When David Hogg ran for DNC Vice Chair, I said from the outset that he lacked the depth and maturity for such a position. It had only been weeks since he publicly celebrated the loss of Mary Peltola to a Republican in Alaska, because she wasn’t “pure” enough on gun control. I said then that I’d prefer a DNC Vice Chair who doesn’t celebrate when Republicans win, but actually invests time and resources in helping Democrats win. Now we’re seeing how this is playing out.
DNC leadership positions universally take a neutrality pledge when it comes to primaries. Their role is to help elect Democrats up and down the ballot in general elections, but to let voters decide who their standard bearers should be in primaries. Each Vice Chair signed a neutrality pledge, with the notable exception of Hogg.
This is for good reason. In 2016, a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters were upset at the perceived lack of neutrality in practice at the DNC, where they felt the deck was stacked in Hillary Clinton’s favour. This led to some disaffected Bernie voters sitting the election out when Trump was on the ballot. It is absolutely essential, in my view, from a party morale standpoint, that the national party take a stance of neutrality in primaries to give full voice to the voters.
The last DNC Vice Chair who constantly trash talked fellow Democrats and didn’t want to remain neutral in a primary was Tulsi Gabbard. She at least had the decency to resign her post before making an endorsement.
In the mean time, I think we’re at the stage where we can put a head of lettuce next to Hogg.
What are your thoughts? Is it appropriate for those in DNC leadership positions to take sides in primaries? Does that create a slippery slope that could profoundly damage voters faith in the party and process? And should David Hogg resign?
Comments
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
When David Hogg ran for DNC Vice Chair, I said from the outset that he lacked the depth and maturity for such a position. It had only been weeks since he publicly celebrated the loss of Mary Peltola to a Republican in Alaska, because she wasn’t “pure” enough on gun control. I said then that I’d prefer a DNC Vice Chair who doesn’t celebrate when Republicans win, but actually invests time and resources in helping Democrats win. Now we’re seeing how this is playing out.
DNC leadership positions universally take a neutrality pledge when it comes to primaries. Their role is to help elect Democrats up and down the ballot in general elections, but to let voters decide who their standard bearers should be in primaries. Each Vice Chair signed a neutrality pledge, with the notable exception of Hogg.
This is for good reason. In 2016, a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters were upset at the perceived lack of neutrality in practice at the DNC, where they felt the deck was stacked in Hillary Clinton’s favour. This led to some disaffected Bernie voters sitting the election out when Trump was on the ballot. It is absolutely essential, in my view, from a party morale standpoint, that the national party take a stance of neutrality in primaries to give full voice to the voters.
The last DNC Vice Chair who constantly trash talked fellow Democrats and didn’t want to remain neutral in a primary was Tulsi Gabbard. She at least had the decency to resign her post before making an endorsement.
In the mean time, I think we’re at the stage where we can put a head of lettuce next to Hogg.
What are your thoughts? Is it appropriate for those in DNC leadership positions to take sides in primaries? Does that create a slippery slope that could profoundly damage voters faith in the party and process? And should David Hogg resign?
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/15/david-hogg-dnc-vice-chair-to-spend-big-to-take-down-safe-democratic-incumbents-00292535
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It depends on which candidate, state, and race. Are there races in districts that will elect more aggressive Democrats who can win the general? I’m okay with it. Is he going to target Democrats in purple and red states for not being progressive enough? Fuck no. He needs to stay out of it. He’s young and a bit too arrogant for my liking, so I suspect he will do the latter. I will be pleasantly surprised if he doesn’t.
I am actually pretty moderate, so I am less concerned with the purity issue-
But I do think there is some real value in some stress testing of messages and ideas. A big cause of the Biden fiasco was a lack of rigorous challenging.
I have thought a lot about ways forward, such as not trying to ban guns- but what about gun owners having to pay for general gun injury insurance. What about instead of just focusing on free healthcare, we wrestle decision making away from insurance companies. Let’s interrogate the barriers that Ezra Klein identifies that is preventing government from working efficiently. I don’t think these are particularly lefty ideas- but fresh ones.
The DNC’s rules and official position may be to remain neutral, but that’s hardly the case. The party is a gross failure from the local party on up in that regard.
