Janeese Lewis George, an avowed socialist and proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, took a commanding lead in Washington, D.C.’s Democratic primary Tuesday night, all but guaranteeing she will be the next mayor of the nation’s capital. As radical as Lewis George’s socialist policies are, however, they should not be thought of as an aberration, as they might once have been. For socialists within the Democratic Party now control the mayor offices of New York, Chicago, and Seattle, and are poised to take over Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The Democratic Party has become the party of socialism.
Lewis George’s record and policy proposals are cartoonishly bad. At a time when Washington’s economy is shrinking, its budget deficits growing, and its downtown office vacancy crisis worsening, Lewis George wants to create a new business activity tax. The levy is designed to reach law firms, lobbying shops, consulting firms, and other professional services partnerships that operate in Washington but avoid the city’s unincorporated business tax because their owners live outside the district. Lewis George claims the tax would raise $500 million, but its likelier effect would be to drive hundreds of successful firms out of the capital and across the Potomac into Virginia, further hollowing out Washington’s struggling commercial core.
In addition to weakening Washington’s economy, Lewis George proposes dismantling the city’s IMPACT education reforms, which are a bright spot in an otherwise dysfunctional government. IMPACT improved Washington’s schools by testing students, rewarding good teachers with bonuses, and removing bad ones from the classroom. Teachers unions hate the policy because it makes them accountable for doing their jobs effectively. With union support backing her campaign, Lewis George has agreed to end it.
Her instinct to be soft on crime is just as alarming. Before joining the council, Lewis George promised she would “absolutely divest from MPD” and put money into violence-interruption programs instead. As a mayoral candidate, she opposed teen curfew zones despite violent youth mobs terrorizing neighborhoods such as Navy Yard. She called curfews “dangerous” and argued instead for expanded youth programs, (i.e., more spending). Most revealingly, when U.S. Marshals arrested a fugitive murder suspect in Mount Pleasant after he allegedly skipped court and let his GPS monitor die, Lewis George said the arrest amounted to federal agents “harassing people.” In other words, Lewis George is a fool and a leftist bigot, and is not someone remotely capable or willing to make Washington safe.
A political party should not be judged by the outcome of one mayoral race, especially in a city overshadowed by national politics as much as Washington is. But Lewis George is not an outlier within her party. She is part of a much larger trend. First the DSA-backed Brandon Johnson won in Chicago. Then Zohran Mamdani in New York City and Katie Wilson in Seattle. Now Lewis George in Washington and Nithya Raman in LA are poised to win their general elections this November. All the energy in the Democratic Party is on the radical socialist Left. They are winning all the elections.
The results have been ugly wherever socialist Democrats have taken power. In Chicago, Johnson has completed only 571 affordable units while committing hundreds of millions of dollars more to housing schemes. At the same time, he pushed through an $830 million bond deal that allows the city to make interest-only payments until 2045, saddling future taxpayers with a $2 billion bill.
In New York City, Mamdani has stooped to similar accounting shenanigans, stealing money from union pension funds to meet his fanciful spending plans. In Seattle, after Wilson urged residents to boycott Starbucks in solidarity with striking baristas, the coffee giant announced a $100 million investment in Nashville expected to create 2,000 jobs. Wilson’s response to fears that high taxes will drive millionaires away was to snigger “like, bye.”
ENDING LA’S HOMELESS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Democrats can no longer dismiss socialism as a fringe tendency inside their coalition. It is winning primaries, taking mayor offices, shaping budgets, empowering unions, weakening police, and driving businesses away from great cities. Lewis George is not an exception to the modern Democratic Party. She is its next logical step and what is becoming the rule.
Perhaps after President Donald Trump leaves office, Democrats will recover the political will to defend their party and move to the center. But for now, they are not just flirting with socialism but embracing it.