These elections were in fact a reveal of profound centrist weakness. It took millions upon millions to prop up centrists in each race, only for them to win by low single digits
The entire progressive wing’s “AIPAC” obsession is just an example of the antisemitic rot in the Democratic Party. It’s the Elders of Zion level of conspiracy theory that links them to the antisemitic far-right like Fucker Qatarlson, and in general both sides of that horseshoe is indistinguishable when it comes to Jews in general and Israel in particular. While the Qatarlson wing of the Republicans is small, the progressives have a massive hold on the Democrats. I voted Democratic Party straight ticket in every election and never again, at least not until the center purges the party of progressives, which is likely never. It would take losing a lot more elections to push for that, and I’ll do my part to help.
As we saw in 2016, for example, in key states like PA & Michigan, there is a substantial number of Black voters who either don’t vote at all or will only vote for a Black candidate. See: Philadelphia, Detroit … This is one of the more electorally significant 3rd rails of Democratic Party analysis.
None of this addresses the underlying issue. Trump and the Republicans have a coherent theory and understanding of the American Empire and how it works, the relationship between trade and immigration and war. The Democrats are too focused on winning the next election for its own sake to get their own heads out of their collective ass and recognize the need for an actual, coherent opposition party. But they won’t do this because it would require that they admit the administration has a strategy and is not “erratic” as it seems, which they seem to believe will cost them electorally. Which is how they ended up with Harris in 2024 and how they will keep losing so long as they continue to offer nothing and articulate nothing. Progressive activists are only emerging to fill the complete intellectual vaccuum.
"Moderate" in the Democratic party these days seems to be measured against the party's extremist positions, rather than an actual centrist position between the left and right.
So we have James Talarico, who's basically a radical in a moderate suit. Plus:
* Melissa Bean who's been endorsed by the HRC, itself a radical organization.
* Valerie Foushee, who voted against affirming Iran as largest state sponsor of terrorism (the resolution passed overwhelmingly in the House)*. Last month, she co-sponsored a bill to "defund and dismantle" ICE (the MELT the ICE act).
*And then there's Gavin Newsom, who signed SB132, a law that sends males to women's prisons. When the predictable rapes happened, the victims were forced to refer to the rapist in court using "she/her" pronouns.** Under Newsom's watch, California has provided free medical insurance to people living here illegally, while many legal residents have to choose between medicine, rent, and food.
None of these people are moderate in any sense of the word. They're all radicals pretending to be moderates. A troubling thing is that even the very intelligent writers of this publication don't appear to accept this fact. The Democratic party of 2026 just isn't the party it was in 1996 or 1966. It's become radicalized, its members virtue-signaling their luxury beliefs to one another while refusing to consider the harm their ideas do. The only way to save the Dems is the tough love approach: they have to keep losing. The Dems are like the unrepentant alcoholic adult, and people who vote for them are the parents who keep paying for rehab, in the hopes that *this time, it's going to work.*
I know that politicians of all parties have made mistakes, always. McCarthyism. Vietnam/Cambodia. Iran-Contra. Open borders. Covid. The list goes on.
But this is different. It's different because the left is rejecting reality and the enlightenment values that have largely helped this country succeed: education over indoctrination. Individual rights. Legal immigration and the great American melting pot. To wit: teaching six-year-olds that they have a gender identity is indoctrination. "Math is racist" is indoctrination. Cancel culture is a gross violation of free speech. Males in women's sports and puberty blockers are gross violations of individual rights. "Diversity" divides. Anyone who endorses any of these ideas is an endarkenment radical.
Again, I know that we've often failed to live up to our own values --- everyone does. Yet we've also striven to do better. As just one example, the decade that saw the end of Jim Crow was one of the most rapid changes of its type in human history. And yet the left can't see that, won't accept that, and wants to turn the clock back with DEI and racial preferences. It's the same old racism with a new label on the truncheon.
We have to demand more from the Democrats. They have to face the consequences of their actions. Otherwise, they may be lost.
