Until the fallout emerged from the House Oversight disclosures of Jeffrey Epstein’s documents, the midterms had been looking somewhat more favorable for Democrats recently. The Schumer Shutdown seems to have enhanced their advantage in generic-ballot polling to its highest point this year, with a D+4.8 in the RCP aggregate average.
Voter feelings regarding the economy have shifted negatively against Donald Trump and the GOP, leading Republicans to emphasize economic messaging following the approval of the continuing resolution. Additionally, Democrats achieved a victory regarding redistricting in Texas, although that victory is likely to be short-lived.
Hakeem Jeffries might want to hold off on picking out the drapes for the speaker’s office at this point. The failure to avoid a government shutdown, combined with Zohran Mamdani’s significant victory in New York City, has energized the radical Left to focus on ‘moderate’ House Democrats just as momentum was building for their support:
House Democrats are facing a surge of progressive primary challenges inspired by New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani that lawmakers say shouldn’t be lightly dismissed.
Why it matters: There’s a clear burst of anti-establishment energy in the Democratic Party right now, and the left is eager to test its limits and see how much power they can capture in New York, D.C. and elsewhere.
- Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said he had been predicting “at least 30 percent” of House Democrats would face primaries, but now “that number might turn out to be even higher.”
- “You can just tell. It’s the year. People’s hair is on fire, they just feel like they’ve got to do something,” the former Progressive Caucus co-chair told Axios. “People are pissed, they’re sad, they’re concerned.”
The phrase “Hair on fire” effectively captures the current state of the Democrat Party. This characterization has been applicable since the party began to manipulate its 2024 primaries to safeguard a confused Joe Biden, and even prior to that, due to its intense preoccupation with Donald Trump. This is the primary catalyst behind the “anti-establishment energy” emerging from the Left, and Democrats have no one to hold accountable for this but themselves.
The party establishment, from the Biden administration downward, has tirelessly demagogued over the last four years about the imminent danger to democracy, practically inciting public uprisings in response to the outcomes of an election that no one contests.
Neither have the Democrats absorbed any lessons, whether from the establishment or the hard-Left groups. It’s this urgent fixation on Trump that prompted several notable Democrats to produce a strange and alarming video directed at the rank and file within the military. Technically, these House and Senate members didn’t actually engage in sedition or insurrection, but they certainly sought to weaken the authority of the commander in chief by implying his orders could be unlawful.
Even worse, they put enlisted personnel and lower-ranking officers at risk by subtly threatening to prosecute them while, as members of Congress, they can engage with flag-rank officers regarding oversight and policy.
Democrats have been in the process of transforming themselves into the Robespierre Party over the past couple of years and, indeed, the last decade. It’s not surprising that the current group of Robespierres might, in a metaphorical sense, become the victims of the next wave of Robespierres they are bringing into existence by igniting their own passions.
They might be heading towards the usual result of purity purges just as the chances of emerging from the political obscurity began to look more promising. Too bad for them. Now, having said that, Republicans should respond by taking full advantage of the coming Mamdani Purge by highlighting the unsuccessful history of socialism wherever it’s been tried and pointing out Mamdani’s socialist fails in real time.
