The Democratic party seems more united than it has been in years, thanks to one man: Donald Trump. Opposition to his presidency has papered over what would otherwise be serious disagreements about economic policy, civil liberties, foreign affairs and the role of corporate money in politics.
As long as Democrats can point to Trump as the common enemy, their coalition holds, and the ideological conflicts that once defined the party during the 2016 primary or the battles over the Gaza genocide during the Joe Biden years now feel like a thing of the past. But those divisions haven’t disappeared – and in New York’s 10th congressional district, they’re beginning to surface again.
Representative Dan Goldman is facing a primary challenge from former New York City comptroller Brad Lander. Goldman launched his re-election campaign on the fifth anniversary of January 6, and his pitch was built almost entirely around his role leading the first impeachment inquiry against Trump.
Lander, for his part, is a veteran organizer with years in city government. Both candidates would call themselves progressives. Both are running against Trump. Ultimately, the primary will decide if being “anti-Trump” is a complete job description or just the bare minimum for Democrats.
Across the party, there is a growing divide between Democrats whose opposition to Trump is essentially defensive, aimed at preserving norms and institutions, and those who see the Trump era as a reason to challenge concentrated wealth, the security state and the corporate power that shapes both parties. The first group tends to be wealthier and more comfortable with the pre-Trump status quo. The second wants to use the energy of the anti-Trump coalition to deliver a left-of-center alternative. Goldman and Lander are a case study in this divide.
For all his burnishing of anti-authoritarian credentials, on 21 November 2024, Goldman was one of just 15 Democrats to vote for HR 9495, a bill that allows the executive branch to designate any non-profit a “terrorist supporting organization” and revoke its tax-exempt status with limited transparency and due process protections.
The ACLU warned that the bill grants the executive branch “extraordinary power to investigate, harass, and effectively dismantle any nonprofit organization”, including news outlets, universities and civil liberties groups. Goldman impeached Trump for abusing executive authority, then voted to give him a new tool for doing exactly that.
The same strange pattern showed up before the general election, in April 2024, when Goldman voted to reauthorize Fisa Section 702 without requiring a warrant for the surveillance of US citizens. Goldman argued on the House floor that “requiring a warrant would render this program unusable and entirely worthless”. A bipartisan amendment co-sponsored by Pramila Jayapal and Andy Biggs would have added that warrant requirement, and it failed 212 to 212, making Goldman’s vote decisive.
On cryptocurrency regulation, Goldman has broken with his caucus three separate times to support the speculative industry’s agenda. In March 2025, he voted to nullify a Biden-era rule designed to prevent crypto from being used to evade tax laws. In July 2025, he backed the Clarity Act, which shifted oversight from the Securities Exchange Commission to the weaker Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and on the same day he voted for the Genius Act, which established a framework for stablecoins that makes it easier for Trump, tech billionaires or anyone with enough capital to issue effectively their own currencies.
Maxine Waters said her colleagues were making “it easier for Trump’s personal financial interests to dictate US policy”. Elizabeth Warren’s office noted that the stablecoin framework opened new loopholes for offshore issuers exploitable by terrorists, cartels and criminals. But still, the anti-Trump Goldman ended up giving fuel to the very financial interests that an effective opposition to Trumpism needs to confront.
On financial regulation, Goldman voted for the Expanding Access to Capital Act, called “the single largest deregulation of our capital markets in years”, which opened retirement plans for schools and non-profits to riskier, less-regulated securities. While framed as an expansion of “access”, the legislation primarily serves the interests of a narrow segment of the asset management class, leaving working-class savers to bear the brunt of increased market volatility.
Goldman’s alignment with establishment interests on Wall Street finds its mirror image in his record on foreign policy. In November 2023, he voted to censure his colleague Rashida Tlaib over her criticism of Israel, breaking with almost all of his caucus. In February 2024, he backed a standalone $17.6bn military aid package to Israel that 78% of Democrats opposed. In January 2025, he supported sanctions on the international criminal court, a bill that United Nations officials called “a blatant violation of human rights” that strikes at “the core of judicial independence and the rule of law”.
He voted for a terrorism designation against the Houthis that the Biden administration itself had rejected over concerns that it would inhibit the work of humanitarian aid groups in Yemen. And amid battles over pro-Palestine campus protests and speech, Goldman condemned university presidents over their congressional testimony, siding with Republicans in a highly politicized hearing.
Goldman’s record neatly illustrates a particular kind of Democrat: one who leverages credibility earned through articulate attacks on Donald Trump while declining to challenge the policies that gave Trump fodder to begin with. Goldman, a Levi Strauss heir worth as much as $253m, embodies an opposition to Trump that, on every other front, protects the powerful.
This is the faultline that primaries like the one in NY-10 are designed to expose. The Democratic party’s anti-Trump consensus can’t be denied, but it is also thin. It can encompass both Brad Lander, a stalwart if not always stirring progressive, and Dan Goldman, who has soaring rhetoric and compelling theatrics, but who talks about fighting Trump while siding, again and again, with the forces that made Trumpism possible.
