{"id":352,"date":"2026-06-17T14:44:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=352"},"modified":"2026-06-17T14:44:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:44:37","slug":"claire-valdez-is-making-all-the-right-enemies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=352","title":{"rendered":"Claire Valdez Is Making All the Right Enemies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Claire Valdez must be doing something right. The veteran union organizer and New York State Assembly member is a leading contender in the Democratic primary for the open House seat in New York\u2019s Seventh Congressional District\u2014a multiracial, multiethnic New York City constituency that regularly gives Democratic nominees 65 percent of the vote or more. It\u2019s not the kind of race where Republicans are particularly competitive, or where they show much interest in what Democratic candidates have to say. And yet, the Republican National Committee\u2019s research department has made attacking Valdez a priority.<\/p>\n

Read more At This Year\u2019s World Cup, Make Way for Autocrats<\/a><\/p>\n

On Monday, the RNC took to Elon Musk\u2019s X platform to post a video of Valdez declaring, \u201cI\u2019m a union organizer and a proud democratic socialist\u201d\u2014and then rip into her for celebrating the fact that members of Democratic Socialists of America, including her top political ally, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, are winning major races in New York and across the country. Later, Republicans posted another video of Valdez speaking to a New York City Democratic Socialists event and announced: \u201cNew York Democrat Socialist Congressional candidate Claire Valdez lays out her radical agenda: \u2018So, are we ready to free Palestine, are we ready to Abolish ICE[,] are we ready to win Medicare for all, housing for all, and unions for all?\u201d<\/p>\n

Presumably, that message from the party of Donald Trump was supposed to scare voters away from backing Valdez in her June 23 primary contest with Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso\u2014or, if she\u2019s nominated, in November, But it is hard to see the logic of the GOP strategy.<\/p>\n

Look at the polls. People in New York and nationwide actually like human rights. They don\u2019t want immigrants to be targeted by ICE. They know that major steps must be taken to deliver quality healthcare and housing. And they love strong unions.<\/p>\n

Perhaps those are radical ideas.<\/p>\n

But they are also radically popular\u2014so much so that Justice Democrats, the group that helped elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Summer Lee to the US House and that now hopes to elect Valdez, reposted the RNC\u2019s fearmongering with a reminder that the candidate\u2019s platform is \u201cjust that good.\u201d Valdez also boosted the RNC message, gleefully adding, \u201cI\u2019m ready!\u201d<\/p>\n

The bizarre thing about this and other conservative attacks on democratic socialists who are mounting serious campaigns this year\u2014including Wisconsin State Representative Francesca Hong, who is a top contender for the Democratic nomination for governor in her state; Pennsylvania State Representative Chris Rabb, who has already secured the Democratic nomination for an open Philadelphia congressional seat; and Valdez\u2014is that they keep making democratic socialism look better. Especially to Democratic primary voters, as the latest New York Times<\/em>\/Siena Poll finds that 49 percent of Democratic voters have a favorable view of socialism, while just 22 percent have an unfavorable view.<\/p>\n

The RNC is unironically criticizing candidates who are talking about winning elections on programs that emphasize economic, social, and racial justice, saving the planet, promoting international human rights, and reordering budget priorities to cut military spending and meet the needs of the American people.<\/p>\n

Read more Why Hillary Clinton Doesn\u2019t Deserve the Black Vote<\/a><\/p>\n

This is not new. Republicans have a long history of attacking Democrats\u2014no matter what their ideology\u2014for embracing \u201csocialistic\u201d ideas. Seventy-four years ago, President Harry Truman explained, \u201cSocialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people. When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan \u2018Down With Socialism\u2019 on the banner of his \u2018great crusade,\u2019 that is really not what he means at all. What he really means is \u2018Down with Progress\u2014down with Franklin Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal,\u2019 and \u2018down with Harry Truman\u2019s Fair Deal.\u2019 That\u2019s all he means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Socialism has had plenty of electoral ups and downs across its long history in the United States. Socialists have been elected to the US Senate, the US House, and the mayoralties of this country\u2019s largest cities, including Milwaukee, where members of the Socialist Party governed with notable success from 1910 to 1960, and, of course, New York, where Zohran Mamdani currently presides. They have also mounted and supported campaigns for the presidency that have profoundly influenced the politics and the policies of the United States.<\/p>\n

Like Mamdani, Claire Valdez knows that history and proudly seeks to build on it in a year when democratic socialists\u2014many of them affiliated with and backed by DSA\u2014are running and winning with a frequency that unsettles the Republicans. That discomfort certainly has something to do with ideology. But it could also have something to with the way in which democratic socialists in New York and other communities are bringing energy and ideas to a Democratic Party that has struggled to identify itself as a bold force for economic policies\u2014taxing the rich, treating healthcare as a right, building affordable housing, making college affordable, and making unions strong\u2014that Americans want.<\/p>\n

Valdez tells interviewers, \u201cDemocratic socialism\u2026is about expanding our democracy so it\u2019s not just voting once every two or four years. It\u2019s about how we\u2019ve organized together for ourselves and for our families and our neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n

That expansive and empowering vision of democratic socialism is not new. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the nation\u2019s most prominent democratic socialist, who will be rallying in New York on Thursday night with Valdez and Mamdani (as well as progressive congressional candidates Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier), has long argued, \u201cWe must recognize that in the 21st century, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, economic rights are human rights. That is what I mean by democratic socialism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as President Franklin Roosevelt once proposed an \u201ceconomic bill of rights\u201d for the United States, so Sanders and Mamdani and Valdez speak of economic rights today. And, no matter how much the Republican National Committee rages about the candidacy of a democratic socialist in New York City, voters are listening with interest and enthusiasm. \u201cI think [Mamdani\u2019s 2025 mayoral race] demonstrated that there is a broad constituency that is maybe open, more than we previously thought, to a democratic socialist vision for an affordable New York, for a just and equitable society, in which people\u2019s real material needs are foregrounded against corporate interests,\u201d explains Valdez. \u201cAnd that is very obviously inspiring to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The Bari Weiss Problem at CBS<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nClaire Valdez Is Making All the Right Enemies - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=352\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Claire Valdez Is Making All the Right Enemies - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=352\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-17T14:44:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=352#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=352\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"Claire Valdez Is Making All the Right Enemies\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-17T14:44:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=352\"},\"wordCount\":1150,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=352#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/6e29ac17a32c571b299d2e45b2ceecf5.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=352#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=352\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=352\",\"name\":\"Claire Valdez Is Making All the Right Enemies - 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