What's Wrong Democrats? They Need More Democracy
What’s wrong with the Democrats and how can the party be fixed? When an insurgent outsider candidate from the party’s progressive left defeats a moderate endorsed by the establishment, Democratic leaders reject the results and deny the will of their voters. They refuse the infusion of new ideas and tactics every organization needs to evolve. They anger their voter base. They lose elections they should have won.
It’s time for Democrats to democratize their party.
Democrats’ top-down leadership style is currently being deployed against Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist winner of New York City’s mayoral primary who defeated corporate favorite Andrew Cuomo. The primary results came in over a week ago, yet none of the party’s big guns—Obama, Schumer, Jeffries, Pelosi, Buttigieg, Newsom, Harris, DNC chair Ken Martin—has endorsed Mamdani. Ever the happy warrior, Mamdani says he’s grateful for the kind words he has received from his ideological fellow travelers Bernie, AOC and other members of The Squad. But the establishment’s silence is hypocritical—when the primary winner is a centrist like Biden, the Left is expected to fall in line—and telling.
Not so behind the scenes, the top Democrats who are not that into democracy are following the backroom skullduggery deployed against Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders. Eric Adams, the incumbent mayor elected in 2021, opted out of the Democratic primary due to his rock-bottom approval ratings amid federal corruption charges, which Trump’s DOJ dropped in exchange for opening his sanctuary city to ICE deportation operations. Yet he’s still running for reelection in the general election, as an independent under his one-man “End Anti-Semitism” line. Adams’ base is big business and Zionists. Cuomo is currently running too.
There’s a Republican, too—Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels. But he’s not a major factor in an 11% Republican city.
Billionaire Trump supporter Bill Ackman, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, former hedge fund executive Whitney Tilson, Kathy Wylde of the Partnership for New York City, along with the Murdoch-owned New York Post, want the disgraced Cuomo and the marginal Sliwa to step aside and consolidate the anti-Mamdani vote behind the disgraced Adams.
Even with the Post’s rabid attacks (“Socialist Mamdani Wants to Pay for Government Grocery Stores with Money That Doesn’t Exist,” “Zohran Mamdani's ‘No Billionaires’ Dream Fits His Goal — To Make Us All Live in Equal Misery,” “With Code Words and Dog Whistles, Mamdani Puts a Pretty Face on Hate”), it’s too early to tell whether Adams’ unlikely alliance of Wall Street and Black voters can defeat Mamdani. But primary winners tend to perform better in general elections when their party is united. Support from party bosses is essential.
Obama’s opposition to the Iraq War and appeal to young and minority voters positioned him as an outsider challenging the party’s entrenched leadership in 2008, when he challenged Hillary Clinton in the primaries. His diverse coalition and fundraising prowess forced the DNC to embrace him. They won.
Similarly, party leaders got behind AOC and Squadsters Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush after they won their congressional primaries. All won.
DNC sandbagging of Bernie had mixed results. The first time, in 2016, it led to Hillary’s defeat in a contest Bernie would have been likelier to have won. Biden/Harris, the establishment choice, prevailed in 2020 but progressives who sat out contributed to the vice president’s defeat in 2024.
Though they constantly characterize Republicans as enemies of American democracy, Democrats who want to democratize their party should consider emulating their rivals. With fewer superdelegates who skew primaries toward the establishment, the GOP is structurally representative of its voters. And its party leaders tend to set their personal preferences aside when voters prefer an insurgent outsider.
The results confirm Newt Gingrich’s observation that “by definition, the person who learns enough to become the nominee is almost certainly the best person for the general election.”
Donald Trump, a businessman and reality-TV personality with no political experience, entered the 2016 primary on a lark and defeated establishment favorites Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. Stalwarts like Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan opposed Trump but, in the end, pragmatism prompted acceptance and a unified GOP defeated Hillary.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, another political novice, ran in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election. State GOP bosses preferred conservatives like Tom McClintock and Bill Simon because Schwarzenegger’s moderate politics (pro-choice, environmentalist) made him an outsider. After Schwarzenegger won 48.6% of the vote in a crowded field, GOP leaders fell into line. He won two terms.
In another insurgent campaign Rand Paul, a libertarian ophthalmologist, won the 2010 GOP Senate primary. Mitch McConnell and other Kentucky party bosses had backed Trey Grayson. The party embraced him to co-opt his Tea Party base. Paul holds a steady seat. J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Dave Brat of Virginia all followed the path of the outsider who defeated establishment-backed candidates and were nevertheless accepted by the party hierarchy.
Like Democrats, Republicans lose when they fail to coalesce behind their insurgent primary victors. Some state Republican officials were displeased when former news anchor Kari Lake, a former news anchor, defeated establishment-backed Karrin Taylor Robson in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial primary. The RNC supported her but it wasn’t enough. A similar fate befell Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell in their 2010 Senate races in Nevada and Delaware, respectively.
History is clear. The smart move for Democrats is to unify behind their winning primary candidates, whether they are establishment favorites or progressive insurgents. New York and national Democrats should endorse, fund and campaign Zohran Mamdani.
(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s WHAT’S LEFT.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com.)