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rahm emanuel
No, It's Not Rahm Emanuel. Graham Platner Is the Future of the Democratic Party
Despite the Democratic establishment, a younger and more charismatic generation of populist and progressive Democrats is on the way to winning primaries and general election races across America.
May 08, 2026
Last Thursday, populist Democratic candidate Graham Platner shook up the Democratic establishment when his primary competitor, Maine Governor Janet Mills, suspended her Senate campaign amid polls showing her badly trailing Platner, an oyster farmer who had come out of nowhere to win a national following.
Platner is the latest example of the rise of anti-establishment outsiders in the Democratic Party — a trend that also includes self-proclaimed democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, who last year defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo for New York City mayor.
Yet the Democratic establishment — corporate Democrats, wealthy Democratic donors, entrenched Washington “centrists,” the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer — still don’t get it.
Hell, the Democratic establishment didn’t get it a decade ago when Hillary Clinton was the presumptive Democratic nominee (and, not incidentally, Jeb Bush was considered a shoe-in for the Republican nomination).
I remember interviewing voters about their political preferences in the late spring of 2015, in the Rust Belt, Midwest, and South, for a book I was then writing. When I asked them whom they wanted for president, they kept telling me Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. Often the same individuals offered both names. They explained they wanted an “outsider,” someone who would “shake up” the system, ideally a person who wasn’t even a Democrat or a Republican.
The people I met were furious with their employers, with the federal government, and with Wall Street. They were irate that they hadn’t been able to save for their retirements, indignant that their children weren’t doing any better than they had at their children’s age, and enraged at those at the top. Several had lost jobs, savings, or homes in the financial crisis or the Great Recession that followed it.
If Democrats fail to connect with the frustrations of average hardworking Americans and decide instead to side with big corporations and Wall Street, they’ll have given up the most crucial opportunity in a generation both to take back control of Congress and to lead the way on a new progressive agenda.
They kept reiterating that the system was “rigged” in favor of the powerful and against themselves. They didn’t oppose government per se; most favored additional spending on Social Security, Medicare, education, and roads and bridges. But they hated “crony capitalism” — large corporations using their political clout to gain special favors and changes in laws that often hurt average people.
The following year, Sanders — then a 74-year-old Jew from Vermont who described himself as a democratic socialist and wasn’t even a Democrat until the 2016 presidential primaries — came within a whisker of beating Clinton in the Iowa caucus and ended up with 46 percent of the pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention from primaries and caucuses. Had the DNC not tipped the scales against him by deriding his campaign and rigging its financing in favor of Clinton, Sanders would probably have been the Democratic nominee in 2016.
Trump, then a 69-year-old egomaniacal billionaire reality TV star who had never held elected office or had anything to do with the Republican Party and who lied compulsively about almost everything, of course won the Republican primaries and went on to beat Clinton, one of the most experienced and well-connected politicians in modern America. Granted, he didn’t win the popular vote, and he had some help from Vladimir Putin, but he won.
Something very big was happening in America: a full-scale rebellion against the political establishment.
That rebellion continues to this day. Yet much of Washington’s Democratic elite is still in denial. They prefer to attribute the rise of Trump and, more broadly, Trumpism — its political paranoia, xenophobia, white Christian nationalism, misogyny, homophobia, and cultural populism — solely to racism. Well, racism is certainly a part of it. But hardly all.
In 2024, Democrats didn’t even get to choose their nominee from the primary process, since Biden dropped out after a dreadful debate performance and was replaced by Kamala Harris — leaving some Democrats feeling like higher powers were picking their nominee.
The anti-establishment groundswell has by now spread to independent voters — who are now a whopping 45 percent of the electorate and have moved sharply against Trump. It’s one of the most dramatic shifts in recent political history.
Trump’s approval rating among independents now stands at 25 percent, while 68 percent of independents disapprove of him. In 2024, independents were evenly divided, with 48 percent voting for Harris and 48 percent for Trump. In 2020, independents favored Biden by 9 percentage points.
The Democratic establishment still doesn’t see the groundswell — or is actively fighting it.
In Iowa, whose primary is June 2, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is quietly backing state Rep. Josh Turek against state Sen. Zach Wahls. That’s probably a mistake. Turek is a good candidate, but Wahls is a young, dynamic progressive — similar to Platner in his ability to inspire and rally. (In Iowa, independents who want to vote in the Democratic primary need only declare themselves Democrats by June 2.)
