Kamala Harris has a problem, and it’s not just Donald Trump. Her real threat comes from the radical left, embodied by the likes of Kshama Sawant and Jill Stein, who are gunning for a bigger prize than just the 2024 election. They want to take down the Democratic Party’s establishment—and Harris is caught squarely in their crosshairs in the state of Michigan.
To the lucky ones unfamiliar, Kshama Sawant was Seattle’s resident socialist firebrand. As a former city councilmember, she built a reputation as a chaos agent, using socialism as her battering ram. She’s notorious for championing radical policies that have sent Seattle spiraling: her #15Now movement may have boosted the minimum wage, but it’s left small businesses gasping for air. She led the charge to gut the police force with her defund the police rhetoric, and the result? A city drowning in crime, homelessness, and drugs, becoming a national punchline after she chased cops out of town, halted homeless sweeps, and pushed for drug decriminalization.
Now that she’s left city government, Sawant is aiming for something bigger. She’s partnering with third-party candidate Jill Stein in a bid to deny Harris Michigan, a critical swing state that could easily determine the 2024 election. This is a strategy conservatives can actually root for. One that Sawant unveiled during a Stein event in Dearborn, Michigan this week.
“We need to be clear about what our goals are. We are not in a position to win the White House, but we do have a real opportunity to win something historic. We could deny Kamala Harris the state of Michigan,” Sawant explained to a crowd of activists. “And the polls show that most likely Harris cannot win the election without Michigan.”
It may be the ideological dream to put Stein in the White House but chaos agents create chaos, and hurting whom she considers to be an “Establishment Democrat,” delivers her a win. With the Real Clear Politics average showing Michigan a clear toss up, with recent polls giving an edge to Trump, the margin for error could become paper-thin. If Sawant’s brand of socialism successfully siphons even a small percentage of votes that otherwise would have gone to Harris, Trump could take the state and possibly the White House with just a few thousand votes.
The Green Party and Socialist Equality Party are very active in Michigan. And, in 2016, Jill Stein (Green Party) received over 50,000 votes in Michigan, which was more than the margin by which Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.
And why is this happening now? Because Harris, despite her own far left views, isn’t radical enough for the Sawant-Stein contingent. Kamala Harris, the senator who ranked as one of the most progressive in the Senate, supports gender reassignment surgeries for illegal immigrants, worked to keep the border porous, and hopes for legalized drug use, isn’t passing the ideological purity test for the socialist left. This shows just how far the Democratic Party’s base has drifted, and it’s a crisis of their own making.
For years, Democrats have coddled their far-left flank, terrified of alienating Squad members and socialist upstarts like Sawant. Instead of standing firm on more reasonable policies that appeal to the working-class voters, they’ve pandered to radicals, ceding ground to Republicans. And where has that gotten them? Look no further than Harris’ struggles. Despite a nauseating left-wing media publicity campaign promoting Harris, she’s not moving much in the polls -- at least, not in the direction the campaign hoped for.
The vice president is already dealing with backlash from Michigan’s Muslim community, unhappy with the administration’s stance on Israel. Adding an organized socialist revolt on top of that is a recipe for electoral disaster.
Of course, let’s not kid ourselves: socialism would ruin this country faster than Kamala Harris ruins a policy speech. (How many times do we need to hear about her growing up in a middle-class family?) But in this case, it might serve a purpose by exposing just how much the Democratic Party has sold out to its radical base. And maybe, just maybe, that’s the wake-up call the party needs to course-correct before it’s too late.
Another loss in Michigan, thanks to far-left ideologues like Sawant, might force Democrats to finally reevaluate their cozy relationship with radicals who have zero interest in compromise. The more power and influence they have, the worse off we all are. It’s to all of our benefit to deal with a party that is more grounded in reason, than one that lets the radicals run things when they have power. Stung by the far-left to the point of delivering the White House back to the man they loathe, Democrats might start listening to the working-class voters who care more about their paychecks than their pronouns, who worry more about skyrocketing crime rates than “equity initiatives,” and who feel abandoned by a party that’s more focused on identity politics than kitchen-table issues.
Harris’ problem is emblematic of the larger crisis in the Democratic Party. For too long, Democrats have allowed themselves to be hijacked by a fringe that doesn’t even want them to succeed. The Squad and their allies in the socialist movement don’t care about electing Democrats—they care about remaking America in their radical image. And they’re willing to sacrifice elections to do it.
So, what does this mean for 2024? Well, if Sawant and Stein manage to pull enough votes away from Harris, it means Trump might just coast to another victory. But the bigger picture is this: the Democrats’ internal schism is on full display, and it’s not going away anytime soon. The more they pander to their far-left base, the more they alienate the very voters they need to win elections. And in the long run, that’s a losing strategy.
As much as we would prefer Democrats to stay out of power, a healthy democracy depends on two competitive parties. The country benefits from a reasonable opposition, not one held hostage by radicals who think abolishing the police is a smart policy move. In this sense, the rise of socialism within the Democratic Party is more than just a problem for Harris—it’s a problem for the country.
But in the short term, it might be the very thing that ensures a Trump victory and a Democratic reckoning. So, here’s to Kshama Sawant and her misguided army of socialists. They might not be saving the country in the way they think, but they sure are helping expose Harris’ and the Democrats’ biggest weakness: their willingness to bend to a radical fringe that doesn’t even want them to succeed.