Ali Velshi: Democratic Socialists Win Due to U.S. Support for Israel, Generational Gap, and Backing from Older Progressives

EXCERPT:

VELSHI: “But there’s a lot more nuance to why some of these Democratic socialists are actually winning. There are a few things at play here. Number one, outside money. What tends to happen is Democratic socialists share the view of many younger Democrats about U.S. support for Israel, and what tends to happen is the incumbent or the person running against them ends up getting the support of AIPAC and its affiliated groups. So that’s one of the things at play. The other one is generational. As I said, Melat Kiros has not been alive for as long as Diana DeGette has been the member of Congress. We’ve seen that in various races. We saw it in New York’s District 13, where Adriano Espaillat lost to a much younger challenger. We saw it in Texas, where Al Green lost to a much younger challenger. There’s also this internal debate about moderates versus progressives. Obviously, those who are members of or supported by Bernie Sanders or Zohran Mamdani or the Democratic socialists of America are progressives. They’re on the left side of the party versus the moderates. Although I will say Diana DeGette is not thought of as anything other than a progressive. And then fundamentally, there’s this fighters-versus-folders idea, and that may be a lot of the frustration amongst people in the Democratic Party who feel that some of their leadership and their House-endorsed candidates — remember, every incumbent in the Democratic Party is supported by the Democratic Party by default. That is a position that some Democrats feel the party shouldn’t hold. They want the person who they think is going to fight most for them to be elected. The other thing is the Democratic Socialists of America as part of the Democratic Party, when they’re running as Democrats, talk a lot about affordability, which is a — it is the number one concern that people express right now, the dissatisfaction with Donald Trump as president. The dissatisfaction numbers are highest as it comes to his handling of the economy.”