# Why Tom Slater thinks DSA candidates have a limited coalition

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/why-tom-slater-thinks-dsa-candidates-have-a-limited/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Tom Slater](https://realalpha.app/people/tom-slater/) · Editor, Spiked · Edits spiked and co-hosts its Last Orders podcast, covering politics, culture and free speech.
- Host: [Konstantin Kisin](https://realalpha.app/people/konstantin-kisin/)
- Host: [Francis Foster](https://realalpha.app/people/francis-foster/)
- Show: TRIGGERnometry
- Episode: [France Riots - Are We Next? - Off The Fence](https://realalpha.app/v/7FbRRPIEXVA/), Oct 23, 2026
- Moment: 54:45 to 57:10 of the episode (2 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/why-tom-slater-thinks-dsa-candidates-have-a-limited/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/7FbRRPIEXVA/?t=3285

## Quote

> “you could cobble together a kind of mamdani style coalition and that's going to **work in some places** but it's not going to work in many others”
> — [Tom Slater](https://realalpha.app/people/tom-slater/) at [56:23](https://realalpha.app/v/7FbRRPIEXVA/?t=3383) · TRIGGERnometry

## Takeaways

1. He says the economy gives the left a potential opening.
2. He argues newer DSA figures remain tied to identity politics.
3. He expects a Mamdani-style coalition to work in some places, not many.

## About this segment

Tom Slater argues that economic concerns give the left an opening, but that DSA candidates' ties to identity politics and Palestinian activism may limit their reach. He expects a Mamdani-style coalition to work in some places, but not many others.

From “France Riots - Are We Next? - Off The Fence”, Oct 23, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/7FbRRPIEXVA/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[54:51](https://realalpha.app/v/7FbRRPIEXVA/?t=3291) normal mainstream politics i think that's an interesting point because anything could happen the economy is the issue now which is something which naturally the left could potentially clean up on feed off those dissatisfactions and so everything is to play for and there's various figures in the mix here i mean there was some of the kind of painfully woke democratic candidates like almost comically so i think there was a governor's race somewhere where the the would-be candidate in the primary thought that thanksgiving should be cancelled um and that she even felt slightly uncomfortable with her the existence of a mixed race son like that those people didn't quite make the cut and the ones who did you kind of abdul al-sayed's in the michigan senate race and whatever are dodgy figures for reasons that we can get into but are much smarter know that

[55:33](https://realalpha.app/v/7FbRRPIEXVA/?t=3333) you need to play a certain a different tune if you want to get a hearing from the public um that said in general it's a sort of achilles heel of this whole kind of democratic socialist of america aligned section of the democratic party now is that during the time sort of a bernie sanders challenge to hillary clinton it was kind of much more authentically just kind of old-fashioned class politics he would even quite um explicitly call out identity politics and say that i don't care if a ceo The show is Hispanic or black or whatever. Fundamentally, there's an inequality that needs to be addressed. This newer generation, like AOC onwards, are up to their necks in this stuff. They occasionally like to pretend that the wokeness, you know, woke one, as AOC famously referred to it, was just a sort of blip. People got a bit carried away, but they still hold all of those prejudices. They've also grafted onto it all of the kind of Palestinianism madness as well, which is going to activate a section of society.

[56:28](https://realalpha.app/v/7FbRRPIEXVA/?t=3388) you know you could cobble together a kind of mamdani style coalition and that's going to work in some places but it's not going to work in many others so i guess it's how much has trump's um you know deeds and misdeeds as it were degraded his level of support made that those kind of numbers of independents who might occasionally swing towards him on certain economic or cultural issues or what have you think twice but i do think that hopefully at least there's a bit of a ceiling on what those dsa people can do because as much as they're trying to put up a better um more class-based front these days underneath the surface you've got all manner of kind of islamo-leftist tendencies which will come out one way or another well that is us for this week i have uh some