“Democracy is at stake!”
“Democracy is on the line!”
Oh, you’ve heard this all before from Democrats and their friends in the media: The only thing stopping democracy from dying in darkness are members of the Democratic Party here to protect it. Nobody is above the law, they say. Elections have consequences, they insist. Authoritarianism and fascism vis-à-vis President Donald Trump and his administration must be stopped.
But the party has a funny way of matching its pious rhetoric with action. In 2016, the Democratic National Committee, which is supposed to be neutral in the primary process, decided to do the exact opposite by anointing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and smearing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
We know this because of the WikiLeaks email dumps showing then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other DNC leaders lambasting Sanders at every turn. And when those emails went public, the evidence of favoritism was so egregious that Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign during the Democratic National Convention, ironically enough.
Fast forward to 2024: President Joe Biden, after a disastrous debate performance on June 27 in which he was lost and confused, faced overwhelming pressure to step down. After he was finally forced out by everyone from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to George Clooney, the party had two choices:
1) Hold a lightning primary and allow voters to decide on the nominee.
2) Simply install then-Vice President Kamala Harris without one vote from the public. The reason? She had $350 million of nontransferable campaign funds at her disposal while others would need to start from scratch.
Option 1 was the pro-democracy route. Option 2 was bought and paid for — and easier to pull off. Democratic leadership chose Option 2, only to run a campaign on “saving democracy.”
Ah, the irony.
And now, just three months after the DNC chose David Hogg to be its vice chairman, primarily due to his provocative social media posts, he is on his way out.
The DNC laughably says Hogg is being ousted because of “parliamentary procedures.” Uh-huh. Funny how it took months for the DNC to decide the vote wasn’t carried out properly.
But of course, anyone sane and sober knows this is all an excuse to get rid of Hogg after he vowed to use millions to primary older incumbent members of Congress from his own party in an effort to bring in “new blood.”
“He is a contemptible little twerp,” former Clinton strategist James Carville declared in April after Hogg’s plan was released.
“The most insane thing I ever heard is that the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee is spending $20 million running against other Democrats. Aren’t we supposed to run against Republicans?” he added rhetorically.
He wasn’t wrong. And let’s be clear: Hogg was a profoundly horrible choice to begin with. He has called for defunding the police and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He has said that Americans “have no right to own a gun.” He also believes in universal healthcare and “legalizing all drugs.”
This is not the guy a party sends out to win over centrist Democrats and independents, especially in swing states. But instead of simply showing some spine and asking Hogg to resign, the DNC tried to make this look like a procedural matter more than 90 days after the vote.
Thanks to daily national interviews, Hogg had become one of the leading faces of the party along with socialists Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the aforementioned Bernie Sanders, and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), who mocked Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) as “Governor Hot Wheels” and once called for Elon Musk to be “taken out.”
But the final blow appears to have occurred when Hogg joined Bill Maher on his HBO program Real Time to lay out what the party needs to do to win back young men fleeing the Blue Team.
“Ultimately, what we have to do here is figure out how to bring people back in and work towards the bigger goal of advancing the future of this country,” Hogg said. “Young people should be able to focus on what young people should be focused on, which is how to get laid and how to go and have fun.”
For the DNC, this apparently was enough. Suddenly, “parliamentary procedure” was broached, and Hogg was effectively shown the door. He’ll stay in his position until a formal vote can be held to determine his replacement, but he’ll be largely neutered.
Or will he? Hogg appears unable to resist attention (hence his unofficial nickname, “Attention Hogg”), and cable news and podcasts will continue to book him as he morphs into the role of martyr-meets-rebel.
Meanwhile, Trump has been on an absolute roll this past week in terms of action. First came his trade deal with the United Kingdom, and then he surprised the pundits with a negotiated trade deal with China.
Then there were major ceasefires achieved with the Iranian-backed Houthis and one between nuclear powers India and Pakistan.
The last American hostage to be held in Gaza, Edan Alexander, was freed by Hamas.
During the president’s trip to Saudi Arabia, the kingdom announced it would invest $600 billion in a series of deals with the United States.
And the president signed an executive order to cut drug prices drastically, something Democrats have promised to do for years.
As a result, Trump has seen an 11-point swing upward in polling, according to Rasmussen, in just two weeks.
On April 28, the president clocked in with 47% approval and 52% disapproval. But on Monday, with markets stabilizing and inflation reaching a four-year low, Trump was at 52% approval and 46% disapproval.
It’s quite the juxtaposition from the Democratic Party, which remains leaderless and appears to be in complete disarray.
It’s safe to say that the party can no longer declare with a straight face that it cares about democracy or has any real interest in preserving it.
We saw it in 2016. We saw it in 2020 when the runway was cleared for Biden to be the nominee despite his already-apparent cognitive decline. And we saw it in 2024 and 2025, when Biden was tossed aside, Harris was installed, and Hogg was essentially removed from the DNC for the audacity of not towing the party line while its approval sits in the 20s.
BIDEN’S COMEBACK TOUR ISN’T HELPING THE DEMOCRATS
The Washington Post says, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
But let’s face it, the only deaths to democracy we’re seeing are happening in broad daylight.