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Welcome to another episode of The Vast Majority. I'm Jack Evan Deputy Editor, Micah U-Trick.

Today's episode is from an event I recently moderated between several Chicago City Council members, who are also members of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the half-dozen DSA New York City City Council candidates.

I was happy to host this conversation between DSA City Council members and City Council aspirants in Chicago and New York respectively, because the two cities are probably the furthest developed in terms of establishing an electoral beachhead for socialists in America.

In America, Chicago, of course, has half a dozen City Council members, who are members of DSA, several of whom have appeared on this podcast in the past.

New York City has made incredible gains at the state and federal level, of course, with folks like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamal Bowman in the House, and a slate of New York City DSA members, who recently were elected into the state legislature.

The election of the half-dozen candidates that New York City DSA has endorsed for the City Council would make a really nice addition to that spate of folks who are in elected office.

So I hosted a conversation between the two cities. The three City Council members from Chicago are Daniel Lasbada, who is Alderman of the First Ward, Jeanette Taylor, who is Alderman of the 20th Ward, and Byron Sigil Lopez, who is Alderman of the 25th Ward.

The New York City City Council candidates are Tiffany Caban, who is running for District 22, Justlene Kour, who is running for District 23, Adolfo Obreu, running for District 14, Michael Hollingsworth, who is running for District 35, brand in West, who is running for District 39, and Alexa Abiles, who is running for District 38.

The New York has seen an incredible amount of action at the federal and state level. I obviously don't have to remind people of who someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is, or what she has done, the political space that she's opened up, it's almost comparable to the effect that Bernie Sanders' two campaigns have had on our politics.

Certainly, among many other things, good things that her winning seat in Congress has done, it's opened up a huge amount of left-wing political space in the United States, as well as her being joined by Jamal Bowman.

And of course, we're in the middle of a, it's still unclear what exactly is going to happen at the state level in New York, where things have really been thrown into turmoil in recent weeks, and people are even talking about Governor Andrew Cuomo, possibly resigning.

And yet again, this is not solely something that's happened as a result of DSA agitation, it's been a broad left effort that has really pushed, put the pressure on Andrew Cuomo, but DSA members who are in the state legislature have played a very important role in making that happen.

So in both of these cities, we have this space that is opening up, this left-wing space that didn't exist even just a couple of years ago, and I don't think we haven't found the edge of what's possible for us to achieve in electoral politics.

Electoral politics, of course, as we all know, folks who are members of DSA are aware that's not the only way that we aim to make change in society, but it is a really key way.

And we're going to hear from folks in both Chicago and New York about what they've been able to achieve and what their dreams are, what they are hoping to achieve in the months and years to come.

So we have quite a few people on this call, both candidates and sitting elected officials.

So I'm going to have to be a little rude and ask folks to introduce themselves when it's your turn to talk, because otherwise we would spend about like 15 minutes just doing interest.

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