The Progressive Takeover of the Democratic Party
Editorial by Brill Commentariat @brillcommentariat
The progressive Takeover of the Democratic Party has become very acute, and Many Moderate Democrats and Republicans have wondered where exactly it began, many are wondering how this story will play out with some even theorizing the complete takeover of the Democratic Party itself.
When did the Party of John Fitzgerald Kennedy become the party of the modern day progressives and how is it that the Democratic party would barely be recognizable to lifelong Democratic voters that would have been hippies in their youth, listened to stories of JFK and Marylin Monroe’s flings to a party that wishes to abolish the police; this didn’t happen overnight and there is a story to every journey so let’s try to partially unravel this.
The history of the Progressive Caucus is a very interesting one although not necessarily a well-known one. The Progressive caucus was founded by Rob Dellums, Lane Evans, Thomas Andrews, Peter DeFazio, Maxime Waters and Bernie Sanders who at the time were the most Left Leaning members of the Democratic Party and to some degree still are.
Bernie Sanders, which is one of the most famous progressive caucus members, has had a very long career in the Political scene starting out with his Political affiliation with the Green Mountain Peace and Justice Party from 1970 to 1977 and finally entering the Political affiliation with the Vermont Progressives from 1981 to the present day. While Bernie Sanders has been called a Democrat, he has only been a fellow member for two very short stints during the Presidential campaigns of 2015-2016 and then again for 2019-2020.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus was founded in 1991, which was the same year that the Cold War ended, and like many left-wing movements around the globe reformed themselves to meet the Unipolar world and the new Liberal International World order. The way the Cold war ended was less than what many on the left were hoping for, as were it to be the other way around, and had the Soviet Union and the Communist Block won the Cold war, we would now be dealing with a Socialist or Communist International world order which would bury the proverbial boot on Mankind in perpetuity.
The founding of the Progressive Caucus was of course a reaction to what they perceived as a Democratic Party that was too moderate for their liking on a various host of issues and through the years have grown to be the Largest Caucus within the Democratic party followed by the Democrat Coalition which was founded in 1997 during the Clinton years with the Third Way ideology which is a branch of Social democracy made famous from then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair also being one of its main authors was quoted, “The Third Way stands for a modernized social democracy”.
This may go into the understanding of where the Modern Democratic Party currently stands today with the three heads of the Dragon now becoming two with the collapse of the Blue Dog Coalition, which was founded in 1995 as a reaction to Newt Gingrich’s ‘Contract with America’, which tried to portray itself as a Middle Ground between the GOP and the Democratic Party but started to collapse to other factions of the Democratic from 2008 onwards. This was mainly led by the Charismatic Barrack Obama who completely reshaped the Democratic Party with the most moderate factions left out of the two caucuses being Moderate Social Democrats, which you could nickname the “Clinton” faction with the Progressives to their left, which you could call the “Bernie” faction.
The collapse of the Blue Dog Coalition has been the most striking thing from all of this and it appears that in the next 2 or 3 elections cycles they may become a defunct and extinct group as the Social democrat and Progressive factions would very much like to bury them by way of the primary process to stop the GOP from finding partners within the Democratic Party during very close house votes.
While this is normally the part where we would say that the Blue Dog Coalition is a mere footnote to the story of the Progressives’ march through the Democratic Party institutions to overall and complete dominance, but there appears to be a would-be last hope. Robert F Kennedy JR, while a complete outsider and underdog and has little chance of actually winning the Democratic Primary for President, has given the Blue Dog Coalition a sense of vision that has been missing for a very long time.
Robert F Kennedy JR has said that he has seen the progressive takeover of the Democratic Party and notes that if his Uncle by the same name were to run for the Democratic Party today, it is very unlikely that he would be elected and maybe he is correct, or maybe RFK would be getting similar poll numbers to what Robert F Kennedy JR is getting now roughly 20%.
The lesson from all of this is that while the Democratic Party might be willing to accept the complete dominance from the Modern Social Democrats and Progressives while pushing Moderates and the last of the Southern Conservatives out of the party like Joe Manchin, there is a chance that a large sway of their voters might not. There is a massive gap that the Democratic Party refuses to accept between its radical leftist politicians and membership on one hand and the would be ‘Kennedy voters’ on the other. There are many voters within the Democratic party that would be inspired by old and famous speeches of JFK but not so much from AOC.
The secret to the GOP’s future success could be to try and hear the frustrations of former Democrats that are now starting to realize that the party of JFK is dead, and the messenger of death has come in the form of his very own nephew. This might be the wake-up call that Politically homeless and frustrated Democrats might need because a lot of them are natural MAGA Republicans without realizing it, if you took one of RFK JR’s speeches and said Trump wrote it, you would in many cases not realize the difference.
The New ‘Kennedy Voters’ might just need a nudge in the right direction towards the GOP and maybe RFK JR is the man to do it but only time will tell.
Great article and take. Love the ending.
I do think there are many “Blue Dog” moderate Dems that feel their voice isn’t being heard. And, they have some common values/views with us. Maybe with the correct agenda/talking points we can win some over.
Keep writing Brill