US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks during a “Defend the Vote” rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, on August 28, 2026.
(Ken Cedeno / AFP via Getty Images)
We are officially almost at the end of the 2026 election. To reflect back on the crazy twists and turns and the major progressive successes of this cycle, we spoke with Usamah Andrabi, the communications director for Justice Democrats. Justice Democrats is best known as the organization that recruited AOC in 2018, but it’s a lot more than that, and its story is, in a lot of ways, the story of the left’s resurgence over the last few years.
(Note: We recorded this episode a few weeks ago. At first we were concerned about whether a conversation focused largely on how progressives have used primaries to make the Democratic Party better was appropriate for the day before the general election. But then corporate Dem Haley Stevens endorsed MAGA freak Mike Rogers in an attempt to ratfuck Democrats’ US Senate nominee in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed. And we remembered that yes, beating the far right absolutely requires us to defeat the corporate Dems who are far more interested in protecting their billionaire donors than defeating fascism. Let’s beat these MAGA freaks on Tuesday, and then let’s clear out the rot in our party starting Wednesday.)
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