The second Trump administration has just scored another landmark victory with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a policy monstrosity that slashes taxes on the wealthiest Americans while making large cuts to the social safety net and funneling more money to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to carry out its terrifying deportation campaign. Democrats, meanwhile, still appear lost in the wilderness when it comes to figuring out how to effectively oppose Donald Trump.

Starting with Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential run, Saikat Chakrabarti has played an important role in the left-wing insurgency that has recently attempted to remake the Democratic Party. After working on Sanders’s 2016 campaign, Chakrabarti helped found Justice Democrats and managed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (AOC) successful 2018 challenge against Joe Crowley. He went on to serve as her chief of staff, launching her Green New Deal proposal.

Now Chakrabarti is running for Congress himself, challenging former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, the doyenne of the Democratic establishment, in California’s 11th Congressional District. Chakrabarti says that the Democrats’ embarrassing loss to Trump last year inspired him to run. He hopes to build a national movement around an ambitious program called the “Mission for America” that aims to transform the US economy through aggressive government planning and investment — a kind of spiritual successor to the Green New Deal. Jacobin’s Nick French talked with Chakrabarti about his political journey, his platform, and how he thinks Democrats might win back the working-class voters who have been fleeing the party.