Rep. Chris Rabb (D-Philadelphia), Democratic candidate for 3rd Congressional District seat vacates due to retirement Representative Dwight Evansduring a recent podcast interview, he used forceful words when talking about some of his fellow statewide Democrats.
Conversation on the PoliticsPA podcast “Voices of reason– exclaimed the rabbi Senator John Fetterman “sellout” and said it was unfortunate that Pennsylvanians “had to find out who he was after he took office.”
A rabbi who has served in the statehouse since 2016 and has seen Governor Josh Shapiro as a legislator, attorney general and governor, Shapiro also said would not be acceptable to the Democratic Socialists as a presidential candidate.
“His policies are not consistent with democratic socialism,” Rabb said. “But there are very few viable presidential candidates who do this. So the question is not so much who would the Democratic Socialists support, but who is the most viable Democratic presidential candidate? Who can be held to the highest billing?”
Rabb, a self-described Democratic Socialist, is one of the success stories of the last election, in which the faction also scored victories in the mayoral elections of the three largest US cities: Zohran Mamdani (New York), Katie Wilson (Seattle) i Janeese Lewis (Washington). Three members of the Democratic establishment also fell victim to Democratic Socialists in the New York and Colorado primaries.
“I think the Democratic Party is ideologically diverse, just like the Republican Party used to be,” Rabb said when asked about democratic socialism. “You have liberals who are Democrats. You have conservatives or blue dog Democrats. You have people like me who believe that government needs to play a bigger and more significant role in dealing with what we believe are human rights issues, not just issues that can be won through legislation. Whether it’s housing or education, our approach is different.”
“I think the other thing we acknowledge is that in our current system, our electoral process has been hijacked by corporations,” he continued.
“For those of us who identify as Democratic Socialists, we take a more structural approach to government in which we believe that the things we must do while in elected office must be systemic, not incremental.”
Last year’s Gallup poll found that only 39 percent of American adults had a positive image of socialism. This includes 66 percent of Democrats, 38 percent of independents and 14 percent of Republicans. Many Americans cringe when they hear the names Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) or Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
“I think there are some words that we use quite often that we just need to define. Let’s start with radical. People are afraid of radical this, radical that,” Rabb said. “Radical measures at the grassroots. What are the root causes of what sustains our misery as working people? The things that provide us with the safety net we are accustomed to – Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, public housing, public education – these are all socialist programs. This is not an opinion. These are facts, because under a system of pure capitalism they would not exist.
“So if you pass a Social Security check, you accept certain parts of socialism,” Rabb said. “You may not like it, you may not understand it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
The Democratic Party has recently come under fire – largely from within its own ranks – over its support for Israel. on Wednesday, 103 Democrats voted for the amendment cutting off US aid to Israel in an alleged show vote doomed to failure, but it presented a test for Democrats who are under increasing pressure from activists on Israel.
The rabbi does called Israel’s war in Gaza ‘genocide’ and believes it is up to Israel and Palestine to find a way to coexist.
“It’s entirely up to them,” he said. “That’s the point. These are not our playgrounds. I’m anti-militarist and anti-imperialist. I think the reason we have so many of these problems, global problems, is because the United States meddles everywhere and pretends to expand democracy when we don’t even embrace it in our own country.”
“We have an electoral college that stops people from voting directly for president,” he continued. “We have a Voting Rights Act that has just been gutted. We don’t have a true participatory democracy in this country, and we never really have. When was the golden era of democracy in the U.S.? As an African-American whose nation has fought in every war here since the Revolutionary War, as a descendant of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, we have never had a multiracial democracy.”
“It doesn’t mean we are a bad society. It means we must atone for the original sins of its creation. And we can do it. I am proud to come from people who were on the right side of history centuries ago, abolitionists, civil rights activists and freedom fighters. That’s why I do this work. But we must move forward.”
Before joining the state legislature, Rabb, 56, taught social entrepreneurship at Temple University’s School of Business and previously worked as a legislative aide in the Clinton administration, focusing on petite businesses. His paternal grandfather was a civil rights activist, and his maternal great-great-grandfather was born into slavery, fought for the Union in the Civil War, and later founded an African-American newspaper in Baltimore.
Rabb reacted sharply to Sen. John Fetterman, who recently warned of a “garbage bag” within the Democratic Party. Fetterman said that opposing Israel means being anti-American, anti-Western civilization and anti-capitalist.
“He’s a salesman,” Rabb said. “He betrayed the people of Pennsylvania. He betrayed all the people who thought he was different and better. In reality, he was only slightly different and much worse. It is very easy to troll people who you think are nefarious. It is much harder to actually govern.”
He said there would be no surprises about how he hopes to govern in Washington, unlike the Commonwealth’s senior senator.
“Unfortunately, he was a populist cosplayer and hurt a lot of people. It’s much harder to rule and govern with integrity based on morality, and I don’t think he would have been able to recognize morality if it had been shown on set. It’s a shame that we had to find out who he was after he took office.”
Rabb told his main evening audience in the nation’s bluest district that they “haven’t seen anything yet” and outlined his priorities if he wins the election in November. No Republican challenged Rabb, all but guaranteeing his path to Washington.
“We need money from politics,” he said. “We need to dethrone the Trump government and return it to a civil society and governance that is not based on self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment, holding people accountable and making sure we restore the social safety net.”
He also called for the next Congress to attempt to invoke the 25th Amendment President Donald Trump it is unfit for service and has been in service for some time. It is crucial to note that the Constitution delegates the initiation of the process to the Cabinet, not Congress, although it allows Congress to change this by passing a law.
“We must hold accountable those who committed lawlessness in positions of power in the Trump administration and chart a path for a bold vision for our nation, not for Democrats, but for all Americans as we wait for a post-Trump America.
“We don’t have to make rural communities and southerners the butt of our jokes,” he explained. “It’s not pretty and it’s not accurate. We need to make sure we understand that there are people across the commonwealth, whether they’re rural, suburban or urban communities, and maybe even some Republicans, who see a future that includes some progressive values that they don’t necessarily understand as progressive. It just makes sense.”
