David Hogg may be about to lose his vice chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, but he may be emblematic of his party’s future.
One reason some in the DNC went Hogg wild in the first place was the youthful progressive activist’s involvement in a $20 million initiative to back younger primary challengers against Democratic incumbents.
Hogg’s extracurricular activities created a crisis of confidence for new DNC Chairman Ken Martin, according to leaked audio.
“I’ll be very honest with you, for the first time in my 100 days on this job … the other night I said to myself for the first time, I don’t know if I wanna do this anymore,” he said in a May 15 Zoom meeting.
“No one knows who the hell I am, right? I’m trying to get my sea legs underneath of me and actually develop any amount of credibility so I can go out there and raise the money and do the job I need to put ourselves in a position to win,” Martin continued, directing his meltdown to Hogg. “And again, I don’t think you intended this, but you essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to. So it’s really frustrating.”
The DNC has voted to hold new vice chair elections and Hogg won’t run again. But Democrats are angry and want leaders who are generally younger and uniformly more willing to take on President Donald Trump. The fall of party boss Hogg is just a single example in a larger pattern. This could all lead to a political climate inside the Democratic Party similar to the one produced by the Tea Party inside the GOP more than a decade ago.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) abandoned months of yukking it up with political rivals such as Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon on his podcast to challenge Trump on sending the National Guard to Los Angeles during riots over immigration enforcement.
In the short term, Newsom may be rewarded for standing up to Trump. “This is about all of us, this is about you,” he said in a June 10 video. “California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived.”
But Newsom may also help position Democrats as pro-riot and hostile to immigration controls and law enforcement more generally. These issues cost the Democrats in last year’s elections and Newsom is pushing the party to the left of positions many of its candidates took during that campaign.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) tussled with security after trying to interrupt remarks by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. It remains to be seen how the broader electorate will respond, but many Democrats saw the Padilla takedown as an example of the Trump administration’s authoritarianism and one of their own at least trying to speak truth to power.
When Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) voted to avert a partial government shutdown during the height of the public backlash against Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, he faced an intraparty revolt. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) hesitated to affirm his support for Schumer’s continued leadership. Schumer’’s book tour, already on a topic that divides Democrats (it’s titled Antisemitism in America: A Warning), was sharply curtailed for fear of left-wing protests.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), an erstwhile progressive hero who has been trying to move his party toward the center, has faced a whisper campaign against the state of his mental health not all that different from what Republicans were saying about him during the 2022 Senate race. Fetterman has said he is being smeared by the “left media.”
Liberals were miffed that party elders passed over progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) for top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. The Democratic caucus voted 131-84 to install Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) instead. But Connolly was 74 and suffering from throat cancer. He died in office in May. The vacancy helped Republicans pass their reconciliation bill, which extends the Trump tax cuts and funds his immigration enforcement.
Progressives have been complaining about Democratic Party leaders putting their thumbs on the scale since at least the 2016 primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
Democrats lost last year’s presidential election after former President Joe Biden was shielded from a competitive primary process. After Biden dropped out, former Vice President Kamala Harris replaced him as the nominee without any opposition.
Ocasio-Cortez won her seat by beating former Rep. Joe Crowley, a member of the leadership team as House Democratic caucus chairman, in a primary as a progressive challenger in 2018. But former Rep. Jamaal Bowman lost a 2024 primary to a relative centrist, Rep. George Latimer (D-NY).
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Democrats may finally have an appetite for more progressive primary challengers. The Tea Party proved a mixed bag for Republicans. Conservative activists helped the GOP gain 63 House seats in the 2010 midterm elections. But many Tea Party nominees proved to be weak general election candidates when running for Senate, delaying Republican control of the upper chamber until 2014.
Democrats are currently debating whether to head toward the center or the left in response to last year’s elections. Even without Hogg in a DNC leadership position, it looks like the Left is winning.