Is the leftist Tea Party finally here?

We can only hope. Go read:

Teachout and Wu are trying to place the citizen at the center of policy. They do that through their proposals for public financing, for antitrust, for social insurance, infrastructure and labor. It’s a callback, not just to 20th century Democratic presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, but to the politics of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other 19th Century anti-monopoly Democrats. Cuomo and de Blasio, though they disagree on how much the middle class should have, place the CEO and the Wall Street banker at the center of policy. For them, it is apparently just fine for Citigroup — rather than the public — to make all key decisions on how to allocate credit in society.

This is not the last election in which populists, with a fully fleshed-out program, begin to take on the people who have dominated Democratic politics for decades. Many people, including the institutional progressive establishment, wish Teachout and Wu would just go away. But elections like this can create power and influence even if the underdog loses, just by creating credible rhetoric and showing there is a hunger for a different kind of policy framework. And if, by some remarkable turn of events, Teachout and Wu manage to come close or even win, that would send shockwaves throughout the entire political establishment. The races and voter pool are obviously quite different, but Eric Cantor, the House Republican leader who lost to populist insurgent Dave Brat despite an apparent 35 point lead in the polls just weeks before the election, showed just how vulnerable an incumbent in this environment can actually be.

That said, the entire establishment is against Teachout and Wu. Though these two are credible figures, they have virtually no institutional support. Liberal figures within the Democratic Party have been getting crushed in primary elections for the last six years. Despite ample reasons for unions, activist groups and liberals to come out for liberalism, it has been the Andrew Cuomos of the world that have been getting liberal votes. Cuomo is even maneuvering to crush the Working Families Party itself, by putting forward a similar party that will draw liberal votes from the WFP and put them under the 50,000 vote threshold required for a New York political party to stay in existence. Cuomo is attempting to ignore Teachout and Wu into submission, and teach liberals to not even think of challenging him again. The odds are he’ll succeed, as Democratic leaders have been succeeding in suppressing liberals for decades. If he does so, the prospects of a Democratic party revolt will remain slim.

Still, populism is always a powerful force, even if it is latent and suppressed by fear. It is why a group of dedicated, principled activists can threaten entrenched interests. Arguments about antitrust, corporate power, unions, infrastructure, democracy and immigrant-run small business are in the DNA of the Democratic Party, even if they have been suppressed for more than two decades. And for that reason, this race is very much worth watching, and could be one of the most important elections of the decade. A Democratic Tea Party may be on our doorstep.