I agree with you 100%, but I don't know if they will really face enough backlash at the polls. Trump is very unpopular nationally, the dems will consider winning the house as success. They will also continue to hold power in most blue states and cities and they continue to govern these places into the ground. I think our electoral feedback loops are broken by gerrymandering, biased or incomplete media coverage especially at the local level, and thermostatic backlash.
Sadly, I suspect you’re absolutely correct. I live in California and the new story about day care fraud here is very depressing. And our Medicaid spending has doubled in only four years.
Today the small neighborhood shopping center that I’m working around has five coffee shops. There may be 100 150 middle-aged adults here every day not working. I don’t think you can buy a house in this neighborhood for under 2 million. Lots of people in America don’t work already.
You seem to be equating not being in support of Israeli militarism with being an across-the-board progressive. Set aside the fact that about 25% of Trump voters share share this perspective. There are many Democrats more toward the center who also share it. You guys should not stray from your original message of economic populism and rejection of the culture wars. You break this potential Democratic coalition by straying into extremely unpopular foreign policy adventures.
Meanwhile, in Denver a 26 year old democratic socialist candidate Milat Kiros drubbed 30 yr. incumbent Congresswoman Diana DeGette in a preliminary intraparty assembly vote by a 63 to 32 percent margin. Kiros is right out of central casting, an attractive firebrand, a Phd student, and daughter of Somali immigrants. The vote was a preference vote prior to the formal assembly vote in June but it clearly shows that the machine Democrat is in trouble. She is backed by Justice Democrats who also backed AOC and Ilhan Omar. Mind you, it's a preference vote but it does reflect a trend in Colorado.
Yes, these people were true whackadoodles. But then this kind of national news doesn't help:
"Democrats vote against deporting migrants who harm animals." Face it, the illegal immigration issue is 80/20 GOP and until or unless Democrats get fully, and I mean 100%, on board, the long-term prognosis is terrible. This issue has already been won. It's like it's the 1970s and Democrats are trying to hold onto the Dixiecrat segregation movement.
If one forms strategies for national political parties by reading things in the genre of "the Liberal Patriot" one devolves to tactics, to methods of disguising what leadership (who read stuff like tLP) actually want to emplace. What's that? 5% or 10% of each [party? maybe?
They're actually the marketing department. The folks unconcerned with how the product WORKS, just who buys it this week.
The rest of the Country would probably prefer to have folk nominated and elected for the purpose of working together to develop solutions to issues generally described as problems... instead of constantly going jihad. Republicans are not that jihadi but they ARE learning so there's a time factor involved since one jihad will certainly generate a similar response.
Unfortunately we have evolved a system that rewards jihad with more snark, more political consultants for whom political jihad is a meal ticket. I don't see this getting fixed unless and until the folk who run the democrat party are so thoroughly discredited that the money dries up and all the media coaching staff have to find honest work.
The Democratic Center? James Talarico is unquestionably one of the most Progressive candidates in the entire history of the Democratic Party. It remains unclear whether he was a vetting mistake, or if he is an 2028 WH electoral experiment.
If Dems can run a candidate to the Left of AOC in 2026 Texas and win, Newsom will undoubtedly be the Dem 2028 Presidential nominee. Should Talarico prevail, Dems will not only refuse to moderate, they will become more Progressively brazen, if that is possible.
The US just endured 4 terror attacks on US soil in 2 weeks by naturalized citizens or their offspring. Only extraordinary training and luck stopped what could have easily been mass casualties.
Had a Synagogue Security Guard been less well trained, dozens of young kids might have perished in Michigan. Had the NYC bombers paid attention in Chemistry class, countless New Yorkers could have, literally, been blown to pieces on a midday sidewalk. Had the Austin bomber targeted a bar where police were not 1 minute away, the carnage might have approached triple digits.
Yet, Dems remain unfazed. They inexplicably continue to refuse to pay Homeland Security employees, even as ICE is fully funded until 2029.
Outside of DC, the picture is no less Progressive. Talarico is a moderate cartoon. Beshear just refused free federal dollars for school choice. Less than 1/2 of KY public school students can perform at grade level, yet "moderate" Andy insists Ky Educational Apartheid, remain in perpetuity. Ditto for Penn's Shapiro. Emanuel helped crash the US healthcare system, now Americans should give Rahm a 2nd bite at the apple?
