If the unexpected success of Zohran Mamdani in the race for New York City’s mayor has proven anything, it’s that we—the working class—need to stage a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party.

Because right now, the millionaire leadership of the Democratic Party is wildly out of step with its base—and with just about every working-class American I know.

We need to do to the Democratic Party what Donald Trump and MAGA did to the Republicans (you know, without the fascism).

On Sunday, House Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries dismissed Mamdani despite him now holding the record for most votes ever in a New York City primary. Despite that historic victory, Jeffries told CNN that he doesn’t see Mamdani as the future of the party.

Jeffries is just the latest in a string of corporate-backed Democrats refusing to accept Mamdani and the growing chorus of outraged working-class Americans he represents.

Fellow multimillionaire and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has refused to endorse Mamdani, and couldn’t get away from the lectern fast enough when a journalist asked him if he would even vote for his party’s nominee earlier this week.

Other prominent Democrats have also refused to back Mamdani: No former Democratic president has endorsed him (from Clinton to Biden), nor has Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi. Each of those leaders is a multimillionaire.

What the leadership of our party is doing in refusing to endorse Mamdani is also refusing to acknowledge that America’s economic and government systems are fundamentally broken.

I point out that all of the above politicians are multimillionaires because it demonstrates that while the system is broken for us, it’s working just fine for them—so of course they don’t want it changed.

The vast majority of Americans feel differently. In the days before the 2024 election, a New York Times/Siena College poll found that 58% of voters believed that the nation’s financial and political systems needed major changes or a complete overhaul.

To me, that was the canary in the coal mine for Kamala Harris. With numbers like that, I knew that the fascist promising to burn it all down was sure to outperform the “moderate” promising small-business tax credits. Sadly, I was right.

What the Democratic leadership refuses to acknowledge—much less promise to change—is that America right now is in a state of ruin.

We live in the richest country in the history of the world—but 60% of us live paycheck to paycheck. Nearly half of all Americans have put off medical treatment because they can’t pay for it. And it seems like every day, somebody is sending us the link to a GoFundMe to help get through a period of unemployment or pay for a funeral.

What does it say about “the land of opportunity” that so many people can’t even afford to die?

At the same time, workers see not only an economic system that’s enslaved them, but a political system that is merely performative, where the person with the biggest checkbook always gets what they want. When you can’t afford rent, healthcare, or childcare—what does it matter if we get to vote for the better of two evils?

What this all boils down to is simple: we need to take back control of the party that’s supposed to be representing and fighting for us.

The multimillionaire leaders of our party—from Bill Clinton to Hakeem Jeffries to Chuck Schumer—aren’t on our side. They are our enemy—and they should be purged from the Democratic Party.

Donald Trump, the MAGA movement, and the original Tea Party movement have been instructive in this. Anybody who dares question the new party orthodoxy—an orthodoxy I find abhorrent by the way—is now fully exiled and expelled from the entire party’s apparatus.

Imagine if we did the same to capitalists in the Democratic Party? Anybody who opposed universal health care—or childcare—or the abolishment of Wall Street speculation on essential human services—would be completely ostracized, cut off, and ridiculed from the Democratic Party mainstream.

Start with tactics: primary them. Run challengers. Win precinct committee seats. Force endorsements to reflect membership, not wealth. Fund working-class campaigns. Organize neighborhood meetings where policies matter more than donor lists.

If we do this—loudly, relentlessly, ruthlessly—the Democratic Party can again mean something for the millions who have been ignored. It will be messy, rude, and glorious. That’s the point. Primary warfare, but organized. Ostracism, but principled. A hostile takeover, but democratic.

The good news is, we’re more than halfway there. The vast majority of Democratic voters already agree with all that—it’s our multimillionaire leaders who don’t.

And that’s why it’s past time to stage a hostile takeover, and force the wealthy, parasitic elite from the party of the working class.