The ‘blue wave’ in the United States is moderate: “There are no hammer and sickle symbols. We’ll win by a landslide,” say the PD reformists

"The broad coalition must not begin with the refrain that the Democrats won because they represent the radical left. There is nothing of the hammer and sickle in these results." PD Senator Sandra Zampa told Il Foglio, commenting on the "blue wave" that swept across the United States last night. Donald Trump has emerged from the mid-term elections battered and bruised, and the Democrats’ victory, the senator explains, is due “to their ability to speak to everyone and to have been inclusive”. This is a view shared by other Democratic figures – from the reformist wing, that is. Take MEP Giorgio Gori, for example: “The Democrats have won everywhere, and with a wide variety of candidates, from radicals to moderates,” he explains. He adds: “There is a socialist movement that is currently thriving and is no longer marginal, but it would certainly be a stretch to claim that this, and this alone, is the new winning formula.” So, no radical left. Or at least, it is not the driving force behind the Democrats’ success in the US, despite the election of a few representatives close to New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

“The Democrats won yesterday because they went back to being Democrats,” says PD Senator Simona Malpezzi. “They responded with pragmatism and concrete solutions to economic and social issues.” A turning point whose “true yardstick is the distancing from the ‘woke’ movement and the positions of Ocasio-Cortez,” adds Senator Filippo Sensi. In his view: “There was no socialist wave. There was a particularly significant condemnation of Israel and its actions in Gaza, but even El-Sayed, for example, did not win on an extremist platform – far from it.”

So, does one win by appealing to the centre? Democratic Party representatives laugh. “Perhaps it’s a bit much to say ‘the centre’, but certainly through diversity. There’s no single template for the candidates,” Zampa adds. “There are the Obamas, the Clintons. There’s a whole world out there.” The important thing, as always, “is to find common ground”. A quality that will also be needed here, within our broad coalition. “Let’s not fall into this trap; it would be ridiculous to compare the American left with our coalition today,” says Zampa. A “silly” comparison, because “over there, there was the strength of a people who mobilised because they were outraged by what they saw. Trump contributed to the victory.” Malpezzi also believes the two left-wing movements “cannot be equated”, because “every country has its own history and its own dynamics”.

There is, however, a lesson to be learnt for our broad – indeed, very broad – coalition. And Gori explains it to us: “This result may help us understand that we must value the different components of coalitions – all of them.” Should the left take its cue from the United States?