In truth, Shapiro and Emanuel are non factors. The notion the current Dem Party would ever nominate a Pres candidate of Jewish descent is a practical impossibility. Even if many Dems refuse to admit the near omnipresent antisemitism that now plagues the Party.
It is easy to understand why sane Dems would like to assume peak Progressivism has come and gone. Still, Dems are pushing all their chips into the middle of the table, like gambling addicts in Vegas on Final Four weekend. Like all junkies, Dems fail to recognize the potential downsides of their Progressive addiction.
If 4 dozen child sized body bags had been required in Michigan, the Dem jihad against US Immigration law would have melted like ice in the Tehran sun. So too, would have any realistic chance of a Dem 2028 WH win.
I've voted in every primary and election since 2000, but I couldn't bring myself to vote in the dem primary in IL this year. I am basically done buying what the dems are selling.
I do not follow politics as closely as Ronda, so here’s Claude explaining the four terror attacks she referenced. Wild that we now live in a world where Islamic terror attacks on US soil don’t fit the correct narrative so they’re buried by the media.
This comment refers to a cluster of four terror attacks that occurred in the US over roughly two weeks in early March 2026, all appearing to be linked to the ongoing US-Iran war. Here’s a breakdown of each incident:
1. Austin, Texas (late February/early March)
A shooter killed three people and injured more than a dozen others in Austin’s bustling entertainment district. Underneath a hoodie, the shooter was wearing a T-shirt featuring an Iranian flag design. Authorities investigated whether the shooter was inspired in part by US and Israeli strikes on Iran.  The suspect was Ndiaga Diagne, a 53-year-old native of Senegal and a naturalized US citizen since 2013, who was shot and killed by police. 
2. New York City (around March 8)
Two terror suspects were accused of tossing makeshift bombs at a protest outside the NYC mayor’s home, in what authorities described as an ISIS-inspired attack. 
3. Old Dominion University, Virginia (March 13)
An ISIS-linked gunman launched a deadly attack at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The shooter, Mohamed Jalloh, was a naturalized US citizen from Sierra Leone, convicted in 2017 of providing support to ISIS and released from prison in December 2024.  He killed one person and injured two others, including US Army personnel, before ROTC students in the class subdued and killed him. 
4. Temple Israel Synagogue, West Bloomfield, Michigan (March 13)
A Lebanon-born US citizen rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into Temple Israel, setting part of it ablaze while dozens of children were inside.  Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said the security guards’ actions kept everyone inside safe, including 140 students at a childcare center attached to the synagogue.  The attacker, Ayman Ghazali, had connections in federal databases to Hezbollah members in Lebanon. 
So the comment is essentially arguing that only luck and good training prevented mass casualties across all four incidents — the synagogue guards stopped what could have been a massacre of children, the NYC bombers’ devices apparently failed to work properly, and Austin police happened to be nearby. The broader context is a heightened domestic terror threat following the US military engagement against Iran.
I think you may have that backwards. Asking how to persuade people who share your perspective to become primary voters. Is more likely to yield better results.
I wouldn't mind a extremist candidate, depending on what they are extreme about. The centrist Democratic positions have veered so far to the left that not much is gained by a centrist Dem except the ability to say nothing and the support of billionaires. As if our billionaires are somehow more pure.
Most people aren't very invested in the same issues that political hobbyists are. Why does no one mention illegal immigration or tariffs? Kryptonite?
There's a sizeable portion of people who can vote either way. Left or right most people want to make enough of an income to pay the bills, to live in a safe place, and have some sort of hope that those who come after will have a better life. For a sizeable majority it aint been happening, and until it does there will be wild swings of the elections as people seek a party or candidate that can make things work again.
These elections were in fact a reveal of profound centrist weakness. It took millions upon millions to prop up centrists in each race, only for them to win by low single digits
I didn't know the Democrats still had a center.
