Ever since they lost the presidential election in 2024, Democrats have engaged in the classic "post-mortem." But in this particular case, "mainstream" Democrats are dedicated to making sure the party stays dead eternally, expunging any lingering signs of energy or animation. It’s redundant, but the post-mortem is likely to be fatal, to divide or end the party, or at least keep it focused for a generation on its internal struggle rather than its external opponents.
Sometimes it strikes me that these liberals are more opposed to the youth wing of their own party than to the MAGA types they regard as fascists. Strategically, but also as an alleged belief system, that can’t make sense.
The Atlantic is the house organ of the "moderate" wing of the Democratic Party. (Even if this wing has few real voters and dim long-term prospects, it has house organs to die for, or with: The New York Times, The New Yorker, and so on). Here's a typical outraged manifesto of moderation by James Kirchick, who argues that the Democratic Socialists of America are a "parasite": "Even after a string of recent victories in congressional primaries by members of the Democratic Socialists of America," Kirchick warns, "national Democrats appear slow to recognize that ideologues on the left are attempting a hostile takeover of the party." They must be stopped, he avers.
Jonathan Chait is a high-end ideologue for the Clinton-Biden-Harris-style left. Rather than construct a positive program to roll out for '28, he and his cohort are exclusively focused on purging the left from their party. In this, he portrays the lefties as a foreign body in the organism of liberalism and urges that radical surgery is necessary. An article apparently conceding that the socialists have some good ideas, also—oddly—portrays them as insane. "The maniacs have a point," is his concession. "No shit," I hear young lefties saying. "Thanks so much for your generosity." Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias take a similar approach. They can count on the support of former Republicans such as Bill Kristol and David Brooks, who migrated and now must migrate again to escape the socialist horde.
This is all in the service of electoral strategy. I don't think Chait and Klein are really that strongly opposed to universal pre-K or city-run grocery stores. What they’re worried about is that the word “socialism” doesn’t sell in middle America, so the "maniacs" are going to lose Democrats a lot of elections. But I think the moderates' own strategy will cause them to lose elections. Their post-mortem thrashing is splitting the Democrats into two parties. It might end up losing them elections for a generation.
The "progressives" who are winning primaries this year—such as Janeese Lewis George for mayor of DC, Darializa Avila Chevalier for Congress in NY and Amish Shah in Arizona—represent a transfusion of youthful energy that the party desperately requires, as its geriatric wing never stood for much of anything except maybe "Wall Street" and is fading fast. Senior Democrats ought to be thankful and sidling up to their emerging talent with a sick grin on their face. Maybe you don't think the word “socialism” sells. I suppose, though that itself might mark you generationally. But more to the point, purging your own youth wing and eliminating any signs of definiteness and energy from your own party isn’t a good strategy.
When one side of your party regards the other as "parasites" and "maniacs," there might not be a way to put it back together. Trying to figure out what's happening, we should, again, perhaps ask Bill Kristol, Joe Walsh and their fellow former "mainstream Republicans." The mainstreamers fought the parasites and maniacs of MAGA. They held that the Republican Party was self-destructing and said they were fighting to preserve it. They got smacked hard, and MAGA won election after election without them. Then they migrated to the Democratic Party. And now the Democratic Party is infiltrated by socialists! What's a mainstream mofo to do?
Let's start with this: there needs to be at least three parties right now. Bill Kristol and Kamala Harris and Matt Yglesias and Jonathan Chait and John Fetterman need to form the Mainstream Party, and leave the maniacs on both sides to fend for themselves. The Mainstream Party would be exclusively and continuously focused on what rhetorical strategies would appeal to the widest segment of the American public. In the long run, it could hope to win about 15 percent of the electorate on any given Tuesday. Still, its members will be very comfortable by-lining together in their house organs.
I think what the liberals resent about the progressives is (a) their age, (b) their passion, (c) their TikTok, and (d) their clarity and definiteness. But I don't think the policy differences are that significant. They have more to do with pacing, funding and rhetorical strategy than priorities and convictions. One faction would like to increase the welfare state slowly, one more quickly. They're both headed in the same direction, animated by the same basic convictions. Splitting a party over differences like that can't make sense.
By far the most substantive difference between the factions—the only difference that could possibly explain the absurd self-destructive vituperation—is a disagreement about Israel and the Gaza War. Biden and Harris uncritically armed Israel for civilian slaughter, the progressives point out. Their faction would, will, do it all again. The liberals, meanwhile, hear antisemitism in progressive attacks on Israel or use of the term “genocide.” (This divides NYC like nowhere else in America, and hence gets an outsize representation in the mainstream media. PS: "the mainstream media" still exists as long as The Atlantic does.)
That’s a substantive difference, unlike whether we can afford universal pre-K by 2032. Maybe it’s an unbridgeable, split-the-party difference, and also a generational difference. Just say that, and stop all this mumbo-jumbo about whether “socialism” sells in Peoria. Meanwhile, if I were going to generously help the Dems out with their electoral strategy, I'd go with "stop insulting and purging your own young supporters."
—Follow Crispin Sartwell on X: @CrispinSartwell