Robin Abcarian: Don't fear the rise of the democratic socialists. There aren't enough of them... yet

Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times on Nov 9, 2026

Published in Op Eds

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Never thought I'd say this, but DEI is back!

Diversity, equity and inclusion had an excellent midterm election:

California got its first elected Latino governor, Xavier Becerra.

New Mexico elected its first Native American governor, Deb Haaland.

Minnesota elected the first Native American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate, Peggy Flanagan.

Texas elected its first Latina governor, Gina Hinojosa.

Georgia elected the first black female governor in American history, Keisha Lance Bottoms.

Michigan elected the first Muslim to the U.S. Senate, Abdul El-Sayed.

New Hampshire elected the first out gay male U.S. senator, Chris Pappas.

Six transgender and nonbinary candidates won races in states that had never elected a trans person to their legislatures.

As for ideological diversity, democratic socialists also had a great election night: Six new representatives will be seated in the House, alongside New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib.

The newly elected lefties include Angela Gonzales-Torres in Los Angeles; Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez in New York; Donavan McKinney in Michigan; Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania; and Colorado's Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old Ethiopian immigrant who also will be the first Gen Z member elected to Congress.

Here in Los Angeles, voters have elected the city's first democratic socialist-backed mayor, Nithya Raman, who was born in India and is a practicing Hindu. And our newly elected city attorney, Marissa Roy, also a democratic socialist, has pledged to run her office like a "public interest law firm," pursuing litigation against miscreant corporations and landlords.

Oh, and good riddance to the right-wing populist stylings of Elon Musk, who dropped nearly $500 million down the sink in a vain attempt to buy elections for Republicans, especially in newly blue Texas, where Musk relocated Tesla and SpaceX to get away from Democrats.

The joke's on Musk. Texas' new Democratic attorney general, Nathan Johnson, has pledged to investigate Musk, and Governor-elect Hinojosa has questioned whether property tax breaks Musk received from outgoing MAGA Gov. Greg Abbott have crossed legal lines.

On Tuesday, Silicon Valley's amoral tech gazillionaires got their own special spanking: American voters of both parties handily rejected the tech agenda, voting down nearly every data-center ballot initiative and pro-data center candidate.

I've had so many "pinch me" moments in the last few days I'm turning black and blue.

President Trump's loony insistence that democratic socialists pose a greater threat to the country than World War I, World War II, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terrorist attacks was soundly rebuked Tuesday. His own argument has been undercut by his friendly meetings with New York's popular democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

It's not just Trump who has attacked the burgeoning left-wing movement, whose midterm candidates advocated for Medicare for All, affordable housing, labor and union protections, an end to military aid to Israel and the abolition of ICE. Some Democrats seem to be losing their minds, as well.

"If you hate the Democratic Party so much, well, then don't use our goddamn name," Democratic consultant James Carville said in August. "Go think of your own name."

Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender, has said repeatedly that the Democratic Socialists of America is not a valid wing or caucus in the Democratic Party. "They believe in defunding police, letting prisoners out of prison, opening borders, eliminating the Pentagon," Emanuel told Fox News Sunday in August. "If you're so confident people want that… run as a separate party."

But the DSA is not, in fact, a party. It is an advocacy group and an ideological movement akin to what the tea party was for the GOP in 2010. Its membership has grown from about 6,000 in 2015 to about 130,000 today, with a median age of 33.

Leave it to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the country's OG democratic socialist, to describe why: "People are sick and tired of the Rahm Emanuels, and the Democratic establishment and the Republican establishment," Sanders said on "Face the Nation" in July. "The American people are tired of a rigged economy, a corrupt campaign finance system. They want real change."

That's what the country is about to get.

Democrats expect to take at least 255 of the House's 435 seats, maybe more — a whopping increase from the 215 House seats they held going into the midterms. A handful of democratic socialists aren't going to be able to set the agenda, or hold their leaders hostage for deals. But their presence signals an important pendulum swing to the left in a country that has been driven to exhaustion by the corruption and cruelty of Trump and the racist radical right.

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