A Coup is Coming. Only the Socialist Left Can Stop It.

MAGA is clear about its intentions to attempt another coup, and the centrist forces at the heart of the Democratic Party have proven that they will be unable to resist it. We need a movement led by the socialist left and a presidential candidate like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to both resist the coup, and move our nation toward a functioning democracy.

The ascendant faction of the Republican Party is organizing to steal the 2028 Congressional and Presidential elections and cement minority rule over all three branches of the government of the United States. The centrist leadership of the Democratic Party is clearly inadequate to the task of stopping them.

Over the next three years, the Left must seize the initiative and lead a broad-based popular mobilization to try to prevent authoritarian rule.

The urgency of forming such a movement makes the 2028 presidential campaign a critical site of intervention for the Left—we need a campaign that both can win the Democratic primary and lead an organized, mobilized popular movement into confrontation with the forces of authoritarianism.

Programmatically, that movement will fail if it is based on an abstract appeal to “democracy” alone: instead, it must be rooted in an ambitious, popular program that connects with working people and is grounded in the reality of our daily lives. In scope, the movement needs a broad base of many millions of people who do not just passively oppose the Trump administration but are prepared to take action to confront it. In terms of structure, that mass base cannot be held together by a thin layer of NGOs or by labor unions (representing only 10% of US workers), but must instead be united by a committed layer of organic leaders across every sector of our society.