The victories were a clear rebuke of Trump’s politics, but also a referendum on the Democratic party’s own centrism that is complicit in the violence of masked men hunting immigrants, the funding of a genocide and the denial of healthcare to citizens of the world’s wealthiest country.

…Hakeem Jeffries, who is running for speaker of the House, will not commit to holding a vote on abolishing ICE. He opposes Medicare for All. He has said he will not hold Trump accountable for the human rights violations committed, portraying it as a question of “getting even” rather than achieving justice where it was denied. Chuck Schumer, who holds similar positions, has an extraordinarily low approval rating – yet plans to run for majority leader in the Senate. Electeds are questioning whether these men should hold these roles.

But the dissent must also come from us, as it has been. We need to demand an end to the fast violence of guns on our streets trained on our neighbors, bombs dropped from the sky and the slow violence of people dying because their healthcare was denied or their food stamps were cut.

We need to organize, and mobilize, to demand the multi-racial democracy we were promised – not a playground for the rich to get richer on the time and labor and lives of the poor.

The blue wave, while a rebuke of Trump’s policies, was also a referendum on the party’s status quo