Bass was spotted Friday for the first time since conceding defeat to Nithay Raman in the mayoral race.
Page A231From§Eachthe evening edition — 7 November 2026
Right-wing press calls new socialist mayors unstoppable, evasive, then powerless, all within 72 hours
As it ran on the front
I had a question I thought was already closed. A few days back I asked whether one newspaper could call a wave of new officials proof that socialism is winning and proof voters just rejected it — same outlet, same week, two different pieces. I wrote down: yes, apparently, both pieces ran the same hour on the sixth, one filed as news, one filed as opinion. I considered that settled. I'm sorry to say the same question came back Saturday, in a different shape, and I don't think it's closed at all.
Tuesday was the election. By Saturday, Fox News had a count: four of the nation's largest cities — Los Angeles and Washington joining Seattle and New York — now led by what it called socialist mayors, "affecting tens of millions" of people. That's the phrase. I copied it exact. The Washington Examiner, running the same day, took the Texas results and called them a matter of "national implications," reminding readers that the last time Democrats ran Texas, back in 1994, the party backed strict immigration enforcement and tax breaks for oil and gas and led the country in executions — a long way, it said, from where Gina Hinojosa stands now. Two papers. One week.…
…(cont) Won't say what they'll do. I read that one twice, because I wanted to be sure it was describing the same election the Fox piece called a threat to tens of millions, and it was. Same winners. Same week.
I went to the corner store Thursday for coffee, and the kid weighed the same bag three times because the scale kept disagreeing with itself — a pound, then fourteen ounces, then a pound and some change — and he read me each number like it settled the matter. I didn't argue with him. I just thought about it in the car on the way home, which doesn't love cold mornings any more than I do.
Because there's a third weighing. The Post, in the same batch of stories, ran separately that the winners down in Texas "can't actually turn the state blue" — no picnic, fulfilling any of it, is the phrase. So within one week, from outlets that generally agree with each other, the same class of newly elected official is: a nationwide emergency affecting tens of millions, a group too quiet to say what it wants, and a party structurally unable to deliver regardless. Three readings of one scale. I wrote all three on the same page and I still don't know which number the store wants me to walk out with.
Oh — excuse me, before you go. I didn't want to bring the number up again, I already did that once, but there's a dated item sitting right next to the others. Wednesday — three days before any of today's pieces ran — Janeese Lewis George, mayor-elect in Washington, one of the four cities in that tens-of-millions count, had already put out a legislative agenda and a transition plan. In writing. So I keep turning the number over, and I'm sorry, because I know I already used it: is tens of millions the size of the threat two papers needed the phrase to carry, or is it the number of people whose mayor-elect answered the question in writing before her neighbors in Los Angeles got called out for refusing to answer it at all? Tens of millions.
“They need you terrified of an unstoppable national takeover in one headline and relieved these same people can't accomplish a thing in the next — whichever fear keeps the page loading is the one that runs. Four cities, one election, three contradicting verdicts, from outlets that otherwise agree with each other — that's not confused reporting, that's a product built to keep you worried about people who haven't even been sworn in yet.”
“Look, nuance is allowed — a socialist mayor can absolutely be a five-alarm threat to tens of millions of people and also somebody who just hasn't returned our calls yet, those aren't contradictory, those are — actually, said out loud, those sound a little contradictory. We stand by all three stories independently, which is, I'm told, not the same as standing by them together.”
Earlier in this story
- New York Post credits socialist wave for historic Democratic win, calls same win proof voters reject socialism. By Lou · the afternoon edition, 6 November 2026
The receipts
When the Democrats last controlled Texas in 1994, the party supported strict immigration enforcement, generous tax breaks for oil and gas investments, and the state led the nation in capital punishment. More than 30 years later, the Democratic Party of Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa is far to the left of her predecessors. Hinojosa has promised…
Xavier Becerra and Nithya Raman seem to think that they don’t have a responsibility to tell the public what they plan to do in office, now that they have won their respective elections.
Democrats are running an average of 11.5 points ahead of their 2024 baseline across 2026 special elections MultiState Elections, 2026 special-election tracking
Texas elected far-left leaders, but they can’t actually turn the state blueProgressives who swept Texas’ statewide offices Tuesday may have grand far-left-leaning plans for their state, but they’ll have no picnic fulfilling their agenda.
Democrats are running an average of 11.5 points ahead of their 2024 baseline across 2026 special elections MultiState Elections, 2026 special-election tracking
4 of nation's largest cities now led by socialist mayors after Tuesday's election, affecting tens of millionsLos Angeles and Washington, D.C., now join Seattle and New York City as top-20 U.S. cities led by DSA-affiliated socialist mayors in office.
Mayor-elect Janeese Lewis George is preparing to usher in a new era of Washington, D.C., politics, outlining an ambitious legislative agenda and transition plans Wednesday after winning the seat to become the city’s first socialist mayor. Lewis George, 38, easily won Tuesday’s general election, following her decisive victory in the June…
· Citizen-led ballot initiatives seek to limit electricity firms’ political donations in Michigan from the morgue, 3 Nov 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.