The Dems Look to '26. Time to Get Real!

American Pravda, also known as the NY Times, has been publishing articles daily describing the woes of the Democrat Party as it prepares for the November 2026 mid-term elections. As everyone knows, the Democrats suffered a major loss in the last election (November 2024). After an oligarchic coup ousted President Joe Biden from renomination and  replaced him on their ticket with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Republican Party swept the election, winning the White House and gaining control of the Senate as they retained narrow control of the House of Representatives. Particularly galling to the Democrat leadership was that President Donald Trump won the popular vote as well as the electoral vote. The party’s leadership is now working tirelessly to plan a strategy that will enable them to perform respectably in the next election. One-third of the Senate and the entire House will be up for election and the very slim GOP majorities will be challenged.

An earlier post on this blog discussed the threat to the two major parties by the phenomenon known as entryism.  Readers are referred to that post. The Democrat Party in particular must deal with this threat as two groups seek to push that party to the extreme left as it opposes the Trump administration.  The so called Social Democrats USA and the Working Families Party are two small groups which have an insignificant but dedicated membership which will seek to enter into the Democrat Party and push it to the left with the ultimate goal of seizing control . They are a tiny minority but are willing to devote full time efforts in this pursuit as they gear up to fight for candidates in primary elections which historically have low turnouts. Both parties, during primary season may tack in different directions, Democrats to the left, Republicans to the right, but after the primaries they recognize that the American voter’s tendency is towards the middle. Both parties thus tend to gravitate towards that direction. The Republican Party many years ago faced this problem from the John Birch Society which even elected several members of the House from California. Today, it is the Democrat Party that is under attack. An example of this can be seen in the 2016 and 2020 campaigns by Senator Bernie Sanders to obtain the Democrat presidential nomination. Senator Sanders (Ind-Vt) is not a Democrat yet he caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate. Sanders describes himself as a socialist politically and philosophically and gets away with running in Democrat primaries as Vermont has no party registration as other states do. So he runs as an independent, serves as an independent, but acts as a Democrat in the Senate. The Democrat National Committee required Sanders to affirm in writing that he was a Democrat in order to run in their primaries in 2020. But Sanders really is a socialist; he calls himself a progressive to infiltrate the Democrat Party, and has brought many other “progressives” into the party which they push or pull to the extreme left.

Another group, originating in New York but now expanding nationally is the Working Families Party. This extreme leftist group is now brazenly seeking to take over the New York Democrat Party. Their particular target, at this time, is the upcoming Democrat primary for Mayor of New York City.  New York City is overwhelmingly Democrat and victory in the primary almost always guarantees victory in the general election which will be held this November (2025). This entryist group is backing a slate of candidates in the Democrat primary and is suggesting their rank order as NYC has a ranked choice voting system, They are supporting progressives and socialists as they seek to gain control of the major party and are urging their supporters to register as Democrats in order to vote in the June primary.

With this background, just what is the situation of the Democrat Party at this time? Despite their widespread moaning and groaning, no party in the last one hundred and twenty-five years has been able to achieve a breakthrough where it establishes permanent dominance over the American political system. In the twentieth century, the White House was occupied exactly fifty years by the Democrats and fifty years by the Republicans. The first twenty-four years of the current century has seen White House occupancy divided equally by the two parties. The resiliency of the two party system can be demonstrated by the victory of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 after twenty years of Democrat control of all branches of government during the Franklin Roosevelt and Truman administrations. Similarly, the Reagan administration, followed by Bush 41 seemed to indicate the permanent minority status of the Democrat Party, particularly after the First Gulf War when the President’s popularity was register by CBS at 64%. However, economic problems arose and an obscure Governor from Arkansas, Bill Clinton, won the 1992 election.

The point here is that American politics is dynamic, not static, and charismatic figures have generally not been able to pass their popularity onto their successors. No one could anticipate the assassination of John F. Kennedy, an immensely popular president. Similarly, Lyndon B. Johnson was elected in one of the greatest landslides ever, yet he was forced from office and  declined to seek re-election due to the Vietnam War. Richard Nixon was re-elected in another great landslide and he resigned from office due to the Watergate scandal. It is not so easy to predict the future. Term limits will prevent Donald Trump from running again in 2028.  Who can say whom the major candidates will be in that year? Who can even say whom the contenders for the nominations will be? What we can say is that the road to victory lies in the center, not at the extremes. The GOP will need to tack to the center and so will the Democrats. At this moment, job one for the Democrats is to prevent the Working Families Party, the Social Democrats and other fringe groups from seizing control of their party. If they run with an extreme left, progressive program, they will invite defeat and perhaps irrelevancy.

Garry S. Sklar

Las Vegas, Nevada

January 30, 2025