John Judis Has Advice for Young Leftist Mayors in Blue Cities like New York and Seattle

Author, journalist, and political analyst John B. Judis cut his political teeth in the (briefly) ascendant New Left politics of the late 1960s and early 1970s. A member of Students for a Democratic Society until 1969, a founding member in 1971 of the New American Movement (a predecessor organization to today’s Democratic Socialists of America), and a founder of the rad left journal Socialist Revolution, Judis had a bird’s eye view of why that previous generation of leftists flamed out before getting anywhere near achieving their lofty goals for a transformation of American society. 

Now a new generation of younger, energized progressives and democratic socialists is leading a resurgent leftism in blue cities. Boston and Chicago have ardently progressive mayors; New York and Seattle just elected self-described socialists to take the reins of municipal governance, a development that would have been all but unthinkable just a decade ago. And John Judis, currently a contributing editor at Talking Points Memo and previously a senior writer at National Journal and The New Republic (and a co-author of two books with recent BCB guest Ruy Teixeira), has some wisdom to impart to this New New Left. 

In our conversation, Judis argues that while the rising college-educated urban left may not be the old industrial proletariat, it should nonetheless legitimately be considered a new working class of younger people “proletarianized” by automation and AI. And he says they are responding to their increasingly precarious material conditions and their decreasing control over their working conditions by driving this new push for class-based change. But Judis warns them not to run too far down a radical path.

He advises this new crop of leftist leaders to focus instead on “bread and butter” economic issues and avoid the “culture trap” of taking extreme social positions or imposing endless litmus tests that shrink and marginalize the movement. As we discuss American leftism then and now, Judis recalls the “religious frenzy” of performative radicalism that derailed the New Left in his youth as something that the new generation must strive to avoid.

Our editor is Quinn Waller. 

Outside sources:

John B. Judis, “A Warning from the ‘60s Generation,” Washington Post, January 21, 2020.

John B. Judis, “The Left’s Project Has Just Begun,” Compact, December 5, 2025.

John B. Judis, The Socialist Awakening: What’s Different Now About the Left, Columbia Global Reports (2020).

John B. Judis, "The Feminist Revolution and the Democratic Party," American Affairs, Volume IX, Number 3 (Fall 2025). 

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