Socialists Show Democrat Establishment Has Lost Its Way

It’s a political strategy as old as time: When faced with a rapidly spreading insurgency within your own ranks, define yourself as the true embodiment of the very things fueling the rebellion. Democrat establishment entities, much like their Republican colleagues on the other side of the aisle, have spent most of the past ten years desperately trying to re-purpose Americans’ palpable contempt for the political status quo as re-affirmation rather than severe chastisement. As can be seen with the explosion of socialism in blue party ranks, the gatekeeping isn’t holding.

Abdul El-Sayed is the current favorite to capture Michigan’s US Senate nomination for the Democratic Party on August 4. His only remaining primary rival is Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who CNN tellingly describes as a “moderate with a track record of winning on red turf.” Translation: She won’t buck the system and thus earns the coveted “candidate quality” verbiage afforded to hopefuls of both parties who appeal more to party leadership than the voters at large.

Hard Left to Democrat Establishment: Support or Get Out of the Way

El-Sayed may not openly identify as a “democratic socialist” – his messaging seeks to go beyond ideological labels – but his hard-left campaign has been enthusiastically embraced by the same Marxist-flavored radicals capturing success after success in Democrat primaries in New York and elsewhere.

While it’s certainly important to highlight how El-Sayed’s socialist-friendly progressive platform poses a genuine threat to America, it must also be noted that his candidacy is the latest sign of the abject weakness of a tottering Democrat political Old Guard.

It’s not only that El-Sayed doesn’t see the likes of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who has powerful financial cards at his disposal, as a threat. He doesn’t even see him as a factor. Help me if I’m the nominee, fine. No… just as well. And it’s clear that this is not mere posturing.

“If the [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee] wants to invest in Michigan, fantastic, and if the DSCC wants to make the same mistake that they made with [radical 2022 Michigan Senate party nominee] Mandela Barnes in 2022, then we’re gonna figure out how to run our campaign. If the DSCC is committed to a Senate majority, they are going to have to win it through Michigan, and I will have given them the best shot at doing that,” El-Sayed told David Weigel at Semafor in a revealing interview published July 1.

‘Bunch of Folks Wanting to Live in a West Wing Episode’

Weigel touched on controversies such as El-Sayed appearing on a podcast hosted by avowed far-left socialist Hasan Piker and even campaigning alongside him. So-called “center-left” think tank Third Way has prominently led the denunciations of such associations. Far from being on the defensive, El-Sayed cited Piker’s popularity among young progressives to further taunt feeble establishment attempts to curry favor with blue voters pining for real change.

“Look, I’ve been very clear: I’ll go everywhere, talk to everybody. The folks at Third Way have made a whole organization out of taking money from billionaires and corporate folks to launder the same old sh*t ideas that have buried towns like this one [Allen Park, Michigan], and then they want to do this sort of platform politics that feels more like a bunch of folks wanting to live in a West Wing episode than real life,” he zinged.

“I think their style of politics is about as old as their ideas, and about as stale. So when they came after me, all they were doing was telling on themselves. And when we doubled down, they realized that I’m not playing games.”  

You don’t have to like socialism one bit to realize comments such as that are going to hit a mark.

The Democrat establishment is reaping the Marxist whirlwind that comes with seeking to co-opt the radicalism in its grassroots ranks rather than firmly walking away from it. Again, it’s not about “disavow.” Chuck Schumer’s disavowals are no more meaningful today than Mitt Romney’s endless “disqualifying moment” declarations about Donald Trump over the years.

But you can’t court and condemn at the same time. Democrats want the angry young progressive voters. They just don’t want what comes with them. It doesn’t work that way anymore.

Fight the Power! No, Not Like That

In March 2025, Liberty Nation News wrote about Third Way’s attempts to forge “moderation” in the Democrat ranks after the 2024 election debacles.

The organization hosted a retreat for party political operatives at a “tony resort off the Potomac River,” Politico reported at the time. The confab led to the crafting of a five-page document on how Democrats can move to the middle.

“One of the key ways to win back the trust of the working class, some gathered there argued, was to ‘reduce far-left influence and infrastructure’ on the party, according to the takeaways document,” Politico noted.

Sixteen months later, these forces are more powerful than ever. How did that happen?

This is the same Third Way organization that happily abetted the bitter and polarizing leftist messaging of Kamala Harris that led to her disastrous defeat in 2024.

Executive Vice President for Public Affairs Matt Bennett “penned an article on the Third Way website in May 2024 titled ‘The Extensive Evidence That RFK Jr. Is a Right-Wing, MAGA-Aligned Crank,’” LNN observed. Gee, how moderate. “Other Third Way think pieces written as Democrats were hurling their electoral hopes off a woke cliff in 2024 include ‘The Myth of the Migrant Crime Wave,’ ‘Trump’s Mass Deportation Is Not Feasible,’ and ‘Rebutting Border Attacks on VP Harris.’”

It’s hard to decry rising leftist furor while you are pushing the same divisive social and cultural narratives and supporting the same pro-illegal alien policies that have been so essential in driving the rise of socialism in blue-controlled major US cities.

This is what the Abdul El-Sayeds realize that the Chuck Schumers do not. You can’t repeatedly lob verbal Molotov cocktails at traditional American norms for years and then expect to conjure up a controlled response. In the Marxist worldview, there is no such thing as a little revolution. The threat of democratic socialism is very real. But it could not have happened without the complete moral and tactical failure of one of the two major political parties in America today.