In California, whose primary is also June 2, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee just rejected Randy Villegas as its preferred nominee for the 22nd Congressional District and instead endorsed doctor and assemblywoman Jasmeet Bains. Villegas, known as a strong progressive, has been endorsed by the congressional progressive caucus and the congressional Hispanic caucus’s campaign arm. “This is about party leadership and D.C. elites putting their thumb on the scale for who they know will bend the knee to party leadership and corporate interests,” Villegas says.
In Arizona, whose primary is July 21, the DCCC has endorsed Marlene Galán-Woods in a Democratic primary to replace Representative David Schweikert, the Republican who is leaving Congress to run for governor. The DCCC rejected Amish Shah, a doctor and former state legislator who won the primary in 2024 and came within a few points of defeating Schweikert. (That year, Ms. Galán-Woods finished third in the primary.) Shah has been leading Galán-Woods by a 3-to-1 margin in the only public poll of the race. Shah says Democrats should stop backing the party apparatus if they want to win the House majority.
In Michigan, whose primary is August 4, the DSCC is backing Rep. Haley Stevens, who’s in a tight race against rival Abdul El-Sayed. Also probably a mistake. El-Sayed is another young progressive who’s showing a remarkable ability to galvanize Democrats and independents. (Michigan has open primaries in which any voter can participate.)
I could go on, but you get the point.
If Democrats fail to connect with the frustrations of average hardworking Americans and decide instead to side with big corporations and Wall Street, they’ll have given up the most crucial opportunity in a generation both to take back control of Congress and to lead the way on a new progressive agenda.
What does this anti-establishment surge — including the remarkable growth of independents and their sharp rejection of Trump — mean for the presidential race in 2028?
For one thing, it suggests that the current presumed Democratic frontrunners — Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom — are frontrunners only because of their name recognition. As voters find out more about the alternatives, it’s unlikely that either of them will make the cut.
For another, it suggests that anti-establishment candidates are the ones to watch.
Obama chief of staff and former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel told a packed crowd at the Milken Institute Global Conference this week that the biggest challenge both parties have faced over the last quarter-century has been the battle between establishment forces and anti-establishment forces.
Emanuel was correct. But he then went on to suggest, absurdly, that he’s anti-establishment. Emanuel’s cozy ties to corporate America, his closeness to Citadel founder Ken Griffin (who praised Emanuel from Milken’s main stage), and even Emanuel’s presence at the Milken conference, belie his claim.
But the mere fact that Emanuel thinks it important to claim anti-establishment creds underscores that the biggest force in American politics today — and in the Democratic Party — is anti-establishment rage at political insiders.
Despite the Democratic establishment, a younger and more charismatic generation of populist and progressive Democrats is on the way to winning primaries and general election races across America. If Graham Platner beats Republican Senator Susan Collins in Maine, which seems likely, he’s the kind of candidate who (in my humble opinion) will be the future of the Democratic Party.
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Did Centrism Help Democrats Win in Virginia and New Jersey? Or Was It ICE's Brutality?
With the Republicans becoming ever more authoritarian, centrism moves the entire political spectrum to the right.
Nov 19, 2025
The Democratic centrists are at it again, looking to show that the road to success is paved with middle-of-the-road candidates like Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger. Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York is being written off as the fluke product of a deep blue city, while the newly elected governors are hailed as the very model of successful centrist Democratic messaging.
Rahm Emanual, former Obama staffer, Mayor of Chicago and Wall Street advisor said:
If you are trying to win national campaigns that bring in a whole slew of swing voters, is the test Park Slope, Brooklyn — or what happens in New Jersey and Virginia? I am less interested in the Upper West Side and more interested in the Upper Peninsula. That is how you win.
Others argue that in substance Mamdani’s platform is not radically different from those of the moderate governors. Ry Rivard and Madison Fernandez wrote in Politico:
For all their ideological differences, Zohran Mamdani, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger found a shared language that aims at the heart of President Donald Trump’s populism: the high cost of everyday life.
Their wins suggest a recalibration of Democratic politics — from moral crusades to kitchen-table math.
