The party has been hijacked by capital. And has been since Clinton at least. As an ancient anarchist, I remember when the Dems held policy positions, but just barely. The party these days is just wealthy folks hoping they can hold norms stable long enough to cash out.
I'm seeing the old party in folks like Mamdani, rallying around policies that actually help working class folks, even if it costs some money to do so.
Persistent anarchy is a utopia in both senses of the word. But "the land of do as you please" certainly would be nice if human nature allowed for it. My concerns with Mamdani and AOC is lots of promises without any plans on how to pass the taxes to pay for them. If we don't pass the taxes to support universal healthcare, but implement it anyway, life will be worse for workers than if we hadn't, eventually. Also, while I don't think US left wing populists are currently likely to turn into authoritarians, power is dangerous. The temptation to fix one more thing before relinquishing it turns into an addiction and you get a Chavez. Though he was a lot more obvious from the start. I always thought the democrats would produce our first autocrat, yet another race they lost.
I think you've identified the symptom, but not the root cause. Democrats are inept. The party lost my vote recently. But it has nothing to do with trans support or gender support, and everything to do with they have calcified into "at least we're not the other guy." There is no platform except, "look at how bad the other party is!"
My evidence for this is Mamdani. He won handily, and he crushed it with young men. And young people in general, but also among middle age people.
Mandani is strongly pro trans. But he's also putting forward a platform of values that people actually care about. Housing, affordability, wages, access to food and healthcare. He's not just "not the other guy", he's focused on painting a picture that resonates with many people.
And he didn't have to abandon trans people to do it.
One clarifying viewpoint (does not counter what you have stated about Mamdani): I don’t believe the democrats were ever too focused on trans rights. The Republicans just do a better job selling woke criticisms and claiming all dems care about is LGBTQ rights. And the lack of a solution from the dems for all the problems Mamdani is addressing, fed that narrative.
I don't believe either that they focused too much on trans rights. But they don't have a clear focus on anything so they are easy to attack on minor issues like trans rights (yes, it's a minor issue only a very small part of the population cares about). And they constantly fall for the bait. They should run on something like Medicare For All and stick to it. Seems whenever they face some resistance they drop the issue.
I'm seeing the old party in folks like Mamdani, rallying around policies that actually help working class folks, even if it costs some money to do so.