Letter: It’s Time for the Democrats to Move Left

The following letter was sent to the Amherst Democratic Town Committee on September 18, 2026.

I am looking forward to political discussion at our meetings. We are all Democrats, but that doesn’t mean that we are satisfied with the party’s stance on everything.  I am greatly disappointed by the party’s shift to the right since Nixon’s victory over McGovern in 1972. I want to move the party back to the left, as signified by Bernie Sanders’ campaigns and our own Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren.

Bernie Sanders’ success with voters has shown that the nation is ready to consider this. And a lot of Democrats are moving in that direction. Our Revolution, the Sanders campaign’s ongoing survival, is pushing for it, and it’s becoming increasingly filled with examples from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zoran Mamdani in New York, to Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. And Ro Khanna in California and Greg Casar (a Latino in Texas), Ilhan Omar (in Minnesota), “Chuy” Garcia (in Illinois), and Pramila Jaypal (in Washington), to name only a few. And our own very fine Jim McGovern!

All of these people are saying some version of Medicare for all! And blocking offensive weapons to Israel, and the Climate Catastrophe is looming now.

We have allowed the Democratic Party to become a status-quo-barely-left-of-the-Republicans effort. Biden’s otherwise fine economic policies were so uninterested in the struggles of people at the bottom that many of them thought the Republican Billionaire scofflaw might do better for them. Or at least couldn’t do worse.

I believe Obama (who gave us Biden) was right with his promise of no foolish wars and his effort to get health care for many near the bottom. We remember him, as we should, for demonstrating that a Black man could be elected in America today, and for being such a model of Dignity and Reason that we will always have his image next to Trump’s to show what a failure Republican pro-business Billionairism is.

Obama showed the way to our most powerful immediate issue of healthcare before bankruptcy, before he failed to hold the banks and bankers responsible for the Mortgage Crisis that was settled totally on the backs of our poorest!

We must never lose sight of the housing crisis as totally a class issue.   

It is shameful to live in a fabulously wealthy nation where millions receive inadequate or no health care, housing, or food.

This is not far to the left of Elizabeth Warren or Ed Markey.

Gary Michael Tartakov

Gary Michael Tartakov is a resident of Amherst.

Image: Nano Banana and Depositphotos.com