Affordability is the new mantra, to be sure, but the moderates are not ready to take on the fundamental causes of unaffordability. Those require you to take on the Democratic donor class. To truly make America affordable again, you need to slap major controls on Wall Street-financed oligopolies and rein in the wealth extraction machines that are private equity and hedge funds. Since the Democrats are not about to bite the donors’ hands that feed them, moderation is their best and only policy.
But maybe that timid moderation isn’t the reason the Dems won in this abbreviated cycle. Maybe the moderates won for a completely different reason that has little or nothing to do with affordability, like the fact that ICE has been coming after Hispanic immigrants, often with extreme violence, often arresting citizens and jailing them without cause. This everyday cruelty is ripping people from their communities and families across the country. It’s ugly and lots of voters of all persuasions don’t like it.
If that’s the case, I would think we would see a big shift in Hispanic votes from Trump in 2024 to Sherrill and Spanberger in 2025. And as best I can tell, that’s exactly what happened.
About 16 percent of all eligible voters in New Jersey are Hispanic. The two counties with the largest concentration are Hudson and Passaic. In Hudson County, the Hispanic vote shifted away from Trump by 23 percent, while it shifted away by 18 percent in Passaic County. “Sherrill carried Latino men and women alike, and even flipped 18% of Latino Trump voters,” reported CBS News.
While only 9 percent of Virginians are Hispanic, the two counties with the highest Hispanic concentrations (over 40 percent) are Manassas and Manassas Park. Although these are small counties, in Manassas Spanberger picked up 9 percent more votes than Harris did in 2024, while also picking up 13 percent more in Manassas Park.
It’s not hard to understand why Hispanic voters might be turning against Trump and his ICE machine. Many Hispanic citizens live with some undocumented immigrants, often family members. And Hispanic citizens have friends, neighbors, and co-workers who are Hispanic, all of whom know they might get stopped by masked members of ICE based on how they speak or the way they look or during a raid of their workplaces. Trump promised to deport serious criminals, but his administration has pivoted to targeting anyone who might be in the US without papers based on how they look. That includes many hardworking immigrant citizens.
The latest Kaiser Family Fund/New York Times poll confirms these fears:
“One in five immigrants say they personally know someone who has been arrested, detained or deported since January. Four in ten worry they or a family member could face such action. Many immigrants, including naturalized citizens and those who are lawfully present, say they feel less safe, are avoiding activities outside their home, and no longer view the U.S. as a good destination for immigrants.”
The Democrats would be wise and righteous to come to the defense of these working people, rather than dance the moderate two-step (“let’s work on affordability but leave the wealthy alone”).
As we’ve noted repeatedly, a strong majority of voters want a path to citizenship for undocumented workers. Our Rust Belt survey showed that 63 percent of the voters of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin support granting citizenship to undocumented workers who have been here three years, paid their taxes, and have not committed a felony crime. That support includes 36 percent of 2024 Trump voters.
Mamdani openly supports a path to citizenship, but do the new governors?
Instead of giving marathon speeches and shutting down the government, Democrats would make a powerful statement if they went out into the streets to protect immigrants from deportation. What would the public’s reaction be if every Democratic member of Congress got arrested standing up for due process and immigrants at ICE raids and facilities? Their mugshots would be a badge of honor, noticed by a public hungry for human solutions to real problems, not political terror. They would likely have more impact than counting on “affordability centrism” to stop Trump and his billionaire friends.
With the Republicans becoming ever more authoritarian, centrism moves the entire political spectrum to the right. It is just an excuse for ducking the hard task of taking on the monied elites who are sucking wealth away from working people.
Jim Hightower, the old-school populist columnist who served as Texas Commissioner of Agriculture for eight years, always had disdain for political centrists. As he pointed out many moons ago, “There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.”
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The Mythical Rich Suburban Republican (White) Ladies Who The Democrats Chase But Can Never Find
Considering the origins of this destructive neoliberal mythology may help those who want to challenge it.
Jun 20, 2025
Clintonite Democrats are cooking yet another version of their long-running fantasy of the rich, suburbanite (white) ladies who are more committed to good government and rule of law than to their tax cuts and pissing on poor people as the anchor of the coalition that will defeat Trump and Trumpism.
This fantasy has been their go-to in nearly every presidential election since 1996. No doubt many readers recall what should have been its last stand—the 2016 election when both Senate leader Chuck Schumer and former Philadelphia mayor and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell boasted that “for every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia.”