The entire progressive wing’s “AIPAC” obsession is just an example of the antisemitic rot in the Democratic Party. It’s the Elders of Zion level of conspiracy theory that links them to the antisemitic far-right like Fucker Qatarlson, and in general both sides of that horseshoe is indistinguishable when it comes to Jews in general and Israel in particular. While the Qatarlson wing of the Republicans is small, the progressives have a massive hold on the Democrats. I voted Democratic Party straight ticket in every election and never again, at least not until the center purges the party of progressives, which is likely never. It would take losing a lot more elections to push for that, and I’ll do my part to help.
As we saw in 2016, for example, in key states like PA & Michigan, there is a substantial number of Black voters who either don’t vote at all or will only vote for a Black candidate. See: Philadelphia, Detroit … This is one of the more electorally significant 3rd rails of Democratic Party analysis.
None of this addresses the underlying issue. Trump and the Republicans have a coherent theory and understanding of the American Empire and how it works, the relationship between trade and immigration and war. The Democrats are too focused on winning the next election for its own sake to get their own heads out of their collective ass and recognize the need for an actual, coherent opposition party. But they won’t do this because it would require that they admit the administration has a strategy and is not “erratic” as it seems, which they seem to believe will cost them electorally. Which is how they ended up with Harris in 2024 and how they will keep losing so long as they continue to offer nothing and articulate nothing. Progressive activists are only emerging to fill the complete intellectual vaccuum.
"Moderate" in the Democratic party these days seems to be measured against the party's extremist positions, rather than an actual centrist position between the left and right.
So we have James Talarico, who's basically a radical in a moderate suit. Plus:
* Melissa Bean who's been endorsed by the HRC, itself a radical organization.
* Valerie Foushee, who voted against affirming Iran as largest state sponsor of terrorism (the resolution passed overwhelmingly in the House)*. Last month, she co-sponsored a bill to "defund and dismantle" ICE (the MELT the ICE act).
*And then there's Gavin Newsom, who signed SB132, a law that sends males to women's prisons. When the predictable rapes happened, the victims were forced to refer to the rapist in court using "she/her" pronouns.** Under Newsom's watch, California has provided free medical insurance to people living here illegally, while many legal residents have to choose between medicine, rent, and food.
None of these people are moderate in any sense of the word. They're all radicals pretending to be moderates. A troubling thing is that even the very intelligent writers of this publication don't appear to accept this fact. The Democratic party of 2026 just isn't the party it was in 1996 or 1966. It's become radicalized, its members virtue-signaling their luxury beliefs to one another while refusing to consider the harm their ideas do. The only way to save the Dems is the tough love approach: they have to keep losing. The Dems are like the unrepentant alcoholic adult, and people who vote for them are the parents who keep paying for rehab, in the hopes that *this time, it's going to work.*
I know that politicians of all parties have made mistakes, always. McCarthyism. Vietnam/Cambodia. Iran-Contra. Open borders. Covid. The list goes on.
But this is different. It's different because the left is rejecting reality and the enlightenment values that have largely helped this country succeed: education over indoctrination. Individual rights. Legal immigration and the great American melting pot. To wit: teaching six-year-olds that they have a gender identity is indoctrination. "Math is racist" is indoctrination. Cancel culture is a gross violation of free speech. Males in women's sports and puberty blockers are gross violations of individual rights. "Diversity" divides. Anyone who endorses any of these ideas is an endarkenment radical.
Again, I know that we've often failed to live up to our own values --- everyone does. Yet we've also striven to do better. As just one example, the decade that saw the end of Jim Crow was one of the most rapid changes of its type in human history. And yet the left can't see that, won't accept that, and wants to turn the clock back with DEI and racial preferences. It's the same old racism with a new label on the truncheon.
We have to demand more from the Democrats. They have to face the consequences of their actions. Otherwise, they may be lost.
*https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/119-2026/h84
**https://abc30.com/post/pronoun-use-center-rape-case-involving-former-chowchilla-prisoner/15684307/
If I could “like” that comment 10x, I would.
I agree with you 100%, but I don't know if they will really face enough backlash at the polls. Trump is very unpopular nationally, the dems will consider winning the house as success. They will also continue to hold power in most blue states and cities and they continue to govern these places into the ground. I think our electoral feedback loops are broken by gerrymandering, biased or incomplete media coverage especially at the local level, and thermostatic backlash.
