The progressives are no longer a fringe group in the Democrat Party; they are a faction with real power, especially in selecting statewide and national candidates.
Who they are, what they believe, and the reality that they can drive more establishment (not moderate, but institutional types focused on getting their slice of the pie) Democrats out of the process or threaten their power makes them a force to be reckoned with.
They bear watching, and we should worry deeply about their growing power. Exhibit A is AOC. Exhibit B is Zohran Mamdani. And of course, there is the archetype: Bernie Sanders, who spent most of his time in politics as the outsider in the wilderness, never gained institutional power himself, but paved the way for those who now are.
Independents and center-left Democrats still see them as one-offs who can only win in Deep Blue districts, but that misses an important point: the radical left may not control Congress directly, but their growing national influence gives them enormous leverage on the agenda of the Democrat Party and on candidate selection in statewide and national elections.
They may not be able to win elections in most House seats, but as Abdul El-Sayed, James Talarico, and the growing power of the New York leftist power bloc with Mamdani and AOC are able to push establishment Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer around, they can control the agenda of the establishment to an alarming degree.
Chuck Schumer is unlikely to keep his seat come the next election; top Democrats lost to progressive challengers in what should be safe seats, and Hakeem Jeffries faces a primary challenge next cycle if he doesn’t bow sufficiently to the will of the progressive left, or more precisely, the Red-Green alliance. The top two Democrats in Congress are hostage to the radicals.
So it matters quite a bit what their agenda is, and that agenda is truly radical and anti-American, although they would characterize it in more glowing terms: Make America Moral Again, or MAMA.
Adam Hamawy, the newly elected Member of Congress from New York’s 12th Congressional District, is a perfect example of where the progressives are heading, and it is nowhere good for America.
The Iranian regime apologia coming from some incoming members of Congress is becoming impossible to ignore. Congressman-elect Adam Hamawy of New Jersey refuses to even acknowledge that the Islamic Republic of Iran is an adversary, instead suggesting it should be treated as a friend and ally while drawing a false moral equivalence between Tehran’s aggression and American policy. One can oppose a war with Iran without resorting to intellectually lazy arguments that erase the Ayatollah’s decades-long destabilization of the Middle East: the domination of multiple Arab capitals, the empowerment of violent proxies, and the direct and indirect deaths of countless Arabs, Muslims, and Americans. More troubling, Hamawy reflects a growing strain on the populist Democratic left that believes: Hamas is recast as a “resistance” movement rather than a terrorist organization; Hezbollah is sanitized; political Islamism is excused through cultural relativism; jihadist movements are treated primarily as victims of circumstance; Iran’s aggression is blamed on American “imperialism”; and even the Houthis are rationalized through the lens of Third-Worldist grievance politics. This is a disturbing degradation in political judgment from a cohort claiming to represent Arab-, Muslim-, and Palestinian-American communities. It should not be normalized, excused, or shielded from criticism through reflexive and bad-faith accusations of “Islamophobia.”
— Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib (@afalkhatib) November 11, 2026
The Iranian regime apologia coming from some incoming members of Congress is becoming impossible to ignore. Congressman-elect Adam Hamawy of New Jersey refuses to even acknowledge that the Islamic Republic of Iran is an adversary, instead suggesting it should be treated as a friend and ally while drawing a false moral equivalence between Tehran’s aggression and American policy.
One can oppose a war with Iran without resorting to intellectually lazy arguments that erase the Ayatollah’s decades-long destabilization of the Middle East: the domination of multiple Arab capitals, the empowerment of violent proxies, and the direct and indirect deaths of countless Arabs, Muslims, and Americans.
More troubling, Hamawy reflects a growing strain on the populist Democratic left that believes: Hamas is recast as a “resistance” movement rather than a terrorist organization; Hezbollah is sanitized; political Islamism is excused through cultural relativism; jihadist movements are treated primarily as victims of circumstance; Iran’s aggression is blamed on American “imperialism”; and even the Houthis are rationalized through the lens of Third-Worldist grievance politics.
