Darializa Chevalier and the Left’s Tea Party Moment

There are famously nine Greek Muses, those classically feminine embodiments of inspiration in the creative arts. There was Terpsichore (dance), Clio (history), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry), etc. — the full range of artistic expression available to man, both then and now. To them we must now add a tenth: Darializa, the Muse of fully automated luxury communism.

For the professional cynic in me is positively inspired by the obscene absurdity of last night’s upset Democratic primary winner in New York’s 13th congressional district: the Mamdani-endorsed and spectacularly three-named Darializa Avila Chevalier. She is a career activist, police/prison abolitionist, open-borders fanatic, Hamas booster, and America-loathing communist. And that’s just the start.

Readers probably already know that Chevalier is a Democratic Socialist, without knowing what specifically that means beyond “wild-eyed, radical leftist.” So I cannot wait for every Democrat in the 120th Congress next year to be asked to answer for Chevalier’s many, many, many outrageous and outright bigoted statements over the years. (Credit where due: Many of these were unearthed back in late May/early June by the New York Post as well as inveterate archive-hound Andrew Kaczynski over at CNN.) It turns out that dear Darializa is not just your everyday “working-class Afro-Latina” — she’s a rabid true believer. A few select quotes and thoughts:

• “F*** you. We’re gonna defund and abolish [the police]. You don’t get to water down our movements.”
• “No. It means ending policing full stop. Period. No. more. police. at. all. ever. it’s very harmful to the work Black abolitionists have been doing for decades to dilute this movement.”
• “A world without borders — just like a world without prisons or police — is possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward.”
• “Abolish the border.”
• “All deportation is wrong.”
• “I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my face on the American flag behind me.”

Elsewhere she casually accused both black and Arab men of being race traitors for “fetishizing ugly colonizer women.” Some people deny Israel’s right to exist, but when asked in August of 2020 how she would react if Israel ceased to exist, Chevalier outwitted her social media opponent: “Trick question — Israel doesn’t exist!” During that same period, she accused Joe Biden of being both a “rapist” and a “war criminal” (and you thought National Review was hard on him).

We’re not done yet! According to the New York Times, Chevalier is also a kooky crank on top of being a psychopathically ideological fanatic:

She also amplified an assertion that the coronavirus originated in France, not the Wuhan province of China, and wrote in 2022 that Russia invaded Ukraine because the United States had “been bullying Russia” since the Cold War ended. And she mocked Israeli soldiers who cut their hair to create wigs for cancer patients in Gaza.

Chevalier has responded that she said most of these things back when she was recklessly, irresponsibly young — five years ago, to be exact. And now she’s headed to Washington, D.C., probably forever! If you thought Jamaal Bowman and AOC were “way out there,” get ready for an NYC delegation featuring by far the most extreme leftist ever elected to federal office. (Keep in mind, I’m old enough to remember Sheila Jackson Lee.)

So weirdly enough, I sort of love her as well. She’s the Democrats’ problem, not mine — not yet, at least. I miss sassy Jasmine Crockett, after all, and we’ll not soon gaze upon the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene again — so why shouldn’t Darializa become my new muse?

Every single modern pathology of the activist left (including underemployment) has somehow managed to apotheosize in the single person of Chevalier — making her, in her own way, the Kwisatz Haderach of progressive evolution: the all-encompassing, antimatter inversion of everything I have ever believed in. She is impressively abhorrent, with no political redeeming qualities whatsoever — the purest expression possible of everything I have ever felt moved to write about or speak out against. When you understand how perversely fascinated I am by self-destructive political celebrities, perhaps you begin to understand why I’m prepared to follow this new Muad ‘Dib into battle — but only to mop up the blood and entrails afterwards.

Chevalier is more than mere entertainment to me, however; she represents what happens when the Democratic version of the Tea Party hits their establishment completely unawares. I’ve waited over a decade and a half now for the Democrats to be seized with their own Tea Party moment — precisely because I take the long view on such party spasms: While it temporarily invigorated the GOP, it soon spun itself into the vulgarly irredentist populism that ultimately produced Trump.

Now the Democrats have an analogous rebellion on their hands, and are losing primaries in similar fashion: to extremists who threaten to dictate the tone of the party for years to come, when not flushing away winnable races. (This was a problem for the GOP in 2010 and may well be one for the Democrats in 2026.) And this rebellion comes wrapped in antisemitic, lunatic form. (I can almost imagine Chevalier sneering “What did y’all think Democratic Socialism meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays? Losers.”). So one can only wonder: What rough beast now slouches forth from the depths of New York, waiting to be born?

In the wake of last night’s DSA romp in New York, former Democratic National Committee head Jaime Harrison wrote a cryptic subtweet: “I say this with no ill will or animosity: if you hate the Democratic Party, then please don’t run for our nomination.  Don’t use our resources. Don’t rely on our volunteers. Don’t use our infrastructure. Don’t ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign.  Focus on building the party you actually support.” But Democratic Socialists aren’t stupid. They know, as Donald Trump does, that it’s far easier to cannibalize an existing party than it is to build something yourself.