Sadly, I suspect you’re absolutely correct. I live in California and the new story about day care fraud here is very depressing. And our Medicaid spending has doubled in only four years.
So the Democratic primaries in the blue and red states are going bad so far...predictable.
In blue states there is no pressure to moderate, you can still win. In red states there is actually no real pressure to moderate, you will still lose.
What about the ones in the purple states? If a true moderate is going to emerge it show naturally come from there.
Today the small neighborhood shopping center that I’m working around has five coffee shops. There may be 100 150 middle-aged adults here every day not working. I don’t think you can buy a house in this neighborhood for under 2 million. Lots of people in America don’t work already.
You seem to be equating not being in support of Israeli militarism with being an across-the-board progressive. Set aside the fact that about 25% of Trump voters share share this perspective. There are many Democrats more toward the center who also share it. You guys should not stray from your original message of economic populism and rejection of the culture wars. You break this potential Democratic coalition by straying into extremely unpopular foreign policy adventures.
Meanwhile, in Denver a 26 year old democratic socialist candidate Milat Kiros drubbed 30 yr. incumbent Congresswoman Diana DeGette in a preliminary intraparty assembly vote by a 63 to 32 percent margin. Kiros is right out of central casting, an attractive firebrand, a Phd student, and daughter of Somali immigrants. The vote was a preference vote prior to the formal assembly vote in June but it clearly shows that the machine Democrat is in trouble. She is backed by Justice Democrats who also backed AOC and Ilhan Omar. Mind you, it's a preference vote but it does reflect a trend in Colorado.
Yes, these people were true whackadoodles. But then this kind of national news doesn't help:
"Democrats vote against deporting migrants who harm animals." Face it, the illegal immigration issue is 80/20 GOP and until or unless Democrats get fully, and I mean 100%, on board, the long-term prognosis is terrible. This issue has already been won. It's like it's the 1970s and Democrats are trying to hold onto the Dixiecrat segregation movement.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/03/19/democrats-vote-against-deporting-migrants-harm-animals/
If one forms strategies for national political parties by reading things in the genre of "the Liberal Patriot" one devolves to tactics, to methods of disguising what leadership (who read stuff like tLP) actually want to emplace. What's that? 5% or 10% of each [party? maybe?
They're actually the marketing department. The folks unconcerned with how the product WORKS, just who buys it this week.
The rest of the Country would probably prefer to have folk nominated and elected for the purpose of working together to develop solutions to issues generally described as problems... instead of constantly going jihad. Republicans are not that jihadi but they ARE learning so there's a time factor involved since one jihad will certainly generate a similar response.
Unfortunately we have evolved a system that rewards jihad with more snark, more political consultants for whom political jihad is a meal ticket. I don't see this getting fixed unless and until the folk who run the democrat party are so thoroughly discredited that the money dries up and all the media coaching staff have to find honest work.
The Democratic Center? James Talarico is unquestionably one of the most Progressive candidates in the entire history of the Democratic Party. It remains unclear whether he was a vetting mistake, or if he is an 2028 WH electoral experiment.
If Dems can run a candidate to the Left of AOC in 2026 Texas and win, Newsom will undoubtedly be the Dem 2028 Presidential nominee. Should Talarico prevail, Dems will not only refuse to moderate, they will become more Progressively brazen, if that is possible.
The US just endured 4 terror attacks on US soil in 2 weeks by naturalized citizens or their offspring. Only extraordinary training and luck stopped what could have easily been mass casualties.
Had a Synagogue Security Guard been less well trained, dozens of young kids might have perished in Michigan. Had the NYC bombers paid attention in Chemistry class, countless New Yorkers could have, literally, been blown to pieces on a midday sidewalk. Had the Austin bomber targeted a bar where police were not 1 minute away, the carnage might have approached triple digits.
Yet, Dems remain unfazed. They inexplicably continue to refuse to pay Homeland Security employees, even as ICE is fully funded until 2029.
Outside of DC, the picture is no less Progressive. Talarico is a moderate cartoon. Beshear just refused free federal dollars for school choice. Less than 1/2 of KY public school students can perform at grade level, yet "moderate" Andy insists Ky Educational Apartheid, remain in perpetuity. Ditto for Penn's Shapiro. Emanuel helped crash the US healthcare system, now Americans should give Rahm a 2nd bite at the apple?
