Democrats sure are in disarray, and there's plenty of new poll results out this year and even just this week to prove it, given that the party is experiencing record lows. With the 2026 midterms and also the 2028 presidential election on the horizon, the Democrats are trying to coalesce around a new leader. Who they seem to be picking, especially when it comes to "resisting" President Donald Trump in his second term, doesn't exactly bode fell for the future of the party, especially when almost the entire country has shifted to the right.
This week, around when polls from CNN and NBC News were also released showing more bad news for the Democratic Party, The Washington Post published a column by Perry Bacon Jr., who listed six Democrats, specifically when it comes to how "These six Democrats are showing the party how to resist Trump 2.0." Given these names, and how every single one of them is a radical leftist, many of them handily winning their races, it's worth wondering if this is a lesson for how not to "resist," if they want to win future elections.
The columnist's commentary at the beginning about Democrats in general also highlights how Democrats are in disarray, given their voters don't see their party members as doing enough:
The list is alphabetical, and so first is Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas (D-TX), who Townhall has covered extensively. Democrats make her their mouth piece at their peril, given how radically leftist she is, spewing not only anti-Trump and anti-Elon Musk talking points, but also racist drivel as well. She almost certainly doesn't have to worry about reelection for as long as she wants her seat, given that she represents the most blue district in Texas. But, it doesn't bode well for the rest of her party.
When it comes to the quick blurb on Crockett, the column actually further promotes her behavior even further:
The second-term congresswoman plainly states what many Democratic voters believe but their elected officials often won’t say. Asked what she would tell Elon Musk if she had a chance to speak with him, Crockett had a two-word answer: “F — off.” While many Democratic officials are reluctant to defend diversity, equity and inclusion programs, Crockett has repeatedly emphasized their benefits and cast critics of such initiatives as “mediocre White boys.”
The 43-year-old was part of a group of members who walked out in the middle of Trump’s recent speech to a joint session of Congress, reportedly drawing the ire House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (New York).
The column also goes on to acknowledge how other Democrats may not necessarily want to emulate the congresswoman, sort of, but it comes off as too little too late. As the next paragraph reads:
I don’t think Democratic candidates running in swing districts and states next year should be as partisan as Crockett, or as progressive on identity issues. But most Democrats aren’t running in swing areas! (Crockett received about 85 percent of the vote last November in her Dallas-based district.) Members in very blue areas can and should echo the very real anger and frustration of millions of Americans with what’s happening in our country. Other members, such as Florida’s Maxwell Frost, Massachusetts’s Ayanna Pressley and New Mexico’s Melanie Stansbury, have also been notable for telling the whole truth about Trump.
It's true that most Democrats--or Republicans, for that matter--don't run in swing districts, but enough do, and the House has had particularly narrow majorities after the 2022 and 2024 elections and could after 2026.
Bacon Jr is courteous enough to censor himself when quoting the Crockett, though it's not something the congresswoman, or many of her fellow Democrats have done. If anything, they've doubled down on cursing, especially when it comes to insulting Trump and Musk.
The next person on the list, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), has no problem using foul language either. Bacon Jr actually begins in part by capitalizing the hysteria that the senator goes with, in contrast to Schumer:
At the start of Trump’s second term, Senate Democrats, led by Schumer, seemed desperate to show that they were not too partisan and would work with the new administration when possible. Not Murphy. Within weeks of Trump’s inauguration, the Connecticut senator, not previously known as a liberal firebrand, was using terms such as “red alert” and “constitutional crisis.”
And while other congressional Democrats now sound more like Murphy, he’s still ahead of them in clearly articulating the dangers of the administration’s actions. So while Jeffries and Schumer released equivocal statements when Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was detained by the Trump administration last week, Murphy said, “In dictatorships, they call this ‘a disappearance.’” Such vivid language is important to describe the gravity of Khalil’s arrest and, unfortunately, probably more convincing to the media and the average American coming from a middle-aged White man. (Murphy is 51.)
Murphy is also making an important intellectual contribution to the anti-Trump movement. Some on the left say that Democrats should attack Trump largely on economic issues, particularly his closeness to Musk and other billionaires. Others argue it’s more important to focus on the president undermining democratic norms and values. But Murphy rightly emphasizes both, and their interconnectedness.
“He’s got two goals. I think he wants to enrich his friends and destroy our democracy,” Murphy told The Post’s Paul Kane last month, describing the president.
One recent incident when it comes to that hysteria, with regards to "dictatorships" and "a disappearance," is the narrative on how the Trump administration is looking to deport a pro-Hamas terrorist sympathizer in the United States on a green card, Mahmoud Khalil. Murphy also claims that Trump is looking to "destroy our democracy," another play on how the president is supposedly a threat to democracy, a narrative then Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) relentlessly went with for the 2024 election, which didn't go in their favor.
The blurb on Murphy goes on to mention the columnist's view that he's running for president in 2028, something of a curious move given how blue a state Connecticut is. Then again, that may mean an easy win for whatever Republican nominee would have to face him.
Townhall has also covered Murphy plenty. Last month, for instance, he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before his ill-fated meeting at the White House with Trump and Vice President JD Vance, and then threw a tantrum over X about how that narrative was framed.
Another story not mentioned is how Murphy has left his wife and is now romantically involved with Tara McGowan, the CEO of Courier Newsroom, who Semafor described as "[o]ne of the Democratic Party’s most notable digital media leaders."
Next on the list is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Yes, she's rather far to the left, but a CNN poll from this week showed that 10 percent of Democratic respondents believe she is a leader in the party who "best reflects the core values." That's the most any individual person received, with 30 percent offering a response with no name. Perhaps she'll challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in 2028, or even run for president that year. That would be another gift to Republicans. The Cook Partisan Voting Index (Cook PVI) for 2023 had her district at a D+28. That's not the most blue district in the state, but it's up there. It's also the 23rd most Democratic district in the country, even more so than Crockett's D+27 district.
Bacon Jr mentions some of the Trump-AOC feuds, and then fawns over the congresswoman from there, also referencing how she is potentially under investigation from Attorney General Pam Bondi:
But while the congresswoman’s anti-Trump fervor is not unexpected, it is passionate and creative. With Trump entering office on a promise to deport millions, Ocasio-Cortez’s office conducted an online seminar emphasizing immigrants’ rights. That led Trump border czar Tom Homan to publicly suggest that the congresswoman should be investigated by the Justice Department.
The New York congresswoman responded by mocking Homan in a post on Bluesky. “Maybe he can learn to read. The Constitution would be a good place to start,” she wrote. Then, Ocasio-Cortez sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that she also released publicly, asking whether the congresswoman was being investigated by the DOJ, emphasizing that such a probe would be a violation of her rights.
That "seminar" advised how to evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The column goes on to suggest other Democrats emulate the congresswoman:
Other Democrats should emulate how Ocasio-Cortez dealt with Homan. She both belittled him — he can’t even get a MAGA attorney general to take him seriously — and cast him as an authoritarian.
Ocasio-Cortez is also playing a critical role by criticizing fellow Democrats who are not meeting this moment. She spent last week urging Democratic activists to call their senators, including her home state colleague Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, to build opposition to the government funding bill. Gillibrand and Schumer still paved the way for it to pass, but they no doubt felt the heat from party activists that was driven by Ocasio-Cortez. And now progressives are urging her to run for Schumer’s seat in 2028.
The next name on the list is yet another bright blue Democrat who has tried to make a name for himself on the immigration issue.
That name, and others, will be in part two of this VIP piece, so stay tuned!
