I Am an American, a Jew, and a Progressive Democrat. Can I Still Be All Three?

I am an American, a Jew and a
progressive Democrat. In the wake of Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow victory in the Michigan Senate primary and other recent victories for Democratic Socialists, I am finding those identities difficult to reconcile.

I grew up in Greenwich Village and Venice Beach, the son of writers who were ardent Democrats. My first big job after college was working on Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, then working in his White House political affairs office, where my role was basically to help elect Democrats. 

I felt very much at home as a Jew working for President Clinton. I stood on the White House lawn to witness Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat famously shake hands to codify the historic Oslo Accords. I travelled with Clinton to Israel after Rabin was assassinated to attend his funeral. Then I returned to Israel six months later with Clinton to campaign against a brash young conservative firebrand named Benjamin Netanyahu for Prime Minister, whom I have despised for the three decades since that trip. Later, I watched Clinton spend his final months in office engaged in frenzied shuttle diplomacy to forge a lasting peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, which Arafat ultimately rejected. 

The rest, quite literally, is history. 

Bill Clinton’s Democratic Party, which differed in degree but not direction from Barack Obama’s Democratic Party, is quickly becoming a quaint political anachronism. 

I believe that Democrats retaking power is existential for the future of American democracy, the world order and our planet. That’s why I’ve found myself explaining away the rising tide of anti-Israel and antisemitic elements within the party, often supported by the teachers unions which are the party’s biggest financial backers. 

Mamdani’s election was just a bizarre confluence of events in a deep blue city, I’d reassure myself. Nearly half the Democratic Caucus voting to defund Israel was just symbolism since they knew it wouldn’t pass. Graham Platner didn’t know it was a Nazi tattoo. At every turn I’ve tried to give Democrats and Democratic primary voters the benefit of the doubt because all coalitions require compromise.

However, when Michigan Democrats nominated DSA-aligned El-Sayed for Senate, I could no longer look away. He is not himself a DSA member, but his victory reflects a movement whose influence now extends far beyond formal membership.

El-Sayed would in fact vote with Democrats to hold Trump accountable and would support many of the same policies that I support related to universal healthcare, climate change and a host of other progressive issues. But El-Sayed would also vote to defund Israel and further shrink the political real estate for progressive Zionists within the Democratic Party. 

The most extreme rhetoric emerging from DSA and its allies is not merely anti-Israel. At times, it crosses into antisemitism — and increasingly into a rejection of America’s constitutional order. DSA’s official 2026 program calls for drafting a new Constitution to create a “democratic socialist republic.” To some in this movement, the founding document that’s sustained the oldest democracy in the world is the problem, not the solution. 

To be clear, not all DSA members and their allies support the extreme positions of its party platform. But whether they espouse these specific positions or not, they all shift the Overton Window and create the permission structure for them.  

Simply opposing Trump is necessary but not sufficient, despite my disdain for Trump, because El-Sayed also opposes the self-determination of my people and maybe even the founding principles of my country. His attempt the day after the election to reassure Jews comically backfired when he spoke of “the opportunity to break bread with you at Seder.” 

I am clearly not a focus group of one, evidenced by a post-primary Fox poll showing El-Sayed trailing his Republican opponent, despite near hurricane-force political headwinds facing Republicans this cycle. He’s got some work to do, as does the Democratic Party leading up to 2028. 

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama weren’t the two most successful Democratic presidents of my lifetime because they caved to extreme forces. It was precisely because they stood up to them. 

Bill Clinton ran in 1992 as a “New Democrat” — breaking with his party on education reform, welfare reform and free trade. His “Sister Souljah moment” — confronting the activist left at Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition over comments about killing white people — symbolized a willingness to confront his own base and check its most extreme elements.

DSA must become this generation’s Sister Souljah. Any Democrat seeking to lead the party in 2028 should embrace the politics of addition by subtraction and reject any movement seeking to end all aid to Israel and replace America’s constitutional order.

Bill Clinton understood that confronting extremism within your coalition is not betrayal; it is leadership. Democrats should reflect upon Clinton’s example before voters teach them a hard lesson at the ballot box. 

Ben Austin is Education Policy Director at North American Values Institute and former deputy mayor of Los Angeles.