In truth, Shapiro and Emanuel are non factors. The notion the current Dem Party would ever nominate a Pres candidate of Jewish descent is a practical impossibility. Even if many Dems refuse to admit the near omnipresent antisemitism that now plagues the Party.
It is easy to understand why sane Dems would like to assume peak Progressivism has come and gone. Still, Dems are pushing all their chips into the middle of the table, like gambling addicts in Vegas on Final Four weekend. Like all junkies, Dems fail to recognize the potential downsides of their Progressive addiction.
If 4 dozen child sized body bags had been required in Michigan, the Dem jihad against US Immigration law would have melted like ice in the Tehran sun. So too, would have any realistic chance of a Dem 2028 WH win.
I've voted in every primary and election since 2000, but I couldn't bring myself to vote in the dem primary in IL this year. I am basically done buying what the dems are selling.
I do not follow politics as closely as Ronda, so here’s Claude explaining the four terror attacks she referenced. Wild that we now live in a world where Islamic terror attacks on US soil don’t fit the correct narrative so they’re buried by the media.
This comment refers to a cluster of four terror attacks that occurred in the US over roughly two weeks in early March 2026, all appearing to be linked to the ongoing US-Iran war. Here’s a breakdown of each incident:
1. Austin, Texas (late February/early March)
A shooter killed three people and injured more than a dozen others in Austin’s bustling entertainment district. Underneath a hoodie, the shooter was wearing a T-shirt featuring an Iranian flag design. Authorities investigated whether the shooter was inspired in part by US and Israeli strikes on Iran.  The suspect was Ndiaga Diagne, a 53-year-old native of Senegal and a naturalized US citizen since 2013, who was shot and killed by police. 
2. New York City (around March 8)
Two terror suspects were accused of tossing makeshift bombs at a protest outside the NYC mayor’s home, in what authorities described as an ISIS-inspired attack. 
3. Old Dominion University, Virginia (March 13)
An ISIS-linked gunman launched a deadly attack at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The shooter, Mohamed Jalloh, was a naturalized US citizen from Sierra Leone, convicted in 2017 of providing support to ISIS and released from prison in December 2024.  He killed one person and injured two others, including US Army personnel, before ROTC students in the class subdued and killed him. 
4. Temple Israel Synagogue, West Bloomfield, Michigan (March 13)
A Lebanon-born US citizen rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into Temple Israel, setting part of it ablaze while dozens of children were inside.  Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said the security guards’ actions kept everyone inside safe, including 140 students at a childcare center attached to the synagogue.  The attacker, Ayman Ghazali, had connections in federal databases to Hezbollah members in Lebanon. 
So the comment is essentially arguing that only luck and good training prevented mass casualties across all four incidents — the synagogue guards stopped what could have been a massacre of children, the NYC bombers’ devices apparently failed to work properly, and Austin police happened to be nearby. The broader context is a heightened domestic terror threat following the US military engagement against Iran.
From my centrist perspective, the question is how to persuade primary voters to share my perspective. I wish I knew.
I think you may have that backwards. Asking how to persuade people who share your perspective to become primary voters. Is more likely to yield better results.
And yes I wish we both knew.
The problem for centrist Democrats is that voters want fighters and there is a perception that centrists don’t fight.
The Republicans were here during the Tea Party era. Democrats are simply 15 years behind them.
I wouldn't mind a extremist candidate, depending on what they are extreme about. The centrist Democratic positions have veered so far to the left that not much is gained by a centrist Dem except the ability to say nothing and the support of billionaires. As if our billionaires are somehow more pure.
Most people aren't very invested in the same issues that political hobbyists are. Why does no one mention illegal immigration or tariffs? Kryptonite?
There's a sizeable portion of people who can vote either way. Left or right most people want to make enough of an income to pay the bills, to live in a safe place, and have some sort of hope that those who come after will have a better life. For a sizeable majority it aint been happening, and until it does there will be wild swings of the elections as people seek a party or candidate that can make things work again.