BFour big American cities just put democratic socialists in charge. Fox News posted the tally on X, and the votes are real.
B"Socialist mayors" is a scary headline. What actually happened is two incumbent blowouts over housing costs and homelessness.
BNithya Raman is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, Brian. We don't have to whisper the label.
BI'm not whispering. I'm saying she won by promising to build more housing, not seize the means of production.
BThat's the friendly version. The DSA national board voted fourteen to thirteen not to revoke her endorsement after a fight over Israel and BDS.
BAnd voters still picked her. That tells you the real story—people are furious at Karen Bass after the Palisades Fire and years of housing pain.
BBass won as the steady hand. Then the fire became a competence test, and voters decided she failed it.
BExactly. Raman ran as the outsider even though she already had a city council seat. That's how deep the anger runs.
BShe drew younger voters and Latino voters, Axios says, with an affordability and inequality pitch. That's a coalition, not just a protest vote.
BAnd it's a coalition that fights itself. The DSA board vote shows the Israel-BDS split is sitting right there under the surface.
BSo the label isn't clean. Good. That's the point—when four cities elect these mayors, that internal fight becomes governing.
BWhich is why I keep saying: watch what gets built. Housing permits, not press releases.
BAnd I keep saying: watch the budgets and public safety. DSA-backed mayors have a theory about both.
BSome of those positions will scare away businesses. Let's be honest about that.
BBusinesses are already watching what happens with taxes and regulation. That's the part progressives tend to gloss over.
BSo now it's about business confidence? The voters who put them in office were not asking for a chamber of commerce platform.
BThey weren't. But mayors have to keep jobs in the city. You can't just build housing and ignore the tax base.
BThat's real. Housing plus jobs is the only way this doesn't collapse.
BAt least we found the test. But don't tell me the label doesn't matter.
BNow four of the top twenty biggest American cities have DSA-backed mayors—New York, Seattle, LA, D.C. Combined population around fourteen million.
BRaman beat Bass fifty-two to forty-eight, and the AP says she takes office December fourteenth. That's a real mandate.
BJaneese Lewis George won in D.C. too. That's a statement, not an accident.
BAxios's Russell Contreras says the win puts democratic socialists on track to run some of America's biggest city halls. It'll test whether their housing promises survive governing.
BThat's exactly my point. The test isn't ideology—it's whether they can get anything built.
BNo, come on. The ideology shapes what they'll build, how they'll tax, how they'll police. You can't separate that from the label.
BThe label is the least interesting part. Raman's coalition is left-YIMBY—renter protections plus more homebuilding.
BThat's a fight with the old left, not a march to Moscow. The question is whether this is a blueprint or a warning.
BFair. If they deliver, it'll spread. If they fail, they'll be one-term experiments.
BAnd voters will punish them just like they punished Bass. That's the part the Fox framing misses—it's not a coup, it's a verdict.
BQuick correction though—"gaining control" does sound like a coup. These were elections, and the winners have real mandates.
BTrue. Different world entirely: on Bluesky, a user named Sam is relitigating sanctions on Russia.
BSam posted that the Russian federal budget was planned around sixty dollars a barrel—the same figure as the price cap.
BThe cap is real. The G7 and EU set it in 2022. The budget part, though—that's his claim, not established.
BBut his larger point is worth it. If Russia budgeted around sixty-dollar oil, the cap was designed to squeeze exactly that number.
BMy issue is the cap hasn't stopped Russian barrels from reaching the market, and the war economy is still running.
BSanctions were never going to end the war alone. They're a slow bleed, not a knockout. The post is right to mock the "sanctions don't work" absolutists.
BI'd be careful. The specific budget claim hasn't been verified, and there are workarounds everywhere.
BFine. Verified part: the price cap is real, and the G7 and EU set it. That's not nothing.
BRaised costs, maybe. But did it change Putin's calculus? I don't see it.
BThat's a high bar. No single tool changes a dictator's calculus. You stack them.
BThe stack includes military aid, not just price caps. That's why the ceasefire talks matter more than one budget number.
BFair enough. The cap is one squeeze among many.
BExactly. So we disagree on how much to credit it—not on whether it exists.
BAnd if the budget number ever gets confirmed, I'll revisit my skepticism.
BMe too. For now, the verified part is the price cap itself, and the rest is an open question.