5
#000000
#FFFFFF
oligarchy
Why Status-Quo Dems Should Heed the Progressive Earthquake in New Jersey
The special primary election in New Jersey's 11th Congressional District was the first real chance Democrats have had to express their disapproval of the party leadership; it will certainly not be the last.
Feb 13, 2026
For months now, Democrats have expressed frustration with their party’s inability to oppose Trump 2.0 and the failure to construct an alternative. In October 2025, the Pew Research Foundation found that
- Two-thirds of Democrats say they are frustrated with the Democratic Party. Fewer than half of Republicans (40%) say the same of the GOP.
- Three-in-ten Democrats also say their own party makes them feel angry. Just 19% of Republicans say the same of their own party.
- Half of Democrats say their party makes them feel hopeful, compared with 69% of Republicans who say the same of the GOP.
- Just 29% of Democrats say the Democratic Party makes them feel proud; 52% of Republicans say their party evokes feelings of pride.
The Pew research builds on earlier research from the AP-NORC. In an open-ended question (meaning that respondents are free to volunteer anything), roughly 15% of Democrats described their party using words like "weak," or "apathetic," while an additional 10% believe it is broadly "ineffective" or "disorganized." Only 2 in 10 (20%) Democrats use positive words to describe their party. The most popular positive adjectives are “empathetic” and “inclusive.”
There are certainly Democrats on Capitol Hill who express frustration with their party for not doing enough to oppose President Donald Trump and put forth an alternative. Though he is not technically a Democrat (he is an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats), Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is a regular critic of the Democratic Party. Over the last few months, Sanders has been joined by others. The Washington Post reported back in September 2025 that Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has come to join those dissatisfied with the Democratic response to Trump:
During more than two decades in Congress, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland has earned a reputation as a mainstream policy wonk and loyal lieutenant to Democratic leaders. So, it came as something of a shock this month when Van Hollen derided top Democrats for failing to endorse New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist. “Many Democratic members of the Senate and the House representing New York have stayed on the sidelines” in the race, even as Mamdani has captured the public’s imagination by focusing on “ensuring that people can afford to live in the place where they work,” Van Hollen told a cheering crowd of party activists in Des Moines. “That kind of spineless politics is what people are sick of.”
Democrat rank and file were frustrated by their party’s breaking ranks in the Senate on the government shutdown in November. To many Democrats, including a number of Democrats on Capitol Hill, their party ended the shutdown without winning anything. MS described the situation as:
By breaking ranks, the eight Democrats effectively stripped their caucus of leverage to force an extension of the healthcare tax credits—and decided on their own, how the party’s shutdown strategy would end. It came as a shock to most Democrats.
Disgruntled Democrats have not had many opportunities to express their frustration with their party. There have not been any real Democratic primaries. All of this changed in dramatic form with the Democratic primary February 5 for New Jersey’s vacant 11th District (the former incumbent Mikie Sherrill was elected New Jersey governor). It is certainly fair to say that the 11th District is a Democratic one, but it is not one where you would expect a progressive to do well. It is mostly affluent suburbs where many commute to work in New York City.
In a result that shocked the Democratic establishment in both New Jersey and Washington, DC, Analilia Mejia, director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, and the political director for Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign, won a tightly contested multi-candidate field including former Congressman Tom Malinowski who had the backing of New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim. Also in the race was Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way and Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill.
In her campaign, Mejia spent far less than her opponents and lacked endorsement by county Democratic officials. She compensated for this by building an impressive get-out-the-vote operation and by emphasizing her opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
Mejia’s campaign was also helped by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which spent over $2 million in negative advertising attacking Malinowski. Many of the ads attacked him for a vote connected to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) funding; the group had made it clear they felt Malinowski’s openness to conditioning aid to Israel was not sufficiently supportive of Israel. AIPAC’s involvement in the race certainly hurt Malinowski, but I doubt whether it was decisive. Mejia’s win was the result of her longtime organizing in New Jersey and fact that her campaign’s message fit the mood of the electorate.
New York Times columnist Michele Goldberg recounts her conversation with a longtime New Jersey pollster:
But the longtime New Jersey pollster Patrick Murray told me he wasn’t surprised, because “this is an incredibly angry Democratic electorate.” New Jersey suburbanites, he argues, didn’t suddenly turn into democratic socialists. But they think the Democratic establishment has been feckless, and they want representatives who won’t consult a focus group before battling the president. “The underlying message,” he said, is that Democratic voters believe their party “should be on a war footing with Donald Trump.”
Mejia still must win a special general election in April before she can take her seat in Congress. However, given the district’s partisan tilt, it seems like a pretty safe bet.
The special primary election in New Jersey's 11th Congressional District was the first real chance Democrats have had to express their disapproval of the party leadership. It will certainly not be the last opportunity for restive Democrats to express their frustrations with their party. Based on what happened in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, status-quo Democrats have much to be worried about. On February 11, Axios reported on a conversation with Sen. Sanders:
Asked in a phone interview where else he thinks the left can win upset victories, Sanders pointed to a "Fighting Oligarchy" rally he is doing on Friday with Nida Allam, who is challenging Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC). "That might be another area where progressives can win a strong victory," he said. Brad Lander, the former New York City comptroller challenging Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), also has "a strong chance to win," Sanders said.
Mejia’s win in New Jersey may well be the harbinger of more wins for the left wing of the Democratic Party as Democrats look to send a message to their leadership on Capitol Hill. The Democratic leadership in Washington, DC has yet to come to terms with how frustrated and angry ordinary Democrats are not only with Trump but with their leadership as well.
