Echoes of the Left

The quest for power and power politics drove the United States government shutdown Wednesday. It’s as simple as that, given what we’re seeing within the Democratic organization and its current “family crisis.”

Republicans argue the stalemate and shutdown is less about policy and funding issues that lead the news, and more about Democratic leadership, or lack thereof, and the crucial midterm elections next year. Democrats are fighting to take back the House of Representatives and hoping for the trifecta, while bickering among themselves. 

Meanwhile, the progressive or left wing of the party expects their agenda and street corner politics to tilt the House in their direction and push aside current leaders. And if successful with leftist wins this year in gubernatorial races and the 2026 midterms, the future of the Democratic Party will be in the hands of the likes of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-declared independent socialist, and Sanders’s new BFF, the noisy New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

Ocasio-Cortez and a surprising few other left-wing Democrats have been on the rise since 2018, but accelerated in the past year, likely due to the Biden presidency and loss of power. 

And there is no challenge to their influence. Democrats appear to have no strong leader and no one has emerged from the center to take hold of a party that lost the last presidential election and just shut the government down. 

The Republicans control the White House, Senate, and House and mostly stay together; but across aisle, we’re looking at a “family crisis” — the centrist Democrats versus the progressives who now number about 100 with growing influence, and are more combative than before.  

Now they have a mayoral candidate in New York City, Zohran Mamdani, who calls himself a democratic socialist. His critics cite past statements that sound more, well, Marxist.

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez’s wildly enthusiastic support of the mayoral candidate foreshadows what’s to come in other races. Interesting is the fact that neither Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer nor House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both from New York, endorsed Mamdani. Yet.

Amidst all this, Ocasio-Cortez indicated she “may” run for Schumer’s Senate seat two years from now, which may have contributed to the Senate leader pushing the progressive agenda during the resolution debate. If the Left continues to gain power and influence, we’re likely to see a leftward swing throughout the Democratic Party. 

Closer to home, we have liberal-left dominance of the Bucks County Democratic Party, a shift that’s been coming for years. 

Recently, national politics hit the county when Republican Bucks Sheriff Fred Harran entered into an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement which was opposed by Bucks County Democratic Commissioners Diane Ellis-Marseglia and Bob Harvie, who said the sheriff had no “authority” to effect the ICE partnership.

The left-wing American Civil Liberties Union, effectively acting as a surrogate for the county commissioners, is in court at this writing in an attempt to stop the agreement with ICE. Harran, who now faces reelection, awaits the court decision which is expected before the November 4 election.  

Next year, Commissioner Harvey is expected to run for Congress against incumbent Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, a centrist Republican. 

The official Bucks County Democrats are leaning more to the left than usual, so that should be interesting. Perhaps a bellwether? 

Pat Wandling hosts Speak Your Piece weekdays at noon on WBCB 1490.