Suzanne Downing: Socialism now has coastal bookends. Expect a bumpy ride.

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Nov. 7, 2026 – America did not vote Tuesday to abolish private property and self-determination, but Americans who believe in free markets and limited government would be foolish to dismiss what just happened.

The organized socialist left had a very good election. It is building power inside the Democratic Party, one primary, one congressional district, and one city hall at a time.

It does not need to persuade every American to embrace socialism. It just needs to win the elections that give it authority over everyone else.

Take a look at the coastal bookends.

New York already has socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Seattle has socialist Mayor Katie Wilson. Now, Los Angeles has now elected Nithya Raman, a socialist who defeated incumbent Democrat Karen Bass. Democratic Socialists of America-backed politicians will lead the two largest cities in the United States. That gives the socialist movement the platforms, local appointments, budgets, and vast opportunities to make its governing regime part of everyday life.

Cities are laboratories, and once the are governed by the Left, they decline and, at least in modern history, never recover. The rest of us should pay attention to what comes out of them.

In Congress, six newly elected candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America or its chapters are headed to the House: Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier of New York, Melat Kiros of Colorado, Donavan McKinney of Michigan, Chris Rabb of Pennsylvania, and Angela Gonzales-Torres of California.

They join Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, bringing that socialist contingent to about eight — still smaller than the 31-member Freedom Caucus in the House. Several of them actually defeated established Democrats in primaries, meaning that those districts went further into communism-light. These were victories over the party’s own incumbents and preferred successors.

Eight out of 435 is not a huge number, but if we are just counting those seats and missing the political lesson, we would be foolish. I see the danger developing for the Democratic Party: an incremental takeover of its priorities, its language, and the boundaries of what its candidates are willing to support, oppose, and go after.

The promises arrive under the heading of affordability. Cheaper housing. Healthcare. Childcare. Relief from bills that families can no longer manage. Someone has to pay for that.

The frustration is real. Conservatives should understand that much. A young adult working full time and unable to afford an apartment is unlikely to find comfort in a lecture about how well the economy looks on paper. The fact that unemployment is 4.1% may be of little encouragement to a young person educated in government schools.

Republicans have to offer answers people can feel in their household budgets. Defending free enterprise requires making it easier to build, compete, work, and get ahead.

But economic frustration also creates an opening for politicians whose answer is to put more decisions in government hands.

A rent freeze sounds attractive to a young person who does not connect the dots between rent freezes and the resistance investors will have when it comes to investing in apartments and condos. Rent freezes lead to rent controls, and rent controls lead to the flight of capital.

Gallup’s September survey found that 43% of Americans viewed socialism positively, compared with 55% for capitalism. Among adults ages 18 to 34, socialism led capitalism, 57% to 43%. Among Democrats, socialism received a positive rating from 65%, while capitalism received 35%.

Yet 95% of Americans viewed small business positively. This is cognitive dissonance at its worse.

Here in Alaska, we should recognize that our communities depend on people willing to build something under difficult conditions. We should be deeply skeptical of a political movement that gives government greater authority over their livelihoods. Since we’ve already seen so-called “independents” aligning with Democrats, and now the Democrats being aligned with socialists, we can’t afford to ignore what is happening.

The incremental socialist advance could eventually backfire on Democrats. Voters may discover that replacing an establishment Democrat with a democratic socialist does little to lower their costs; costs just get shifted to taxes and redistributed after government skims off most of it.

But a future backlash offers little comfort to people living through the experiment.

The organized left is patient. It plays the long game. It recruits, knocks on doors, challenges incumbents, and comes back for the next election. Supporters of freedom and free markets need that same persistence, along with rational policies that make their case in practice.

Socialism now has coastal bookends and a growing foothold in Congress. Expect a bumpy ride, America.

Suzanne Downing if founder and editor of The Alaska Story and is a longtime Alaskan.