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Progressivism, socialism and communism historically have run progressively forward on the same ideological track. Here in the United States, progressivism was, among turn of the 20^th century Democrats, a moderate to liberal answer to socialism.

Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, the father of fascism, were at the beginning of their political careers energetic socialists. Progressive President Woodrow Wilson, students of history will recall, was responsible for tossing Eugene Debs in jail when the avowed socialist was impudent enough to run for president. In his acceptance speech as the Democrat Party’s primary choice for mayor of the Big Apple, socialist Zohran Mamdani quoted Debs approvingly and swore eternal enmity against President Donald Trump, successfully painted by Democrats as a menacing authoritarian, though decidedly not a socialist.

Anti-Trumpism has been a useful foil for state and national Democrats in off-year presidential elections, but the foil will be sheathed when Trump, despite his braggadocio, leaves office on January 20, 2029.

“Then what?” some Democrats are asking.

Here in Connecticut, Governor Ned Lamont offered a soft-shell assessment of Mamdani’s mayoral Democrat primary victory in New York City: “Look, New York’s success is our success. It’s the global financial capital of the world,” said Lamont, whose Greenwich hometown is an epicenter for commuters to Wall Street and hedge funds that remain closer to home. “I look forward to working with Mayor Mamdani and seeing how we can work together. … Just calm down. Everybody overreacts. Let’s see how things sort out over the next few months.”

And, according to a Hartford Courant story – CT Dems’ ‘big tent’ delivers big wins. What does it mean for 2026? – Lamont reminded CNN that campaigning is essentially different than governing: “Governing is hard. So, we’ve got to think about the next step, how you govern New York City. Govern, you know, 250,000 employees, $120 billion budget. So, they’ve got to think about that as well… Is he [Mamdani] a mayor who can govern? Part of that’s going to be reaching out to the business community and Wall Street and say, ‘I’m here, you know, to fight for all the people. I know how important you are to the city. But, by the way, I’m doing everything I can to make sure life is a little more affordable for our working families.’”

Former Democrat Party Chairman John Droney cautioned his party: “It was obviously a big night for Democratic candidates, mainly because of all the stuff that Trump has been doing that has been aggravating and making everybody furious – and they got out and voted. However, if I was running the Democratic Party, I’d be happy, but I would be worried because the underlying problems that people have rejected the Democratic brand for still exist and will appear again and will affect elections in the future.” Average liberal Connecticut Democrats are, Droney added, “working every day for a living and are worried about the dollar in their pocketbook. They’re not critical of the military or the police. They like both groups there. Until we find a way to put those groups together, we’re still going to be in trouble.”

Lamont is betting that the office Mamdani will occupy as mayor of the Big Apple will itself teach Mamdani – who is anti-Semitic in principle, a self-confirmed socialist, and an anti-small “d” democrat, so his intolerant extreme Muslim avowals suggest – how to govern as a convivial moderate Democrat who views Republicans as co-equal legislators. Among eupeptic moderate Democrats such as Lamont, liberalism, qualitatively different than socialism, is still a Democrat polity that must be reckoned with. Droney is not convinced that Mamdani-like socialists and traditional Democrat liberals, as different from each other as water and oil, are politically mixable.

“We flipped 29 seats. That is remarkable,” Democratic state chairman Roberto Alves boasted following the state elections. “That is historic. … We had moderate candidates. We had progressive candidates. We are the big-tent party. … We flipped seats like Ansonia, but then we win places like Stratford. We flipped New Britain. So when [Republican gubernatorial candidate] Erin Stewart’s handpicked successor doesn’t win and Mayor-elect Bobby Sanchez does, it sends a message across our state.”

Asked by a veteran reporter for his thoughts on Connecticut’s “move to the left” in the current elections, Lamont – who may or may not run for re-election as governor – temporized: “What’s the move to the left? I mean, I saw two women get elected as governor in New Jersey and Virginia. I’m not sure it was a move to the left or a move to the right. I think you had solid, strong Democrats [in Connecticut] who are going to lead their towns in a way that people felt comfortable with — holding the line on taxes and making investments in education.”

So called “moderate” Connecticut Democrats have often had grave difficulty distinguishing their right from their left, a disability that may disappear altogether when socialism swallows liberalism, whose defenders are increasingly AWOL.

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