This is a disturbing degradation in political judgment from a cohort claiming to represent Arab-, Muslim-, and Palestinian-American communities. It should not be normalized, excused, or shielded from criticism through reflexive and bad-faith accusations of “Islamophobia.”
Hamawy was hardly the choice of the establishment; they most certainly would have wanted a candidate who would play ball with their transactional style of politics that I call the “Organized Crime” model; he is a Bolshevik, and as with the Bolsheviks, he is not actually a member of the majority, but of the more ruthless wing of the party that has the power to coopt the majority by leveraging the political power of the progressive movement.
Hamawy’s agenda is not primarily economic, although he is definitely allied with the socialists. He is, instead, an Islamist whose ties to the movement go all the way back to his close relationship with the Blind Sheik, for whom he testified in his terrorism trial, and with whom he traveled during his time as a leader of a terrorist movement.
He volunteered with an al Qaeda-aligned NGO (such things exist, if you can stomach the idea), and he is still promoting terrorist organizations while wearing a suit and tie. Basically, his argument is that the terrorists are the good guys, and we should view them as friends. If we did, they wouldn’t have to be terrorists. He doesn’t put it that way, of course; like so many radicals, he “condemns violence”; but like so many others, he justifies it through moral equivalence and suggests that the way to avoid violence is to embrace them as friends.
This argument appeals to a growing movement in the Democrat Party, if not the establishment itself. But the establishment’s commitment to power, and its recognition that the Overton Window has moved, have made it willing to get dragged along a good chunk of the way toward that position.
WATCH — @RepJeffries: “There’s no indication members of Congress have been overwhelmed by any calls.” (This gaslighting seems to contradict what @axios @AndrewSolender have reported, and the million+ signatures on a petition for new leadership @MarkRuffalo helped circulate) https://t.co/i06i5KgYbD
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) November 11, 2026
Democrat power brokers may want you to believe that a few radicals in Deep Blue seats don’t matter when it comes to setting the national agenda, but believing that is a mistake. AOC has a decent shot at becoming the Democrat nominee in 2028, and the progressives are organizing now to ensure that they have a viable candidate in the far-left lane. As Maine and Michigan — both states where radicals would not be expected to rise to the top — show, an organized far-left movement fueled by money and the organizational power of the Red-Green alliance can defeat a divided establishment.
And, as Chuck Schumer’s willingness to bow to Abdul El-Sayed shows, the establishment is willing to grin and bear it to keep access to all the money and power they crave.
Hamawy’s victory in the primary shows something important: this is not a “people power” movement driven by populism, whatever image they try to project. Hamawy was backed by very big money from Muslim organizations that like his radical agenda.
The super PAC wars of New Jersey’s 12th congressional district have begun.
American Priorities PAC, a brand-new but deep-pocketed super PAC intended to support progressive, Israel-skeptical candidates around the country, announced this morning that it is kicking off an enormous investment supporting Adam Hamawy, one of the leading Democratic candidates in the open Central Jersey district.
For now, the PAC has announced a $600,000 ad buy that will run for the next two-and-a-half weeks, a sum that’s larger than what any individual candidate (including Hamawy) has reported raising for their own campaigns thus far. The ad, “Heart,” extols Hamawy’s background as a medical doctor and Army veteran, saying that he’s worked to save lives in Iraq, Gaza, and the United States.
With just over a month to go until the June 2 Democratic primary, American Priorities says that it plans to eventually double that ad investment and spend “approximately $2 million” on the 12th district campaign in total. It’s not clear yet whether all of that will go towards pro-Hamawy messaging – as opposed to attacking any of Hamawy’s 11 primary opponents – though a spokesperson for the PAC said the current plan is to stick to positive campaigning.
