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ORIGINAL SIN AND THE ROAD TO REDEMPTION  
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Paul Garver
July 2, 2025
Chartist
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_ For many Democratic operatives, the victory of the Left in the
Democratic Party, now represented by Sanders, the Squad, and Mamdani,
would be a catastrophic blow, at least as obnoxious as MAGA and
Project 2025.  _

, *Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover Up, and his
Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Tapper, Jack and Thompson, Alex.
Penguin Random House, New York, 2025

 

Original Sin is a depressing book to read and review. Tapper and
Thompson narrate in excruciating detail how Democratic Party
operatives collaborated to cover up and deny the increasing cognitive
decline of President Biden in the final years of his presidency.   
Their misguided actions denied the base of the Democratic Party any
opportunity to select a more viable candidate in open Democratic
primaries.  Thereby, they helped facilitate the election of a
sociopathic demagogue, together with the dangerous schemes of his
followers to establish a White Nationalist neo-fascist regime over the
USA.

The authors conducted some 200 interviews of Democratic Party insiders
and strategists. Many of them admit that they were aware of Biden’s
incapacities, but for one reason or another, did not speak out
publicly until it was too late to unwind the damage caused by their
silence.  Their motives are many, including personal loyalty to Joe
Biden and his family, coupled with the belief that only even a
diminished Biden could defeat Trump in the 2024 election.

It is hard to prove a counterfactual. It is quite possible that Trump
would have steamrolled over even a more viable Democratic opponent
than Kamala Harris.    Harris was badly advised by the Democratic
Party insiders, who focused on winning over a handful of Republican
defectors rather than shaping a message to the traditional base
constituencies of the Democratic Party – working class, young
voters, people of colour, etc.  About 10 million of these did not
vote at all.   A smaller but noticeable number in Michigan defected
over Biden’s and Harris’s kowtowing to Netanyahu’s genocidal war
in Gaza. 

Media pundits have been playing the blame game since the election.  
However, many Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, and some
Democratic state governors, persist in the hope for a normal electoral
correction in the midterm elections of 2026.  I call this the
“lying flat” or the “head-in-the-sand” strategy.   Why would
the electorate reward the Democratic Party for its cowardice and
calculated inaction in the face of the grave threat to the
fundamentals of the American constitutional order?    Polling
indicates that a large majority of normally Democratic constituencies
are frustrated with the feeble response of the Democratic Party to
creeping fascism.

I am writing this on the day after the heartening Democratic primary
victory of democratic socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani running for
mayor of New York City.   A Muslim immigrant and only a U.S. citizen
for a few years, Mamdani campaigned around bread-and-butter issues
like transit and housing, with the support of New York City DSA, the
Working Families Party and nationally known democratic socialists
Bernie Sanders and AOC.   We had hoped that Mamdani might squeeze
through by picking up votes in a ranked-choice voting system through
his alliances with other progressive candidates like Brad Lander.  In
fact, Mamdani got over 43% of the total first-round votes, while
Lander got another 11% [boosted by his arrest by ICE agents for daring
to ask them to show a judicial warrant].  Discredited former NY
governor Andrew Cuomo, backed by major corporate donors, Bill Clinton
and most Democratic officeholders in New York City, got only 36% of
the vote on the first round, and not enough second choices to overcome
Mamdani’s large lead.  Cuomo may run as an Independent in
November.  He would join disgraced incumbent mayor Eric Adams, who
had to be pardoned by President Trump for his flagrant corruption in
return for a highly unpopular collaboration with Trump’s ICE raids,
as well as a feeble Republican candidate, to contest Mamdani in
November.

Panicking large donors, billionaire businessmen, and Democratic Party
insiders are already lining up to support either Cuomo or Adams,
running as independents.  Mamdani frightens them because he is a
Muslim, a democratic socialist, and a charismatic campaigner with
simple populist social democratic messages that appeal to the majority
of New Yorkers – rent control, free transit, etc., while threatening
to slightly raise taxes on the ultra-rich.

Those same interests futilely spent some $25 million in negative
advertising against Mamdani in the primary.  He was libelled as
anti-Semitic and communistic, as well as being called inexperienced
and impractical.  These negative ads against Mamdani were not very
successful, since Zohran had consistently been upfront with his views
on immigration, free transit, higher taxes on the rich, and support
for Gazans and Palestinians, and his opposition to ICE raids.

We expect that Mamdani’s opponents will receive much more extensive
funding to run scurrilous attacks on him between now and the November
election.

Mamdani will counter mainly by further amping up his extensive
campaigning network that carried him to his primary victory.  Some
40,000 volunteer canvassers had come not only from the organized Left
(DSA, Working Families Party, etc.), but also from dozens of
progressive organisations, community and neighbourhood associations
representing the full spectrum of NYC.  In the fall, Mamdani will
rely even more heavily on volunteer canvassers and small donors as
well as on his own creative social media and personal appearances. 
Hopefully, they will be reinforced by labour union activists, even
though most union leaders endorsed Cuomo in the primary.

As a member of DSA’s International Committee, I have been scanning
the congratulations to DSA flooding in from international socialist
organisations on Mamdani’s victory.  I have also noticed that
Mamdani is being hailed in social media by a wide spectrum of
progressive organisations in the USA.   So far, I have seen only a
trickle of congratulations from Democratic Party officeholders outside
NYC.  Could it be that many Democrats in office still fear
retaliation by the Democratic National Committee in their own
districts in 2026 and beyond if they support Mamdani?

I would like to believe, hope against hope, that the Democratic Party
will not double down on the original sin so well highlighted by Tepper
and Thompson.   Their revised version of original sin will be to try
to stop Mamdani at all costs. For many Democratic operatives, the
victory of the Left in the Democratic Party, now represented by
Sanders, the Squad, and Mamdani, would be a catastrophic blow, at
least as obnoxious as MAGA and Project 2025. 

Will we be able to overcome these reactionary Democratic diehards at
the same time we creatively battle the creeping Fascist takeover that
will close most space for political resistance? The odds remain long,
but not insurmountable.  Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the
will!

_Paul Garver is a member of Democratic Socialists of America._

_Chartist is the bi-monthly political magazine of the democratic
left. In honouring the Chartists of the 19th century, our idea of
democratic socialism is as much about the political movement and means
of mobilisation used to advance political ideas as it is about the
ideas themselves. Chartist seeks to provide a space for those who
subscribe to this broad ideal._

* Democratic Party
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* Joe Biden
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* The Squad
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* Zohran Mamdani
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* DSA
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