Chevalier Wins, Democrats Panic, and Letitia James Fears Mamdani Has Given Party Its MAGA Moment

Fellow Democrats joined Republicans Wednesday in sounding alarm over the extreme positions espoused by the party’s new nominee for Congress in an Upper Manhattan district.In past posts, some of which have since been deleted, Democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier has called the United States a “f—–g disgrace” and joked that she “forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me.”She has also called to “seize the means of production;” pledged to “defund and abolish” the police; and called for “a world without prisons or police.”“It means ending policing full stop. Period. No more police at all ever,” she wrote in one post.The 32-year-old investigator for a public defender’s office and PhD student defeated a five-term congressman, Adriano Espaillat, by more than 2,000 votes Tuesday in New York’s hotly contested 13th congressional district.The district covers parts of the Bronx and upper Manhattan, including Harlem.Ms. Avila Chevalier, was among a group of progressive nominees who, buoyed by Mr. Mamdani’s endorsement, defeated establishment Democrats including Representative Daniel Goldman and Mr. Espaillat. The political neophyte reportedly had helped launch the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement for the Columbia University Apartheid Divest, or CUAD, which called for “the total collapse of the university structure and American empire itself.”CUAD also called for supporters to “translate” the resilience of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza into “unrest and violence in America.”The New York attorney general, Letitia James, a Democrat, told CNN that she is among a group of political leaders who are “disappointed” in Mr. Mamdani for endorsing candidates like Ms. Avila Chevalier.“Some of the candidates that he has supported are individuals who do not understand the politics of New York City, the cultural differences from district to district, who have not been part of the history and the struggle of some of these districts, and are relatively new to the body politic,” Ms. James said.“All of us are a little frustrated with the Democratic Party,” she added. “But you don’t blow it up. That’s what MAGA has done.”An examination of Ms. Avila Chevalier’s social media history will provide no shortage of ammunition for Republicans seeking to portray the Democrats as radical extremists.Among other things she has retweeted posts calling to “literally abolish the border” and saying “all deportation is wrong.” She accused President Joe Biden of being a “rapist” and slammed Vice President Harris for urging Guatemalan migrants not to travel to the United States in 2021.A New York City councilwoman, Vickie Paladino, a Republican, said on social media Tuesday that Ms. Avila Chevalier’s involvement in CUAD was “grounds to not seat her.”“The oath of office is not some boilerplate formality. It’s a legally binding component of our government, designed specifically to prevent people like Chevalier from holding office in America,” Ms. Paladino said. Much of the anxiety about Ms. Avila Chevalier concerns her extensive history of anti-Israel and anti-Western sentiments. Like Mr. Mamdani before her, Ms. Avila Chevalier’s social media accounts are rife with posts and retweets calling for the abolition of police and borders, and a denial of Israel’s right to exist. As a student at Columbia University, Ms. Avila Chevalier was a member of its Students for Justice in Palestine and organized the 2024 “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at the school. Ms. Avila Chevalier attended a pro-Palestinian rally at Times Square on October 8, 2023, just one day after the deadly terror attacks by Hamas in Israel that killed nearly 1,200 people.Ms. Avila Chevalier comes from a Catholic family and was raised by a single mother in Florida and New York. She recently converted to Islam, saying she realized she wanted to become Muslim after fasting during Ramadan. “I remember being able to articulate that, and then a few days later going to Halaqa, which is like, Quran study, and the Imam said, ‘You know, Allah introduces himself to us as the most gracious and the most merciful,’” Ms. Avila Chevalier recently told City & State. “I remember crying, and being like, ‘Oh, that was the permission that I needed,’” she said. In a 2019 social media post, Ms. Avila Chevalier objected to “Black men [handshake emoji] and Arab men fetishizing ugly colonizer women.”In Tuesday’s primary, Ms. Avila Chevalier outpolled Mr. Espaillat in the wealthier precincts of the 13th congressional district but trailed the incumbent by more than 2,000 votes in the district’s poorer precincts, according to VoteHub data.On X Tuesday evening, the student activist group Columbia Jewish & Israeli Students sarcastically shared its “congratulations” with those who could soon become Ms. Avila Chevalier’s constituents. “Your next congresswoman is the founder of an organization that calls for death to America,” the group said in its post.

Chevalier Wins, Democrats Panic, and Letitia James Fears Mamdani Has Given Party Its MAGA Moment

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