American Priorities was launched in February with an explicit mission to counter the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel group that has spent tends of millions of dollars influencing Democratic primary elections (including in New Jersey). As pro-Palestine candidates take beatings from AIPAC spending, then-American Priorities director Hannah Fertig told Semafor shortly after the group’s founding, “we simply want to make sure that someone’s there to protect candidates who question these policies.”
“American Priorities.” What a name. $2 million ain’t peanuts, and since they didn’t have to spend it all on Hamawy, they spread it to other radical Muslims.
Jeffries has had to grin and bear it. His candidates for New York House seats got beaten, and he wants those seats in Democrat hands and will work with these people, even though he doesn’t “need” them in the upcoming Congress. To get elected in 2028, he will need their acquiescence, even though they intend to bully him.
Calls to Replace Jeffries and Schumer Explode After Democratic Wins https://t.co/jKfmST7i29
— The New Republic (@newrepublic) November 5, 2026
Hamawy will be no ally of Jeffries. His alliances are with national progressives: Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Rep. Ro Khanna, Rep. Summer Lee, Progressive Caucus PAC, Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, CAIR Action, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, and others.
Not the establishment. And Jeffries will have a hard time pushing back, because the radicals control the machinery that chooses candidates in primaries. They proved that this year. And Jeffries is right smack dab in Zohran Mamdani’s backyard.
Fox News’ Shannon Bream: “When you talk about the minority leaders now, will likely be the majority leaders in the coming Congress. Congressman Jeffries and Senator Schumer… they’ve said no way to a lot of this far-left stuff and more progressive stuff. Many mainstream Democrats have called it crazy. Do you think that the current leadership, if they don’t get in line with some of the more progressive ideas, that your members should vote for them, especially those that are coming from this area? Should they vote for them to be the leaders in the new Congress?” Zohran Mamdani: “Well I think one of the most exciting things about a number of the soon-to-be congresspeople is that they think for themselves. And they don’t need me to tell them what they should do. And we’re talking about Claire Valdez or Darializa Avila Chevalier. I’m excited for them to be joining Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as congresspeople representing the city who also are members of the Democratic Socialists of America. And when it comes to what we’re looking at right now, we are seeing a moment in time where working-class Americans have made very clear that they are tired of waiting. They are tired of being told again and again that there is less for them to be able to make ends meet while we see the world’s first trillionaire emerge in Elon Musk.” Mamdani and his GOONS of far-left communist psychos have NEVER BUILT anything in their lives and simply want to STEAL from makers like Elon Musk, who have done more to benefit America than the Democratic Party has done in its entire existence. Not to mention the thousands of jobs Musk has created — and the countless millionaires and billionaires produced through his companies’ stock and the wealth those businesses have generated.
— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) November 8, 2026
Fox News’ Shannon Bream: “When you talk about the minority leaders now, will likely be the majority leaders in the coming Congress. Congressman Jeffries and Senator Schumer… they’ve said no way to a lot of this far-left stuff and more progressive stuff. Many mainstream Democrats have called it crazy. Do you think that the current leadership, if they don’t get in line with some of the more progressive ideas, that your members should vote for them, especially those that are coming from this area? Should they vote for them to be the leaders in the new Congress?”
Zohran Mamdani: “Well I think one of the most exciting things about a number of the soon-to-be congresspeople is that they think for themselves. And they don’t need me to tell them what they should do. And we’re talking about Claire Valdez or Darializa Avila Chevalier. I’m excited for them to be joining Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as congresspeople representing the city who also are members of the Democratic Socialists of America. And when it comes to what we’re looking at right now, we are seeing a moment in time where working-class Americans have made very clear that they are tired of waiting. …
The Red-Green alliance doesn’t need majorities to control the agenda on the issues they care most about, and for many of them, foreign policy is the key issue. They talk about “affordability,” but the passion is destroying Israel. You don’t see marches and riots for lower gas prices; you see them aimed at Jews.
Hamawy may seem to be an obscure freshman congressman, and as a person, he is. But his election is an archetype for a movement’s future tactics.
This is what we will face.
Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it’s spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there’s nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.
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