Centrist Dems in Disarray

And oh, isn't it delicious?

Cue Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It. Cue Peter Finch’s rant scene from Network. Cue the song Do You Hear the People Sing? from Les Miserable. Whatever your favorite cultural touchpoint is of the fed-up little guy fighting back against the powers that be, insert it here.

Because that’s where the Democratic base is right now, folks. They’re sick of establishment bullshit. Tired of the lies. Tired of the complicity. Tired of the feigned helplessness. Tired of the cowardly paper-pushing in the face of literal fascist evil. Tired of them bailing out the donor class while regular people are struggling to pay the bills. Tired of them pontificating and posturing on the chaos instead of putting wrenches in the works to slow the coup. Tired of them telling us we’re going to vote our way out of this when they’ve done exactly jack shit on demanding an audit of the last election and securing the vote for the next one.

Oh, we’re going to vote our way out of this, alright. But perhaps not in the way they imagined. They thought that meant them keeping their seats while we elect more centrists. But that’s not how it’s playing out. Instead, the progressives and the leftists are having a moment. And not just a moment. A movement. They’ve finally had enough of holding their noses to vote “blue no matter who”. Instead, they are finding young, charismatic firebrands to challenge the dead wood in the party. To get back to fighting for the rest of us, And it’s working.

Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old former state assemblyman, crushed former NY Governor Andrew Cuomo for the mayor’s seat in New York City not once, but twice—first in the primary, and then in the general election when Cuomo couldn’t take fuck you for an answer and ran as an independent. Mamdani did so by vastly uncontestable margins, despite record-setting ad spending against him, financed by the billionaire class. Despite trotting out the original golden oldie centrist, Bill Clinton, to shill for Cuomo.

Not only did he crush a candidate that was essentially Democratic centrist royalty, he is also proving in the first six months of his term that a politician who actually serves the public can deliver for the people. That it was possible all along. That, in fact, you can tax billionaires and they won’t actually leave, taking their remaining billions with them. That we had accepted mediocrity and incrementalism for decades, because we were told by the establishment that’s all we could expect. And that collective feeling of being duped for so long has created an unsurprising groundswell of anger that is spreading across the country, resulting in upstart candidates who are wiping the floor with their centrist opponents.

This is causing consternation among the old guard that the tried and true formulas for keeping the rabble at bay are no longer working. Attack ads and punditry don’t pack the same punch. People are savvier. They crave authenticity, not sloganeering. They can spot propaganda manipulation from a mile away, particularly millennials and GenZ voters who have grown up on the internet.

Thus the cracks in the party leadership are starting to show. Ken Martin, the hapless chairman of the DNC, reportedly threw a phone at a staff member in frustration. But please, do tell me how Katie Porter’s momentary f-bomb directed at a staffer while shooting a social media clip was too mean. Can you imagine if a woman leader threw a heavy object at someone?? She’d be out on her ass in three seconds. Let’s see how long it takes for the calls for Martin’s resignation. I’ll take never, Alex, for $500.

(ahem) Apologies, I digress.

Threatened corporate Democrats are launching attacks against the Democratic Socialists of America by getting attack dog journalists to write hit pieces, instead of attacking the true criminals of this regime, the Republican Party. Which just goes to show how much the interests of the corporate Dem establishment align with the GOP. After all, they’re all taking money from AIPAC, too.

That brings us to the elephant in the room. Even if the Epstein files have not yet taken down Trump and his cadre of pedophilic creeps—yet—one of the major revelations coming out of them is how much Israeli intelligence has infiltrated our government for at least 40 years. Probably longer. Both Israel and Russia have been playing the long kompromat game, effectively making our politicians puppets for their own respective criminal purposes. The American people are financing Israel’s fascist imperialism, while simultaneously watching, mouths agape, Kash Patel’s collusion with Putin in broad daylight to rig the mid-terms. The good news is, people are starting to balk at the anti-Zionism = antisemitism malarkey. And because of that, war criminal Netanyahu isn’t going to be able to play the victim card for much longer, especially in light of the undeniable catastrophic destruction of Gaza and Lebanon during a supposed cease fire. If Democrats haven’t yet received the message that aligning with his fascist regime of terror will be term-limiting for them, they are in for an unwelcome electoral surprise.

Hence, Democratic Party disarray. Oh, young David Hogg—you know, the guy who tried to work within the DNC to reform the party and was summarily drummed out for telling leaders the truth—must be having a hearty laugh right now. And I wouldn’t blame him one bit. I’d like to join him in that chuckle, actually. His Leaders We Deserve, along with the DSA and Working Families Party, has done more to reform the Democrats from outside the party machine than working inside it ever could. He was right all along, and he is entitled to every “I told you so” he ever cares to utter from now until eternity as far as I’m concerned.

This is the way. We go around if we can’t go through. We build strength and conviction from the flanks and overwhelm them. Make it clear that settling for scraps is no longer acceptable, if it ever was. Understand that electing younger centrists to take the place of old centrists is not the way forward. That appealing to the mythical moderate Republican is a joke and always has been.

We must put the likes of Gavin Newson, JB Pritzker, and Andy Beshear on notice that their presumptive runs for the Democratic nomination for POTUS will not go anywhere if they toe the centrist, pro-Israel, pro-oligarchy line. That talking tough is not the same as being tough. That putting faith in institutions when those institutions have been fully captured by bad actors isn’t enough. Not nearly. We’re looking for courage. For integrity. And for holding evil-doers accountable. The Democratic establishment is willfully ignoring the winning Democratic socialist formula for success. Worse, they are on the wrong side of history. They will be seen as the fascist-appeasing Neville Chamberlains of our day, and they will deserve that notoriety.