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Dems Must Unify and Stop the Circular Firing Squad (Looking at You, David Hogg) [1]
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Date: 2025-05-14
It is impossible overstate the urgency of the situation we face as a nation. Virtually every day the Trump Administration comes forward with some outrageous executive order or other action that will directly cause harm. Meanwhile the spineless Republicans in the House and Senate do nothing to stop the destruction, and in many cases make it worse. There must be no higher priority for Democrats than to take back control of the House (and ideally the Senate) in 2026. Period. Anything that threatens that priority objective must not be supported.
In a moment, I will opine on why the recent initiative by David Hogg…to primary so-called “old, in-effective (Democratic) congressmen”… is a horribly mis-timed effort, that would greatly damage the ability of the Democrats to re-take the House. But first, let me try to counter the seemingly widely-held disapproval of the Democratic Party.
Unfortunately, it is certainly the case that Democrats seem to constantly engage in intra-party disagreements (in contrast to Republicans who tend to ‘fall in line’). And this tendency is exacerbated after losing a tough election like 2024. There has been endless discussion on who to blame for that result.
Rather than go down that rabbit hole, I want to highlight some remarkable successes by Democrats when they were in control, and contrast that with the record under Republicans. These differences are stark, and underscore that absolute priority of re-taking control of Congress.
During 2017 and 2018 , the Republicans controlled everything in the federal government. Trump was President, and Republicans controlled the House and Senate. They literally passed only one major legislative accomplishment, Trump’s 2017 Tax legislation, which made huge tax cuts for the rich and large corporations. The legislation overwhelmingly favored the top 1%, and it slashed the top corporate tax rate from 35% down to only 21%. (The fact that those big tax cuts expire in 2025 is the prime reason why billionaires poured unprecedented amounts of money into Trump’s and Republican’s 2024 campaigns.)
In contrast, during 2021 and 2022 , the Democrats controlled the presidency and the House and Senate. Under that situation, Democrats passed several major pieces of positive legislation…each one with little or no Republican support. Here are just a few key examples.
The American Rescue Plan in response to COVID-19. The White House sent Americans in the low-to-medium income range a $1,400 payment to help fund basic necessities like rent and groceries. Biden also extended a $300 a week federal unemployment benefit for some 9.7 million people out of work at the time, temporarily expanded the child tax credit program, allotted $7.25 billion for small business loans and $128 billion in grants for state educational agencies. The bill passed the Senate 50-49 and the House 220 to 211, with no Republican votes in either chamber.
The CHIPS Act The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 passed in August, which allocated roughly $53 billion in federal funding to manufacture semiconductor chips in the U.S. instead of relying on China to produce them. The bill to build semiconductors in the U.S.The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 passed in August, which allocated roughly $53 billion in federal funding to manufacture semiconductor chips in the U.S. instead of relying on China to produce them. The bill originally passed the House with just one Republican vote. In the Senate, all Democrats plus 17 Republicans voted in favor.
The Inflation Reduction Act . Biden's ambitious package took a lot of work to pass through Congress, with Vice President Harris' vote breaking the Senate's 50-50 party line vote. It also cleared the House in a 220-207 vote along party lines, without a single Republican voting in favor. In addition to being by far the most serious federal legislation to ever address the climate crisis, the bill aims to tackle inflation by reducing the federal deficit, promote production of certain goods and limit the cost of some prescription drugs.
[NOTE TO SUPPORTERS OF THE DAVID HOGG STRATEGY: EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE SO-CALLED “OLD, INEFFECTIVE CONGRESSMEN” AND “OUT-OF-TOUCH INCUMBENTS” THAT HE MAY WANT TO PRIMARY, VOTED FOR EVERY ONE OF THOSE ACTS.]
Another crucial piece of legislation that passed during that time period did receive some Republican support, but was championed by Democrats and would not have passed without Democrats being in control.
bipartisan infrastructure bill. Democrats led on the Former President Donald Trump had pressed conservatives to vote against the bill, but enough Republicans held firm and supported the legislation. The. Democrats led on the $1 trillion infrastructure bill , passed in November 2021. That law included $284 billion for transportation needs, which includes repairing bridges and roadways, public transit and airports, electric vehicles and low emission public transportation; $65 billion for broadband internet; $73 billion for power infrastructure; and $55 billion for clean drinking water., but enough Republicans held firm and supported the legislation.
And if that contrast isn’t enough to convincingly demonstrate why it is so fricking important who controls Congress…just consider what a complete and utter disaster we have experienced since January, when Republicans re-took total control of the Presidency, the House and the Senate in D.C. Virtually every progressive policy and program in the nation is under attack, from climate and clean energy, to education, to Medicaid and nutrition assistance, to veterans programs, to senior programs like Meals on Wheels, etc., etc. And all in the service of a massive tax cut for the wealthy and corporations.
Which brings me back to the misguided effort to primary incumbent Democrats. Let me give just 3 reasons why this effort would be destructive to the primary objective of re-taking control of the House.
It would divert precious resources of time, money and effort away from what should be the Democratic priority: defeating vulnerable Republican representatives in purple or swing districts. The rhetoric challenging/attacking the sitting Democratic incumbent would without doubt be picked up and used by Republicans (and no doubt Russian trolls) to attack other Democrats in other districts. It is quite likely that ‘dark money’ interests would fund the selective use of such rhetoric to convince “progressive” voters to sit out the election…and conversely, to convince moderate Democrats to switch parties or stay home because Democrats were becoming “too radical”. (Recall that the Repugs and Russian trolls were pretty effective at getting dissatisfied Democrats to stay home during the 2024 election.) The lingering effects of a brutal primary fight might cause some voters supporting the losing candidate to not vote in the general…potentially even jeopardizing the notion that these are “safe districts”.
The bottom line is that for anyone desiring to stop MAGA and have a government that supports Democratic values, the absolute top priority must be to re-take the House majority. Because of the arcane House rules, if the Republicans retain the majority, it doesn’t matter how many vigorous young progressives might defeat old Democratic moderates in primaries. Moreover, it is simply a reality that any plausible Democratic majority is going to contain both progressives and moderates. The good news is that with proper leadership, as the legislative examples provide above illustrate, that Democratic coalition can accomplish some great things.
I’m going to presume that David Hogg is well-intentioned, and only desires the best for the Democratic Party. If so, I sincerely hope he re-directs his efforts to help assure the achievement of that top priority of retaking Democratic control of Congress. (That could very plausibly include supporting strong young progressives in efforts to defeat incumbent Republicans.) Then once Democrats (hopefully) secure control of the House, it would be time to direct efforts to intra-party concerns about advancing progressives.
Democrats, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the pretty good…when the alternative on the other side is absolutely terrible.
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