Now it has taken the form of lauding reactionary Lynne Cheney as an icon of principle, to an extent that it should not surprise if her name is floated at least as the vice-presidential candidate on a 2028 Democratic ticket. But it also appeared in Rep. Ro Khanna’s reaction to Elon Musk’s apparent break with Trump. California's Khanna, a leader within the Democrats’ Congressional Progressive Caucus, urged reaching out to Musk possibly to win him back, despite the fact that he is, well... Elon Musk and that his break with the cosplay Il Duce was provoked by his outrage that Trump’s proposed budget wasn’t draconian enough.
[The mythology] does the ideological work these Democrats want without explicitly acknowledging their investor class allegiances.
Commitment to the fantasy showed up as well in the choice of conservative Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) to rebut Trump’s speech to Congress. Slotkin rose to the occasion by praising Ronald Reagan—the person most singly responsible for putting our national politics on the road to Trumpism—four different times. Now Democratic sages like James Carville and Hillary Clinton have floated the likes of Rahm Emanuel, whose approach to building a Democratic congressional majority as Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair centered on recruiting Republicans to run as Democrats, as the party’s and country’s savior in 2028.
Even more recently, flamboyant Dallas Mavericks owner and Ayn Rand fan Mark Cuban has popped up as a possible contender in a telling “it takes a billionaire” line of argument. And now it seems to have found itself a simulacrum of a social theory/manifesto to rally around in the Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson 300-page beacon to the future, Abundance, which the publisher describes as a “once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to renew a politics of plenty.”
Klein has been anointed by such paragons of middle-brow ponderousness as David Brooks and Fareed Zakaria, who moreover predicts that “People will recruit [him and Thompson] to run the Democratic Party.” (Must be the little glasses.) The argument, as one might suspect from those authors and endorsers, is warmed over neoliberal bromides and bullshit—just the sort of intervention that would appeal to Clintonite Democrats whose politics has always come down to trying to sell right-wing policies as the limits of a reasonable left.
The Democrats are going to do what they are going to do. One takeaway from Trumpism’s victory—and I know this is a point I’ve made over and over for quite some time—should be that there is no organized left in the United States capable of having any impact on shaping national political debate and, therefore, the primary commitment of leftists as such should be doing the deep organizing work necessary to begin generating such an embedded left. So whether and how the Clintonites can be challenged in the struggle to define the terms of opposition to Trumpism is a matter for liberals to work out within the Democratic Party itself. It may be helpful for that struggle, though, to consider the origins of the fantasy that has for three decades justified dragging the party’s efforts to appeal to a popular constituency away from working-class concerns. (For example, in 2004, John Kerry’s feckless campaign called them “national security moms.”) We know that objective is why the fantasy persists among Democratic neoliberals; it does the ideological work they want without explicitly acknowledging their investor class allegiances and enables them to hide behind catering to a bourgeois feminism. Considering its origins, however, may help those who want to challenge it.
The mythical rich suburban (white) moderate Republican woman has a very specific source. It emerged out of the concatenation of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing in the fall of 1991 and the1992 national election. Its root is in the election for the U.S. Senate in Illinois that year. The Democratic incumbent, Alan Dixon, was also on the Senate Judiciary Committee that presided over the Thomas hearing. Dixon promised the George H. W. Bush administration his vote for Thomas in exchange for the administration’s guarantee that it would run only a weak Republican challenger against him. The Republicans kept their end of the bargain. Dixon’s GOP challenger was a relative non-entity, Rich Williamson, who had been an official in the Reagan administration and was from Kenilworth, an especially wealthy enclave within the wealthy Northshore suburbs of Chicago.
But the Democratic primary turned out to be a wild card. In addition to Carol Mosely Braun’s candidacy, Dixon was challenged as well by Al Hofeld, a maverick, self-financing multimillionaire who targeted Dixon and garnered 27% of the vote in the primary. Dixon and Mosely Braun split the remaining vote, and Mosely Braun won the primary with 38% of the total vote. In both the primary and the general election, she benefited from bourgeois feminist backlash against Thomas and Dixon, and she ran well among suburban Republican women against the relative non-entity, Williamson. That was a fluke, the product of very particular circumstances in a very particular moment. It has not been repeated, not even in Mosely Braun’s re-election bid in 1998, which she lost to Republican Peter Fitzgerald.
It has never materialized as an electoral reality. So that’s that.
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