And I think if it takes this to get the democrats to finally leave behind their center-right positions on so many issues I’m okay with it. Something needs to shake things up.
Democratic Party approval ratings are abysmal. We can’t just do the same things over and over again and expect different results. We need to get rid of the do nothings in congress, and that’s what this aims to do. It’s time to kick aside seniority and ‘who’s turn is it now?” because people are sick of it. It didn’t win us the Presidency in 2016, and it won’t in 2028. If we only win when things are SO terrible because Republicans have once again fucked everything up, then what good are we? We’ll just be stuck cleaning up Republican messes for another generation.
I like the idea in theory. The gerontocracy needs to end one way or another if Democrats are to have any chance at all going forward. In practice, though, David Hogg is perhaps the worst possible person to represent Democrats at this moment, and I would be highly suspicious of any candidate he decides to endorse.
TL;DR This sort of effort needs to happen, but with Hogg far, far away from it.
I’m not saying this is the right move, but I feel like the republican party has been doing this exact shit for decades and it’s worked out pretty well for them, despite driving the party to the right. It’s absolutely incredible how democrats are so unwilling to do what Republicans have shown to work because “it wouldn’t be proper.”
I saw that and I’m extremely confused how the party is going to handle this.
How exactly is it OK for somebody who works for the DNC to target incumbent members? How do you run the caucus and hold members to votes they don’t want to take when you have somebody in the DNC openly targeting members?
If he goes in target it’s one Democratic house member in a R +5 district, you’re suddenly going to see the opposite of what you want. A whole bunch of those members might decide instead of voting with the party 90% of the time, maybe they’ll vote with the party 70% of the time
If the primary candidate is cool, and is calling for an arms embargo to israel, everyone will love it. If not, people will hate it.
No one saw this coming……
This is the same idiot who commented on Peltola losing her seat in Alaska because she was “weak on gun control”, in FUCKING ALASKA!
I don’t see the democrats winning in 2026 any other way, frankly.
That depends, is he targeting Democrats I agree with, or Democrats I disagree with?
I say let him. seems like every time someone organizes these primaries against incumbents, they always end up flopping on a wide scale outside of a few exceptions. if they are truly the best candidate, theyll win the election.
The purpose of the DNC is to help get Democratic candidates elected. I don’t particularly care about their purity or neutrality as long as they fight the fascists.
Some Sanders supporters were always going to throw a shit fit when their favorite candidate was rejected. The man’s not even a Democrat.
The question is will David Hogg get more Democrats elected.
Primaries are the appropriate venue for doing this. As long as they rally together for the general, this is how change inside the party is supposed to happen.
Isn’t this what the leftists want? To primary democrats that have lost touch with the voter base? i have heard Reddit calling for the head of an establishment democrat so so many times in the past couple of weeks……….and now you’re saying that’s bad? You cannot convince me you guys aren’t messing with the democratic base on purpose anymore.
a spicier move than I would have expected, but fuck it, let him cook. nobody knows what actually works anymore.
idk where people get the idea that there’s a huge amount of faith in the party. the approval ratings are in the absolute shitter and even NYC has been losing dem voters since 2016.
Honestly? I like it. I think we need fresh blood badly. I don’t see this as a purity test so much as rebuilding our ranks with an injection of youth and an injection of people who want to actually fight. We’re past protecting the old guard.
And I’m not the type that hates the old guard. Hillary Clinton, in my opinion, is one of the people most uniquely disserviced by her own side as far as her legacy. I voted for her, I campaigned for Obama. The Old Guard fought the good fight in the era they did in the way that made sense for that era. Bill Clinton put a stop to an unrelenting era of conservative dominance, even if he had to tack right to do so.
They’re just not the people who can fight this fight. The fight they fought, they did great with. But they don’t connect with or understand the modern voter, they don’t connect to the modern base. It’s fine, they should not be vilified, but they’re not equipped for today’s battle and we desperately need people who are
The DNC is allergic to fair primaries. I guess that’s how you save democracy? Lol
Awesome, Run David Hogg, brilliant idea, AOC and Crockett 2028!!!! signed a maga fan. Hogg already sold you out once, but yep keep pushing him….love it!