believes reflect the future of the progressive movement: a party of “highly educated but downwardly mobile elites” unified by a shared hatred of President Donald Trump.
“What unites Islamists, gender studies majors, socially liberal white urbanites, and Big Pharma lobbyists?” Vance asked. “It isn’t the ideas of Thomas Jefferson or even Karl Marx. It’s hatred.”
“They hate the people in this room, they hate the president of the United States, and most of all, they hate the people who voted for him.”
This is an interesting theory to me because I know what Vance is referring to here.
Since last November (and, let’s be honest, most of the last decade, with that four-year blip in-between Trump’s terms), I’ve had countless conversations with liberals whose driving force does seem to be their disdain for Trump and all those who voted for him. Rural America – which was unfairly credited for putting Trump in office both times around – has often been caught in the crosshairs of this liberal anger.
Kamala Harris’ short presidential campaign was built on the uninspiring idea that at least she was better than the alternative. Joe Biden’s campaign four years earlier had a similar message: “Anyone but Trump.” Both lacked a cohesive plan for their presidency, or at least failed to discuss it.
Trump, on the other hand, has had no trouble laying out his vision for America, thanks to the help of conservative institutions like the Heritage Foundation.
They concocted Project 2025, a blueprint for cutting government spending and propelling a “pro-family,” Christian nationalist agenda to the forefront of American politics. In his second term in office, Trump wholeheartedly adopted the agenda, starting with funding cuts to almost every government agency. I’ve heard no such stirring from the Democrats about a “Project 2029.”
But perhaps that’s because the future of progressive politics doesn’t lay squarely on the shoulders of Democrats anymore.
Vance and the rest of the pro-Trump crowd has painted Democrats as the “radical left,” but most of the party is far from radical. The left that Vance describes – contradictory “arsonists” – hardly exists in the Democratic Party as we know it today.
But it could with Mamdani. That’s because he’s running a campaign outside the Democratic script, which often shies away from the controversial. Mamdani has proved unafraid to speak out about Israel’s genocide of Gaza, for example, unlike most establishment Democrats who fear condemning Israel given America’s long-standing partnership with the country.
He’s also adopted many of the platforms of the Democratic Socialists of America, like no cost child care and universal health care, all paid for by taxing corporations and the top 1%. His messaging is endorsed by politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’ve been running their own “fighting oligarchy” campaign that, rather than just focusing on Trump’s ills, criticizes the Democratic Party, too.
While the “radical left” Vance describes is still largely a myth, Mamdani and Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez could represent some of what Vance seems to fear about the progressive movement. But it’s yet unclear whether they can actually organize around an agenda and implement it. For that, we’ll probably have to wait and see what Mamdani as mayor actually looks like.
But there’s one thing Vance and I can agree on: whatever agenda the left comes up with cannot be built on a hatred of Trump and all those who voted for him. In 10 years, Trump probably won’t even be the figurehead of the conservative movement anymore – I bet it will be Vance.
That means if progressives want to organize against this far right movement, they’ll have to find reasons that inspire beyond just an antipathy for Trump. I’m eager to see what they come up with.
Claire Carlson is a freelance environmental journalist who writes the biweekly Keep It Rural newsletter for the Daily Yonder. She lives in Oregon. This column was originally published by the Daily Yonder.