Keep Reading
Show Less
'Democracy Dies in Oligarchy,' Says Sanders of Mass Layoffs at Washington Post
"If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie," said the senator, "please don't tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff."
Feb 05, 2026
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday added his voice to those who categorically rejected the notion that "financial challenges" were behind the Washington Post's decision to slash more than 300 jobs, considering the venerated newspaper is owned by the world's fourth-richest person, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
The tech mogul, Sanders (I-Vt.) noted, spent tens of millions of dollars last year on his wedding in Italy, and owns a $500 million yacht. Bezos has a net worth of at least $235 billion.
Most notably, the senator pointed to the $75 million Bezos just spent purchasing the rights to and promoting a documentary film about First Lady Melania Trump—one that critics have condemned as a clear "bribe," and whose premiere was followed by a visit to Bezos' space tech company Blue Origin by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said the firm is likely to do “plenty of winning” as the Pentagon hands out new defense contracts.
In a grim play on the tagline Bezos emblazoned on the Post's masthead after he bought the paper in 2013 for $250 million, Sanders wrote, "Democracy dies in oligarchy."
Sanders spoke out as numerous Post journalists announced that they had been affected by the mass layoffs, which will hit all sections of the newspaper and entirely shut down its sports and book review pages.
The international news section was also heavily impacted by the layoffs, and Ukraine correspondent Lizzie Johnson announced on social media that she had been "laid off by the Washington Post in the middle of a war zone."
Martin Weil, a longtime local reporter who joined the Post in 1965 and contributed to the paper's historic Watergate coverage, was also among those who were laid off.
Sanders has long criticized Bezos' decision to take over the Post and suggested that the mogul would not ensure fair coverage of issues impacting working Americans. In 2019, he said that the newspaper appeared biased against his progressive politics as he sought the Democratic nomination to run for president.
At the time, then-executive editor Martin Baron countered that "Jeff Bezos allows our newsroom to operate with full independence, as our reporters and editors can attest."
Last year, months after Bezos pulled an endorsement for then-Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign and following an announcement that the opinion page would focus on “personal liberties and free markets," opinion editor David Shipley announced his resignation. Columnist Ruth Marcus also stepped down weeks later after CEO Will Lewis allegedly refused to run a column critiquing Bezos' changes to the opinion section.
On Wednesday, Baron said the gutting of the Post's newsroom marked one of "the darkest days in the history of one of the world's greatest news organizations" and took aim at Bezos, whom he accused of "betraying the values he was supposed to uphold."
"The Post's challenges... were made infinitely worse by ill-conceived decisions that came from the very top," said Baron. "Bezos' sickening efforts to curry favor with President [Donald] Trump have left an especially ugly stain of their own."
Keep Reading
Show Less
'Scowling Void of Pure Nothingness': Critics Destroy $75 Million Melania Trump Documentary
"It’s one of those rare, unicorn films that doesn’t have a single redeeming quality," said one critic.
Jan 31, 2026
Critics have weighed in on Amazon MGM Studios' documentary about first lady Melania Trump, and their verdicts are overwhelmingly negative.
According to review aggregation website Metacritic, Melania—which Amazon paid $40 million to acquire and $35 million to market—so far has received a collective score of just 6 out of 100 from critics, which indicates "overwhelming dislike."
Similarly, Melania scores a mere 6% on Rotten Tomatoes' "Tomameter," indicating that 94% of reviews for the movie so far have been negative.
One particularly brutal review came from Nick Hilton, film critic for the Independent, who said that the first lady came off in the film as "a preening, scowling void of pure nothingness" who leads a "vulgar, gilded lifestyle."
Hilton added that the film is so terrible that it fails even at being effective propaganda and is likely to be remembered as "a striking artifact... of a time when Americans willingly subordinated themselves to a political and economic oligopoly."
The Guardian's Xan Brooks delivered a similarly scathing assessment, declaring the film "dispiriting, deadly and unrevealing."
"It’s one of those rare, unicorn films that doesn’t have a single redeeming quality," Brooks elaborated. "I’m not even sure it qualifies as a documentary, exactly, so much as an elaborate piece of designer taxidermy, horribly overpriced and ice-cold to the touch and proffered like a medieval tribute to placate the greedy king on his throne."
Donald Clarke of the Irish Times also discussed the film's failure as a piece of propaganda, and he compared it unfavorably to the work of Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.
"Melania... appears keener on inducing narcolepsy in its viewers than energizing them into massed marching," he wrote. "Triumph of the Dull, perhaps."
Variety's Owen Gleiberman argued that the Melania documentary is utterly devoid of anything approaching dramatic stakes, which results in the film suffering from "staggering inertia."
"Mostly it’s inert," Gleiberman wrote of the film. "It feels like it’s been stitched together out of the most innocuous outtakes from a reality show. There’s no drama to it. It should have been called 'Day of the Living Tradwife.'"
Frank Scheck of the Hollywood Reporter found that the movie mostly exposes Melania Trump is an empty vessel without a single original thought or insight, instead deploying "an endless number of inspirational phrases seemingly cribbed from self-help books."
Kevin Fallon of the Daily Beast described Melania as "an unbelievable abomination of filmmaking" that reaches "a level of insipid propaganda that almost resists review."
"It's so expected," Fallon added, "and utterly pointless."
Keep Reading
Show Less
Most Popular