(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Just what Democrats don't need: A new group telling them to surrender [1]
['Daily Kos Staff']
Date: 2025-09-17
The Democratic Party has been floundering since former Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election against Donald Trump—and a new think tank is pushing to make things even worse for the party.
The group and its founder, former Democratic Party operative Adam Jentleson, were profiled in The New York Times on Wednesday. He said the Searchlight Institute said seeks to push the Democrats away from openly supporting human rights for LGBTQ+ Americans and to join Republicans in denying the reality of the science of climate change.
“The folks who are most to blame about Trump are the ones who pushed Democrats to take indefensible positions,” Jentleson said. He also speciously claimed that the ACLU, which has defended human rights for decades and has pushed back on Republican’s abuses of immigrants, “did more to contribute to Trump’s victory than many conservative groups.”
The article noted that among the major donors who have given $10 million to Searchlight to move Democrats to the right are real estate investor Eric Laufer and hedge fund manager Stephen Mandel, both billionaires who would likely benefit from the party moving away from populist positions.
Jentleson’s posture that Democrats lost by being too wedded to progressive positions does not align with reality.
Related | 'Outrage and betrayal': House Democrats fume over Schumer's treachery
For instance, while under former President Joe Biden the Democratic Party was certainly more accepting of transgender Americans, the party still shied away from a full-throated defense of trans existence. During the 2024 party convention, transgender rights were barely even mentioned even though those rights were in the crosshairs for most of Trump’s first term.
Similarly, Democrats sounded more in line with conservative positions on immigration during the 2024 campaign, with extensive arguments in favor of “border security” and a pivot away from the Obama administration’s advocacy of a path to citizenship.
Turning away from the party’s base on these and other issues is far more likely to have hurt Democrats in the election than the progressive shaming being embraced by the Searchlight Institute.
A March poll from Navigator Research demonstrated the internal problem facing Democrats. Only 31% of people surveyed believe the Democrats are focused on “helping people like me” while 54% said they are focused on others. Democrats were also on the losing side of looking out for working people and valuing work.
It would not seem to make sense morally or politically to turn away from supporting key party constituencies among the LGBTQ+ or immigrant community based on that poor showing.
In fact, since Trump came back to the White House polling shows support for the party has improved when leaders pushed back against abuses, most notably attacks on migrants.
The biggest controversy within the Democratic caucus was the March decision by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to fund the Trump administration’s activities. Trump’s newly enabled agenda mirrored the one that Searchlight is now advocating for—and Americans, particularly the Democratic voters the party needs to survive, loathed it.
In reality, the progressive issues that Jentleson and Searchlight claim hurt Democrats were elevated to the point of caricature by outside elements.
It was mainstream news outlets like The New York Times that carried out a campaign of misinformation on transgender rights. The Times was joined by conservative propaganda outlets like Fox News in smearing transgender people, and instead of directly addressing the issue head-on, Democrats ignored it and hoped it would all go away. Republicans took advantage of this cowardice and spent millions to promote a false, unanswered narrative that paid electoral dividends.
Related | Wrongful deportation highlights Democratic split on how to fight Trump
The Searchlight remedy is to abandon this particularly vulnerable group of Americans, along with ignoring or downplaying other vital issues like climate change and immigration, ceding ground to right-wing extremism in the Republican Party.
In an ideal world the untold millions of dollars that Searchlight intends to use to pull Democrats to the right would probably be better spent on investing in a progressive media infrastructure. That would help inform the public of the importance of these issues and spotlight the Democrats who dare to stand up and do the right thing.
Or the party could just become Republican-lite and lose more elections to the next iteration of Donald Trump and his ilk.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/17/2344033/-Just-what-Democrats-don-t-need-A-new-group-telling-them-to-surrender?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_11&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
