Some members of the Democratic Party establishment are bemoaning that the party is being taken over by people who hate it. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Jaime Harrison, who was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2021 to 2025, is one of those establishment figures lamenting that Democrat-hating socialist candidates co-opted the party in New York City’s elections. Harrison posted on X, telling socialist candidates that “if you hate the Democratic Party, then please don’t run for our nomination. Don’t use our resources. Don’t rely on our volunteers. Don’t use our infrastructure. Don’t ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign.”
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Considering Harrison ran the DNC during the Biden administration, he is likely speaking for more than just himself here. These socialist candidates do have contempt for the Democratic Party as it exists. As New York City Democratic Socialists of America Co-Chairman Gustavo Gordillo has said, “We don’t agree with the way the Democratic Party establishment organizes or runs its party apparatus.” Gordillo specifically referred in his comments to Democrats being funded by “billionaire donors” while trying to represent the working class.
The Democratic Party establishment is being conquered because it talked the talk to the impressionable radicals in its base without walking the walk. Democrats rant and rave that the wealthy are destroying the country and stealing from the working class, for example, while relying on megadonors (such as George and Alex Soros) or promoting wealthy elites as their top candidates (such as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL). How can you villainize the wealthy when one of the leading figures in your party establishment is stock market “savant” Nancy Pelosi? (And yes, the socialist activists are wild hypocrites on this issue, as evidenced by their top figure being wealthy elitist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani).
This isn’t limited to class warfare either. For years, Democrats have repeatedly called every Republican a Nazi and a fascist, calling the party and its leading figures a “threat to democracy.” Most of that ire has been directed toward President Donald Trump, but we have seen countless examples of Democrats prepping their “worse than Trump” arguments for every Republican who poses a threat to the Democratic Party’s grip on power.
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But Democrats, despite their rhetorical extremism, continue to treat politics as business as usual. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will talk about Republicans like they are the scourge of the Earth, and then he will work with them or negotiate with them, no different than any politician would do on occasion with the opposition party.
The voters flocking to socialist candidates who hate the Democratic Party notice this. You can’t spend years calling your opponents authoritarians who must be defeated while still treating them as a typical opposition party. Socialist candidates and voters see that and assume the Democratic Party is ineffective and worthy of scorn, and so they take it over while despising leaders such as Harrison and the establishment figures who have talked the talk without truly walking the walk. Harrison and his fellow Democratic leaders have fueled this hatred among socialist candidates. They have no one to blame but themselves.