From Blue Wave to Midnight Meltdown: The Surrender Caucus steals the show
A historic blue wave handed Democrats a series of tremendous wins on November 4th. The party finally had a message: Save Healthcare. Tow the line. Then the Surrender Caucus gave it all away.
Last Tuesday was supposed to be Democratic Party’s biggest highlight of the month. And for a moment, a brilliant, shining moment, it was. Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist from Queens, didn’t just win. He demolished the machine, crushing both Andrew Cuomo’s grotesque comeback attempt and the entire corporate establishment in a landslide that would have made FDR proud. The 34-year-old democratic socialist became NYC’s first Muslim mayor with over one million votes in near-record turnout.
Across the country, working Americans stood up. Spanberger crushed Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia by the widest Democratic margin since 1961. Mikie Sherrill broke a 60-year pattern in New Jersey, marking the first time the same party won the governorship three terms in a row. In Georgia, Democrats shattered decades of Republican dominance. In Pennsylvania, they beat back the billionaire class’s judicial takeover.
This wasn’t just winning. This was the Democratic base demanding. A party that puts workers first, that puts Wall Street in their place, that fights for the forgotten. The people spoke with clarity: We want real Democrats. Fighting Democrats. Democrats who don’t take orders from elite donors.
And what did the establishment do with this mandate? They sold it to the highest bidder.
The Great Betrayal: How Eight Corporate Democrats Abandoned the New Deal
Just days after this electoral earthquake, eight Democratic senators - who we like to call “The Surrender Caucus” (Tim Kaine, Jeanne Shaheen, Maggie Hassan, Angus King, John Hickenlooper, Catherine Cortez Masto, Jacky Rosen, and Dick Durbin) voted with Republicans to advance a government funding bill without securing ACA subsidy extensions.
Let’s be absolutely clear: Those enhanced subsidies, used by millions of Americans, expire at the end of December if Congress doesn’t extend them. Premiums will double. Families will choose between medicine and meals. Americans will die because they can’t afford to live.
And these eight senators, these corporate puppets wearing Democratic masks, decided that was acceptable. They traded 22 million people’s healthcare for a promise of a future vote. Not iron-clad legislation. Not a binding agreement. A pinky promise. From Republicans who’ve spent 40 days holding America hostage.
Senator Tim Kaine claimed this was about “protecting federal workers”, as if you protect workers by letting their healthcare costs explode in just a few weeks. This is what happens when Democrats take corporate money: they learn to speak in focus-grouped lies.
Schumer must go. Every corporate Democrat who chose donors over voters needs to face a primary from a real Democrat: a democratic socialist who won’t back down, who won’t take their money, who remembers what this party is supposed to fight for.
The FDR Democrats Are Taking Over
Trump’s response to Mamdani’s victory was revealing: he called him a “communist” and threatened to withhold federal funds from NYC. Perfect. Let him show America what we’re up against. Let him prove that the choice is between FDR Democrats who fight for working people and fascists (and their apologists) who serve billionaires.
Because here’s what terrifies them: Mamdani didn’t win by moving to the center. He mobilized tens of thousands of volunteers, won endorsements from Bernie Sanders and AOC, and built the largest NYC mayoral coalition since 1969. His platform was pure economic populism: freeze rents, free public transit, and public grocery stores to break corporate monopolies. This is the blueprint. Not begging corporate Democrats for scraps, but building a movement of working people. Not negotiating with extremists, but defeating them with bold, popular programs that transform lives.
The establishment thinks we’ll give up. They think we’ll get tired, get comfortable, accept their corporate-approved incrementalism. They couldn’t be more wrong. The base is fired up. The coalition is growing. And we’re coming for every seat held by Democrats who forgot they work for the people.
The shutdown dragged on for 40+ days. Republicans manufactured this crisis to hurt working Americans. And instead of using our fresh electoral mandate to fight back, to be the party of Roosevelt, of Johnson, of fighters, eight Democrats handed the extremists everything they wanted.
This betrayal will not stand. Every Democrat who voted to abandon the healthcare fight now has revealed themselves. And lets be honest here - are we suddenly going to expect Republicans to “do the right thing?” after the maximum position of leverage we had has now gone away? When have they EVER done the right thing?
Centrists have chosen surrender today over some perceived chance to fight, tomorrow. But here’s what they don’t understand: The blue wave that crested on beaches from New York to Virginia last week? That was just the first surge. And the democratic socialism in that water is warm.
Out there, beyond the breakers, a tsunami of Mamdani’s, Crocketts, and AOC’s is building. Every centrist betrayal adds to its power. Every corporate capitulation feeds its strength. Every American denied healthcare, denied dignity, denied the democracy they voted for: they’re all joining the wave.
And when it crashes onshore in 2026, it won’t just sweep away Republicans. It will wash out every corporate Democrat who forgot what this party stands for. It will carry in a new generation of FDR Democrats: fighters who don’t back down, who don’t take corporate money, who remember that we’re supposed to be the party that welcomes hatred from the powerful because we fight for the powerless.
The tsunami is coming. A new Democratic Party is being born. And this time, we’re not asking permission.