FREDDY GRAY: From the trans activist elected in Alabama to the hard-Left New Yorker who wants a world without borders... just wait until the Americans sick of Trump realise who they've sent to Washington!

On Tuesday, something astonishing happened in the city of Huntsville, Alabama: voters elected as their state representative a transgender Democrat called Allison Montgomery.The software engineer, who used to be called William, campaigned against legal sex-based definitions and the right of parents to know if their child is ‘transitioning’.Montgomery is not, in other words, the sort of candidate you’d expect to win in ‘Bama’ – sweet home of the conservative South.But it happened. And the main reason for that is not that the residents of Huntsville, the site of a major army base, have all suddenly turned ultra-woke.It’s that the people of Alabama, who voted for Donald Trump three times, are now so furious with the President and his party that they are willing to elect just about anyone else. So are voters in Texas, Kansas, and North Carolina – three other ‘deep-red states’ that are now turning Democratic blue. The Maga electorate is livid about the failed Iran war, the spike in gas and food prices, and the brazen corruption of Trump’s Washington.But that doesn’t mean all America has suddenly fallen in love with the Democrats. On the contrary, numerous polls suggest that, if anything, the Democratic ‘brand’ remains almost as toxic as it was two years ago, when Trump routed Kamala Harris to win the White House. Allison Montgomery is not the sort of candidate you’d expect to win in ‘Bama’ – sweet home of the conservative SouthBut, as even the President himself said on Wednesday, ‘the Democrats did a good job’ in the midterms.What he meant was that his opponents successfully hid their more unpopular positions from the electorate, while staying laser-focused on the cost of living, what they call the billionaire ‘oligarchy’, and Team Trump’s many glaring faults.After the failure of Joe Biden and his successor candidate in 2024, Harris, Democratic campaign organisations sent out repeated ‘message discipline’ memos to their candidates urging them to ditch the ultra-progressive rhetoric on gender pronouns and so on.The candidates took note. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, who will now be America’s first Muslim senator, went on Fox News, where he batted away questions about his alleged sympathy for the terrorist group Hamas and insisted instead that he just wanted to make life more affordable for the struggling citizens of his home state.At rallies before Tuesday, El-Sayed stood behind the Stars and Stripes and said: ‘I love America like I love my children.’In the early hours of Wednesday, however, with the result secured, he began his victory speech by chanting in Arabic.An even more revealing statement came from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the far-Left Congresswoman who is expected to run for the presidency in 2028.In August, a journalist asked ‘AOC’ about her ally, the Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, who’d called for the ‘defunding’ of the police and the abolition of prisons.‘I have a local city councilman that has this saying: “Woke 1 was crazy,” ’ she said. ‘And I think that what’s important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying now.’ Abdul El-Sayed has stood behind the Stars and Stripes and said: ‘I love America like I love my children’. But in the early hours of Wednesday, with the result secured, he began his victory speech by chanting in ArabicBut she did not, crucially, say that Hong was wrong, and she did not admit the obvious implication: that Woke 2 can afford to be even crazier, if only its advocates avoid saying what they really think.In fact, Woke 1 vs Woke 2 might be compared to the difference between Terminator 1 and Terminator 2. The new American socialism – and, make no mistake, it is socialist – is far more intelligent, potent and elusive. It can code-switch and even transform into a completely different creature in order to deceive the unsuspecting electorate and wrong-foot Maga Republicans.In 2024, the Trump campaign produced a brilliantly simple and effective advertisement: ‘Kamala is for they/them,’ it said. ‘Donald Trump is for you.’ But Michigan Democrats snidely flipped that script. ‘The Republicans are for they/them,’ chortled the narrator as an image of Israel’s political leaders flashed on the screen. ‘Abdul El-Sayed is for you.’In short, the far‑Left Democrats of 2026 have every intention of setting America in a new and very dangerous direction.Which brings us back to Allison in Alabama. ‘People across the political spectrum seem to be making a big deal out of the trans thing’, the bespectacled individual said after winning. ‘I felt a calling to be a public servant, and now I’m gonna do my best for all of us, regardless of how you voted or what you think of my gender.’Yet if anyone has made a big deal out of ‘the trans thing’, it is this 33-year-old, who testified against the What is a Woman Act, a piece of legislation which sought to recognise in law the biological nature of sex. Allison also opposed a Bill that would have restricted drag performances in schools.Or just look at some of the other Democrats who enjoyed electoral victories this week.Take Egyptian-born Adam Hamawy – and now New Jersey Congressman-elect – a plastic surgeon and former US Army medical officer who volunteered in Gaza. Reports have emerged that Hamawy was a close associate of Omar Abdel-Rahman – the ‘Blind Sheikh’ sentenced to life in prison for his role inspiring the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the far-Left Congresswoman, is expected to run for the presidency in 2028Court records show that Hamawy accompanied the Islamist cleric to a conference in Michigan, titled Towards A Global Islamic Economy in 1991, served as his translator during a press conference and testified on his behalf during his federal criminal trial.There’s Ilhan Omar, who just won re-election in Minnesota, even though the Justice Department is investigating her for marrying a man who could allegedly be her brother. Last month, a journalist asked Omar if she was ‘in any way’ related to her second husband, whom she divorced in 2017. ‘Not to my knowledge,’ she replied, alarmingly.Omar, a close political ally of AOC, danced with her third husband at her election-night party this week and talked throughout the campaign about ‘Medicare for All’ and ‘economic justice’. But she’s also openly adamant that she wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).Meanwhile, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a once-fringe group, have emerged as an increasingly powerful force in US politics with a set of bizarre and extremist policies to match.A recent DSA manifesto calls for the closure of all overseas US military bases, the stopping of all sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela and Iran, and ‘universal free housing’.And now several new DSA-backed Democrats are going to Congress. There’s Gen Z Melat Kiros, who just won the first district of Colorado. She believes ICE is a ‘rogue paramilitary force’ and described the October 7 attacks on Israel as ‘the inevitable consequences of apartheid’.There’s the equally delightful Darializa Avila Chevalier, ‘a working-class Dominican New Yorker’ who wants ‘a world without borders’ and reposted social media comments that Israel ‘doesn’t exist’. She’s an admirer of the late Assata Shakur, the Black Panther who, in 1977, was found guilty of murdering a state trooper.And there’s Chris Rabb, in Philadelphia, who wants ‘nationalised grocery stores’ and calls America’s immigration detention facilities ‘concentration camps’. He rejects the idea that immigration can be illegal.It’s all very extreme.This week proved that Americans are sick of Trump Republicanism. The citizenry is craving a return to decency and common sense in public life.But just wait until voters get to know some of the Democrats they just sent to Washington.Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator and the editor of the US edition